The Next Hostage Taking: The FAA

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Sen Chuck Schumer says the GOP is "holding a gun to our heads" in the FAA fight over the GOP's war against unions:

Still smarting from concessions they were forced to make in the debt deal, Democrats are railing against a new round of Republicans "hostage-taking" — the deadlock over temporary financing for the Federal Aviation Administration, which has forced 4,000 agency employees out of work and airport safety inspectors to continue working without pay.

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Democrats are blaming Republicans for the partial FAA shutdown, accusing them of reneging on their promise to put Americans back to work because the stand-off has prevented tens of thousands of construction workers to continue building airport projects.

"The FAA is in limbo. Airports are the economic engine of the small communities around the country, and that economic engine is now stuck in neutral," Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters Wednesday. "Under the cover of the debt ceiling crisis, they are holding these aviation workers hostage until they get everything they want…they have taken brinksmanship again one step too far."

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If the FAA impasse continues through Labor Day, the IRS stands to lose an estimated $1 billion in tax revenues on airline ticket sales because when the FAA financing expired last month the agency lost its ability to collect the taxes.

Already adding to the federal deficit, there's fiscal responsiblity for you.

 Republicans are focusing their public cost-cutting missives on a program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports, but the much more ideological battle is over federal rules on union activity in the airline industry.

Last month, the House passed a bill that would have extended FAA financing through September 16. This would have been the 21st such temporary funding measure for the agency in the last four years. Larger longtime disagreements over overhauling the air traffic control program and other budget issues have been the major disputes in the past.

But with the new GOP in control in the House, they decided to include a provision cutting $14 million in subsidies to commercial airlines service to 16 rural airports, shuttering airports in the states of leading Democrats including Reid's Nevada. Rockefeller, who chairs the committee with jurisdiction over the FAA, has repeatedly objected to the language ending the subsidy, arguing they have no place in what should be a "clean" temporary spending measure.

The real sticking point for Democrats, however, is a GOP demand to change recently instituted federal labor regulation that made it easier for unions to organize at airline companies.The change, which the National Mediation Board put into place, requires an employee vote on labor representation to be approved by a majority of those voting when previously, the rule required a majority of all affected employees, meaning that employees who failed to vote were counted as "no" votes. *

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Reid said Republicans were trying to obfuscate the real issue — their attempt to reverse the board's rule change — to benefit Delta Airlines, the only major airline that has yet to be unionized.

Reid said he was willing to close the airport in Nevada to take that issue off the table, but Republicans refused to agree because they wanted to force the Senate to include the anti-union language.

"The way we have America going today there is no penalty for outrageous conduct," Reid said during a heated press conference in which he sparred openly with reporters who were focused on the rural airport issue. "The issue behind this is the labor issue…it's an anti-worker agenda of one airline — Delta."

Schumer also didn't hesitate to use even more violent language to describe the Republicans' tactics despite criticism over the past days of Democrats who accused the GOP of acting like terrorists during the debt crisis.

"It's as if someone is holding a gun to your head and saying give me your money….," he said. "You can hurt innocent people by not getting your own way."

Teabaggers like the halfling governor of Alaska, the Quitta from Wasilla, have their panties in a twist over accurately being described as "terrorists"? Boo-freakin'-hoo. Even "Septuagenarian Ninja Turtle" Mitch McConnell said so today:

I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn't think that. What we did learn is this — it's a hostage that's worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.

If a foreign government took the Congress hostage and threatened to kill our economy unless Americans paid their ransom demands, what would you call it? It is no different when a domestic insurrection against the government takes the Congress hostage and threatens to kill our economy unless Americans pay their ransom demands. This is accurately described as economic "terrorism."

Let's not sugarcoat this just because it is being perpetrated by a major political party, and the feckless corporate media is clutching its pearls over faux "fair and balanced" rules of civility. It should not be legitimizing what is an illegitimate tactic in a democracy. It should be calling this out for what it is and condemning it.

It is time for a national boycott of Delta Airlines. I have never had occasion to fly Delta; there are plenty of other airlines. Make Delta pay for its union-busting, anti-worker policies.

*This concept of counting nonvoters as "no" votes has been proposed here in Arizona with respect to citizen initiatives. The idea is to make citizen initiatives impossible to pass by requiring a majority of all registered voters to approve it, rather than a majority of voters who actually take the time and trouble to vote. You can call this the "slacker's veto." It is undemocratic and un-American.

"The voice of the majority decides. For the lex majoris partis is the law of all councils, elections, etc., where not otherwise expressly provided." — Thomas Jefferson: Parliamentary Manual, 1800.

h/t National Lampoon classic cover