Washington Exempts Itself From Obamacare and Airport "Sequester" Delays

Zero Hedge ^ | 04/25/2013 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

The uncomfortable effects of government actions are being felt everywhere.

Obamacare concerns are, anecdotally, delaying hiring, causing firms to change benefits for the people, and increasing taxes on the great majority.

On the other hand, in the context of the "sequester", which is merely a slowdown in the breakneck rate of government spending, anyone who has traveled by plane in the last month knows the full court press efforts under way to ensure the American public knows just how 'devastating' the sequester cuts are - with delays rising exponentially with every dollar removed from the FAA budget.

But there is a group on 'Americans' who are not feeling the pain of Obamacare or Airport delays. This group of people remains comfortably unaware of the reality that is being passed on the rest of the US citizenry.

As Politico reports, Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of Obamacare; and as the Washington Times reports, the chief of the FAA told Congress today that Washington-area airports will largely escape the effects of the air traffic controller furloughs.

It truly is good to be king, alternatively Americans are equal, except those who are excempt from all the rules and regulations of America - they are just a little more equal.

Via Politico,

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

 

The talks ... are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months

 

...

 

“Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.”

 

...

 

When asked about the high-level bipartisan talks, Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said: “The speaker’s objective is to spare the entire country from the ravages of the president’s health care law. He is approached daily by American citizens, including members of Congress and staff, who want to be freed from its mandates. If the speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from Obamacare, he will.”

Via The Washington Times,

The chief of the FAA told Congress today that Washington-area airports will largely escape the effects of the air traffic controller furloughs — a blessing for lawmakers who fly out of the nation’s capitol.

 

Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, told a congressional panel that the Washington region’s airports are spaced out enough and have enough spare capacity that furloughs to air traffic controllers won’t hurt as much here.

[George from New England]

“a blessing for lawmakers who fly out of the nation’s capitol.”

Wrong. Punitive action against the rest of the taxpayers of this country. TYRANNY.

[SeekAndFind]

From the Wall Street Journal:

The White House claims the sequester applies to the budget category known as “projects, programs and activities” and thus it lacks flexibility. Not so: This is a political pose to make the sequester more disruptive. Legally speaking, the sequester applies at a more general level known as “accounts.” The air traffic account includes 15,000 controllers out of 31,000 employees. The White House could keep the controllers on duty simply by allocating more furlough days to these other non-essential workers.

Instead, the FAA is even imposing the controller furlough on every airport equally, not prioritizing among the largest and busiest airports. San Francisco’s Napa Valley airport with no commercial service will absorb the same proportion of the cuts as the central New York radar terminal, which covers La Guardia, JFK and Newark International, as well as MacArthur, Teterboro, New Haven, Republic and other regional fields.

Anyone who has flown in or out of those terminals knows that they are hardly models of efficiency, and one reason is the pre-modern U.S. traffic control system. The FAA still uses ground radar and voice-based communications that were the best technology the 1950s had to offer. Many planes are now equipped with advanced avionics that enable more direct and precise flight paths, but they aren’t allowed to fly these faster, safer routes because the FAA can’t track their navigation methods.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323735604578440981119902460.html

[faithhopecharity]

the servants have taken over the farmhouse

(all animals are created equal, but some more equal than others”)

time to vote all the pigs out

[kabar]

It is no coincidence that seven of the ten richest counties in America are located in the Washington Metro area.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: time to vote all the pigs out

We had our chance in November 2012... the pigs are still there.

[faithhopecharity]

the servants have taken over the farmhouse

(all animals are created equal, but some more equal than others”)

time to vote all the pigs out!

[mardi59]

Good for thee but not for me.

The tyrants are lining up at the public trough. We carry the water while the pigs drink it.

[xrmusn]

that seven of the ten richest counties in America are located in the Washington Metro area.
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
Also, read the obits of the ‘long time’ pols etc and you will find they do NOT have the gonads to go home and live amongst the peasants they ‘personally’ lied to throughout their career.
They don’t (well didn’t) allow Officers to retire, start drawing a Govt Pension, then go to work as a Civ the following Monday in a job ‘they’ had speced and written for themselves. Put a stop to that in mid 60’s or so.
Likewise, career pols should be forced to ‘wait’ a few years before going to ‘work’ for a Lobbyist or such upon quitting or getting voted out of office.. strictly INFLUENCE PEDDLING and should be disallowed.
You get high enough in a Private Industry job and have to sign all sorts of noncompetition and ‘stealing clients’ forms, why shouldn’t our legislators be held to the same standards?....OTHER than the fact the majority of them HAVE no standards or scruples.

[TurboZamboni]

America's New Nomenklatura

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2482637/posts

For those who remember the old Soviet Union, it was a grim place — at least for average citizens. But not so for those in government. Contrary to the official ideals of equality and a classless society that the ruling communist regime espoused, the USSR created a privileged class of party members inside government — the nomenklatura.

This semipermanent bureaucracy earned higher incomes, got better health care, ate better food and had greater job security than average Russians, the much-despised proletarians. Today, our bloated federal government seems, in significant ways, to be creating this same dynamic.

[mardi59]

They are exempting themselves from the very laws they created. I have a feeling the next thing to go is our right to vote. They will hand it to the electoral college and tell us to take a hike.

The constitution is slowly dying.

[wiggen]

“if the speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from Obamacare, he will.””

He best understand it’s save everyone or nobody. He desperately needs to understand that. His job is not a lifetime appointment.

[FatherFig1o155]

When I think they cannot possibly get any less honorable or more self-serving, they pull another bonehead move like this. It is truly astounding.

Do they think we’re not watching?

They are becoming the catalysts for a sea change. It’s only a matter of time.