The Trump administration plans to cut air traffic at 40 major U.S. airports by 4% immediately, scaling to 10%, during a federal shutdown. Republicans frame it as a safety measure and pressure on Democrats. Democrats want FAA safety data released and protection of healthcare subsidies for 20 million people.
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Trump officials threaten 10% air traffic cut According to the Times, the Trump administration says it will cut 10% of air traffic at 40 major airports if the federal government shutdown continues. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy frames the move as a safety measure to relieve unpaid controllers and warns of mass chaos if nothing changes. FAA Administrator Brian Bedford said officials are not going to wait for a safety problem, outlining a 4% reduction starting this Friday and ramping to 10% next week. Right as peak travel hits. Airlines are scrambling for details and analysts expect cascading cancellations at the nation's busiest hubs. Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz support the move as necessary. Democrats, including Representative Rick Larson, call it unprecedented and demand that the FAA released the safety data behind the decision. Flight attendants warned that cutting flights affects medicine, food and urgent travel, not just vacations. Bottom line, this is a pressure tactic designed to force a deal by putting pain on travelers. Okay, we are, what's the real message here? We are about to see a real slowdown of the airwaves in the United States. It's all well and good to say, oh, the federal government's bloated, let's just shut it down. But when you have to fly to Chicago or LA or New York or Des Moines for an important business deal or to deliver medicine to grandma who might die otherwise, all of a sudden this gets real. It's time to open up the government. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. So again, more background. These, these poor flight controllers, these air traffic controllers, the people who actually put decide whether you live or die because if they just don't show up, fall asleep because they're now working three part time jobs to pay their mortgage. If they fall asleep when two pilots are trying to figure out is the is the Runway free? You and I could die. I have to tell you that this does concern me a great deal. I mean, in the next two months I was planning on flying to North Carolina, home for the holidays, planning on going to New York, probably going to Taiwan, was even thinking of vacation in other Asian countries while over in Taiwan. So got a lot of flight planned. I don't know if any of them are going to happen right now. So again, the facts of the case, the 4% cuts hit Friday, 10% next week at 40 key airports. Now let's step back a minute and look at the message going here. The administration and those aligned with the administration are saying, hey, this is why the Democrats should simply vote, extend the debt ceiling. All this goes away. That is their message and they are framing this as this is a problem being caused by the Democrats. Hang on a minute because I'm going to give you the Democratic side. I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist to really analyze messages in a fair way. So that is the Republican message and I'm going to play it to you straight. What they are claiming is it's the Democrats fault that the government is shut down and we don't have air traffic controllers. And, and it's entirely the Democrats problem that is intellectually dishonest. It's just not true. Now I'm going to give you the other side. The other side is the Democrats are saying we're more than happy to open the government. We have legislation that would in fact open the government. All it takes is the senators to vote for it. What we want is to simply not double the health care cost 20 million Americans. All we want is to continue the current level of funding to help 20 million Americans through Obamacare. And all you have to do is vote for that. And we're not asking for increasing benefits. We're not asking for some new infrastructure bill. We're not asking for some new welfare bill. The Democrats are saying simply maintain the current level of support for 20 million Americans who would otherwise see their health insurance double. And estimates are that 5 million Americans wouldn't be able to pay at all even if they wanted to. So 5 million Americans would all of a sudden have no health care. So their point is very clear. We don't need to cut funding for some of the poorest Americans and throw them on the street without health care just to fund a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. That's their mess. And it is truthful. It is absolutely the truth. Now here's the third option. The third option is the Republicans could simply end the filibuster and open the government fund any debt ceiling they want today. They could do it in five minutes. Again, a little context. We've talked about this before. This is one of these weird things about US Government where the senators, it's not in the Constitution. The senators just decided one day, hey, we might be in the minority one day. Whether you're in the majority today or the minority. And it would be nice to have power clout if you're a member of the minority party. So we're going to change the rules instead of running this organization in a democratic way. We're going to say it's got to be something kind of like that, but will require 60 votes to pass legislation, not a simple majority of 50 or 51 since there's 100 senators. It's just an agreement that they support in the beginning of each Senate term. They could easily like that, just, just call a vote and say, how many of us would like to have a rule where legislation passes with a majority rule? They could do that five minutes and it would only take 51 Republican senators, say yes, and that would be it. Then they could have a vote to extend the debt ceiling. Whatever they want. They could do whatever they want. At that point, the Democrats would have zero power. President Trump, to his credit, has called for them to do that. And the Republicans are like, look, we'll do anything you want, but we're not going there because we're looking forward to the day when you're gone. And we have to plan for the day when the Republicans might be the minority in the Senate, although that doesn't look likely anytime soon, but they're unwilling to give up that power. So those are the messages. There are some convoluted messages. There are some mixed messages. Either party could end this now. What you have to do, certainly if you're a citizen of the United States. But if you are just a concerned citizen of the world and interested this, you do need to know that in fact, either party could ever end it and what the rationale is for the party doing it. At this moment, according to various public opinion polls that are scientifically conducted, about 10% more Americans blame Republicans for the government shutdown than do the Democrats. Now, millions and millions of Americans do blame the Democrats. So this is not 100% clear cut, but at the moment, more American voters blame the Republicans for the shutdown. Those are facts. I'm here to provide you analysis, but I also do provide facts and then you and I can analyze them together. You may come up with different conclusions than I do, but we are going to stick with objective facts as a starting point for this show and for discussion. Let's look at some more facts. Again. The, the head of the government in charge of flight, Sean Duffy, says it's going to be mass chaos if this shutdown persists. The Democrats are saying, give us the data showing this. I mean, I do think it's pretty clear cut that if you just never, ever pay people, at some point they're going to stop showing up for work, number one. Number two, their morale is going to be so low they're going to be angry and upset. I don't know about you. I don't want an angry, upset aircraft controller bitter thinking about, wow, now my credit's destroyed because I couldn't make my car payment because these imbeciles in Washington can't get their action. I don't want that person making a life and death decision for me and my family when we are hurling through space and metal objects thousands of feet above the ground. I don't want a person in that mental state. I want a person who's sort of happy, relaxed and 100% focused. Now, holidays are coming up. There's Thanksgiving, there's Christmas holidays, end of year, New Year's holidays. So this is the time of year when transportation needs skyrocket, especially the day before. Thanksgiving is according to some of the busiest travel day of the year. I was planning on leaving that Tuesday of that week of Thanksgiving for flights. I don't know if I'll be able to. I may have to drive 800 miles. I'm not looking forward to at all. Let me hear from you. How are you going to cope if you are an American and you fly a lot or are planning on flying? Are you feeling comfortable and confident that your flight's going to be safe?
