The Obama administration’s arbitrary and capricious shutdown behavior continues. On Monday we reported that the Federal Aviation Administration had decided to halt all aircraft sales and blame its actions on the shutdown.
A day later, the tune has changed. The FAA is recalling about 800 of its furloughed workers. Some of those are safety inspectors. Others deal with aircraft sales.
Also being recalled are 200 engineers, inspectors and safety staff who approve new plane designs and equipment and register new planes. Manufacturers of small planes and business jets say the shutdown threatens to halt $1.38 billion in near-term deliveries of new planes. (emphasis added)
I’d guess that major aircraft manufacturers got their lobbyists to ring up the White House and congressional Democrats, pressure was liberally and verbosely applied with specific threats attached, and now the FAA will once again register new aircraft so they can be sold. But unless I’m missing something, sales of existing aircraft remain grounded.
Individual Americans who happen to own aircraft are frequent targets of Obama’s criticism, and don’t have lobbyists who can threaten him.
The current shutdown only impacts about 17% of the federal government. In past shutdowns, the FAA never halted the services that it has halted during this shutdown.
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