Feed: Actual Travel News
Posted on: Monday, April 29, 2013 08:37
Author: Actual Travel News
Subject: Flights Normalize, Obama Suggests Congress Acted Out of Self-Interest
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Saturday, April 28 that it had suspended all employee furloughs in anticipation of funds transfers that Congress had approved on Friday. The agency prepared to transfer $243 million from other funds to put air traffic controllers back to work after weeklong furloughs that delayed thousands of flights across the country. The FAA is awaiting President Obama's signature on the bill that was delayed until Tuesday because of what ABC News reported as a "spelling error" on the document. In the meantime, the agency said that flights would get back to normal by Sunday night. Also read: How Much does a Falling Body Weigh? The bipartisan agreement didn't stop the White House, Republicans and Democrats from bickering about sequestration cuts and the possibility that air travelers were getting preferential treatment in the process. President Obama himself said the legislation was merely a "Band-Aid" and asked Congress to end the cuts that are cutting back or halting other services throughout government. Unemployment assistance, for instance, has been cut back from now until the end of September when the new fiscal year begins. In his regular weekly address, Obama said "These cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people. We can't just keep putting Band-Aids on every cut. It's not a responsible way to govern. There is only one way to truly fix the sequester: by replacing it before it causes further damage." Obama suggested that Congress focused on airline sequester cuts because of the inconvenience air traffic delays were causing them. "Maybe because they fly home each weekend, the members of Congress who insisted these cuts take hold finally realized that they actually apply to them, too," he said, referring to the last minute approval the bill received just before Congress' spring recess. The activist group MoveOn.org says that the airline sequester budget fix was "solely to appeal to wealthy contributors who fly frequently." It posted links to an online petition to "demand that any emergency legislation to eliminate airline delays caused by the sequester also restore cuts to Head Start, cancer clinics, housing assistance, food pantries, and unemployment insurance." It also posted a graphic on its Facebook site from OccupyDemocrats that says THE SENATE JUST FIXED (the part of the) SEQUESTER (that affects rich people!). |
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Important to read:
Just for Drivers, Voice-to-Text Is Likewise Harmful
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