Shortly after congress finally agreed at the last minute on the budget impasse pertaining to the debt ceiling, both the House of Representatives and the Senate adjourned for their month long recess. In the meantime the FAA remains shutdown as they still do not have a new FAA reauthorization bill in place. As a result, with politicians stating that their main focus now is on job creation, there are almost 4,000 FAA employees furloughed without pay. Also due to the shutdown, FAA airport improvement grant payouts have also ceased, leaving tens of thousands of contractors and construction workers without a paycheck as well.
The cessation of payment from the grant program is currently responsible for the stop work order at 253 job sites, with combined contract values of over $10.5 billion. It is estimated that over 70,000 employees under these projects are currently laid off as well due to the stop work order and not receiving paychecks. A current list, regularly updated with new stop work orders can be found on the FAA site here,
http://www.faa.gov/news/media/workstop/. The 70,000 newly unemployed construction workers are a big hit to the construction industry with an estimated unemployment rate of 18%.
In addition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today announced that safety inspectors have come off the payroll and are no longer receiving checks and that they are also expected to pay for their own travel expenses, including hotel and transportation. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is still stating that the shutdown will not affect airline or aviation safety.
As the FAA does not currently have operating authority, the airlines are also not authorized to collect the FAA's portion of ticket taxes. As a result, the FAA is currently losing around $200 million per week, or just under $30 million per day, in tax revenues, and has already lost over $360 million in tax revenues since the shutdown began. The taxes lost are not recoverable and the airlines have also not passed on the tax savings to the consumers. Most airlines have decided to raise airfares to match the decrease in tax charges as a way to pad their revenues to offset the losses most have experienced this year. The lost tax equates to approximately $10 per $100 of airfare.
Obama has stated he has personally made calls to top congressional leaders and urged them to pass the clean bill as has been done 20 times previously. 'My expectation, and I think the American people's expectation, is that this gets resolved by the end of this week.' How this would be accomplished with both side of congress in recess is still not clear. Congress can vote without returning to DC by unanimous consent; however, analysts feel that the odds are against a resolution.
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how do we as Americans allow the fat cats to continue to rule like this.
They are off until Sept and there is shit that needs to be done. No one controls them.
How did we get to this point. Oh yeh they make their own rules about work time , pay , and healthcare, and pensions.
pity really