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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.
no, it really is due to drama queen-ism by the obama administration, a 2% haircut to budget is nothing
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
Hmm. Amusingly, it appears the slashmods went full retard again: Suggesting that our elected officials are incompetent? Something about 80% of americans believe, is apparently "trolling". And firing them so that more competent people can be moved into those positions and actually fix the problem? Trolling.
Yeah. I'm really losing respect for this website... ever since it was bought out, it's become a craven hole of repugnant hipsters.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The Republicans want cuts because otherwise we are in a death spiral. These aren't even real cuts. They are cuts in increases in spending. Democrats for their part both invented this (white house), agreed to it(congress), and denied it later so that brainwashed fucks like you would blame it all on Republicans. It is all theater, and the cuts only hurt because the gang that wants infinite spending is committed to making it so.
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".
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?
the BIG issue is that NO ONE offered cuts, both sides offered "cuts from projected spending" in otherwords, both sides offered up more spending than the previous year.
I know know about the rest of you guys, but to me, if i spend 10 bucks today and only 12 bucks tomorrow when i thought i was going to spend 15, thats still an increase, not a cut! sadly the government, both republican or demorcratic, thinks otherwise/
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
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.
Airport costs should be paid entirely out of ticket sales and associated fees for services, NOT tax money.
They're paid out of taxes on plane tickets.
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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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...
We waste a ton of money on nonsensical programs that should (and would) be done by the private sector.
For example, look at the airline security theater, don't you think that its in American Airlines, United and Delta's best interest to provide enough security to remove the threat of hijackings but not need a full cavity search? Instead, we have the FAA providing asinine rules on what you can and can't take on board a plane, rather than delegating those decisions to the airlines. Because of the FAA restrictions, flying is pretty terrible, because of that fewer people are flying, because fewer people are flying airlines have to cut costs which makes flying even worse, which makes fewer people fly and so on. If airlines (or airports) could be in charge of their own security, we'd be safer (we'd be looking at actual security and not security theater) and flying would be a much more pleasant experience.
We've got a terribly bloated military focused on offense rather than defense. Because of this, we end up creating more enemies which makes us be less safe in the long run. We're spending billions of dollars on unneeded overseas military bases. Sure, it might make sense to have a base or two in a foreign country, especially in some of the "hotter" regions of the world, but do we really need over 10 bases in Japan? Do we really need bases in Spain, Italy, the UK, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Singapore, the UAE, and many, many, other countries? No.
We've got a messed up welfare system, a screwed up financial system, a mess with farm subsidies and just about everything the government touches turns into a bureaucratic hellhole.
No, we're not going to get rid of the national debt by cutting PBS, we're not going to save much money by closing the Washington Monument for tours. But there is a ton of waste, but its in the stuff that the politicians don't want to touch (welfare, the military, farm subsidies, financial sector, etc.) because the public is either ignorant about it or enjoys getting free money at the expense of everyone else.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
Privatize everything. Its the only way to save air travel and bring airlines back to profitability.
Which is the same thing, in the private sector, as saying, "Outsource everything. The companies we send our jobs to will always have our best interests at heart."
Look, we've tried the whole government outsourcing thing. It doesn't work; the companies we outsource to just hire substandard workers and do less work while charging the government ever increasing fees to do what once was done efficiently and well. It's the reason we don't have private police or fire departments anymore. Sure, the TSA needs some serious reforms, but privatizing the whole thing will leave us with a bigger mess than we have now.
Security was done by the private sector, it was shoddy as hell and 9/11 was a direct result.
Wrong.
9/11 had nothing to do with airport security. It's this sort of thinking that perpetuates the TSA gong show.
9/11 succeeded for two reasons -
1) Prior to 9/11, airline crews were trained to cooperate with hijackers - So the suicidal hijackers were able to easily take over the planes. Confiscating water bottles and groping grannies wouldn't have made a lick of difference here.
2) Intelligence failures. The intelligence services failed to cooperate and failed to detect and prevent the terrorist hijackings.
Neither had anything to do with nude-o-scopes and confiscating nail clippers.