President Obama phoned Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) Wednesday to urge him to pass a bill extending funding for the Federal Aviation Administration and hopes House Republicans and Democrats can resolve their differences and get tens of thousands of FAA and construction workers back on the job by the end of the week.
White House spokesman Jay Carney confirmed Obama’s call to Boehner and said the President wants a resolution to the impasse by the end of the week even though the two sides have yet to make any progress resolving their differences.
“Obama called Boehner yesterday, and said this is one thing we can do for job creation pretty instantly,” Carney told reporters Thursday. “It’s not resolved, and it needs to be resolved, and we’re hopeful that it will by the end of the week.”
A resolution by the weekend is an ambitious goal unless the two sides are making progress in behind-the-scenes negotiations. Publicly, House Republicans and Democrats appear more entrenched then ever.
Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FAA, circulated lengthy talking points to all GOP chiefs of staff, legislative directors, communicators, and district directors.
The two-page list of facts, points and counterpoints, obtained by TPM, repeat the same arguments Republicans have expressed since passing their version of the FAA extension in late July.
“There is a simple way forward, but instead of passing the bipartisan, House-passed FAA extension and sending it to the President for his signature, the Senate chose to do nothing but point fingers and protect pork,” the GOP memo states.
Fresh from a disappointing result in the debt talks, Democrats are refusing to cave to Republican demands and allow anti-union language in the extension. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Wednesday afternoon fired off a letter to Boehner urging him to compromise. That move came just hours after President Barack Obama slammed the imbroglio for creating a “lose-lose-lose situation” and called on Congress to resolve the matter before the end of the week.
Earlier Wednesday, Democrats decried what they saw as Republican “hostage-taking” — since the situation had forced 4,000 agency employees out of work and airport safety inspectors to continue working without pay — and even pay for their work-related travel costs out of pocket.
Democrats blame Republicans for the partial FAA shutdown, accusing them of reneging on their promise to put Americans back to work because the stand-off has prevented tens of thousands of construction workers to continue building airport projects.
If the FAA impasse continues through Labor Day, the IRS stands to lose an estimated $1 billion in tax revenues on airline ticket sales because when the FAA financing expired last month the agency lost its ability to collect the taxes.
Republicans say Democrats are responsible for the furloughs and lost revenue because they’re insisting on a clean bill without compromise. Republicans are focusing their public cost-cutting missives on a program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports, but the much more ideological battle is over federal rules on union activity in the airline industry.
Last month, the House passed a bill that would have extended FAA financing through September 16. This would have been the 21st such temporary funding measure for the agency in the last four years. Larger longtime disagreements over overhauling the air traffic control program and other budget issues have been the major disputes in the past.
But with the new GOP in control in the House, they decided to include a provision cutting $14 million in subsidies to commercial airlines service to 16 rural airports, shuttering airports in the states of leading Democrats including Reid’s Nevada. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who chairs the committee with jurisdiction over the FAA, has repeatedly objected to the language ending the subsidy, arguing they have no place in what should be a “clean” temporary spending measure.
The real sticking point for Democrats, however, is a GOP demand to change recently instituted federal labor regulation that made it easier for unions to organize at airline companies.The change, which the National Mediation Board put into place, requires an employee vote on labor representation to be approved by a majority of those voting when previously, the rule required a majority of all affected employees, meaning that employees who failed to vote were counted as “no” votes.
By blaming him for trying to protect a rural airport in Nevada, Reid said Republicans were trying to obfuscate the real issue — their attempt to reverse the board’s rule change — to benefit Delta Airlines, the only major airline that has yet to be unionized.
Reid said he was willing to close the airport in Nevada to take that issue off the table, but Republicans refused to agree because they wanted to force the Senate to include the anti-union language.
Schumer also didn’t hesitate to use even more violent language to describe the Republicans’ tactics despite criticism over the past days of Democrats who accused the GOP of acting like “terrorists” during the debt crisis.
“It’s as if someone is holding a gun to your head and saying give me your money….,” he said. “You can hurt innocent people by not getting your own way.”
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