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Tag Archives: Federal Aviation Administration
The GOP’s Default Caucus
162 Republicans Vote for Default
Republicans’ first act in their latest manufactured crisis was shutting down the government in a failed and mean-spirited bid to deny affordable health insurance to millions.
We know that the shutdown resulted in some 800,000 federal employees being thrown out of work, hundreds of national parks and other federal lands closed, cancer treatments denied, food assistance cut off to low-income women and children, and countless other painful consequences for people across the country.
It also cost the economy at least $24 BILLION. Just to give you an idea, here are just a few examples of what else you could get for $24 BILLION:
- The net cost of to the government from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP): $24 billion
- The Department of Agriculture’s proposed budget: $22.6 billion
- NASA’s approved budget: $16.6 billion
- All air transportation programs, including the Federal Aviation Administration, security, research, and other costs: $21.9 billion
- The Child Tax Credit: $22.1 billion
- The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (formally known as welfare): $17.7 billion
- The cost of Head Start, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Women Infants and Children (WIC) program combined: $25.2 billion
The $24 BILLION sucked out of the economy thanks to the government shutdown comes on top of an estimated $700 BILLION cumulative hit to the economy thanks to the GOP’s years-long effort to govern by crisis.
Despite admitting that they got “nothing” as a result of the painful and damaging shutdown, Tea Party Republicans say it was somehow still “worth it” for them.
In fact, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) won’t rule out another shutdown, adding that he will still “do anything” to stop Obamacare. Another House Republican, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), said, “we’re going to start this all over again.”
It gets worse.
After inflicting this painful and unnecessary shutdown on the country for 16 days, during which time they sometimes seemed to forget why they even shut the government down in the first place, Republicans voted en masse last night in favor of a catastrophic default and continued government shutdown.
The GOP’s Default Caucus — 18 Republican Senators and 144 House Republicans — apparently preferred a default that threatened to collapse the entire global economy to allowing millions to get affordable health insurance and re-opening the government at spending levels Republicans themselves proposed.
Supporting a government shutdown is bad enough, but supporting an economic shutdown by refusing to pay the nation’s bills is a stunningly extreme position. Unfortunately, it’s a position that a majority of Congressional Republicans apparently support. Even GOP budget guru Paul Ryan voted for a reckless economic shutdown on top of the government shutdown.
As National Journal noted today, “several of those who might be considered serious GOP 2016 contenders for the presidency also voted in favor of the first default in American history in order to stay in the tea party’s good graces.”
BOTTOM LINE: It’s time for the GOP’s brinksmanship and manufactured crises to end. Instead of shutting down the government, voting to default on our obligations, and proclaiming their pride in job-killing austerity spending cuts, Republicans should sit down with Democrats and agree to a budget that protects important programs and makes the investments we need to grow the economy and create jobs.
The Center for American Progress has a balanced budget plan that will replace the damaging sequester cuts for the next three years and make badly needed investments in job creation. You can check it out HERE.
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Airport keeping out WWll Survivors
Stop the Proposed Fence at the Tulelake Municipal Airport, site of the former Tule Lake Segregation Center, California
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During World War II, more than 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry were forced from their homes and unjustly imprisoned in ten concentration camps across the United States, solely on the basis of race. The Tule Lake camp in Modoc County, California (near the California-Oregon border) became a maximum-security Segregation Center to incarcerate 12,000 inmates who resisted their imprisonment and branded by the federal government as disloyal. Today, a small airport used primarily by crop dusting planes cuts through the center of the Tule Lake site.
I need your help because the Federal Aviation Administration is proposing construction of an eight-foot high, three-mile long fence around the perimeter of the airport that will cut off our access to the Tule Lake site. Besides being utterly unnecessary in such a desolate place, such a fence would desecrate the physical and spiritual aspects of Tule Lake, which has great historical and personal importance to me and many others.
I am shocked by this insensitive and disrespectful plan. This massive fence will interfere with the desire I and visitors to Tule Lake have — to mourn the unjust imprisonment and to heal the scars of the past. Instead, we will be assaulted with a reminder of rejection, exclusion, and emotional pain.
I was born in the Tule Lake Segregation Center. My parents were American citizens who protested their unjust incarceration and answered “no” to the government-imposed “loyalty questionnaire.” As punishment for their dissidence, the government removed them from the Topaz concentration camp to the maximum-security Tule Lake Segregation Center. From there, my father was taken from us and interned as an “enemy alien” in a Department of Justice camp in North Dakota. Incarcerated for no other crime than having the face of the enemy, my family lived behind barbed wire for 4-1/2 years.
I’m part of a group of survivors, their families, and friends who organize tours and educational events at the Tule Lake Segregation Center. If this fence is constructed, it will send a strong message to Japanese Americans that they are not welcome at the site where they walked long distances to eat meals, attend school, and use the latrines. A fence will prevent all Americans from experiencing the dimension and magnitude of the concentration camp where people experienced mass exclusion and racial hatred.
The FAA has the power to protect Tule Lake, a sacred site. In doing so, it has the power to honor, rather than desecrate, the remembrance of one of the darkest chapters in American history.
According to the FAA, in an effort to be more “sensitive” to our concerns, the proposed fence would not be topped with barbed wire — but that’s just not enough. Our nation’s history of the unjust incarceration of those of Japanese ancestry during WWII is often forgotten. We must be able to remember what happened to our ancestors to be sure this never happens again.
I’m calling on the FAA to respect our community’s needs and wishes and reject this proposal. Please show your support for the most sensitive solution: DO NOT BUILD THE FENCE AT TULE LAKE.
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Meals for Seniors and Head Start ~~~ End the Sequester
Tonight, chances are a senior in your community will go to bed hungry.
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HCAN
Last week, Congress took rapid action to end furloughs of government air-traffic controllers that had inconvenienced air travelers.
That’s fine. But they didn’t do a single thing to end the sequester’s across-the-board cuts that are hurting more and more people every day. Nope. The GOP won’t budge unless it helps them and the wealthy special interests.
Let’s be honest: The only reason these Senators and Representatives acted so quickly is they didn’t want to be inconvenienced on the tarmac as they flew home for the weekend. They don’t care about the workers at the Federal Aviation Administration – just folks who can afford air travel.
What about the poor and elderly? Kids who can’t go to Head Start? Doctors and cancer patients who rely on Medicare? With the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, they’re out of luck.
Health Care for America Now is joining the Campaign for America’s Future to tell Congress to repeal the sequester – all of it, not just the parts that affect the wealthy.
Members of Congress have heard from their campaign contributors who like to fly. Now they need to hear from Medicare recipients, from seniors who have lost Meals on Wheels, from parents whose kids can’t go to Head Start anymore and from health care supporters who want the Affordable Care Act to continue moving forward.
Write to your congressperson today and tell them to repeal the whole sequester.
Thanks,
Will O’Neill Health Care for America Now
Be a Seed for Change 
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