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FAA On Travel Delays: Get Used To It
coondoggie writes "The term sequestration has certainly become a four-letter word for many across the country — and now you can count business and regular traveling public among those hating its impact. The Federal Aviation Administration today issued a blunt statement on the impact of sequestration on the nation's air traffic control system, which this week begain furloughing about 10% of air traffic controllers for two days or so per month. It reads as follows: 'As a result of employee furloughs due to sequestration, the FAA is implementing traffic management initiatives at airports and facilities around the country. Travelers can expect to see a wide range of delays that will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather-related issues. ... Yesterday more than 1,200 delays in the system were attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough.'"
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
The same number of dollars could have been cut from specific programs in a way that would have had no noticeable impact on critical and important services. Instead, they chose to impact vital services in order to send a message to the public: "If you ask us to cut budgets, we'll do it in the most painful way possible." It's nothing more than an enormous "fuck you" to the American public.
U.S. Democrats and Republicans spent the day using the FAA's statement as political fodder rather than working on resolving sequestration.
The Republicans got what they wanted: Spending cuts. Who gives a flying fark through a rolling doughnut how badly it was implimented? Now we all have to suffer because a bunch of fat bastards in suits can't behave any better than children. A better idea would have been to pass a law saying that if they couldn't agree on a budget they'd all be fired.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's interesting that the airlines are allowing customers to make changes to their itineraries at no charge to work around the problem. On the one hand this is good customer service, but on the other hand it would probably help the airlines to some degree if they instead said "Flight's cancelled. Don't like it? Call your congressman." As long as the airlines continue to accommodate those inconvenienced, then those truly responsible for this mess don't get blamed.
If the government stopped trying to control air traffic, we wouldn't have these delays. Sure, some airplanes would crash, but other flights would go much faster. Let the free market rule!
they have been trying to 'choke the beast' at any cost since Reagan.
they've turning into bunch of hateful nothing thinking loons.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If 10% of workers are furloughed for 2 days a month, that works out to a workforce reduction of about 1% (figure 20 working days a month, 2/20 * 0.10 = 0.01). Somehow I don't think that staffing at the FAA is that close to the limit; these delays are probably affected more by the elimination of overtime. A huge proportion of the hours worked at federal agencies are billed as overtime, either because of short staffing or really lenient scheduling policies that allow workers to trade shifts to maximize income.
I feel like there was probably a way to absorb the cuts with less impact, but when you have tens of thousands of voters a day at your mercy, why not try and get that budget plumped?
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
There is federal tax on aviation fuel, plus
there is 7.5% tax on all domestic air fares, plus
there is a Domestic segment fee of $3.90, plus
there is a Homeland Security fee of $2.50, plus
there are landing and take off fees for the airplane.
There are even more fees if you travel internationally, or to Hawaii.
These fees to the PUBLIC have not gone down, Just the service that the government provides.
A 4% cut in spending causes 40% flight delays...
Buffoons...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Before you go blame the administration for ensuring the cuts went to essential services instead of extraneous expenses, read this.
Shouldn't this just be added to your ticket price? I don't see why the Federal government should be paying anything to keep local airports open.
There are two fights here: The R and D are arguing over who's going to be correct, and they're using the usual dirt to try and make their points. The actual departments are attempting to secure the funding they want/need for the programs they run. They can always do "more" with more money. It's true of government just as it is with a business. I can always provide more, and more complete, and more personal service if you pay me more money. If you pay me less, I'm going to short you on certain items. I'll try to make them peripheral, but I guarantee if you stop paying my invoices I'm going to cut the flow to the high profile services first. Simple business.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There's roughly 27% less departures than in 2011, but the budget is 40% larger. The 4% decrease in current dollars, or roughly a 36% increase in funding is causing delays from 2011 levels?
Yeah. Right. I have a bridge I'll sell you.
ha, don't take any offense... all political discourse (esp. on /. ) is trolling. That's what politics is. Achieve maximum trollage while inciting other people to waste their time responding to you when they could be doing much more positive and constructive things. Ach, now you've got me doing it! Troll!
They are just asking for another round of 'throw the bums out!' anti-incumbent voting.
Do private airports and charter planes have to put up with this bullshit?
Seems to me this creates a golden opportunity for someone with a small fleet of private planes. Imagine if you're a business traveler, and you need to fly somewhere 1000 miles away. A commercial plane could make the trip in about an hour and a half, if it could magically take off and instantly reached its cruising altitude and could land as fast as it could crash. The reality is that such a flight takes long enough, that if you also add all the bullshit you have to go through, including navigating traffic to the massive airport, finding your way through the airport, being humiliated and insulted by half-wits with metal detectors and x-ray machines, running the risk that you'll be pulled aside to have your asshole violated so they can pretend you'll be safe when you finally get on the airplane, and then you have to wait another 20 or 30 minutes after you are finally permitted to "deplane", waiting for your luggage.
Then, assuming you are allowed to get on the plane, after potentially being anally violated, if you're lucky enough to reach your destination, and manage to be reunited with your luggage, (and of course, provided some thief at the T"S"A hasn't stolen your property out of your luggage,) you will have spent hours of your life and risked the same repeatedly. Also, you will have exposed yourself to hundreds or thousands of other peoples' secretions, breathing a bunch of random strangers' coughs and sneezes, all the bacteria and viruses, as well as experiencing enough stress in a few hours to take several days off your life expectancy... and that's all if nothing goes WRONG.
On the flip side, imagine if the alternative existed, you drive to the airport, which is closer because it's local not regional, maybe you even drive almost right up to the plane. Then you get on the plane and after a few minutes (rather than hours) you take off. Sure the plane doesn't go as fast, being a prop-plane, taking three or four hours to make the same trip, but after you land, you have your bags right there, and can immediately leave the airport. From the moment you get in the car to go to the airport, to the moment you leave the distant airport, you might spend less time flying in a small, private or charter plane.
Makes me wish I had a small fleet of private planes.
People who own private jets. Just sayin'.
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Specifically. I always here this, but the cost of duck penis studies don't even begin to pay for this. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, our gov't isn't wasting nearly as much money as people think it is?
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There is little reason for current incumbents to stop sequestration, as most incumbents live in safe, gerrymandered districts and work for the ultra-rich, not the citizens.
The correct response would be to do away with the TSA, which has never been effective (speaking from my days in counter-terrorism ops and as a combat field engineer) and to allow the rural and small airports to go to more automated flight operations. But this would affect the tax-subsidized Takers in rural and suburban America who depend on the taxes from the job-creating efficient Blue cities that subsidize the Red sloth.
Another correct solution would be to replace increases in jet travel with high-speed trains on the growing West Coast that creates more than 40 percent of the US GDP.
But since the West Coast only gets 6 senate seats out of 50, even with so much population, don't count on that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
End the TSA. Used the money saved to hire back air traffic controllers to 120% of the original volume.
Fewer jerks gate-raping us, more well-rested air traffic controllers making sure we don't collide in mid-air.
Seems like a win-win to me.
put cuts on the table just like Paul Ryan wanted. They responded by tearing into him for cutting social security. You can't win with those guys, because they're actively trying to kill the American Middle class so they can pocket the money.
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Who cares if the FAA is 24/7 - its workers are only working 40 hours a week.
sequestration didn't cut squat, it just cut the amount of increase in the budget. instead of a 6% increase in spending they only got a 4% increase.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Well, that's Congress for you. It's not like it affects them in any meaningful way. And it's not like we're going to not re-elect them, or that if we elected new representatives they'd be any better.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Hi. I'm a contractor working for the FAA.
ALL controllers are having their hours reduced by 10%. This comes out to 1 day per 2 week pay period, or the approximately two days per month in the summary. It's not 10% of controllers being affected, it's all controllers being affected by 10%.
And for those of you saying "Why didn't they cut other, less important budgets?"
Well, it doesn't work that way. Every account was cut 10% across the entire FAA. This is incredibly stupid, by the way, since the much of the FAA's labor is paid for via levies on airline tickets, and so it shouldn't be affected by these general fund shenanigans (as an aside, this is why we got furloughed two years ago, because Congress wouldn't renew the airline ticket levies for political reasons). But, hey, Congress... You get what you pay for.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
This is known as the old "Firefighters First" trick.
You could lay off your cousin who does nothing. Or you could close the fire department. Close the fire department and ask taxes to be raised.
Also known as the "Washington Monument" ploy.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Perhaps the FAA isn't the best one to be in charge of the air traffic control system.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Don't we realize that the same rationing that is going on in ATC is bound to occur in socialized healthcare? Don't we already realize the atmosphere in our socialized school system is failing to enable our children to compete with both those in other countries and with those educated in less well funded private schools? The solution to government control of the airports is the same as that for healthcare or schools - privatize and deregulate. Make the compulsory arm of society pull back to only doing as little as possible and let people be free to solve the problems that are consistently barriers for the socialist system. It's the right, thrifty and moral thing to do.
Comes to a Airport toilet nearest you.
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You have to look at sequestration in terms of discretionary spending because that's where the cuts are made. The $85 billion represents 12.1% of discretionary spending (source Congressional Research Service). I am sure that we can all agree that a 12.1% cut overnight is pretty significant. Also with regard to the deficit, it is falling dramatically as % of GDP. Here are the relevant articles which shows that government spending as a % of GDP is also at all time lows. http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/22/news/economy/deficits/ http://www.businessinsider.com/show-these-charts-to-anyone-who-thinks-debt-spending-and-taxes-are-at-all-time-highs-2013-4
The sequester is not bunk - any time you mess with an agency's funding, it will cause issues. (Plans get made in advance, hiring and other spending gets committed to, etc.) However, there seems to be an aspect of a "statue of liberty" play here. In this context, this does not refer to a football play, but to a (possibly hypothetical) Park Service tendency to respond to budget cuts by closing the Statue of Liberty, instead of some remote park entrances in the back-of-beyond.
Statue of Liberty plays are used because they get people's attention, which the FAA has certainly done.
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The classic Reinhart and Rogoff paper which shows that economies slow with higher debt was shown to be falsified by a grad student recently. They excluded the period after WWII, several countries, and even had arithmetic errors in their spreadsheet. These people are frauds. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/grad-student-who-shook-global-austerity-movement.html
I don't fly anyway.
I used to be
ha, don't take any offense... all political discourse (esp. on /. ) is trolling.
It's just that the moderation quality in general has gone down on the site since it was bought out. The very knowledgable 'elite' that would guide and direct the conversation in a constructive and educational way has given way to rhetoric by wanna-be bloggers and pundits. So now when you have, say an apple fanboy or a linux fanboy post something, they're moderated based on whether the moderator agrees or disagrees with their religious preference rather than the strength of their commentary.
In a few more months, I'll probably just stop logging in to post and start looking for alternatives to Slashdot. It's been with us for so long though... it's tough letting go.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
It's actually a little simpler than that...
The Republican party held the country hostage, demanding as ransom from democrats and increase in poverty among the elderly and the infirm, among other demands which one would have assumed would only be made by a super-villain.
Democrats refused to pay the ransom so the republican party shot the hostage, as it had promised. Now the country is a bit poorer, and our flights are a bit more likely to be delayed.
Basically, John Boehner is the 20th Hijacker.
I think you meant the TSA.
FAA keeps your planes from falling out of the sky. Its the TSA that seizes your water bottles and baby food when you try to board them, and gives billions of public dollars to their friends' corporations to make them body-scanner machines that can't actually detect hidden contraband.
Let me know when you start to get socialized health care. Making people buy health insurance is not social health care.
End the TSA. thu tuc thanh lap cong tyUtilized the funds saved to employ rear end air traffic controllers to 120% of the initial volume. Less jerks gate-raping us, more well-rested air traffic controllers making sure you don't collide in mid-air. Appears like a win-win giay phep thanh lap trung tam ngoai ngu to myself.
khác dá¥u
This is called the Washington Monument Syndrome.
Liberty in your lifetime
I hardly ever fly! Add the cost of air traffic controllers to the airline tickets and let the people who use the service pay for it. Stop all federal money going to it. We need more spending cuts, not less!
Bi-partisian (or anti-partisian?) comment:
Why is Congress not getting paycuts as a result of the sequester?
Their base salary is $174K for less than 180 work days per year. (That annualized to $252K for 260.7 work days per year. And they get better benefits than most people.) For reference, the median US income is $50.5K. The leaders of the House and Senate make around $200K.
That seems like a lot of cash for people who are barely able to complete the basic functions of their job, like passing a budget every year and keeping the country functioning smoothly.
they're just using this as a tool to get back the full budget.
think of it as a strike 10% of the time. that's what it is. the proper, non nutjob solution would be of course to push the costs to airlines(and private flyers).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Socialized healthcare = Obamacare.
Dentition: Similar to a loud foul smelling fart on a long elevator trip in your office building, you actually know who's to blame but don't say anything, and your completely powerless to do anything about it.
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
This is is the message of what I am trying to get across, with -- granted -- much less eloquence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbqLO1TBnGo
That even "the goal" of a moral society is superior to the decadent bent and inevitable behaviour of socialism.
I have to add to this... I work on productizing cell phone chips. No government agency would work as hard as my org in producing a product (LTE) that is turning out to be so beneficial to so many people's lives. Nobody in government could have predicted the utility of being able to map where they needed to be interactively, or the tremendous utility of being able to query how to defibrilate their friend at the mall in the middle of a heart attack... let alone answer the question of the next evolution of Pikachu to their son.. from their phone, or from a "Siri" equivalent... Such "frivilous" innovation is actually discouraged by active government.
CanadianMacFan... Your answer really bothers me... because my Mother works in a private non-profit nursing home, and she has told me the rusult of Medicare in her work... You know, I'm _certain_ you know of the insanity in your Canadian system. I've lived in China as an Expat... I know how the socialized system is there... Are you TRULY arguing for a socialist system as being superior.... or are you saying that "you aint seen nothin' yet???"
"Give us more money or something bad might happen on your flight."
The government is increasingly giving up the pretense of being anything other than a shake down racket.
you need to realise that when politicos talk about 'budget cuts' what they really mean is 'smaller increase in spending' (but don't take my word for it, look up the actual numbers of government spending yourself)
Axioms of governemnt budgetting:
1) Goverment income rises every year
2) Governementspending also rises every year (and usually by more then the income)
every year the government budget is bigger, every year the deficit is bigger, and consequently every year the debt rises.
I'm not arguing for a socialist government system. Why are so many people scared of having everyone given health care provided, or at least funded, from the government? After all you have public education and you aren't screaming about being socialists. I know that it's in society's interest to have a well educated work force but isn't a healthy work force also good for society?
There are problems with the Canadian system just like there are problems with any system but it's far from insanity. Last fall I picked up an infection in my foot and it was swollen up almost 50% and turned beet red within 24 hours. I went to the ER, got diagnosed with cellulitis, and given a dose of IV antibiotics all within six hours. That day I had supplies delivered to my door for another four treatments of the antibiotics and a nurse came by to administer them starting the next day. If it hadn't been my foot I would have had to go a clinic but I was barely able to walk at the time so the home support was provided. I was told to go back to the ER for a follow-up and was put on an oral antibiotic to clear the rest of the infection. My total cost for all of that was approximately $30 for the oral antibiotics and a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. If that's the insanity of the Canadian system I will gladly take it.
I will admit that for non-emergency cases things can take longer here than in the US. And we do have problems in certain fields such as mental health care.
It's not just the war spending, it's how the money is spent on war spending. An already expensive situation is made even more expensive through no-bid contracts and private contractors in general. You have Halliburton and Xe (formerly Blackwater) and many other private contractors gouging the government for services that would have been much more inexpensive and efficient if still done by the military. Yes that includes all those growing numbers of no-bid contracts that this administration is continuing to hand out, just like the previous one did.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
less revenue - get used to it...
(airlines to me: more taxpayer bailouts - get used to it!) {sigh...}
Some people died. Fire all the doctors!!!
It's not going to change, we're to far down the rabbit hole at this to see the situation getting any better. The FAA has a created a model system or inefficiency and laziness that the world never thought possible. To make it from the terminal entrance to waiting for your plane, you'll need in the best case 45 minutes, and that is at a fly through pace. Now add in all the other travellers who are dumb as nails and can't figure out how to move and you can add another 5 minutes on for each one of them.
Personally I don't care how long it takes me to travel, it's not going to get any better so I may as well not complain but for the love of god can people hurry the hell up? Most of the delay is caused by moronic passengers who move slow, take extra time, can't figure out how to walk through the scanners or use baggage tickets and etc.... If we take the FAA out of the picture, most of the delays you experience at an airport are caused by friggen people who can't walk and talk at the same time and it's sad to say that is most of the people! My personal biggest Pev is when I'm waiting to get to the scanner only to see the ( usually woman ) person infront of me take 10 minutes to carefully set out everything in the bins, then get undressed and have a nice slow pace at that. By the time your at the scanner you should have your pants and shirt on, everything in the bin ready to go and your ready to walk. It would speed everything up so much that people would stop complaining almost entirely about the slow service.
In fact I would create time limits where you have less then 1 minute from the moment you step up to the bin to have everything off and ready to walk, you don't need any longer, after all you've been standing in line at this point for ever.
Customers complaining? Get used to it.
Is there any indication that if they had more money to spend they would spend it wisely? [Clearly not]
Sequestration was Obama's idea so that he wouldn't have to agree to any cuts in planned INCREASED spending with congress. Any deal here would have been written into law.
Sequestration cuts INCREASED spending by 5% across the board. It does not cut year to year spending. It does not lower the total spending from last years number.
How the FAA decides to reduce their burn was left up to them. They choose as did most of the Executive branch under the Presidents direct authority to reduce visible public services instead of reducing questionable outlays. This is the same as your town hall crying for money for the police/fire/schools while paying the dog catcher $250k/y for part time work.
No, I've been here over a decade, and by and large it's the same as it ever was - there's just more people and a broader range of topics and views. And there's way less in the way of outright crap than there was ten years ago.
Why not cut some of the aid to US regime sponsored terrorists instead? or what about some cuts to the military budget? or what about some of the aid to Goldman Sachs - no? that would be striking right to the heart of the regime. Things that impact ordinary people just don't matter, in a corporate dictatorship. I'm just glad I'm not american.
Privatize airport security, privatize air traffic control, problem solved.
Canada has had great success taking air traffic control out of the bureaucrats' hands.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just like we measure data in "Libraries of Congress" we ought to measure government spending in "F-35" units, to highlight that the boondoggle airplane is the place to cut. A worker's yearly salary would be some fraction of an F-35's cost. As a bonus, this is automatically indexed for inflation, since the F-35 keeps getting more expensive.
The US government is still spending *MORE* money this year than last year. And Obama wants everyone to think that they are spending less by cutting services like this. Yep, he's a different kind of politician alright.
Figure out what it takes at today's interest rates to generate $50k a year and it isn't $500k.
If you are 70 and the amount of money that you take out of an IRA is $30k per year, it takes nearly $1m to fund that and then you pay taxes on the $30k. So you better have more than $1.5m in investment assets to retire at 65 and take out $50k because you project to live another 30 or so years. And that doesn't account for much inflation beyond the norm over your 30 years and historically you'll see a stretch that will seriously affect your nest-egg.
So criteria #1 is invalid, not in concept but because the numbers are way too low.
How much do you have in your savings accounts for retirement. Go to one of the calculators and do the math. Scary for most when the average savings is less than $100k.
Congress gave them some extra money to put it off for a while, but they still are planning furloughs for civilian employees. So, yeah, GP was full of shit...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
... After all you have public education and you aren't screaming about being socialists....
You are not paying close enough attention. After dumbing-down curriculum as much as possible, adding useless standardized high-stakes tests, vilifying and demoralizing teachers and choking the school systems for funding (unless FOOTBALL might get cut) many twits are whining about the failure of our socialized, public education systems. Some like to go on about how the charter schools do a better job of educating children - despite the fact the the kids end up doing worse on those standardized tests, teachers are paid less, but the owners get to pocket the money as profit that should be paying for education - oh, and they get to share it with some elected representatives.
I do love how they bring up the boogeyman of rationing health care, what the hell do you think we have now? Clearly some have never gone without some kind of health insurance in their lifetime or they'd already know about rationing.
You either need to read-up on "Obamacare" or socialized healthcare.
Here is a hint to get you started - "single payer" ( which is not part of "Obamacare.")
OK, well, have fun at ArsTechnica. But someday you'll be back... and you'll be browsing at -1 like the other diehards :-P
And who knows, maybe even someday you'll figure out how to appease our moderator overlords.
Actually, glancing at http://slashdot.org/~girlintraining/comments/ , you have a pretty decent record for getting upmodded.
So when two planes slam into each other on the runway because there weren't enough traffic controllers, can we FINALLY charge the entire Congress, both democrat and republican with TERRORISM???
Because their inability to work together killed those people as surely as if there had been someone on board with a bomb.
Why do I have to take my shoes off at an airport, but, some congressional wanker with an axe to grind because the president is black cripples safety protocols for all Americans, yet, they won't cut a dime from that white elephant costing trillions, the F-35 joint strike fighter. Oy.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Last Saturday I arrived at Miami coming from Sao Paulo. After an 8 flight we all had to spend an additional four hours to go through passport control, Americans and foreigners alike. On our feet. Pregnant women, children, senior citizens were all on the same boat. No one could believe it.
Step 1 - Stop all money going to foreign aid. Problems here mean we need the money more.
Step 2 - Petition the UN for enormous amounts of aid. Let's see how the rest of the world likes it when we don't open the tap and demand they pony up.
Step 3 - Eliminate the TSA and go back to private firms providing airport security. Let the airports hire local people as they see fit.
Step 4 - Reduce welfare to child-only benefits after 6 months. That was the original intention. Let's go back to it.
I wonder how much money would go back into vital services if even a couple of these were done. I didn't touch the issue of pork projects because of the cost involved with deciding which ones were 'pork' and that all of them would be kept in place while more were introduced with the resolution.
So Z was bad when candidate X did it but candidate Y is doing it so it's okay?
Side A: We can only reach our weight loss goals by only cutting calories from meat.
Side B: We can only reach our weight loss goals by increasing exercise. Also cutting carbs would help.
Side A: You'll never get us to exercise more than is absolutely necessary! Give up the meat!
Side B: OK, how about this. We cut some carbs, eat a little more lean meat, and exercise a little more to stay healthy?
Side A: We won't discuss anything involving exercise.
Side B: Fine, for now lets agree to cut all food intake by 10% across all food groups until we reach an agreement.
Body: Umm... guys? I need more iron and vitamin C....
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
This morning while at the gym I flipped to MSNBC while they were talking about the FAA.
Knowing the recent history of FAA shutdowns (eg: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/05/senate-to-hold-short-session-to-pass-faa-authorization/) I was interested.
They started talking about how air travel customers are upset, flashed some statistics on the screen about how the FAA is being “cut” 4% while air traffic controllers have been cut by 10%, then the male goes on to say how he is upset with congress and the president on this, but more about congress because they didn’t pass the gun control legislation! How stupid is he? How stupid does he think his watchers are??
It is fairly obvious doing simple math that (as many have commented here) like the two week partial shutdown, An effective/realtively agendaless executive branch could have managed this with NO pain to the public.
Keep in mind, the government fiscal year runs October-September. The sequester was originally supposed to start at the beginning of the fiscal year. Then it was postponed - twice - to March. In the meantime, all government agencies apparently spent at a rate of 100% of the pre-sequester levels. Now that the sequester is in effect, they have to reduce the rate of spending by about twice what they'd otherwise have to, since there's only half a year left. Also, with only half a year left, there's no point in laying people off or canceling contracts; the costs of doing so outweigh the savings. Starting in October, though...
Obama could easily lessen the impact of the sequester, and Americans would notice that the government works just fine at growth levels that are slightly lower than what he wants. Obama is basically just blackmailing the American people into trying to support his political agenda.
Naked scanners, tickets costing hundreds of dollars, smaller seats, all the rules for what you can and can't carry, long lines. No thanks I'll drive whenever possible.
People are no longer allowed to buy healthcare insurance, under Obamacare all plans sold under the name "insurance" are merely cost distribution schemes.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The US doesn't hardly have mental health care; at least you have problems in it- that is better than nothing. Our congress does not even get it and they NEED it!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
And that response is the same thing as a 4 year old plugging their ears and saying "nanannananannana I can't hear you." Even if the math & ideology point to a reduction in future spending, which they do and you point out, out here in the Real World where I live, jobs are being cut. I know. I got laid off because of this. So just because you wanna scream that it's just less money than you were gonna spend doesn't make the effects any less significant. This is affecting real people with real families to feed and those people at the top who pushed this down on us conveniently made themselves immune. Stop cheerleading this bullshit. You're part of the problem and by the looks of how 'Insightful' fellow Slashdotters have modded you, we got a lot of assholes in here.
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and see that the higher income groups do, in fact, pay more in income taxes.
Except they don't. The problem here is that politicians are very sneaky, and it appears you've fallen for the trick: There is the Income Tax, and then there are taxes on income. They are not the same, but people (especially republican politicians) like to use them interchangeably. Most of the time, when a politician says "income tax", they are excluding the payroll tax, which is a big federal tax on all income... from wages, i.e. actually working.
To get an idea of the net effect of federal taxes, below are marginal tax rates for different types of income:
Income from wages: 25.6 to 43.6% (income tax plus payroll tax)
Interest: 10% to 35%
Short term capital gains: Same as interest.
Dividends and Long Term Capital Gains: 15%
Carried Interest: 15%
Tax-exempt municipal bonds: 0%
So while SOME of the "rich" (like doctors) pay a pretty high tax rate, most of the filthy rich ("investors") pay a very low 15% rate on their income. That's why Romney's rate is so low.
Again, many of the rich pay a much, much lower federal tax rate on their income than most of the middle class.
paintball
And what is wrong with socialised health care?
The rest of the modern world uses it.
46137
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Maybe my math is off, but... They say "10% of air traffic controllers for two days or so per month". Assuming 20 working days per month, that's 10% of lost days for 10% of the workforce, or 1% of the workforce lost. Now consider that air traffic controllers get 13 sick days per year, so on a typical day, 5.42% of the workforce is out sick (13/12/20=5.4%). Take away two sick days per year, and now only 4.58% of the workforce is out sick, just about making up for the 1% lost due to "sequestration". I guess those generous government benefits are hard to give up...
1) Every Congressman and Senator receives a salary cut immediately.
2) No Congressman or Senator shall enjoy any retirement benefit without governmental service in excess of 15-20 years; in the alternative, their retirement benefits shall be determined on a sliding scale based on the number of years they're in service
gosgog:
For some of you, like "cohiba/vancouver", who have your heads so far up your asses, Social Security, is self funding....however... it is ADMINISTERED by those with their Heads so far up everyone else's Asses (namely Congress & Senators), who are not even in the Social Security System. They're reasons for spending the monies of Us who are Real Members, (we paid to get into it, its our money), is so they can FUND those already In the U.S. & COMING IN FROM ELSEWHERE, who claim to have nothing! Not only that, they get MORE BENEFITS from our Funds, than do us members. Do they wanna spend their pensions (Congress &Senate) to FUND those ALREADY In & Incoming....F@*%#$$K NO!!