GOP/Tea Party Hypocrisy & Inaction Leave FAA & Construction Workers Without Jobs

Immediately after passing the ill-advised deal to raise the debt ceiling, which The Economic Policy Institute, a top nonpartisan think tank, estimates will end up costing the economy 1.8 million jobs by 2012, Congress adjourned without resolving a funding standoff that has left the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) up in the air and in a partial shutdown.

Thus, a Congress controlled by a GOP intimated by extremists Tea Party members, which states jobs is the number one priority, will be paid to go home and do nothing for 5 weeks while nearly 4,000 nonessential FAA employees and tens of thousands of contractors will be temporarily out of work.

As a result needed airport construction projects — to maintain runways, build new traffic control towers and upgrade other facilities — have been halted across the country. At the same time, the FAA is losing $250 million a week in airfare taxes that can’t be collected until legislation is passed. The loss could eventually amount to $1.2 billion.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had urged the Senate to pass a bill last Tuesday before

Congress broke for summer recess, leaving thousands out of a job until September. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) asked her colleagues to pass a House bill without its most controversial elements, which fell on Republican deaf ears.

House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the FAA standoff is just the latest example of how House Republicans have put politics ahead of good faith efforts to pass legislation. “They were clearly prepared to let America default for the first time in history on its debts unless they got their way,” Hoyer said. And now, “They were prepared to leave Washington … with almost 4,000 federal employees out on the street.”

One of the main issues behind this latest GOP/Tea Party outrageous attack against the middle class and working Americans is their goal of overturning a new rule by the government’s National Mediation Board. It lets airline workers unionize by a majority of those voting. For years, workers who didn’t vote were counted in opposition of joining a union.

These Republicans and Tea Party terrorists continue to demonstrate that they are neither competent enough or have the commitment to legislate in the best interest of Americans and, thus, must be turned out of office in the next election. Until then we all have the responsibility to organize, participate and commit ourselves to opposing these inhumane and insane policies being heaved upon us.

Watch this informative PBS Newshour report on the FAA standoff.