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Congress Approves Bill To End Airport Delays

Cutting spending: great in theory,
not so much in practice.

Congress must be listening to its constituents, the kind that has lots of money and whines a lot if it suffers any hardship.

Ok, whats the reality of not cutting spending ? When you have a President who's completely ignoring the underlying issues of why the wheels are comming off this economy ?

This was in reality, just another failed attempt by Obama to demonize the GOP and turn his failure into a wedge issue for 2014.
 
I hope you aren't referring to The Prof. I enjoy most of his posts -- this one included.

A little hard to read, I'll admit, but I'm willing to pay that small price. ;)

They don't like it because The Prof actually supplies links with his posts to support his claims. They can only jeer like monkeys from the sidelines, with no support at all.
 
Air Traffic Control was absolutely, positively, not running 22% over capacity.

Really.....got any type of Link that shows otherwise. As already the Washington Post validated that what Obama's Budget for funding was lower than what their Budget is for the Sequester cuts.
 
Really.....got any type of Link that shows otherwise. As already the Washington Post validated that what Obama's Budget for funding was lower than what their Budget is for the Sequester cuts.

I did my thesis on air traffic control staffing. The FAA has been behind the curve for years, but manage to paint a rosy picture to Congress anyway. The trick: just change the target number, look, everything's fine! Another clever trick: count trainees. People who aren't even working air traffic. And then my personal favorite: when loss of separation incidents rise by 10%, just change the definition of "loss of separation" to involve a 10% smaller area. What's that? Too flooded with trainees to effectively train any of them? Just bump up your "training target" to 3 years where it used to be 2! Hopefully nobody notices that's a 50% decrease in training efficiency.
 
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I did my thesis on air traffic control staffing. The FAA has been behind the curve for years, but manage to paint a rosy picture to Congress anyway. The trick: just change the target number, look, everything's fine! Another clever trick: count trainees. People who aren't even working air traffic. And then my personal favorite: when loss of separation incidents rise by 10%, just change the definition of "loss of separation" to involve a 10% smaller area. What's that? Too flooded with trainees to effectively train any of them? Just bump up your "training target" to 3 years where it used to be 2! Hopefully nobody notices that's a 50% decrease in training efficiency.

Typical government operation. Why are air traffic controllers federal employees again? Couldn't they be hired by the airports?
 
Typical government operation. Why are air traffic controllers federal employees again? Couldn't they be hired by the airports?

No real reason to expect that would be better.
 
No real reason to expect that would be better.

It wouldn't take an act of Congress to increase or decrease their numbers, nor would the government have to play the sorts of games described above.
 
It wouldn't take an act of Congress to increase or decrease their numbers, nor would the government have to play the sorts of games described above.

They'd just play the game for stockholders instead of Congress. Stockholders who value profits over safety.
 
Many are owned by their respective cities. I assumed you wanted to change that as well.

No, not necessarily.

It's possible that a city can run an airport profitably, or at least breaking even. The federal government is too inefficient.
 
Typical government operation. Why are air traffic controllers federal employees again? Couldn't they be hired by the airports?

ATC provides more than local tower related services. There's an entire enroute structure (think highways between cities) that requires air traffic services. As well there needs to be a fairly high level of standardization and coordinated administration. You may be able to privatize ATC but it probably has to remain centralized.
 
there's no topic left he can safely discuss

dana milbank:

It’s never a good sign for a president when he feels compelled to assure the public he still has a pulse.

This is the unenviable position President Obama was in Tuesday morning when he held a news conference in the White House briefing room and faced a profusion of questions about the stalled pieces of his legislative program. Asked by ABC News’s Jonathan Karl whether he still had “the juice to get the rest of your agenda through,” Obama paraphrased Mark Twain’s response to a newspaper’s report that he was near death.

“You know, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated,” Obama said.

One hundred days into his second term, Obama has already lost control of the agenda, if he ever had control in the first place. He ricocheted through his news conference, as he has through his presidency recently, between issues and crises not of his choice.

He was asked about unrest in Syria, the September attack on American officials in Libya, the bombing in Boston, troubles implementing his health-care law and difficulty closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Karl pointed out that Obama’s gun-control legislation collapsed, that his attempts to undo the “sequester” cuts have been ignored and that 92 House Democrats defied his veto threat on a cybersecurity bill.

“Well, if you put it that way, Jonathan, maybe I should just pack up and go home,” Obama replied. “Golly.”

Dana Milbank: At Obama's press conference, a presidential bystander - The Washington Post

he was "out of sorts from the start," 30:00 late, and made the bold if unwise decision to disdain an opening statement, leaving the entire agenda up to the corps

he kept trying to offer as explanation for inaction how hard everything is, how difficult

intel sharing between fbi and dhs---"this is hard stuff"

closing gitmo---"hard case to make," but he's gonna close it, he pledged this morning, and you surely believe him

obamacare implementation, baucus' famous train wreck, a question from nbc's chuck todd---republican obstruction "makes it harder," which is ironic cuz they usually support action at the state level (he sounds like you, he's regressing, he argues like a dp'er)

syria---"difficult problem"

aren't you reassured?

the faa bill which kept the airplanes moving he BLAMES on congressional "dysfunction"

until abc's jonathan karl rudely interrupts, "why'd you go along with it?"

to which, today's top takeaway:

Some in the room chuckled [at Karl]. Obama didn’t. “You seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there have no responsibilities, and that my job is to somehow get them to behave,” he said. “That’s their job. . . . I cannot force Republicans to embrace those common-sense solutions.” He instead spoke of creating “a permission structure” for Republicans to do what he wants.

that's the ticket---we need a permission structure to get the opposition to behave

milbank's conclusion:

Obama is correct about the dysfunction, and the difficulty of passing even uncontroversial bills. But his stance was frustratingly passive, as if what happens in Congress is out of his hands. It’s the president’s job to lead, and to bang heads if necessary, regardless of any “permission structure.” Obama seemed oddly like a spectator, as if he had resigned himself to a reactive presidency.

from now on when he says "revenue," more and more americans are gonna hear "middle class"

and how's he gonna go 3 and a half years without saying "islamic terrorism"

he's been so dogmatic and really so extreme, he's marginalized himself like none before

sorry

you really need to RUN AWAY!
 
more from the elite left, ron fournier:

A president is in trouble when he’s forced to defend his relevancy, as Bill Clinton did 18 years ago, or to quote Mark Twain, as Barack Obama did Tuesday. “Rumors of my demise,” he said at a news conference, “may be a little exaggerated at this point.”

Not wrong--just “exaggerated.” Not forever--just “at this point.”

Parsing aside, Obama channeled Clinton’s April 18, 1995, news conference by projecting a sense of helplessness--or even haplessness--against forces seemingly out of a president’s control.

For Obama, his nemesis is a far-less charismatic and influential House Speaker John Boehner, as well as the intense weight of structural problems that favor Washington gridlock. These include the Senate filibuster, hyper-partisan House districts, polarized media outlets, and a fast-changing electorate that is sorting itself in political tribes.

“So my question to you,” ABC reporter Jonathan Karl asked Obama, “is do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through Congress?”

Ouch. “Well, if you put it that way, Jonathan,” Obama quipped, “maybe I should just pack up and go home. Golly.” Then he quoted the humorist Twain, who famously denied his death.

As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, a president’s powers to fix problems are limited. That is certainly the case on an issue such as Syria, where Obama has no good options, and doing nothing in response to evidence of genocide is probably his worst alternative.

He can’t turn back time to stop the Boston Marathon bombings, or even to be sure that federal investigators did all they could to prevent the attack. “This is hard stuff,” Obama said. And he’s right. But the president risks losing the public’s faith when he waves the white flag too often, especially on problems that can be fixed. Blaming the GOP and larger structural problems don’t help the country, much less his legacy.

Later, the president noted that many Republicans can’t make a deal with him because “compromise with me is somehow a betrayal” to conservative voters. On the "sequestration” spending cuts, passed by the GOP-controlled House and signed into law by Obama himself, the president incorrectly accused Karl of suggesting that Republicans have no responsibility “and that my job is to somehow get them to behave. That’s their job.”

On "Obamacare," the president complained that putting his signature achievement into place is hard because “you’ve got half of Congress who is determined to try to block implementation,” as well as GOP governors who are also opposed. He seemed more sanguine on immigration reform but still equivocated. “We’ll have to wait and see” whether Congress will follow his lead, Obama said.

Here is the problem: Even if you concede to Obama every point of his Tuesday news conference, a president looks weak and defeated when he shifts accountability to forces out of his control.

This is where perceptions of Obama and Clinton differ. After the Boston bombings and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings (not to mention the assassination of Osama bin Laden), few voters would doubt Obama’s ability to respond to crises. But with so much of his agenda stalled 100 days into his second term, Americans might wonder about his ability to simply govern. Judging from Tuesday's news conference, Obama has his doubts, too.

Obama Channels Clinton's Worst Day in Office, Raises Doubts About Relevancy - NationalJournal.com

and his only real positive is immigration reform

precisely because he's staying away and letting the gang of 8 do it
 
No, not necessarily.

It's possible that a city can run an airport profitably, or at least breaking even. The federal government is too inefficient.

ARTCCs cover hundreds, even thousands of miles of airspace. Which city gets to take on that expense?

And why is profit a concern? Highways don't turn a profit.
 
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coffee joe and old al hunt:

SCARBOROUGH: So, we are at a strange point, where the president is not even six months into his second term, and he already looks like a lame duck to many people who are top analysts.

HUNT: Yeah, this is a familiar pattern sometimes in second terms. But if you look back at six months ago, and where Obama thought he might be today, I hate to use this analogy, it’s painful, but he is like my Washington Nationals. Expectations are pretty high, and he’s just barely keeping his head above water. He won a pretty impressive reelection. He thought republicans would be less resistant. I agree with Sam’s examples, but the sequestration itself—

SCARBOROUGH: Isn’t that fascinating, Al, that, I remember a lot of us talking to the president before, talking to the president’s people. They really believe that the reelection would make Republicans lay down their swords. And bend them into plowshares. And it just didn’t happen.

Bloomberg's Al Hunt: Obama "Barely Keeping His Head Above Water" In Second Term | RealClearPolitics

nyt: obama says obamacare working just fine (just like the private sector)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/health/obama-says-health-care-law-is-working-fine.html

where can he go, what can he say?

time mag:

After the first 100 days of his second term, President Obama just can’t stop talking about the limits of his own power.

At a press conference Tuesday morning, he said he wanted a smooth roll out for ObamaCare, but then added, “even if we do everything perfectly, there’ll still be, you know, glitches and bumps.” He reaffirmed his desire to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, but said “Congress determined that they would not let us close it.” He argued for an end to the sequester, only to add that he doesn’t have enough sway with Congress to make it happen. “You seem to suggest that somehow these folks over there have no responsibilities, and that my job is to somehow get them to behave,” he said to one reporter. “That’s their job!”

In the White House briefing room, the President stayed largely on defense, ticking through the topics offered to him by reporters by explaining all that he could not do. Asked if he still had “the juice” to get the rest of his agenda through Congress, Obama smiled. “Maybe I should just pack up and go home, golly,” he responded from the White House podium before paraphrasing a quote from Mark Twain. “Rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point.”

The first 100 days have not exactly gone according to plan: Gun control measures in which he invested his political capital died weeks ago, immigration reform faces a perilous path in the House of Representatives, budget and deficit reduction talks are mired in slow moving back room negotiations, and the sequester remains in place with a few targeted exceptions. As nearly every legislative priority has stalled, his approval rating has fallen below 50 percent.

President Obama At Press Conference: In Charge, But Not In Control | TIME.com

you're unembarrassable (but adorable)
 
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