Shouldn’t air travel safety be a no-brainer instead of a political pawn? The funding of the FAA should be automatic; it should be built into the governmental budget every time.
The House of Representatives and the Senate both have passed the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization
bill and President Biden has indicated he will sign it into legislation.
Why?
That’s not a ‘why’ as if to question why
the agency needs to be fully funded.
Of course it does.
Rather, why should it come to a vote?
Politicians can be nasty and they can
be sneaky. They attach what is known as ‘pork’ to some bills and it comes down
to a choice of passing the entire thing, or not passing legislation at all. It
can be a corrupt system.
That’s how things get bogged down in
Washington.
Don’t play games with our safety
The reauthorization bill should be a
given, and not a hope.
As we have seen by the numerous close calls, the FAA is
already understaffed in terms of the amount of air traffic controllers and
short on new technology.
This is a dangerous game that politicians
are playing.
They’re playing Russian Roulette with our
safety. I am incredulous over this. Incensed, even.
Flying in a commercial
airline is the safest mode of transportation there is. But perhaps because of
that very reason, we take the Federal Aviation Administration for granted. Just
look at the leadership of the organization. The FAA changes administrators like
we change underwear.
We spend billions on defense every year;
do you mean to tell me we can’t find a couple of hundred million for the
Federal Aviation Administration?
We have already seen gaps in the system. Safety
has been compromised. Flaws are evident. When you are dealing with people,
human error can crop up. This shouldn’t be an instant of trying to do more with
less. We can’t be satisfied with the bare minimum. So far we have been
extremely lucky, but tragedy awaits around the corner.
I’m not trying to be doom and gloom. I
would just like to be proactive.
And making the FAA reauthorization a
priority and automatic would be a good start.
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