Deal Reached To Restore FAA Funding
Late today, it was announced that a deal had been reached that will allow for the temporary refunding of the Federal Aviation Administration while Congress is on vacation:
Congressional leaders reached agreement Thursday on stopgap funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, ending a stalemate that cost 4,000 furloughed federal workers almost two weeks of pay and drained more than $300 million from the Treasury.
“I am pleased to announce that we have been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate to put 74,000 transportation and construction workers back to work,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday afternoon. “This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain. But I believe we should keep Americans working while Congress settles its differences, and this agreement will do exactly that.”
He gave no immediate explanation of how the compromise was reached.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called the deal a “tremendous victory for American workers everywhere.
“From construction workers to our FAA employees, they will have the security of knowing they are going to go back to work and get a paycheck, and that’s what we’ve been fighting for,” LaHood added. “We have the best aviation system in the world and we intend to keep it that way.”
Lawmakers allowed funding for the FAA to expire July 23, leaving 4,000 agency workers on furlough and 70,000 people in construction-related jobs out of work.
This still leaves all the major issues between the House and the Senate yet to be resolved, but at least they aren’t keeping everything in limbo until they’ve returned from vacation.
Hyperbole much, Ray?
This just in from Grover Norquist, President of APD (Americans for a Permanent Deficit):
“This is a tax increase. We are taking profits from the mouths of corporate hegemonies. It was just 2 short weeks ago that the FAA stopped collecting the fees and taxes they were due. 2 days later the airlines started pocketing those fees as pure profit. That money is now theirs. For the FAA to start
collectingstealing those fees and taxes is REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH! We don’t need any stinking runways…. we don’t need any stinking air traffic controllers…. we don’t need any stinkling luggage carousels…. ANY Republican who actually votes for this perfectly sensible piece of legislation, WILL BE PRIMARIED!”PS: “Those airline workers already make too much money! They don’t deserve a union which will only cut into the record profit margins of the parent company.”
pss: Did I miss any GOP talking points?