These days the economic crisis of the U.S. is the headline of all news and breaking news. Each party blames the other for not compromising, for putting their interests before the interests of the nation and the good of the country, etc. They take their own government's employees hostage to cut deals with each other. Letting millions of families and employees live in limbo, leaving work on a Friday afternoon not knowing if they will be at work on Monday. Both parties, like mad old married couples, bring out irrelevant issues at such times. When there was a threat of a shutdown over finalizing fiscal year 2011 budget half way through fiscal year 2011, they made the disagreement be about government funds given to a clinic for women's health, and oh, God, guess what they do, they perform abortion procedures! It did not help repeating a zillion times that federal law prohibits them to use federal funds for abortion. It was like yelling to deaf ears. It did not matter. They wanted the public to hear and beleive what they wanted them to hear and believe. It did not matter that the money they were talking about was maybe 0.005% of the federal civilian budget and that the federal civilian budget is a small fraction of the military budget! It did not matter! They had to hold any grudge they could at the price of millions of govenrment employees. So much honor and respect was floating around for public service.
FAA employees had been through this shutdown threat twice this year already. The first time with everyone else over FY11 budget and the second time as their agency was singled out and they indeed did experience a shutdown this time. The fights seemed to be over financial issues but it became over unions and having union rights, etc.
The U.S. was fast approaching its debt ceiling and parties did not work out a deal fast enough to increase it or straighten out plans for mitigating long term debt affects. The whole circus was so painful and frustrating to watch, that I did not follow the details. I just know the signed off on something but it was not fast enough, and America lost its good credit score.
FAA employees were at home throughout this whole ordeal, and they prbably thought, the debt ceiling thing was of a higher priority than them, the airline safety, etc. The poor FAA administrator on TV was begging: this is summer time, the construction time, and they have stopped our work and contracts. We are losing construction time, revenue, jobs, taxes. Congress's response: it is time for our 5 week summer recess!
Who in government takes 5 weeks of recess that these guys should in such crisis. No sense of urgency, no sense of guilt, no sense of shame, no sense of empathy, nothing! I do not understand how it is that we stay weekends and nights, postpone our summer vacations till say our summer interns are gone, project deadlines met, ... , but they can let the country lose 1 trillion dollars in airfare taxes, lose construction jobs and employees' taxes, risk safety of the passengers in the air, and go on a five week vacation. Similarly, I do not know what it takes for airlines and FAA workers who continued working without pay to go on strike. For all airlines to show solidarity and empathy and not fly until issues are resolved; or maybe no airline or pilot flies any congress man/woman to their vacation destination. Pilots have the authority of not flying if they do not want someone on the plane! What does it take for anyone to do something?
I tell you. This issue was getting some good media attention and publicity. They were on their case day and night. Before you knew it, Friday they came and signed a budget and Monday FAA employees were back to work. All it takes is to take their vacation hostage: you cannot go till you sign a deal, or we make you pay for it for the rest of your life. Oh, and did we mention elections are on the corner?
Lesson I learned: media has great power and that all it takes for politicians to compromise and forget their disagreements is to stand between them and their vacation. Their patriotism, humanity, sense of duty, conscious, or whatever you like to call it does not work, at least not in a capitalist country. Their vacation does! Now, can you imagine what would happen if we stand between them and their salaries? You won't get paid until you do your job, which is to have a fiscal budget ready before the year starts!
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