Tuesday, April 23, 2013

The Wall Street Journal calls bullchit on the administration's decision to manufacture flight delays in order to make people sour on the sequester.


  "FAA head Michael Huerta likes to talk about the "difficult choices" he's making to satisfy the federal sequester's modest spending restraints. At least that's what he says when he's not claiming that the furloughs of air-traffic controllers are unavoidable. Well, which is it? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is also portraying flight delays as the inevitable result of federal spending limits.
Last week at a Senate hearing Mr. Huerta acknowledged under questioning that, in fact, his agency does have some discretion to prioritize and move funds to higher priorities from lower ones. But DOT claims it has already used this flexibility and still can't avoid cuts to air-traffic control.
Not that taxpayers should have a lot of confidence in the ability of Messrs. Huerta and LaHood to prioritize. On Monday, as flight delays were hitting travelers at airports around the country due to these allegedly unavoidable cuts, the top story on the Department of Transportation's website announced a $474 million grant program that promises to "make communities more livable and sustainable."
How about awarding grants to the control towers at Hartsfield and O'Hare? The community of air travelers would likely agree that sitting in a departure lounge at Newark Airport may be livable, but it's not sustainable.
Mr. LaHood's website on Monday also announced that "DOT launches Women in Transportation History online exhibit." No doubt all the female passengers waiting for a flight out of LAX will be ecstatic."
This strategy can only be chalked up to Obama and his Liberal's desire to punish the sheeple for supporting that awful sequester, which in fact only slows the rate of growth, and does  not actually cut government budgets.
Any other President would be taking extreme heat from the press for a stunt like this, but not the Chicago Jesus.  He gets to treat us all like dirt without consequence.  I suppose we small folk should be grateful that he didn't turn off our electricity or water, or allow a flood of terrorists into the country to make us really sorry.

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