Doug Mataconis’s post on the infuriating FAA situation got me all fired up, and inspired me to do something I rarely do: write to my congressperson.
Congresswoman DeGette,
I am writing to express my absolute disgust with the ongoing situation surrounding the FAA’s lack of funding. I do not know your position on the issue, and thus do not presume to blame you personally. But in the larger picture, it is utterly disgraceful that Congress has gone on recess without resolving this issue, leaving as many as 74,000 citizens out of work because our government cannot even perform the basic functions of governance. This inexcusable behavior reflects extraordinarily poorly on members of both parties and both houses of Congress. For our legislative branch to take a month off, with pay, while stranding thousands of Americans for no discernible reason other than partisan bickering and brinksmanship, is beneath contempt.
Such actions by Congress cause the public to rightly question whether anyone in Washington deserves to be re-elected next year. The entire Congress, as a body, is failing this country in countless ways, with this being just the latest, most egregious example. Mind you, I am a Democrat, and I blame the extreme, intransigent Right for many things — for instance, they take the bulk of the blame for the recent absurd standoff over the manufactured debt-ceiling crisis. But I know better than to naively believe that Congress’s overall dysfunctionality, as exemplified by this FAA fiasco, is solely one party’s fault. Both Republicans and Democrats share the blame for getting us to this point, and both Republicans and Democrats must work to improve things. It is incumbent upon each member of Congress to exercise leadership and prevent this sort of nonsense from occurring. “Partisanship” is not a dirty word, to the extent the parties are arguing honestly about genuine, passionate policy disagreements. But when partisanship leads to situations like this, something is clearly amiss. I urge you to take a leadership role in moving Congress back from the brink and getting this situation resolved immediately.
I also believe it would be appropriate to pass legislation stating that, in the future, if any federal employees are furloughed, or federal contracting projects placed on hold, due to congressional budgetary inaction extending past the deadline at which action is required to maintain funding, Congress should be barred by law from taking a recess until funding is restored, and congressional salaries should not be paid for the unfunded period of time. I somehow suspect these ridiculous impasses would be far less likely to occur if such a law were on the books.
Sincerely,
Brendan Loy
Denver, CO
I think I’ll send it to Bennet and Udall, too.
UPDATE: dcl points out that my hastily conceived proposed legislation would violate the 27th Amendment. At least the salary part. Seems like they could do the recess part.
You would need a constitutional amendment for that.
Beyond that I do agree with you.
Also, I would hope any person that works for the FAA and voted for a Republican isn’t so stupid as to do so again.
It seems that the Age of Miracles is Upon Us !
mirabile dictu !
Our revered and esteemed blog-host has taken that first and most critical of the 12 Steps … “I am a Democrat” …
So there *is* hope for our country, even in these perilous times !
With that said, it would have been nice to have heard of similarly courteous yet firm epistolatory prose being sent to the relevant Senator(s) and Senate Leadership during the past 2+ years to encourage them to carry out their duties to produce/work on a Budget …
Even more interestingly, it turns out that the House sent the Senate a funding bill dealing with the FAA …
“House Republicans insist on cutting wasteful subsidies for rural airports. The House passed an FAA funding bill that kept everything running except for some of these subsidies, but Senate Democrats refused to go along.”
That Eeeevil Booosh Rovian mind-control stuff again, I suppose, manipulating those Senate Democrats so that they couldn’t cooperate, right ?
Alasdair beat me to it. Sorry, the House passed its budget, the Senate skipped town. Whose in charge of the Senate again?
In other words, dcl does not “know better than to naively believe that Congress’s overall dysfunctionality, as exemplified by this FAA fiasco, is solely one party’s fault.”
Whose in charge of the Senate again?
“the extreme, intransigent” Tea Party?
The budget, the debt ceiling, now this FAA thing. The Republican-majority House passes a version that doesn’t pass the Democratic-majority Senate, rather than the opposite direction. What is wrong with those Senators, that they won’t take the initiative on one of these money-related bills?
The same reason that the Republicans passed a budget in the House, yet the Senate hasn’t produced a budget in over 800 days and the House hadn’t produced a budget when the Democrats controlled it. The same reason why Obamacare was passed by extraordinary means, without even the Democrats reading it.
Republicans are confident the American people will approve of Republican plans and ideas, and the Democrats know the American people would reject the plans and ideas of the Democrats, if they were ever allowed to hear of them. (My somewhat cynical brother believes the Democrats act this way because they believe that regular people are proles and should just do what they are told)
I must congratulate Brendan on his letter to his congress[wo]man, it clearly helped the House and Senate reach a deal on FAA funding. Or not.. But hey, at least Brendan got to stand side by side with his buddies Harry Reid and Donna Brazile and demagogue the issue before caving into the fact that House Republicans were right all along.
AMLTrojan – but the Senate and White House *are* controlled by the T Party – the intransigent Tantrum Party …