Posted on 08/08/2012 6:54:59 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
If America falls off the so-called "fiscal cliff" on Jan. 2, one of the first victims could be St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport.
The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, speculated in a recent report that the airport could be one of six in Florida and 106 around the country that would have to shut down because the Federal Aviation Administration wouldn't be able to pay air traffic controllers.
If St. Petersburg-Clearwater International were to close, officials there said the bay area would take a big economic hit. According to a 2010 state report, the airport generated $924 million in economic activity and 8,200 jobs while serving more than 360,000 passengers.
"That is a catastrophic impact on so many different levels, it's just hard to believe that it will actually take place," said airport director Noah Lagos.
That's because the think tank's report is pure speculation at this point. But the analyst who came up with the list, Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the think tank, said he was trying to show the potential future impact of the looming "fiscal cliff" facing the federal budget.
Under the budget law passed by Congress last year and signed by President Barack Obama, the nation faces automatic tax increases and deep spending cuts — barring another budget deal.
So Lilly applied the required 9 percent budget cut to an important agency: the FAA.
The law as written requires the FAA and other agencies to apply the cut across all divisions and departments, including personnel. It can't gouge one department inside the agency and leave the rest as they are.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
Nancy Pelosi is calling Republicans “the E-Coli crowd” — that safe food and water for children is threatened.
Targeted Obama cuts, designed to draw the most votes will be the Democrat Party reelection campaign strategy -— helped along by the MSM biased reporting.
August 7, 2012 AP 7PM, NPR: “....the sequester could mean 100,000 children lose their place in Head Start while food safety and workplace safety inspections are reduced. The National Institutes of Health would have to curtail research,”.... Source
PIE is an airport stuck in another era.
TPA International is the big airport, and all of the majors are there. Sarasota serves the South Bay area. PIE is left as being the third choice, currently served only by Allegiant, (and a couple of once-a-week Canadian Charters) without air service to the top 10 destinations.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s small, quick and convenient if you are going to the beaches, but that’s it.
yeah, what Amagi said.
Move the controller’s jobs from the FAA to the cities then.
closing this airport would save the rest of the world from Scientology
“If St. Petersburg-Clearwater International were to close, officials there said the bay area would take a big economic hit. According to a 2010 state report, the airport generated $924 million in economic activity and 8,200 jobs while serving more than 360,000 passengers. “
And all of those jobs and all of that economic activity would simply be lost. None of it would move the seven or eight miles right down interstate 275 to the Tampa airport.
“OK Basic math.”
Yeah, and you can do the same thing to the USPS. One guy here on FR who is former USPS says they have 28,000 buildings that should be closed if I remember what he related correctly!. As for the FAA, in just what eon are they going to start a real program to put in place a GPS based ATC system. But wait, that would mean that all those guys in ATC centers across the country would be out of work, so that won’t do!
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