Priorities

So last year, after a contentious debate about raising the debt limit, President Obama and Congressional Republicans reached a grand bargain.  Republicans would agree to raise the debt limit, and Democrats and Republicans would work together to find a way to shave several trillion dollars off the national debt.  In order to ensure that a deal would be reached, the politicians agreed on a plan to punish themselves for failure: If the two sides couldn't agree on a deficit-reduction plan by a certain date, then automatic spending cuts would strike programs near and dear to both parties: Republicans would see cuts to the military while Democrats would see cuts to social programs.  (Only a churl would point out that the Democrats SHOULD have held out for automatic tax increases, and I am not a churl, so you didn't hear that from me.)  This automatic, across-the-board cutting is known as "sequestration."

Surprisingly to no one, Republicans and Democrats could not reach agreement on budget cuts, and the sequester went into effect several weeks ago.  And then a funny thing happened: Nobody cared.  Oh, sure, some poor people might have had a bit more trouble buying food, and perhaps some federally supported childcare programs might have had to shutter themselves.  But nobody who counts was suffering.  Until this week, that is.

This week, at airports across the country, passengers suffered extensive delays as a result of slowdowns caused by furloughed workers.  The workers were furloughed, of course, due to the sequester.  Not to worry, though, Congress was on the case!  This same institution that dithered for four months before not passing minimal gun regulation after a massacre of toddlers sprang into action after some folks had to sit on a runway for thirty extra minutes.

Priorities, people!

A Wing and a Pwayer

Did you hear about this? In an incident that may set take-your-child-to-work days back a ways, an air-traffic controller at JFK let his young child (we're not sure if it was a boy or girl) "direct" traffic a handful of times. The Federal Aviation Administration and the air traffic controllers' union are predictably not amused. But they seem to be the only ones. If the reactions of the pilots involved are any indication, most of the main players were downright tickled by the whole thing, with one of the pilots even remarking that the kid did an "awesome job."


Look, we're all for airplane safety, and, yeah, what this ATC guy did was, shall we say, ill-advised. But anyone who's getting into high dudgeon--or even low dudgeon--needs to relax. It's not as if the father handed his five-year-old a headset, plopped him into a much-too-big chair, and told him to keep an eye on things while he, the father, went out for a cigarette. The dad--and the dad's supervisor, we should note--were standing right there. And when you hear an obviously extremely young child say something like, "AMX 403, contact departure. Adios amigos," you can safely assume that the father has been listening to the conversation and telling the kid exactly what to say--either that or the kid is some kind of air-traffic savant--either way, the planes were in capable hands.


Now, if we can only interest some kindergartners in teaching composition. . . .