The GOP would prefer your airport look like this than let workers organize.
The FAA has shut down as a result of Republican obstructionist tactics aimed at breaking up new rules making it easier for air and rail employees to unionize. The carnage from those GOP efforts includes the furlough of 4,000 workers, a halt in necessary airport maintenance, and a halt in collection of air travel taxes. The casualties also include two deeply held GOP beliefs:
1) The Republicans don't want to save the taxpayers money.
Rather than be overt in their anti-union agenda, Republicans claim they are holding the FAA reauthorization hostage in order to cut $16.5 million in funding for a small number of rural airports. There may or may not be some merit to those claims, but fact is that the targeted rural airports not-so-coincidentally happen to ALL reside in areas represented by key Democrats. As Laura Clawson wrote:
[The] cuts target airports in the home states of Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller and Max Baucus—the Senate Majority Leader, the Chair of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and the Chair of the Finance Committee. So it's "buckle to our anti-union agenda or your rural constituents get it."
But even that could be chalked up to hardball politics. What is unassailable, however, is that this pretend effort to cut $16.5 million from the budget is costing the U.S. $30 million each day. That's $150 million per week. $600 million per month.
In other words, that $16.5 million the GOP wants to pretend cut from the budget would be paid in half a day of taxes.
So once again, the Republicans don't care about making government solvent, as their actions are adding to its deficit. They are on an ideological crusade against organized workers, and if it adds to the nation's red ink, they simply don't care.
2) If government cuts taxes on business, they will pass the savings on to consumers.
This tenet has always been among the most ridiculous, and this current ordeal proves it.
Several aviation taxes expired after midnight Friday when Congress failed to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, which collects the revenue. The suspended taxes could save passengers 10% to 15% on their ticket prices, but most U.S. carriers have boosted fares to the levels ticket prices would have been with the taxes still in place, allowing the airlines to take in roughly an extra $25 million a day, says Rick Seaney of FareCompare.com.
That money is used to maintain airports. It's used to maintain air travel safety. You know, it's important shit, and shit that the airlines won't voluntarily put on their plate. They would much rather brag to investors about their improved margins.
So next time you hear Republicans pretend to care about the deficit, or claim that lowering business taxes would benefit consumers, just remember what's happening at the FAA today.
