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Health & Fitness

GOP Shuts FAA Down Over Union Rights

The only deal GOP offers country is "head's, we win, tails, you lose".

If you want a taste of where our country is heading if the debt ceiling is not raised some time next week, just take a look at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

The FAA is under a partial shutdown now.  The problem is that the Republicans and Democrats can not agree on the terms for a long term extension of the agency's funding.

According to news reports the shutdown will cost the government $200 million a week in lost taxes and stop over $2.5 billion in grants to airports for improving runways, air traffic control towers, and other things.  

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The shutdown has already resulted in the furlough of some 4,000 FAA employees (which do not include air traffic controllers) and will spread to the private sector as stop-work orders at airports take hold.   

So, why has our government locked up over the FAA?  

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If Republicans are to be believed, the issue holding up FAA funding is the ending of federal subsidies that provide air service to remote regions of the country.  The Democrats are for the subsidies and the Republicans are against them.  But that only amounts to $16.5 million dollars.  That is hardly the kind of spending that would have the Tea Party knocking down the doors of Congress.   

So, it must be something more to it than that.   

Well, if you believe the Democrats, it is.  Simple put, the Democrats say that the Republicans want to change the way Americans vote on the issue of union representation. 

As most of us know, in order to vote for or against something, we have to actually cast a ballot.  But the Republicans want to change that time tested formula so that a non-vote would count as a "no" vote against forming a union.  

The Democrats, of course, are not going to agree with that rule change.  So the FAA is partially shutdown and the country can not move forward on projects designed to improve our airports.

Sound familiar?  It should.  The same battle, only on a larger scale, is taking place over the usually routine chore of raising of our national debt ceiling. 

In that battle, the GOP is trying to dismantle Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security under the guise of cutting government and lowering taxes. 

What the GOP is attempting to do is win gains on their conservative agenda by jamming the works of government.  They are dealing with forked tongues.  The only negotiation points they have offered are "head's, we win, tails, you lose".  It is their way or the highway. 

Unfortunately for the economy of the United States and indeed the world, it may be the highway to Hell.

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