WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, in response to the Obama administration’s warnings of massive disruptions for travelers due to flight delays caused by furloughs of air traffic controllers, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) criticized the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its parent agency, the Department of Transportation (DOT), for deliberately furloughing essential employees to comply with sequestration instead of reducing less important expenditures.
In an apparent effort to inflict the most possible pain on travelers while scoring political points against budget cuts, the FAA has chosen to issue furloughs equally across all employees and all airports, including 15,000 air traffic controllers. According to the FAA, those furloughs caused delays for more than 1,200 flights on Monday, the first weekday for which air traffic controllers were on leave, and will cause thousands more delays in the coming weeks. The FAA’s actions are a classic example of the “firemen first” principle, in which the most important government workers are dangled before taxpayers in response to even modest belt-tightening.
As Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) pointed out today in a letter to DOT Secretary Ray LaHood, the FAA has a wide array of employees that “aren’t immediately critical to FAA’s mission,” such as public affairs specialists, speechwriters, congressional affairs staff, community planners, and lawyers. With better prioritization, those employees could “shoulder more of the burden of sequestration, with less of a burden on the time and safety of the American people.” In an earlier letter to Secretary LaHood on March 6, 2013, Sen. Coburn outlined $1.2 billion in “Suggestions for Savings,” or twice the amount that must be cut under sequestration, which the FAA could implement in lieu of air traffic controller furloughs.
In addition, CAGW’s Prime Cuts 2013 identified 22 potential spending cuts at the DOT that could save taxpayers $24.1 billion in one year and $121.4 billion over five years. For example, DOT could save a total of $617 million in one year by eliminating $293 million for “Surface Transportation Priorities,” which President Obama recommended cutting in his fiscal year 2014 budget; $174 million for the Maritime Security Program, and $150 million for the much-maligned Essential Air Service. Sequestration requires the FAA to cut $637 million, or 4 percent, from its $15.9 billion annual budget.
“The Obama administration is playing politics with planes,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz. “Air traffic controllers represent ‘essential’ government personnel, who provide services that, along with FBI investigations, border patrols, and Social Security payments, have previously gone uninterrupted even in a government shutdown. In a bloated federal government, the notion that air traffic controllers should be at home watching TV while travelers deal with delays is pathetic, and Secretary LaHood should be embarrassed that he has failed to produce an alternative.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. To learn more, visit www.cagw.org.
