ALMOST A BIG MISTAKE

Last week after the disastrous vote that allowed the Government to do "business as usual" by raising the Debt limit, they almost really made a big error. Congress had been fighting (Democrats this time) to not pass an extension of an FAA funding program. Some hazy item about giving extra funds to very small airports.

As a result, approximately 4000 FAA workers were sent home; and, guess what, nobody really saw any disruptions in normal air services supported by FAA personnel (even after 2 weeks of being off the job!!). But, the group that were sent home happened to be part of a fairly sizable boondoggle favored by the Political elite. There was very sketchy details on the impact of this omission to spend us into the ground, but, because it is favored by the elitists, it had to be corrected, immediately, which caused enough Senators to be recalled to a special session to pass the bill & allow the President to sign it! The Republicans, it seems, placed conflicting language in the bill in which certain provisions of FAA service were disallowed thus causing the Democrats to not help pass the bill. But wait, this is the point; the Republicans also put a provision in the bill that negated the effects of the prohibition, thereby allowing all to be happy in the end.

If you do not understand this, then welcome to the crowd. But, it appears that a bill was passed that prohibits expending funds for certain unnecessary operations, and the same bill allows for waivers whenever requested. Sounds very similar to the Obamacare bill that nobody knew what was in it and had to be passed to be understood.

All this is just another reason to remove most of our present legislators and replace them with people who are not allowed to write in "doublespeak". As a former technical writer, I believe that all bills need to carry clear and unambigous language, that bills not be allowed to have amendments that have a separate purpose, and that the so called "clean and strike" process of amending bills be disallowed.