Senators scrambled to find common ground with the House of Representatives on a bill to temporarily fund the Federal Aviation Administration but neither side would budge before adjourning until September.
Acrimonious disagreement over proposed cuts to rural air service and underlying discord over a labor issue was reminiscent of the gridlock surrounding a just-completed 11th-hour deal to raise the U.S. government's debt ceiling.
"I am deeply disappointed that bipartisanship has failed us here," said New Hampshire Senator Jean Shaheen, adding a runway project in her state will likely be delayed until the spring.
While the scale of disruption from an FAA shutdown paled in comparison to the global repercussions of a potential U.S. debt default, the aviation fallout was not trivial and may carry political consequences if not resolved soon.
The FAA has issued stop work orders for 241 airport construction projects worth nearly $11 billion, officials said.
"We have the best aviation system in the world," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a conference call with reporters. "This is no way to run it."
But Republicans don't want government to work. It's absolutely key to their attack strategy. You're supposed to say when your nearby airport project to repair older runways and relieve air traffic stress is delayed for nine months that government can't do its job right anyway, so you agree when Republicans say "we should privatize this!" and hand over airport duties to private companies who exist to make a profit, not to provide the safest air service.
Shutting down infrastructure projects is the key. Kevin Drum argues against that the next possible GOP hostage situation is the federal gas tax because people gain, if you'll excuse the obvious pun, a concrete benefit from paying the federal gas tax for highway improvements.
I know it's dangerous to assume that something won't happen just because it makes no sense, but.....I don't think this fight will happen. This isn't because the anti-tax jihadists will suddenly have an outbreak of common sense, but because a gas tax fight won't fly with the public. It's easy to demagogue "taxes," since lots of people are convinced that "taxes" are merely ladled out to favored interest groups, wasteful boondoggles, foreign aid, and the layabout poor. But gasoline taxes are different: they're used to build highways. And everyone likes highways.
Generally speaking, people don't object to taxes if they see tangible results from them. And highways are about as tangible as you can get. The Republican leadership is smart enough to pick fights that have a certain amount of surface appeal, and this one doesn't, not even to the hardcore tea party crowd. They'll find something else to fight about.
I think K-Drum is dead wrong for that exact reason. The Tea Party Republicans have managed to make teachers, police officers, firefighters, civil servants, public administrators and government employees of all stripes into The Enemy. They've done that by blaming the job itself for the problems inherent in it. Everything wrong with American public school education is the fault of teachers' unions. Everything wrong with the criminal justice system in America is the fault of police unions, and so on.
This in turn calls for greater public oversight by attacking every dime spent on the government function in question. "Why should my tax dollars go to support this?" The solution is to cut the spending and the taxation for the function. The same exact "logic" will be applied to the gas tax battle. Cash-strapped states need to spend less on union workers, will be the cry.
We'll be treated to horror stories of how the guy holding the stop/slow sign on the work site is making more money than Real Americans at Real Non-Government Jobs because of Evil Unions. We'll have Reason Magazine puke out volumes on why we should take the entire Interstate Highway System to toll roads and that they should be operated by for-profit companies who will be incentivized to provide the best roads possible, and that the Hand Of The Free Market will drive you home safely. After all look at how government has "failed" you now? Traffic jams, construction snafus, yadda yadda.
Hey, if we eliminate the gas tax we can force the people who actually drive on the highway pay for it by making everything toll roads. You know, the Judge Doom Theory Of Highway Transportation.
And so yes, the Republicans will absolutely make a huge fight over the federal gas tax for the same reason they have partially shut down the FAA and then left town for a month. They don't want government to work under President Obama. End of story. If they make it not work, they can dismantle it and privatize it and make gobs of money off of it.
I'd love Republicans to prove me wrong. After the debt ceiling fight? Not going to happen.
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