The meltdown of the nation’s financial infrastructure over the past two weeks has generated a fix or bailout that may cost a trillion dollars. That is trillion with a “T” — a whopping amount of money. The cost to fix the air traffic control system and fully modernize it? Fifty two billion. A drop in the bucket.
When it’s the little guys flying in MD-80s, 757s and A-320s waiting to take off and land at JFK, Newark or La Guardia, the administration and Congress don’t seem capable of taking any kind of funding action. The collective attitude in Washington D.C. is, “Let them stew on the runways.”
Now that the politicians’ buddies and big financial contributors, merchant banking CEOs, COOs, insurance executives and hedge fund managers who land at Westchester Airport in their private jets need a bailout, our government is falling all over itself to cough up a trillion dollars.
If the executive and legislative branches wanted to solve the air traffic control (ATC) problem, it obviously would be taken care of in very short order. Clearly, we, the little people just aren’t important enough.
The air traffic crisis has been brewing for at least half a decade with pilots, airline executives, air traffic controllers and aviation experts all testifying that the system will eventually break down and we will face catastrophic failure.
Plus, there is a long history of ATC failures — the most recent only last month with the collapse of the Atlanta computer node needed to keep flight plans processed.
A half a decade with American citizens in danger. Even though keeping the infrastructure functioning and up to date, none of our legislators really cares. We only get lip service.
We get lots of promises and jawboning, but no action. Nextgov.com assessed the recent FAA projected schedules and found virtually every project is behind schedule and underfunded.
FAA has not determined what type of equipment or software will be needed or where a new radar control system for the region will be housed, making the final cost, schedule and configuration of the project uncertain, the report (GAO-08-786) stated.
It’s unclear whether the agency can meet its goal of having the redesign complete by 2012 because the agency still is developing an implementation plan, GAO said. The cost of the project is uncertain because FAA has yet to pick equipment and software for a single radar processing system for all air traffic controllers in the area. It also has yet to decide how much equipment will be necessary.
Compare this problem to the last week’s financial disaster. All of a sudden, miraculously, the government can work overtime to bail out companies where executives manage to pay themselves tens of millions of dollars in salaries while they concoct unsound and toxic financial instruments that even they themselves don’t understand. But Congress understands who is buttering their bread and they are in a full court press to help these needy, elite taxpayers by taking money from the masses to line their bank accounts.
When some responsible lawmakers try to tie executive compensation to the bailout program, the Secretary of the Treasury denizens cry foul. “We don’t want this to be punitive,” is the response from the administration that I heard.
Excuse me, but there has to be some accountability here. Executives making millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses do not deserve that money after running major companies into the ground. But even with this “punishment” of government oversight of their income, these executives only stand to have their remuneration slashed from $12 million to $8 million according to Representative Barney Frank.
Hell, I should be so punished.
Back to my point — Our government can fix and finance what they deem important. Senate committees can move with amazing speed. Democrats and Republicans can cross party lines. Treasury can magically find the money.
Just off the top of my head, here is the bill that America’s taxpayers are already on the hook for:
Bear Sterns — $30 billion
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae — $200 billion
AIG — $80 billion
Cost of a month in Iraq for our troops — $22 billion
and now … $700 billion to a trillion for a bailout to buy bad loans from the very institutions that created them.
Excuse me while I hyperventilate.
It is time to write to your representatives and senators en masse and tell them to get to work fixing our ATC system while they seem to be in the mood to work. We are in the middle of an election. If we can’t get their attention now and get some movement on solving the ATC problems, we might as well get used to another four years of ATC delays and another four years of legislators who really just don’t give a damn.
Vote them out. We deserve better.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
