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Who said the government doesn't believe air traffic controllers are needed?
They may not be needed at some very small airports (which, outside of Charleston, is pretty much all WV has), but that doesn't mean they're not needed at all.
Seriously, Wheeling has a grand total of zero scheduled passenger service flights. PIT is only an hour away.
Tri-State handles something like 111,000 people on scheduled passenger flights every year, compared to over 44 million in Atlanta.
Greenbrier Valley handles about 12,000 people a year on a grand total of 2 scheduled destinations, and it only has that because the federal government subsidizes it.
You want to cut the deficit and eliminate government waste? This is how you do it. You axe stuff that has no reason for existing.
The Charleston airport is a very small airport too. We have no major air centers here, although a case could be made that it is especially important to keep the one in Charleston open because it is just so very far to a big city from there and locals have basically no options. It's a very long drive to Charlotte, Richmond, or Columbus from Charleston. But, the towers in question serve important military and emergency preparedness functions, and are the locations for military units of significant importance. Closing any of those towers is just plain stupid.
The Charleston airport is a very small airport too. We have no major air centers here, although a case could be made that it is especially important to keep the one in Charleston open because it is just so very far to a big city from there and locals have basically no options. It's a very long drive to Charlotte, Richmond, or Columbus from Charleston. But, the towers in question serve important military and emergency preparedness functions, and are the locations for military units of significant importance. Closing any of those towers is just plain stupid.
Any? The towers wont be closed anyway. The ones that can run without a human presence might run that way. Technology plods ahead. We will revisit this in a few months and nothing will have changed with Charleston.
03-02-2013, 05:59 PM
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n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by CTMountaineer
The Charleston airport is a very small airport too. We have no major air centers here, although a case could be made that it is especially important to keep the one in Charleston open because it is just so very far to a big city from there and locals have basically no options. It's a very long drive to Charlotte, Richmond, or Columbus from Charleston.
Charleston is very small, yes, but it's the closest thing WV has to a real airport.
Quote:
But, the towers in question serve important military and emergency preparedness functions, and are the locations for military units of significant importance. Closing any of those towers is just plain stupid.
Nonsense. Even if they did serve important military and emergency preparedness functions (which they don't), it would still be "just plain stupid" to keep ATC towers staffed and running. There isn't enough traffic to justify keeping them open. The military can handle training at other locations or continue using those airports. In the event of an emergency, there's no reason those airports couldn't be used, even temporarily having ATC if the need arises.
People complain and complain about wasteful spending, but vigorously defend waste in their own backyards.
During his news conference to announce that he and congressional leaders failed to avert the sequester cuts going into effect tonight, President Obama gave several examples of people who will be directly affected by the cuts. It turns out, however, that one of those examples was in error.
"[A]ll the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol -- now that Congress has left, somebody is going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage -- they're going to have less pay," Mr. Obama said. "The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they've got to figure out how to manage that. That's real."
The president's mention prompted Carlos Elias, the superintendent of the U.S. Capitol building and the Capitol Visitors Center, to email his employees within hours of Mr. Obama's comment.
"The pay and benefits of EACH of our employees WILL NOT be impacted," Elias wrote.
Administration Fibbed About WV Teacher “Sequester” Layoffs
The descriptions of the post-sequester landscape that have been coming out of the Obama Administration have been alarming, specific--and, in at least some cases, hyped.
“There are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
When he was pressed in a White House briefing Wednesday to come up with an example, Duncan named a single county in West Virginia and acknowledged, “whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know.”
The Senate hasn't created and brought up a Budget Resolution up in 6 years. If it's up to Congress to set the budget, why aren't they?
While I'm not going to put up much of an argument here, I will note that none of them have anything to do with the fact that we haven't had a budget resolution in the Senate in 6 years.
The Senate has pushed a budget but ever since these die hard anti-tax teabaggers got shuffled into the mix they work about as well with the Senate as Honey Boo Boo at a finishing school. We need to go back to the system prior to the 70s where the president had more say in the budget. Once the congress gets ahold of it and sends it back and forth and bickers over it with no compromising... WE ALL LOSE!
If we could get some moderate thinking Republicans in office in addition to moderately thinking Democrats to work together and realize that the best course of action would be a reduction in wasteful spending in addition to tax increases for the wealthy.
My parents just did their taxes and they paid around 20% in taxes. Meanwhile you have that pompous clown Romney making MILLIONS of dollars a year and he paid 13%. WTF is that? Obama made way less than Romney and he paid about 20% too. So apparently the more you make in this country the less you are taxed?
For kicks and giggles go back and check out the tax rates for the wealthiest Americans in the 50's. When we had massive funding for education, built up our military, started mammoth infrastructure projects namely the Interstate Highway System, etc. The wealthy still lived wealthy and lavishly but it was a more realistic tax rate, a fair share.
It is automatic across the board spending in all areas of the government for the same % without taking into account how beneficial or needed a program is.
There is no cost-benefit analysis. No, "do we need or will we need this program, or likewise, is this program wasteful?" So imagine if you wanted to cut on personal spending and you did it equally to all areas of your life based on how much you spend: transportation, entertainment, health, food, maintenance, etc. You do it without taking account you almost never watch HBO and could cancel it completely, but you dont because the cuts are equal. Meanwhile do to a health problem you cut spending on healthcare when you need to spend more.
There is no rhyme or reason to this. It was made to be bad enough that the dems and repubs would force them to make smarter and bigger cuts. Yes bigger cuts, but based on analysis and not blindly cutting everything.
This is also designed to make people really angry at the government. Whatever party can get people to blame the other one, probably going to be a democratic victory here, will benefit from this.
... probably going to be a Democratic victory here ...
Yeah, sure. Well it's late at night here in ChiTown, and the temp is 11 deg F (no lie, where has our mild winter gone?), so I may as well add my 2¢.
The sequester won't affect me too much; I am retired, living on Social Security and stock dividends. I don't (can't) live high-off-the-hog. But the sequester will affect those folks less well-off than I, who depend upon government support to live a decent life in this, the wealthiest country in the world.
I did not vote for our current Bozo-in-Chief in 2012. I did vote for him in 2008, when I believed his campaign promises about public option health insurance and end of Bush tax-cuts for the wealthy. Lie to me once, you can't lie to me again. I voted for Jill Stein in 2012. (That name will leave West Virginians, as well as most of the rest of country, puzzled.)
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Edit: What the heck. I'm going to paste a comment here from a reader in today's (03/03/13) New York Times. It is a response I come across a lot, and one that I heartily agree with:
Quote:
Karen GarciaNew Paltz, NY
Verified
I got an email from OFA's Jim Messina last week which stated the following:
"President Obama has put forth a balanced deficit reduction plan with smart spending cuts that protect the critical investments needed to strengthen middle-class families and our economy.
We need to send a strong signal about where Americans stand on this issue."
Since President Obama's "balanced plan" includes Wall Street's wish of implementing chained CPI in order to reduce monthly checks for people who have contributed to earned benefit insurance programs all their working lives, this come-on was a blatant lie of omission. Before you know it, they'll be asking us to carry signs proclaiming "I Want to Share the Sacrifice with Goldman Sachs and General Electric."
Furthermore, any economist worth his salt (including but not limited to Paul Krugman, Bill Black, Dean Baker and Joseph Stiglitz) will tell you we don't have a deficit crisis. We have a jobs crisis. Jobs, not Cuts! should be the mantra of any grassroots movement worth its salt.
So, thanks but no thanks to this cringe-worthy astroturf come-on. I'll continue sending my strong signals at a very safe distance from the OFA veal pen and from any other "social welfare" organization that tacitly agrees that corporations are people, my friend, and that unlimited cash donations can buy a self-interested plutocrat four private chitchat sessions with the president a year.
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What pisses me off is the Bozo's (Obama, if you do not know by now) suggested "reform" of Social Security. He wants to reduce the yearly cost-of-living increases. So instead of getting an increase of $30 per month in 2014, I may get a $12 increase. "Shared sacrifice", as the Bozo explains it.
Compare that with the Bozo's no increase in income taxes for couples making $450,000 per year. That is approximately $9,000 per week or $2,000 per day. No shared sacrifice for them, but it is OK for the Bozo to stiff me for $18 per month.
I wonder why I voted Democratic these last few elections. I won't vote Republican in 2014, but I can't see dragging myself to the polls in 2014. We need a third party in this country.
The Senate has pushed a budget but ever since these die hard anti-tax teabaggers got shuffled into the mix they work about as well with the Senate as Honey Boo Boo at a finishing school. We need to go back to the system prior to the 70s where the president had more say in the budget. Once the congress gets ahold of it and sends it back and forth and bickers over it with no compromising... WE ALL LOSE!
A requirement of the Senate is to present a budget resolution. One has not been in 6 years. Nothing works until we start right there. You can not blame anyone except the one responsible for that.
It is automatic across the board spending in all areas of the government for the same % without taking into account how beneficial or needed a program is.
They had 18 months to present a budget with targeted cuts. Would that have been better? We will never know because it was never done.
Quote:
There is no cost-benefit analysis. No, "do we need or will we need this program, or likewise, is this program wasteful?" So imagine if you wanted to cut on personal spending and you did it equally to all areas of your life based on how much you spend: transportation, entertainment, health, food, maintenance, etc. You do it without taking account you almost never watch HBO and could cancel it completely, but you dont because the cuts are equal. Meanwhile do to a health problem you cut spending on healthcare when you need to spend more.
There is no rhyme or reason to this. It was made to be bad enough that the dems and repubs would force them to make smarter and bigger cuts. Yes bigger cuts, but based on analysis and not blindly cutting everything.
This is also designed to make people really angry at the government. Whatever party can get people to blame the other one, probably going to be a democratic victory here, will benefit from this.
Angry? I'm pleased. I will agree that claiming people are going to get fired and have their pay cut when they are not is designed to do nothing but make people angry though.
They had 18 months to present a budget with targeted cuts. Would that have been better? We will never know because it was never done.
Angry? I'm pleased. I will agree that claiming people are going to get fired and have their pay cut when they are not is designed to do nothing but make people angry though.
It would have been better. The atmosphere is just too toxic.
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