WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oct.. 17 is rapidly approaching and even the experts with crystal balls can’t predict what the government will do. Unless Congress moves before then and passes some sort of funding bills, general aviation could suffer more than the few problems the partial government shutdown is now causing.
Day-to-day flying under the current furloughing of only about 17% of the government workforce is not badly adversely affecting GA. Air traffic control is still operating. But the National Air Traffic Controllers Association warns that no one should be under the illusion that it is business as usual. NATCA says 3,000 aviation safety professionals of the 17,000 workers represented by that association are still not back on the job.
There is no testing for new pilots or upgrading ratings. Nor can medical examinations be recorded. Registry at the FAA still is closed, so if buying or selling a used aircraft, there are no changes of titles or getting titles and purchasers of new aircraft will need temporary registrations. It is still not known if charts will be updated.
Will this get worse if the Oct. 17 date brings no agreement on the debt ceiling? It, no doubt, will if no agreement is reached.
Folks here suggest flipping a coin to predict if there will or will not be an agreement to keep funding the government. Most observers quietly say it looks more and more likely the government will hit its head on the ceiling.
For most common people, housing and an automobile are their two most expensive monthly e
Whoops! My hand slipped on my iPhone!
I wanted to say that Obamacare is shuttling a new monthly expense between housing and automobile, for everyone, and we can’t afford it, and we can’t go to the doctor anyway, because of the high deductible.
Worse it’s mandatory, and even worse than that, when we default, (we must eat to sustain life) the IRS is the collection agency, and they don’t just hit up your phone four times a day, they actually take your life away from you!
Are you saying you do not have health insurance? And yet you have an iPhone that could easily cost $100 a month when health insurance premiums start around $200.
@Paul
I have VA healthcare, but the young, healthy people I work with, don’t.
I have my own earache story, about how the young student doctors at the VA couldn’t fix my earache, and while waiting for the doctor appointments there, I shared my story, only to find out all the vets had an earache story, too, that topped my own!
Thank goodness that earaches can clear themselves up, after three months and of perusing the drug store cures!
@Paul
If you enroll in Obamacare, you’ll find the premiums to be way higher than 200 dollars. It’s more like 300-600 for workers, and the deductible starts at 5,550 to 8,000, and that’s now, those will go nowhere but up, especially when the enrollees start to default.
Obamacare is really the insidious destruction of the people of the United States of America, please fight the dictatorship that has been thrust upon us!
No amount of fear-mongering from D.C. will change the fact that we can no longer kick the can down the road over government overspending, the skyrocketing national debt and the disastrous effects of terrible legislation such as Obamacare. Either we face the music now and tighten our belts – especially in the affluent District of Columbia and surroundings counties – or we face economic ruin. My medical insurance premiums will increase by 390% in January as a result of Obamacare. This is typical of many small business owners, the lifeblood of the economy. As far as I am concerned, the government can remain closed for months until this infernal law is abolished and we pass a balanced-budget amendment, ending deficits forever. Do nothing, and the entire house of cards that is our current economy comes crashing down.
I agree with you 100%, How can we run on credit in a decending financial spiral, if it continues the fall will be even harder…. is this what we want ? I do not think so ! One would think that to mature leaders this would be a no brainer !