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Have We Not Learned From September 11th?
--by Mary MacElveen, CLG contributing writer
I must say that we are living in insane times, where no one is truly thinking logically. What brings me to this realization is a plan to lay off approximately 6,000 airline safety screeners. To save the U.S. Government $280 million according to James Loy the agency director for the Transportation Security Administration. I am all for saving our government money, but not at the expense of our flying public. If any historical event should be our lesson, it should be September 11th, 2001. Which not in itself began our government bleeding its financial reserves. In my opinion, this is the wrong place to cut to save our government money. Especially, when we are fighting this war on terrorism, we are not done with the war in Iraq, and where our airports are still likely targets. Mr. Loy stated, "While we still live in a dangerous world, it also is time to assess our workplace requirements in relation to budget realities," Mr. Loy should suggest to his boss George W. Bush, not to push for a tax cut, if he is worried about budget realities. If a tax cut is far more important to our country than security at our airports, we had all better start using trains and cars to get place to place. I am pleased that he agrees that we are living in dangerous times. But, his plan adds to such danger, and puts not only American citizens at risk, but citizens from many different countries. Also, Mr. Loy went on to say, "This means looking at the level of screener staffing at every airport, how many are part-time, how many are full-time and whether they are on duty at the right time, when passenger traffic is heaviest." Perhaps, the terrorists who attacked our country on September 11th, 2001, were studying similar habits, scheduled their attacks, and caught our country off guard. Well, not really off guard since George W. Bush had prior warnings, but that in itself is another story. One that I have already written about. When we have just spent billions bombing Iraq, and where we will continue to spend billions more to rebuild Iraq, this idea of cutting these jobs all to save our budget just does not make sense. Where we can shell out millions to Halliburton and Bechtel to make men like Dick Cheney richer at the expense of our flying public, this is one of the most hair brained ideas that I have seen. Then again, it seems perfectly logical to those calling the shots. More money in their deep pockets and the security of our airports be damned. Speaking of deep pockets, if this administration is truly worried about the budget, then this is no time for any form of tax break. Not even the lowest one called for which is, $350 billion. Senators Olympia Snowe along with her Republican senatorial colleague George V. Voinovich, joined with two Democratic senators, Max Baucus and John Breaux stated their opposition to any tax cut that went beyond $350 billion dollars. That is unless it is offset by tax increases elsewhere or specific spending decreases. I guess we now know where those spending decreases will go. So, while these fine senators and the administration fly around in secure airplanes, the rest of us will be put in harms way. Those friendly skies are not looking
all that friendly right now.
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