Dear Editor,
I recently wrote to the Honorable Senator John D. Rockefeller, and the United States Senate Committee on Finance, about the FAA Reauthorization (S. 1451 – HR 1586, 915), because it wastes US $53.3 Billion.
New York Senator Schumer has his hands in the Aero-Cookie Jar. Senators Reid and Schumer rushed this bill through the Finance Committee to the Senate floor apparently without mark-up. This is an outrage.
Senator Chuck Schumer, “my senator,” sold-out my interests for aero-mercantile profit. He continuously receives aviation-industry campaign contributions. To distract from the US$53 Billion+ FAA Reauthorization boondoggle, Schumer and other aviation special-interests give the bill new names and numbers, like the acronym “ATM SIA” standing for the unspeakably-misleading “Air Transportation Modernization And Safety Improvement Act”.
Following is the letter sent to Senator John D. Rockefeller.
Honorable Senator John D. Rockefeller, IV (WV)
United States Senate Committee on Finance
The United States Senate, The United States Capitol
531 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 USA
Dear Honorable Senator Rockefeller:
It is unconscionable that the $53 Billion+ FAA funding bill somehow emerged from the Finance Committee – rushed by Senators Reid and Schumer to the Senate floor apparently without mark-up. This country is angrily fed-up with government waste and over-spending. Consonant with the interests of 30 Million+ citizens in the Northeast threatened by FAA management’s continued incompetence including FAA’s harmful planned “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”, Quiet Rockland and I again urge you to vote “NO!” on S. 1451.
Time and again FAA management demonstrates they don’t care about public safety. FAA management only cares for the wallets of the aero-mercantilists for whom they incessantly shill. Last December FAA management led by killer UAL weekend-stuntpilot-now-ATO-“Head” Hank Krakowski blew US$5 Million on a 3-week FAA rolling drunk-a-thon party in Atlanta. More recently FAA perp “Supervisors” Shawn Simms and Dana Rose-Kelly just allowed two 9-year-old children to work live air traffic on Homeland Security-sensitive radio frequencies at JFK Airport. FAA Airspace Redesign “Project Manager” Steven Ray Kelley got 6 people killed in a mid-air 2-plane crash when he worked as an ATC. FAA “Administrator” Randy Babbitt didn’t even bother to graduate college – a credential-gap that you yourself would never allow from one of your own Legislative Aides. So why in the world would you or any other U.S. Senator give FAA management yahoos like Babbitt, Krakowski and Kelley a sack-full of US$53 Billion+ cash? President Obama and OMB are well-aware that Tombstone Agency FAA has a decades-long corrupt history of wasting money on useless programs and equipment. Are you?
I’m writing to you because “my” Senator Chuck Schumer has sold-out my interests for aero-mercantile profit including manifold aviation-industry campaign contributions which he continuously receives. Schumer and other aviation special-interests seek to distract from the US$53 Billion+ boondoggle that is FAA Reauthorization. They give the bill new names and numbers, like the acronym “ATM SIA” standing for the unspeakably-misleading “Air Transportation Modernization And Safety Improvement Act”. They seek to somehow link the fat-cash bill to Flight 3407 victim families, to the long-needed removal of threat of imposed work rules on air traffic controllers, to job-creation, and to a labor compromise between Fed Ex and UPS. Of course ATC’s, labor, and crash-victim families should be taken care of. We all agree on that. But to exploit those people’s respective worthy causes as cover for FAA “management” stealing US$53 Billion+ from the American people – for an illusory “NextGen” system which college drop-out Randy Babbitt would be too inept to manage even if it could be defined – is simply an outrage.
Don’t give FAA money unless and until FAA is run by smarter, better people.
In this regard, the new acronym “ATM SIA” for the FAA Reauthorization bill could never have been more apt. After all, some of your Senatorial colleagues and other aero-mercantilists think they can get away with once again using the American people as their personal ATM. And as for “SIA”, the second-half of the new acronym: that merely represents the “See Ya!” we will all be saying to US$53 Billion+ cash once it ends up in aviation-executive bonus-checks and next December’s inevitable FAA manager drunk-a-thon in Atlanta.
Quiet Rockland and I again urge you to vote “NO!” on S. 1451.
Respectfully,
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland – No New Flights Over Rockland County, NY