Crash Landing for Florida's John Mica: Blackmail backfired!
Quoteorlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/views/os-ed-dana-milbank-080711-20110808,0,1606035.column
OrlandoSentinel.com
John Mica's pilot error
Dana Milbank
Washington Post Writer's Group
1:03 PM EDT, August 8, 2011
WASHINGTON -- Rep. John Mica, the Florida Republican blamed for single-handedly shutting down the Federal Aviation Administration, sounded like a beaten man when he called me Thursday evening.
The usually biting chairman of the House Transportation Committee spoke with remorse about the standoff, which caused furloughs of 74,000 people, delays to airport-safety projects, and the loss of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
"I've had a brutal week, getting beat up by everybody," Mica told me, minutes after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a deal that would end the shutdown, at least until Congress returns next month.
"I didn't know it would cause this much consternation," he said. "Now I've just got to get the broom and the shovel and clean up the mess." Switching metaphors, he said he wanted "to unclog the toilet, but it backed up. So I don't know what to do, what to say."
Like the debt-limit standoff, the FAA debacle confirmed that Washington's wheels have come off. But the outcome was different. In the debt crisis, Senate Democrats and the White House accepted House Republican demands rather than risk default. This time, Democrats let the shutdown happen and then blamed Republicans.
Under Thursday's bipartisan agreement, Democrats accepted Mica's conditions for keeping the FAA open for a month with the understanding that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood would grant waivers nullifying the objectionable provisions. "I'm not happy about that," Mica said, noting that it "thwarts" his efforts. But he knows he lost the PR battle. To repair the damage, he said he would introduce legislation to pay FAA workers for their days on furlough.
Mica's experience shows the high-risk nature of business in the new Washington, where even minor issues such as those in the FAA dispute can become conflagrations. With the loss of good will between the two parties, and the two chambers, ordinary disagreements mushroom into governing failures.
Mica started out with a sensible aim: He wanted to clean up years of messy funding for the FAA. Lawmakers hadn't been able to agree on issues such as rural-airport subsidies and landing slots at Washington's Reagan National, so they kept the agency going with 20 stop-gap funding bills since 2007.
But Mica overreached. Letting his anti-labor ideology take over, he tried to use the FAA bill to overturn a decision by the National Mediation Board to rescind an old rule that had made it unusually difficult for airline workers to organize. Delta Air Lines furiously lobbied Congress to intervene.
Mica knew Senate Democrats would resist, so he tried to create a bargaining chit: He drafted plans to cut funds for small airports in the home states of Reid (Nevada) and Jay Rockefeller (West Virginia), chairman of the Senate transportation panel.
The Floridian publicly admitted his ruse. "It's just a tool to try to motivate some action" on the labor rule, he told a group of airport executives last month, according to Aviation Daily. "I didn't plan it to be this national issue," he told me.
Senate Democrats, seizing on Mica's admission that the bill was a "tool," refused to deal. They let the shutdown happen and railed against Mica after lawmakers left for recess.
Reid accused him of taking "hostages." House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer pointed out that the shutdown cost taxpayers more than the program Mica tried to cut. Privately, Mica's GOP colleagues harshly criticized him.
The Orlando Sentinel, near Mica's district, took the congressman to task and said it was "pathetic" that "members of Congress now are enjoying their summer vacations, while some essential FAA inspectors are working without pay."
Mica was stunned when Democrats took Republicans "by the short hairs," as he put it. "Quite honestly we did not expect that."
They should have. The 10-term lawmaker was operating under archaic rules. "In our business, you use your legislative tools … and put a little leverage on it," he said. "How else do I do it? Am I going to send them a bouquet?"
But Mica, as much as anybody, created a culture of distrust, where staking out bargaining positions leads not to compromise but to warfare. And now he's surprised?
"People don't have to get so personal," he said with a sigh. "A lot of people hate me now, and think I'm the worst thing in the world for what I did." It's "this sort of gotcha," he said, "that's changed the dynamics of people working more effectively together."
Hopefully he'll remember that the next time he sticks it to the other side.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/views/os-ed-dana-milbank-080711-20110808,0,3945805,print.column
Here is the simple low down........74,000 workers are back at work for 1 month, after John Mica's toxic tactics were exposed:
Quote
In FAA fiasco, Congress should take the bus
Special to The Bee
Published Saturday, Aug. 06, 2011
I'm all for saving money and cutting government waste, but not if it means cutting off your nose to spite your face.
That's the real story behind the congressional impasse that shut down the Federal Aviation Administration for the past two weeks. That standoff ended Friday with a pro forma Senate session approving a temporary deal to reopen the agency through next month, but it was a textbook case of how lawmaker idiocy adversely affects all the wrong people.
At issue was partisan bickering over rural airport subsidies and rules on how airline workers could unionize, neither of which had anything to do with FAA funding.
We're supposed to believe a House bill sponsored by Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation Committee, was targeting government waste in a subsidy program called Essential Air Service.
After deregulating the airlines in 1978, Congress created the EAS to ensure continued service on unprofitable routes to remote communities. Air carriers wanted to dump the routes, so Washington offered cash incentives to continue those flights, thus maintaining a lifeline for economic development in rural America. Bribe, investment or pork? Depends who you ask.
The FAA's long-term operating authority expired in 2007. Since then, Congress has been unable to pass a long-term funding plan, instead passing a series of 20 short-term funding extensions.
Frustrated, Mica told Aviation Week he included the EAS cuts specifically targeting 13 rural airports in districts held by Democrats, as "a tool to try to motivate action to get this resolved."
It worked. On Monday, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and ranking Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, offered an amendment proposing EAS funding cuts far greater than those proposed by Mica and passed by the House.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, objected, not over EAS funding but over labor issues, namely, rule changes by the National Mediation Board that would make unionizing easier for airline workers. Mica's bill contained nothing about labor provisions.
Turns out Delta Airlines hated the new rules and heavily lobbied Republicans in Congress to reverse those changes.
On Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California implored the Senate to pass a clean extension bill funding the FAA. But Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., objected, promising to block any bill ending the FAA shutdown that didn't eliminate EAS subsidies for communities fitting specific criteria. The Rockefeller-Hutchison plan used different criteria for eliminating communities from the program, which â€" shocker â€" spared subsidies for an airport in Rockefeller's home state, West Virginia.
Caught in the crossfire was the FAA, whose shutdown resulted in:
• 4,000 furloughed federal workers.
• 74,000 unemployed workers associated with airport construction projects, including some 200 Californians at Sacramento International, at Mather, in Oakland, Palm Springs, Palmdale and Los Angeles.
• Millions in uncollected taxes.
• Millions deviously funneled into the pockets of airline companies.
How'd that last one work? Because it was shuttered, the FAA couldn't collect taxes on excises, fuel and cargo. That should've meant cheaper airfares for you. Instead, most airlines raised their prices to soak up the difference. You paid the same ticket price, but airlines kept more of the fare.
Bravo Congress for the trifecta! Workers lost jobs, government lost tax revenue and consumers got stiffed on airfares.
Yet, in the end, this solution was basically a "clean" extension of FAA funding, with EAS and union issues to be debated later. Why didn't they do that in the first place? Aren't we always talking about clean bills, straight up-and-down votes?
How often have we heard in Washington about the need to create jobs? So why did Congress go on a paid vacation while leaving nearly 80,000 people unemployed, only to negotiate the clean bill they should've passed in the first place?
Total cost of this two-week shutdown?
• $420 million in uncollected taxes.
• Two weeks of lost wages for 78,000 workers. Assuming a thousand bucks a week based on the nation's median annual salary of $50,000, that's $156 million that didn't go back into the economy, let alone get taxed.
• Unemployment for many of these workers would receive over those two weeks, at $300 a week (the national average) times 78,000. $46.8 million.
Grand total: about $623 million.
Total annual cost of the EAS program: $200 million.
EAS cuts proposed in the House plan: $16.5 million, which passed.
Cuts proposed in the Senate plan blocked by Republicans: $71 million.
Talk about a flagrant example of "let 'em eat cake"-ist lawmakers. I'd have put every member of Congress on the "no-fly" list during those two weeks. If they weren't going to fund the FAA, they should've been prohibited from using its services. And if their vacations were a bigger priority, I'd have made 'em take a bus home. But that's just me.
Moral of the story.........if we look at Rick Scott and other Republicans in office...........their "jobs" talk is just a joke!
Congressional members like John Mica enjoy life-time job security, with benefits all workers should have, but they are doing everything in their power to take jobs and benefits away from the American workers.
Aug 11, 2011
As part of CWA's Accountability Actions for August and September, AFA-CWA flight attendants are calling on Congress to fully fund the Federal Aviation Administration and to keep the democratic voting standard for union representation elections.
"It is beyond time to negotiate a long-term FAA Reauthorization bill that improves our aviation infrastructure, grows our economy, delivers hundreds of new jobs, and keeps elections fair for airline and railway employees," said AFA-CWA President Veda Shook.
This week, AFA-CWA members are holding rallies and are picketing at airports and congressional district offices, including in the home district of Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), who played a key role forcing a shutdown of the FAA for nearly two weeks. Flight attendants are holding "stand-up" media events at Orlando and Jacksonville International Airports and will rally outside Mica's St. Augustine and Daytona district offices. Mica also was greeted by AFA-CWA members and allies outside a fundraiser in Houston.
Additional actions have been planned at airports in Seattle, Phoenix, Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, Charlotte, and Atlanta for Aug. 16 and at Chicago O'Hare on Aug. 26. More events will be held as Congress returns to work in September.
The FAA shutdown put more than 70,000 Americans out of work and cost the government nearly $300 million in lost revenue to pay for ongoing airport infrastructure and modernization projects.
From cato.org:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/solve-the-faa-problem-by-privatization/ (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/solve-the-faa-problem-by-privatization/)
QuoteSolve the FAA Problem by Privatization
Posted by Chris Edwards
Everyone agrees that it’s rather stupid for a federal funding dispute to idle about 70,000 workers on airport-related construction. Just as absurd, there have been 20 stop-gap funding bills passed for the FAA since 2007. News stories are digging into the political disputes surrounding the FAA, but they aren’t addressing the root problem.
The root problem is that we have federalized the funding of airports in this country, when there is absolutely no need to. Airports are generally owned by state and local governments, and it should be up to them to figure out how to finance them. By federalizing infrastructure financing, we are simply encouraging the misallocation of resources through the political pork barrel.
We should get the federal government out of financing airports. Then state governments should look to the advantages of airport privatization, which is a reform that has swept the world from London to Sydney. Private airports can plan their investment programs in an efficient manner, balancing costs and the market demand for services. Privatized airports can raise revenue from debt, equity, fees on airlines and passengers, advertising, retail concessions, and other items. There is no need for taxpayer funding of airports.
The FAA dispute doesn’t affect current air traffic control operations, but it is affecting investments in ATC upgrades. Our ATC system needs large new investments in technology, but it is a battle in Congress to secure funding and to make sure the funding is spent efficiently. The FAA has a very poor record at making cost-efficient investments. The solution is to privatize our ATC system, as Canada has done.
When the federal government is like an octopus with tentacles stretching into every area of the economy, the economy gets dragged down by political dysfunction in Washington. We see the same sort of dysfunction in the federal government’s other business activities, such as passenger rail and mail delivery.
A lot of people worry about the quality and quantity of the nation’s infrastructure investments. But we don’t need to rely on disorganized and indebted governments to fix the problems. We can move ahead with privatization and let America’s entrepreneurs take on the challenge.
Chris Edwards • August 4, 2011 @ 10:58 am
Bullying? Maybe...i just see it as this obstructive behavior since Pres. Obama was elected as thier only way to behave. They and thier party messed up the country big time and the only thing they can do is hit below the belt and call names. So..i agree that maybe they could be called political "terrorists"...the lies. untruths...they could care less about the country...it seems they'll do whatever they want to the many many americans that are so brainwashed and are sucking up the lies an bullying like candy. Our country was slap full of people that not only distrusted black people..they distrusted smart people..with Obama they got both...two reasons to bully and stir up the hatred...they do it well because they've had such practice....I spent years being a good evolved peaceful democrat....well..those days are over...I feel screwed and not in a good way by the republian party and they deserve some bullying..so i say...democrats everywhere..get out get loud and get rude if you have to...no violence and no hate...it's what it's going to take or the effing republicans will take over this country and make things much much worse....