The sequestration cuts to the FAA are forcing the agency to close 150 control towers at low-volume airports (including 5 in Washington state). As a consequence, some Republicans are discovering their inner socialist.
Exhibit 1: Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL-15).
What really bothers Rep. Ross is that Flordia’s Lakeland Linder Regional Airport will lose its control tower. The airport is a relatively low-volume airport, except for one week each summer, during the annual Sun ‘n Fun aviation convention, in which it becomes one of the busiest airports in the world. To put the traffic volume in context, Lakeland Linder has an average of 208 aircraft operations/day making it is slightly less busy than the Tacoma Narrows Airport ( 216/day) and the Renton Municipal Airport (221/day, where the 737 is manufactured).
Ross whines (my emphasis):
The state’s largest convention, SUN ‘n FUN, which is held in April at Lakeland Linder Airport, not only provides incredible economic value to Lakeland, but it serves our children by investing $1.4 million dollars annually in education. It is unacceptable to close this important control tower. Sun N Fun will now have to pay the FAA $284,000 in order to keep this control tower functioning during the convention. This is more money that they must raise that will not go to help our children who are struggling in school.
Really? He wants to keep the control tower so that my tax dollars and your tax dollars will subsidizing the local school systems in Florida’s 15th Congressional District?
FUCKING SOCIALIST!!!!
Exhibit 2: Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX-27). He is…
deeply troubled by the proposed actions of the FAA regarding smaller airports, like the one in Victoria, Texas, as they have long played a vital role in local economies across the country.
At 125 aircraft operations/day Victoria Regional Airport, it isn’t even as busy as Olympia Regional Airport (131/day).
No doubt the airport does play an important role in the economy, but why should my tax dollars be subsidizing the economy of the Texas 27th Congressional District?!?
You’d have to be a FUCKING SOCIALIST to want that kind of Big Government solution to a regional problem!
Exhibit 3: Michele Bachman (R-MN-6):
One-el Michele frets over airport tower closures:
I am deeply disappointed with the FAA’s decision to close the air traffic control towers at the Anoka County-Blaine Airport and St. Cloud Regional Airport. Throughout this decision-making process, I have been in touch with FAA and DOT officials urging them to focus first on eliminating waste and trimming non-essential items in the FAA’s budget before they even consider shutting down essential safety operations.
Wait. WE have to pay for safety in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District? Can’t the regional or local government do that even better?
Yeah…the Anoka County-Blaine Airport is goddamn busy with an average of 536 operations/day, but It isn’t the Anoka FEDERAL airport. What part of “COUNTY” doesn’t Michele understand?
And St. Cloud Regional Airport?!? Give me a fucking break. At 87 operations/day it hardly warrants a paved runway (and federally subsidized, no doubt), let alone a labor-intensive control tower. St. Cloud is nothing compared to Yakima’s McAllister Field (126/day) and Spokane’s Felts Field Airport (156/day).
I have to ask…where in the Constitution does it put the federal government in charge of county safety? Clearly you can only justify this by abusing The Commerce Clause.
You know, I think the major newspapers of the country need to investigate these members of Congress to find out if they are pro-America or FUCKING SOCIALISTS!
BTW: those five Washington state airports whose control towers will be shut down? Renton Municipal, Olympia Regional, Tacoma Narrows, Felts Field, and McAllister Field.
Wait, the federal government provides services to industries and citizens?
Are any jobs at stake with this shutdown of these socialist programs? You know the right wing always says the Government doesn’t create jobs.
Heard a program on the radio last night about the layoff of helicopter mechanic contractors at jb-lewis-mcchord.. Some of those people were combat veterans.. But the right wing tells us government doesn’t create jobs.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but those airports can still be used by aircraft flying under visual flight rules in the daytime, right?
wharfrat,
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but those airports can still be used by aircraft flying under visual flight rules in the daytime, right?”
You’re correct. Many of them already close at night and revert from a Class D (Control tower) airport to a Class E (non-Control tower) airport. At some airports, one or more runways become unavailable when the field is operated in Class E. Those are low-volume times. I’m not sure what will happen if the airport becomes full-time Class E.
BTW: Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations are still possible into and out of these airports. A control tower isn’t necessary for that…it’s just safer with a control tower.
Michele Bachmann has so many foster children she needs her own airport. Wait! Doesn’t she get MONEY from the state for all those foster children?
GOP = privatize profits, socialize costs
The idea is to force the Republicans and others to not cut any federal spending whatsoever and to raise taxes to support even more spending.
Even Republicans realize that spending federal money in one’s district or state is key to getting re-elected. Getting re-elected is the ultimate goal of politicians.
Socializing losses and privatizing profits seems to be the banisters’ standard operating procedure.
From 8,
That should read “banksters” not bannisters. This auto-completion stuff can be annoying at times!
“I have been in touch with FAA and DOT officials urging them to focus first on eliminating waste and trimming non-essential items in the FAA’s budget before they even consider shutting down essential safety operations.”
(Yawn). That’s been the Republican mantra since 1980. If they haven’t been able to do that during five presidential terms under Republican leadership (three presidents), then what makes them think they can do so now?
But hey – that’s an easy way for them to claim that you should cut someone else’s pay, benefits, or control towers, just not their control towers!
By the way, when did Paine Field get cut from the list of proposed closures? I thought Paine Field could make a pretty good argument that the flights of heavy aircraft from Boeing’s Everett plant, combined with the much smaller general purpose aviation which uses that field, made a potentially unsafe environment which couldn’t be accomodated entirely by visual flight rules (ever see a small plane flipped over by the backwash of a 747?)
Can anyone tell me anything good that has come out of the so-called War on Terror? Or the War on Drugs?
If the Republicans were serious about cutting government spending, why not start with ending our involvement in the Middle East entirely?
rhp6033,
I recall Paine being mentioned, too, but it seems inconceivable that they would shut that tower down. It is a busy airport (311/day) with 2 active runways (and a 3rd runway that is rarely used). It would be even crazier without a tower because they shut down 2 of the three runways.
The airport I thought would lose a tower is Bellingham at 190/day, which is fewer than Tacoma and Renton. It seems like a sleepy little airport every time I fly in there.
They do have commercial airline (passenger) operations out of the airport (but lots of places sans control towers do), so the FAA is probably prioritizing airports with lots of passengers over things like manufacturing (i.e. Renton’s 737 line). That’s probably a good thing!
Funny how da perfessa wouldn’t visit a pretty non-partisan web site to post to others about this issue. Instead we see the standard leftist attacks.
Pretty benign reporting…
From 13,
I got involved in a land deal about 30 years ago in the form iof a limited partnership on property adjoining Paine Field. It went South after about 7 or 8 years. I lost in excess of $10,000.
My advice to anyone considering investing in a limited partnership is to pass on the idea. You would be better off investing in an average balanced mutual fund.
@7 “The idea is to force the Republicans and others to not cut any federal spending whatsoever and to raise taxes to support even more spending.”
No, that’s not the idea. The idea is that Republicans don’t get to cut all the Democrats’ spending and keep all their spending. That’s what they want, but it’s not what they’ll get, because this country doesn’t work that way.
From 6,
I’d be as happy as a pig in the mud if we’d start be ending our overseas escapades first. Then we can worry about the domestic cuts.
@8 That’s why banksters live in mansions and you don’t.
@13 I’m under the impression that airline passengers pay a ticket surcharge that goes into a dedicated federal fund that pays for airports, am I correct?
From 18,
Remember our talk about the millionaires next door? The SMART rich people don’t need to show off their wealth with mansions. Only the dolts expose themselves by living in mansions!
Clearly Obama mind control is now effectively penetrating the protective tin foil hats of Congressional Republicans.
It is only a matter of time before they collect their ObamaPhones and we obtain their full conversion to Kenyan-Mooselem-Fascist-Soshuulism!
Resistance is futile!
The Obama administration will use this sequester stuff to benefit their prospects. The Republicans would do the same thing if the situation was reversed.
They’re just politicians folks. What do you really expect of them, Democrat or Republican?
@ 13
Darryl, any idea who actually staffs the Paine tower?
When you scan down the list of closures, these are all towers which are managed and staffed by private contractors. Not one of them is staffed up by the National Air Traffic Controllers Association union.
http://hotair.com/archives/201.....-closures/
Prioritizing might be going on, all right, but probably not based on what decisions might cause the least inconvenience to the public or create least disruption to commerce. On a contractual basis and/or for political reasons, it seems to be based on whether the towers are staffed by unionized employees, or not, according to the link.
Gee. What a surprise.
@17 Sorry, but I won’t buy into isolationism. I oppose military adventurism (see, e.g., our last Republican president’s bungled recreational war in Iraq), but you can’t let yourself be kicked and do nothing. When we were attacked, we had to eliminate the terrorists and their bases in Afghanistan. Therefore, I’ll support America defending itself against aggressors, but I’m against using our military deterrent to push other people around when we have no right to do so.
From 24,
Yeah, but the whole reason we’ve got trouble with the Islamic world is that we’ve been meddling in their affairs for decades. Take Iran, for example. We (along with the British) overthrew a democratically-elected prime minister and installed a tyrant, the Shah.
That’s the kind of “isolationism” I’m for. I’m not against helping foreigners, but I sure as heck don’t want to dominate their lives and tell them how to live.
We need to just mind our own business for a generartion or two. Then we can take a look at thngs and re-evaluate our position.
Roger, naaah it goes into the airlines pockets. You didn’t see this?
Hot off the presses (OK, it was this morning):
Thune and Shuster are deeply skeptical of the administration’s claims that the FAA cannot implement sequestration without resorting to furloughs and tower closings. The lawmakers made their disappointment clear about the administration’s proposal to close 149 air-traffic-control towers at regional airports across the country, noting that all of the specified towers were operational in 2009, when the FAA received less funding than it will under sequestration.
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....rew-stiles
@20 I could tell you a story about a girl who threw a boy who loved her under the bus, married a rich banker and got a mansion, then met that boy again after he became a judge and she got caught committing a fraud. But I won’t …. :)
@21 “Obama mind control”
Yes! First he created a birth certificate out of thin air. Then he made Republicans pass the “fiscal cliff” tax increases. His next act is to make them cut their own damn spending.
@27 And I’m deeply skeptical of anything grandstanding Republican politicians think or say.
From 28,
So, you were the judge involved, I take it. Well, “paybacks are a bitch,” as they used to say where I usd to work.
From 30,
Here’s I’m just deeply skeptical.
@31 I didn’t say that and you shouldn’t assume that. It’s a judge story. Judges talk to each other. And besides, when I was young, I was a bunny not a boy — I’m a rabbit, remember? I’m leaving it up in the air because you don’t need to know.
@26 That’s not what I referred to, dolt! I referred to taxes that are taxes and go to the government, not fuel surcharges or other airline tack-ons that airlines misleadingly label “taxes.”
Bob,
“Darryl, any idea who actually staffs the Paine tower?”
Yes. In one case, personally, from a spell when I kept my plane at and flew out of Paine field.
“Prioritizing might be going on, all right, but probably not based on what decisions might cause the least inconvenience to the public or create least disruption to commerce. On a contractual basis and/or for political reasons, it seems to be based on whether the towers are staffed by unionized employees, or not, according to the link.”
Total bullshit.
You are constantly disappointing me with your inability to think critically and your child-like willingness to believe bullshit from people who have little to no idea what they are talking about.
The primary reasons the contract facilities are being shut down first is because they are the smallest facilities, you idiot!
Larger Class C and Class B airports, as well as larger air traffic control infrastructure (“Center” facilities and approach control facilities) are staffed by FAA personnel instead of contractors. Obviously, they aren’t going to close down the towers at O’Hare and SeaTac airports. Essentially, the fact that a tower is a contract site pretty much means that the airport is a less critical part of the aviation infrastructure (if not, it would be FAA staffed).
And please, don’t start parroting the idiotic caterwauling of Jim Sensenbrenner that a majority of closures are in Republican districts. He is a fucking moron. That is simply an artifact of closing towers at smaller, and less busy, Class D airports. Big airports tend to be near big cities, and big cities test to be have a larger proportion of Democrats.
Bob,
“Thune and Shuster are deeply skeptical of the administration’s claims that the FAA cannot implement sequestration without resorting to furloughs and tower closings.”
Will you knock it the fuck off with the empty political rhetoric, please. These asshole know perfectly well that what they are saying is bullshit. The FAA is not getting more than their 2009 budget. Why? Because they are absorbing 60% of the sequestration cuts to the D.O.T. And why is that? Because certain D.O.T and FAA items were exempted from the sequestration, but without reducing the total cuts to the agency.
This has been widely reported in specialized publications and the popular media. E.g.
Bill Shuster doesn’t understand it because understanding it requires math and stuff (rather than ideology unencumbered by reality).
Wow, it’s good to see da perfessa using a more neutral site to present the same precentages Puddy put forth in the previous Puddy post of the Aviation Week article. Good job dude. Puddy also thinks it’s strange the FAA is taking the majority of the hit and in doing so are getting rid of contract ATC and the union sits pretty after this! So jobs will be lost over Obummer’s sequestration plan told to us by Bob Woodward.
So, it seems like our Republican trolls here are as dense as the Republican half-wit congress-critters when it comes to cause & effect.
Paul Ryan is an economic genius!
Hey Flubscout… Obummer was the cause of the sequester and his intransigence in making a deal per Obummer’s own words from 2011 is the effect of the sequester.
Thanks for playing Flubscout!
So Puddy agrees with Woodward that Obama should just toss the Budget Control Act in the trash can and spend money however he pleases?
Republicans have been pushing sequestration for almost 10 years now (I even linked to the video), Obama says ok, lets do it. Over 200 Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it as well, because they gambled that Romney would be president and they could rescind the spending cuts. Now the cowardly Republicans are shitting their pants because their mantra of smaller government is coming back to bite them.
Another useless non sequitor. Getting your info from the Daily Beast and Daily Kooks again don? Obummer claimed he would offer serious spending cuts in 2011! Then he reneged on those cuts. So Obummer is reaping his whirlwind!
You need better material don! Puddy has their links and one can see the parallels don mentions from both articles.
Waytogo Libtardo!
Over 200 Republicans voting for sequestration in the House and Senate? You can get that from Faux News and Right Wing Idiots Business Daily (IDB)..