Federal Budget News - Massachusetts - onPolitix

No sequester furloughs at State Department

2013-05-03T15:07:09Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite budget cuts requiring most federal agencies to furlough workers, the State Department says it will not have to force any of its employees to take unpaid leave.

State's top management official said Friday that the budget sequester cut for the department would be only $400 million, less than half of $850 million that was originally estimated.

Because of that and other cost-saving measures already implemented, Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said department employees both in the United States and abroad would be spared furloughs at least until the end of the current budget year.

The department has cut back on spending by reducing travel and conference expenses, filling only one of every two new job vacancies and adjusting building temperatures, he said.

Gen Y: Why we’re so cynical

2013-05-02T14:11:44Z

(LIN) — It’s the same story generation after generation: The older and wiser look down on the up-and-coming young Americans and hang their head, wondering how in the world the young bucks will carry the future of America.

Today’s millennials are no different. We have been called lazy, haplessly doomed and politically apathetic. But has anyone ever thought to ask why we might feel this way?

Short answer: We just don’t trust our government to take care of us.

According to an April 2013 study by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, Americans ages 18-29 are becoming increasingly more skeptical that the nation’s major branches of government – The White House, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court – will “do the right thing.”

Here are a few highlights from the study surveying Americans ages 18-29:

48 percent do not think their vote will make a difference (up from 29 percent in 2012.) Only 25 percent think the U.S. is headed in the right direction. Nearly half of Americans under 30 think today’s politics cannot meet our country’s future challenges. Although 52 percent approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance, less than half approve of the way he’s handling Iran, health care, gun violence, the economy or the federal deficit.

And these fundamental findings are only strengthening partisanship, it seems.

“Young voters, like older Americans, are becoming more partisan by the day,” said John Della Volpe, polling director of the Institute. “On issues ranging from their views of the president to immigration to gun control to the role government should play in improving our economy, both Democrats and Republicans are hardening their positions, while Independent-minded voters are tuning out.”

This, Della Volpe argues, depresses the collaborative spirit of American ingenuity and creativity.

This national partisanship can be seen in three major areas –the federal budget, immigration and gun control – where young Americans have the strongest opinions.

Federal Budget: Approximately 55 percent of young Americans cite issues relating to the economy as the biggest problem America faces. Not surprisingly, “creating jobs and lowering the unemployment rate” was the top issue. In 2010, the difference between Democrats and Republicans who agreed that “government spending is an effective way to increase growth” was 17 percentage points. In 2013, that divide increased to 24 points.

Immigration: In three years, an 11-point percent difference can be marked between Republicans and Democrats when asked if immigration reform has “done more good than harm.” In 2013, 31 percent of Democrats and 20 percent of Republicans can agree with that statement. According to this study, 44 percent of Generation Y believes that those in the country illegally now should be afforded a path to citizenship, as long as they pay taxes, learn English, have no criminal history and pay a fine.

Gun control: Nearly half of millennials want tougher gun laws, 35 percent say no change is needed and 15 percent say laws should be less strict. The partisan divide has deepened on a national scale in light of recent events including shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn. Since 2011, the percentage of Democrats who want tougher gun laws has increased 8 points; while the percentage of Republicans wanting tougher laws has decreased 7 percent.

“We have been warned,” writes Della Volpe in the final pages of the report. “Unless the discourse in America changes, from the top-down, all of us will suffer and the nation will lose a generation of the best and brightest citizens, voters and public servants the world has to offer.”

It’s not that we don’t care about the issues. We just don’t trust those making decisions for us.

—

ONLINE: View the complete study

—

Gen Y is a weekly opinion piece covering issues that matter most to younger, influential Americans through their late 30s. Jessica O. Swink, a 20-something, is the digital political producer for LIN Media and contributing editor to onPolitix .

Congress approves bill to end airport delays

2013-04-26T16:21:30Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress easily approved legislation Friday ending furloughs of air traffic controllers that have delayed hundreds of flights daily, infuriating travelers and causing political headaches for lawmakers.

The House approved the measure on a 361-41 vote, a day after the Senate swiftly agreed to the bill. The vote came as lawmakers prepared to leave town for a weeklong spring recess, a break that would have been less pleasant if they were confronted by constituents upset over travel delays.

Republicans accused the Obama administration of purposely furloughing controllers to pressure Congress to lift $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts — known as the sequester — that took effect last month at government agencies.

"The administration has played shameful politics with the sequester at the cost of hard-working American families," said Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa.

The White House and Democrats have argued that by law, the administration has little room to decide where the cuts fall. The White House and Democrats want Congress to work on legislation lifting all of the cuts, which lawmakers noted have also caused reductions in Head Start preschool programs, benefits for the long-term unemployed and medical research.

"How can we sit there and say, 'Four million Meals on Wheels for seniors, gone, but that's not important. Over 70,000 children off Head Start, but that's not important.' What is important is for Republicans to hold a hard line" on the budget, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The Federal Aviation Administration has furloughed the controllers as part of the government-wide reductions. The bill would let the FAA use up to $253 million from airport improvement and other accounts to end the furloughs for the controllers through the Sept. 30 end of the federal fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, the available funds can be used for other FAA operations, including preventing the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA had said it will shut the facilities to meet its share of the spending cuts.

The FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

Administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.

After the vote, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, "It will be good news for America's traveling public if Congress spares them these unnecessary delays. But ultimately, this is no more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester's mindless, across-the-board cuts."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."

Senate approval followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.

For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.

In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.

The airlines, too, were pressing Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.

In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, said, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."

In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.

Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.

Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and an additional $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.

___

Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Fact check: Did FAA have to furlough controllers?

2013-04-26T14:36:24Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — With disgruntled passengers complaining about airline flight delays, Republican lawmakers and the airline industry pounced on the Obama administration. The glitch was invented by the White House for political reasons, they charged, and officials waited until the last minute to warn Congress and the airlines of the impending upheaval.

They were wrong on the first count, and partly right on the second.

The FAA has no choice but to cut $637 million as its share of $85 billion in automatic, government-wide spending cuts that must be achieved by the end of the federal budget year on Sept. 30.

The cuts are required under a law enacted two years ago as the government was approaching its debt limit. Democrats were in favor of raising the debt limit without strings attached so as not to provoke an economic crisis, but Republicans insisted on substantial cuts in exchange. The compromise was to require that every government "program, project and activity" — with some exceptions, like Medicare — be cut equally.

"It was intentionally designed to provide no discretion whatsoever," said Stan Collender, a former House and Senate budget committee staffer, and author of "The Guide to the Federal Budget."

At the time, it was thought the prospects of the cuts would be so dreadful that it would force both sides to negotiate a more sensible plan to resolve the government's budget woes. But that didn't happen, and the first of the cuts kicked in on March 1.

As a result, the FAA has reduced the work schedules of nearly all of its 47,000 employees by one day every two weeks, including 15,000 air traffic controllers, as well as thousands of air traffic supervisors, managers and technicians who keep airport towers and radar facility equipment working. That's a 10 percent cut in hours and pay.

The Senate voted late Thursday to allow the FAA to shift money among budget accounts to avoid controller furloughs. Approval still is needed in the House, which could vote as early as Friday.

Republicans and the airline industry insist the FAA could find other places to cut in its nearly $16 billion annual budget. Two airline trade associations have filed a lawsuit trying to halt the furloughs.

"They (the White House) want to cause the most pain to the American people out there so they will put pressure on Congress to back away from sequestration (spending cuts)," said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "This should be laid right at the president's feet."

But the budget law doesn't allow steeper cuts in one program in order to offset cuts in another. Air traffic control is part of the FAA's operations account, 70 percent of which goes toward employee salaries. The FAA plans to cut $485 million from operations, about $220 million of which will come from furloughs, said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta.

Shuster points to contracts, consultants and travel as other expenditures that could be cut instead. But that's not as simple as it may sound.

Travel already has been reduced, mainly to trips to keep the air traffic system functioning, like sending a technician to a facility to resolve an equipment problem, Huerta said. Overtime is being preserved for emergencies.

The largest of the agency's operations contracts is to provide and maintain a communications system for air traffic operations. The second-largest contract is for provision of weather, information on flight restrictions and other services to pilots. And the third-largest pays companies to provide controllers for towers at small airports. The FAA's proposal to save money by shutting down 149 of the towers already has drawn complaints from lawmakers in both parties who don't want airports in their states and districts to lose towers.

"I would have to take the administration's position on this," said Bill Hoagland, a former Republican Senate Budget Committee aide who helped write a 1985 budget law that was the model for the current budget-cutting law. "They are administering the law as written."

The budget law is specifically worded so that cuts are spread evenly across programs, making it difficult for the FAA to use money for contracts, for example, to make up for payroll cuts even through both are in the same budget "account," he said.

At a news conference Thursday, congressional Republicans said if the FAA had to furlough controllers, it should have furloughed more of them in places like Waterloo, Iowa, instead of at big hub airports.

The FAA decided against doing that because it would mean picking winners and losers among airlines and regions of the country, Huerta said. Also, the air traffic system is by its nature interconnected — small airports are needed to feed passengers to the bigger hubs, he said.

Lawmakers also have complained that the FAA didn't warn them air traffic disruptions were coming.

"How come you didn't tell us about this beforehand, the sequester, impact on the layoffs, the furloughs? Not a word. Not a breath," House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., angrily demanded of Huerta at a hearing this week.

Airline and airport officials say they didn't receive specific information from the FAA about how the furloughs might affect air travel until a meeting called by the agency on April 16, six days before the furloughs took effect. Airport officials said they weren't invited and had to push the FAA to allow them to come to the meeting.

In fact, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA officials have been warning Congress and airlines since February that the furloughs were coming and that they could cause major delays. LaHood even held a news conference at the White House. Administration officials also discussed the impending furloughs at congressional hearings in March and earlier this month.

But lawmakers and industry officials also have a point. In none of those hearings did FAA or Transportation Department officials go out of their way to disclose to Congress the extent of the anticipated flight delay mess, even though they had that information in hand at three hearings last week. Nor did they solicit help from Congress to avoid the furloughs. Rather, officials emphasized that safety would be maintained.

"We offered our apologies to them for the fact that we had not kept them informed about all of the things that we had been discussing," LaHood told reporters after a meeting Wednesday with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the senior Republican member of the committee, to discuss possible legislation to resolve the situation.

Senate passes bill to ease FAA furloughs

2013-04-26T01:05:51Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — With flight delays mounting, the Senate approved hurry-up legislation Thursday night to end air traffic controller furloughs blamed for inconveniencing large numbers of travelers.

A House vote on the measure was expected as early as Friday, with lawmakers eager to embark on a week long vacation.

Under the legislation, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA has said it will shut the facilities as it makes its share of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that took effect last month at numerous government agencies.

The Senate acted as the FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

There was no immediate reaction at the White House, although administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.

Senate approval followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.

Officials said a small group of senators insisted on a last-ditch effort at an agreement before Congress adjourned for a vacation that could have become politically problematic if the flight delays continued.

"I want to do it right now. There are other senators you'd have to ask what the hang-up is," Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said at a point when it appeared no compromise would emerge.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.

It added it was "learning of additional impacts nationwide, including open watches, increased restoration times, delays resulting from insufficient funding for parts and equipment, modernization delays, missed or deferred preventative maintenance, and reduced redundancy."

The airlines, too, were pressing Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.

In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, likened the furloughs to a "wildcat regulatory action."

He added, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."

In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA , while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.

Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.

One Senate Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, noted that without the type of comprehensive deficit deal that Obama favors, a bill that eases the spending crunch at the FAA would inevitably be followed by other single-issue measures. She listed funding at the National Institutes of Health as one example, and cuts that cause furloughs of civilians who work at military hospitals as a second.

At the same time, Democratic aides said resolve had crumbled under the weight of widespread delays for the traveling public and pressure from the airlines.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., involved in the discussions, said the issue was big enough so "most people want to find a solution as long as it doesn't spend any more money."

Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and another $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.

Across the Capitol, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said, "We're willing to look at what the Senate's going to propose."

He said he believes the FAA has the authority it needs under existing law to shift funds and end the furloughs of air traffic controllers, and any legislation should be "very, very limited" and direct the agency to use the flexibility it already has.

In a reflection of the political undercurrents, another House Republican, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said FAA employees "are being used as pawns by this (Obama) administration to be able to implement the maximum amount of pain on the American people when it does not have to be this way."

The White House and congressional Democrats vociferously dispute such claims.

___

Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Senate passes bill to end FAA furloughs

2013-04-26T01:03:04Z

WASHINGTON (AP) — With flight delays mounting, the Senate approved hurry-up legislation Thursday night to end air traffic controller furloughs blamed for inconveniencing large numbers of travelers.

A House vote on the measure was expected as early as Friday, with lawmakers eager to embark on a weeklong vacation.

Under the legislation, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA has said it will shut the facilities as it makes its share of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that took effect last month at numerous government agencies.

The Senate acted as the FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

There was no immediate reaction at the White House, although administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."

Senate approval followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.

Officials said a small group of senators insisted on a last-ditch effort at an agreement before Congress adjourned for a vacation that could have become politically problematic if the flight delays continued.

"I want to do it right now. There are other senators you'd have to ask what the hang-up is," Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said at a point when it appeared no compromise would emerge.

For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.

In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.

It added it was "learning of additional impacts nationwide, including open watches, increased restoration times, delays resulting from insufficient funding for parts and equipment, modernization delays, missed or deferred preventative maintenance, and reduced redundancy."

The airlines, too, were pressing Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.

In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, likened the furloughs to a "wildcat regulatory action."

He added, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."

In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.

Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.

One Senate Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, noted that without the type of comprehensive deficit deal that Obama favors, a bill that eases the spending crunch at the FAA would inevitably be followed by other single-issue measures. She listed funding at the National Institutes of Health as one example, and cuts that cause furloughs of civilians who work at military hospitals as a second.

At the same time, Democratic aides said resolve had crumbled under the weight of widespread delays for the traveling public and pressure from the airlines.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., involved in the discussions, said the issue was big enough so "most people want to find a solution as long as it doesn't spend any more money."

Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and another $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.

Across the Capitol, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said, "We're willing to look at what the Senate's going to propose."

He said he believes the FAA has the authority it needs under existing law to shift funds and end the furloughs of air traffic controllers, and any legislation should be "very, very limited" and direct the agency to use the flexibility it already has.

In a reflection of the political undercurrents, another House Republican, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said FAA employees "are being used as pawns by this (Obama) administration to be able to implement the maximum amount of pain on the American people when it does not have to be this way."

The White House and congressional Democrats vociferously dispute such claims.

------

Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

Sequester cuts are impacting local child care programs

2013-04-23T22:35:28Z

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. (WWLP) — We're feeling the impact of federal spending cuts here in western Massachusetts, especially families who need child care.

A series of automatic cuts went into effect March 1st. These Government spending cuts reduce or remove vital services for children in the state.

According to the White House, up to 500 disadvantaged and vulnerable children could lose access to child care.

Sunnyside Child Care Director Susan Beemer says affordable child care is essential for working parents to hold down a job. The Northampton center currently serves 49 children, two of which receive vouchers from the state.

Beemer says the number of low income families they serve has dropped significantly. “Voucher assistance has been really frozen for a long time. So it's really challenging for families to receive voucher systems to afford child care. And for families they have to make choices about their work life.”

Beemer says the state only pays 70% of a child care center's market price. So, in the event they do accept a child with a state voucher they end up losing 30% of their usual revenue.

Flight delays pile up amid budget cuts

2013-04-23T01:44:08Z

NEW YORK (AP) — Flight delays piled up all across the country Monday as thousands of air traffic controllers were forced to take an unpaid day off because of federal budget cuts, providing the most visible impact yet of Congress and the White House's failure to agree on a long-term deficit-reduction plan.

The Federal Aviation Administration kept planes on the ground because there weren't enough controllers to monitor busy air corridors. Cascading delays at some of the nation's busiest airports held up many flights into New York, Baltimore and Washington by more than two hours. In the morning, the delays were so bad that passengers on several Washington-New York shuttle flights could have reached their destination faster by taking the train. Nearly a third of flights at New York's LaGuardia airport scheduled to take off before 3 p.m. were delayed 15 minutes or more, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Last Monday, just 6 percent of LaGuardia's flights were delayed. The situation was similar at Washington's Reagan National Airport, in Newark, N.J., and in Philadelphia with roughly 20 percent of flights delayed. Monday is typically one of the busiest days at airports with many high-paying business travelers departing for a week on the road. The FAA's controller cuts -- a 10 percent reduction of its staff -- went into effect Sunday. The full force was not felt until Monday morning. Travel writer Tim Leffel had just boarded a US Airways plane from Charlotte, N.C., to Tampa, when the flight crew had an announcement. "They said: `The weather's fine, but there aren't enough air traffic controllers,"' Leffel said. Passengers were asked to head back into the terminal. "People were just kind of rolling their eyes." His flight landed one hour and 13 minutes late. One thing working in fliers' favor Monday was relatively good weather at most of the country's major airports. A few wind gusts in New York, snow in Denver and thunderstorms in Miami added to some delays, but generally there were clear skies and no major storms. However, the shortage of controllers could persist for months, raising the risk of a turbulent summer travel season. And it could exacerbate weather problems, especially spring and summer thunderstorms. There's no way for passengers to tell in advance which airport or flights will experience delays. FAA officials have said they have no choice but to furlough all 47,000 agency employees -- including nearly 15,000 controllers -- because the agency's budget is dominated by salaries. Each employee will lose one day of work every other week. The FAA has said that planes will have to take off and land less frequently, so as not to overload the remaining controllers on duty. Critics have said the FAA could reduce its budget in other spots that wouldn't delay travelers. "There's a lot finger-pointing going on, but the simple truth is that it is Congress's job to fix this," said Rep. Rick Larsen, a Washington Democrat and member of the House aviation panel. "Flight delays are just the latest example of how the sequester is damaging the economy and hurting families across the country." Some travel groups have warned that the disruptions could hurt the economy. "If these disruptions unfold as predicted, business travelers will stay home, severely impacting not only the travel industry but the economy overall," the Global Business Travel Association warned the head of the FAA, Michael P. Huerta, in a letter Friday. Deborah Seymour was one of the first fliers to face the headaches. She was supposed to fly Sunday night from Los Angles to Tucson, Ariz. First her 9:55 p.m. flight was delayed for four hours. Then at 2 a.m., Southwest Airlines canceled it. "It's pretty discouraging that Congress can't get it together, and now it's reached the point that we can't get on an airplane and fly," Seymour said. On some routes Monday, it was actually faster to take ground transportation. The 8 a.m. US Airways shuttle from Washington to New York pushed back from the gate six minutes early but didn't take off until almost 10 a.m. The plane landed at 10:48 a.m. -- more than two and a half hours late. If travelers instead took Amtrak's 8 a.m. Acela Express train from Washington, they arrived in New York at 10:42 a.m. -- four minutes early. Normally, there are 10 air traffic controllers at a regional facility handling arrivals for Los Angeles International Airport. On Sunday night, there were just seven, according to Mike Foote, a local union president with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. A low layer of clouds late compounded the situation. In such weather, two controllers do nothing but watch planes as they descend below 15,000 feet to ensure they don't veer off course. That allows 68 to 70 planes to land each hour. Because of the furloughs, there were no controllers to do that Sunday, dropping the arrival rate to 42 planes an hour, Foote said. United Airlines said there were "alarming pockets" of delays and warned that if a solution isn't found, the problem could "affect air travel reliability for our customers." Delta Air Lines said it was "disappointed" in the furloughs and cautioned travelers to expect delays in New York, Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Many flights heading to Florida were seeing delays of up to an hour. Having just one fewer controller to handle arrivals to Newark Liberty International Airport can result in the airport being unable to use a relief runway to handle peak traffic, reducing arrivals by about 15 percent, said Dean Iacopelli, a union official at an FAA regional facility for New York's airports. "It is not just telling one out of 10 people to stay home and so one out of 10 planes get delayed. It's much more complicated that," Iacopelli said. Prior to the furloughs, if a controller called in sick, there were enough people to take on the extra work, Iacopelli said, or somebody could be asked to work overtime. Now that isn't possible. The FAA has also furloughed other critical employees, including airline and airport safety inspectors. The country's airlines and some lawmakers have suggested the White House is causing misery for fliers to put pressure on Republicans in Congress to rescind the cuts. In a letter to the FAA Friday, Delta general counsel Ben Hirst asked the agency to reconsider the furloughs, saying it could make the cuts elsewhere and transfer funds from "non-safety activities" to support the FAA's "core mission of efficiently managing the nation's airspace." Two airline trade associations and the nation's largest pilots union filed a lawsuit Friday asking the U.S. Court of Appeals to halt the furloughs. No hearing date has been set. As part of their lawsuit, the two airline associations -- Airlines for America, which represents major carriers, and the Regional Airline Association -- are asking the court to place a moratorium on enforcement of the Department of Transportation's three-hour limit on the amount of time airlines can keep passengers waiting inside planes on airport tarmacs without giving them the opportunity to return to a terminal. Airlines can be fined as much as $27,500 per passenger for violating the three-hour limit. The Transportation Department said Monday it is reviewing the industry's request. ------ With reports from Joan Lowy in Washington and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles.

Flight delays pile up amid budget cuts

2013-04-23T01:16:54Z

Furloughs begin

2013-04-22T20:33:50Z

(NBCNC) — Thousands of federal employees are beginning to take mandatory days off without pay because of spending cuts mandated by sequestration.

Already the cuts are leading to airport delays and fewer police patrolling national parks.

"We won't be able to respond to calls as quickly or be the visible deterrent to crime we have been," says Ian Glick of the U.S. Park Police.

Transportation security administration officers and meat inspectors with the department of agriculture were spared from the furloughs, but air traffic controllers were not.

Like park police, they're forced to take unpaid days off starting this week.

The F.A.A. is predicting significant delays at airports around the country, most notably in Atlanta, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Newark, as well as Philadelphia, San Francisco Miami and Charlotte.

Travelers are already feeling the impact.

"It just seems like we have lost our way on what govt should really do and how they look at things," says Dan O'Leary of Baton Rouge.

"There are certain key - essential personnel - that shouldn't be cut," adds Wally Dicks of Virginia.

Thousands of employees with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor are also facing furloughs.

The White House is again blaming Republicans for failed efforts to stop the across board cuts with alternative savings.

"None of this was necessary," says White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

But now it's too late, as even more agencies brace for additional cuts in the coming weeks.

The IRS will begin furloughs next month.

It's identified five days throughout the summer when they won't be answering the phones or opening taxpayer assistance centers.