The Press-Dispatch
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Wednesday, Januar y 18, 2023 The Press-Dispatch D-5 OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net Heritage Viewpoint By Roman Jankowski Race for the Cure By Star Parker Amid aviation crisis, transportation department expands vacation McCarthy indeed a GOP leader for complex times REDUCED TEMPERATURE SWINGS ENHANCED PERFORMANCE IMPROVED DEHUMIDIFICATION Variable-speed technology means invariable comfort. The Infinity ® 20 air conditioner combines the energy efficiency of Greenspeed ® intelligence with the convenience and precision of the Infinity System Control. With reduced temperature swings, improved dehumidification and ultra-quiet operation, the Infinity 20 air conditioner will have you more comfortable than ever before. 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Perry ' s Perry ' s Monday 8-7 • Tuesday 8-noon • Wednesday 10-7 • Thursday & Friday 8-5 eye exams • dry eye solutions prescription lenses • eye disease treatment Call to book your appointment today for safe in-offi ce treatment. Don't Neglect Your Eye Health. We're Open to See You Now! Dr. Clint Shoultz 715 S. 9th St., Petersburg 812-354-9400 Locally Owned and Operated Amid the post-mortems of the four-day, 15 -vote marathon to elect Kevin McCarthy House speaker, I remind read- ers of the headline of my Nov. 30 column, "Kev- in McCarthy, a Repub- lican Leader for Com- plex Times." I thought then that it captured our reality, and I think the process that followed confirmed it. It is human nature to want things neat and clear. But life never co- operates. Which is why freedom is so im- portant. And why we need a speak- er who can keep focus and move the ship forward despite heavy gale winds blowing in many different di- rections. McCarthy emerges from the or- deal with plenty of criticism. And the House Freedom Caucus cabal, some 20 strong, that held Mc- Carthy along with 201 of their Re- publican colleagues captive also emerges with plenty of criticism. McCarthy is accused of conced- ing too much because, per his crit- ics, it's all about personal ambition. Regarding the obstructionists, they're accused of exploiting unique circumstances to gain personal pow- er and attention. In my column, I noted that poll- ing shows that indeed Democrats are more unified than Republicans. But I don't see Democrat woke uniformity as any strength. Dem- ocrats' cookie-cutter mentality re- garding human reality is why they love big government so much. But freedom is so important be- cause there is no cookie cutter for human reality. In November 2016, newly elected Vice President Mike Pence attend- ed a showing in New York of the hit play "Hamilton." When he entered the theater with his daughters, finding their way to their seats, they were met with boos. At the end of the play, a spokes- man for the cast directed critical re- marks toward Pence. When asked about the incident, Pence said he was not offended. He said, "I nudged my kids and remind- ed them, that's what freedom sounds like." In May 1856, as Congress debat- ed the future of slavery in America, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks entered the Senate Chamber and accosted abolitionist Sen. Charles Sumner with his cane, beating him until he was unconscious. So regarding chaos and absence of civility, the U.S. Congress has seen days much worse than what we have just been through. Having built my own organization and worked with many oth- ers, my rule of thumb is that good people will accomplish things and get things done despite a poorly designed orga- nization. And bad people will cause damage even in the most perfectly de- signed organization. Organization charts and job de- scriptions matter. But what matters most is individ- ual character. Certainly, the rules how the House operates and the job description of the speaker are of great importance. But of greatest importance are courageous leaders who are com- mitted to the principles of a free na- tion under God. Leaders, for instance, who have the courage to take on our broken entitlement programs that suck up to 80% of our $6 trillion federal bud- get. These bankrupt programs, go- ing back to 1936, don't need to be tweaked but reinvented. Every young American now enter- ing the workforce is paying Social Security payroll taxes into a bank- rupt system that will not be able to pay them their benefits. The answer is not raising taxes or the retirement age. The answer is a new system based on real ownership and investment. But taking on Social Security and other entitlements requires re- al courage and commitment to prin- ciples. Do these Republicans have the courage to lead where Ameri- cans need leadership? Polls show the American people are not happy with how things are going. This is a good sign. The Republican oppositionists should be given benefit of the doubt that their obstructionism was root- ed in genuine concern about princi- ples and ideals. And Kevin McCarthy should be given benefit of the doubt that he is indeed a Republican leader for com- plex times who knows he can't win every battle but has wisdom to know which to fight. Star Parker is president of the Cen- ter for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." "Secretary Pete" seems more fo- cused on holiday leave than fixing issues with the Depart- ment of Transportation. Things aren't going to well for Pete Buttigieg on a number of fronts. As the secretary of transporta- tion, he is also in charge of the Federal Aviation Administration. Wednesday morning, the FA A halted all out- bound flights through- out the country because the Notice to Air Mis- sions System, which pro- vides information essential to flight operations personnel, stopped work- ing, causing a grounding of all U.S. outbound fligh ts for the first time since 9/11. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that Buttigieg is focused on fixing the problem as quickly as possible. Around 10 a.m. Wednesday, amid the FA A crisis, the assistant trans- portation secretary for administra- tion, Philip A. McNamara, sent an email to all DOT employees, which The Heritage Foundation's Over- sight Project obtained. He wrote, "To begin the upcom- ing holiday weekend, we have ap- proved a three-hour early release on Friday, January 13 for all DOT feder- al employees in work status, includ- ing telework. Employees designat- ed as essential may be required by their supervisor to remain on duty." A fter the last FA A administra- tor left, President Joe Biden nomi- nated Phil Washington in June, but the Senate never confirmed him. The confirmation failed in part be- cause Washington had been named in a criminal search warrant and connected to public corruption al- legations. Washington was renominated a week ago for the position. If con- firmed, he will be able to hold the position for five years, unlike most political appointments, which end with the presidential term. FA A Associate Administrator Billy Nolen has been acting in the capacity of the administrator for about eight months. A political ap- pointee, he joined the Biden admin- istration in his FA A role in January 2022. Before joining the Biden FA A, Nolen served as the vice president for safety, security, and quality for WestJet Airlines in Canada. Unfor- tunately, the FA A has been plagued by scan- dals during his acting tenure. On April 21, 2022, a few weeks into Nolen's acting role, the FA A forgot to notify the Se- cret Service, Park Po- lice, and Capitol Po- lice of a scheduled fly- over and a parachute stunt into Nationals Park. The U.S. Army Golden Knights plane flew by the Capitol Complex, caus- ing law enforcement to issue an alert and urgent evacuation of the Capi- tol Complex. The FA A later issued an unsigned apology on April 22, 2022, stating, "We deeply regret that we contrib- uted to a precautionary evacuation of the Capitol complex and apologize for the disruption and fear experi- enced by those who work there." Buttigieg himself faced criticism for using the FA A's private fleet of jets over 18 times, most recently to do a radio interview in New York City. The Washington Post once reported that during the Trump administration, the FA A charged roughly $5,000 per hour to use the private jet fleet. The DOT tried to as- sure the public on this as well. "Given that commercial air travel is usually the cheapest way for the Secretary and his staff to travel, 108 of the 126 flights for DOT trips he has taken have been on commercial airlines. However, there are some cases where it is more efficient and/ or less expensive for the Secretary and accompanying personnel to fly on a 9 -seater FA A plane rather than commercial flights," a spokesperson said. "Use of the FA A plane in limit- ed, specific cases has helped to max- imize efficiency and save thousands of taxpayer dollars." The White House tried to explain the Wednesday flight crisis. In a Twitter post, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said, "The President has been briefed by the Secretary of Trans- portation this morning on the FA A system outage. There is no evidence of a cyberattack at this point, but the president directed DOT to conduct a full investigation into the causes. The FA A will provide regular up- dates. Since no cause has been de- termined, it appears that the DOT should be all hands on deck to de- termine the issue and ensure that this doesn't happen again." I emailed McNamara a few ques- tions regarding this statement. Be- low are the questions I asked. It has come to my attention that you sent an all hands email today an- nouncing an early holiday release for MLK day. Can you confirm? Does the DOT normally re- lease employees early before a Fed- eral holiday? Does Secretary Buttigieg pri- oritize Federal Holiday leave for his employees, regardless of the work- load or emergencies at DOT? He forwarded my questions to the press office, which responded to my email. "Emergency and essential per- sonnel will be working as mentioned in the notice," a spokesperson said. Providing three hours of leave was a gracious gift given by Mc- Namara. A fter doing some quick re- search, I found out the average sala- ry for a federal employee in the Unit- ed States: $108,584.00 a year, which comes out to be $52.20 per hour if you figure in an average year an employee works 2,080 hours. Since there are 55,000 employees at DOT, as per the website, this gift amounts to $8,613,634.62. If this is a standard practice for federal holidays, how much tax dollars are going to this type of practice? The FA A's extra time off extended to federal employees working from home. Workers with no commute will receive the same time off. Finally, it remains unclear just how many emergency and essential personnel will be working. Contrary to the DOT spokesperson's email to me, the initial announcement about the time off says the decision will be up to supervisors, not applied across the board. If the DOT focused more on solv- ing issues and not on employee time off, maybe it wouldn't have so ma- ny crises. Roman Jankowski serves as a se- nior investigative counsel for the Oversight Project at The Heritage Foundation.