Posted on 03/22/2013 5:21:33 PM PDT by Nachum
(Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday it will close 149 air traffic control towers at small airports across the country beginning on April 7 as it copes with automatic federal spending cuts.
The White House and transportation leaders have warned for weeks that the $85 billion in federal cuts known as "sequestration" would force smaller airports across the country to curtail operations.
The across-the-board cuts started kicking in on March 1 because Congress was not able to reach an alternative budget deal to replace them. The FAA must absorb $637 million in cuts by September 30.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said on Friday his department had tried to soften the blow.
The FAA said another 40 towers previously slated for closure will remain open, either because them shutting them would not be in the national interest or because money was found in a federal cost-sharing program to keep them open.
"We heard from communities across the country about the importance of their towers and these were very tough decisions," LaHood said in a statement. "Unfortunately we are faced with a series of difficult choices that we have to make to reach the required cuts under sequestration," LaHood said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
make it hurt
Still no word on closing down the EPA due to “budget cuts”, huh?
bambi just offered King Abdullah 200M$ for Syrian refugees. But we have to die in small planes for the brothers.
as far as I'm concerned, let them close the whole govt down....
But wouldn't it be a mixed message if they close the control towers in Los Angeles and everybody referred to the place as Ex-LAX??? "We have no control"
Free apartments up to $1800 a month or more, free everything, Escalades next maybe. A nation gone mad.
I really don’t care anymore. As long as the TSA is stop around to grope and humiliate me, I’m not flying anywhere.
You just beat me to it. Mark Levin was raging about the $200M.
Not one person off of welfare. Not one middle manager cut. No one off of unemployment. Perfect.
I hear that Air Traffic Controllers at ATC centers will cut controllers 60% in time and wages. Clinton cut 10% across the board to all agencies and never had that impact.
I am a pilot and I can tell you right now there are 100’s of airports that currently have control towers that will operate just fine without them.
why can’t we cut:
The $100m to Egypt
The $$$$$$$$$$ to Pakistan
The $$$$ to Africa
Obama and the gov would love to have a plane crash and then blame it on the sequester fake crisis
Ridiculous.
The whole sequester amounts to a 2% reduction in the federal government’s spending INCREASE.
They’re still getting 98% of the scheduled spending INCREASE.
I’m sure airports can be totally privatized . I haven’t thought about this but I know private hospitals, private schools will actually work unlike their government counterparts. and I also think private roads would work better ( less traffic). there is nothing the gov does better than the free market. only need gov for military and border control , that’s it.
Gee, you mean they’re lying? I’m shocked.
One of them is in my town and we are pissed.
They can be. Our there are private companies that contract. But it’s pricey.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.