Airlines – most vocally American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, but also United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, the two who will be furloughing workers in large numbers – have been lobbying for a ‘clean extension’ of CARES Act payroll support. That’s another $25 billion for airline payrolls, even though the facts on the ground have changed a lot since early Spring.
Wednesday morning while Doug Parker and AFA-CWA union head Sara Nelson were on CNBC Squawk Box I tweeted Andrew Ross Sorkin with the simple math of $25 billion against around 35,000 airline employees being furloughed now – and he asked Parker if he’d take a lower number to keep employees on. Parker dodged.
The White House proposal is now $20 billion rather than $25 billion as they try to find common ground between their $1.6 trillion number and the House’s $2.2 trillion. Matthew Parsons at Skift writes “It’s not quite the CARES Act extension U.S. carriers wanted, as Washington’s bailout offer is below the $25 billion they’ve been calling for.” Boo hoo.
Last night I got sucked into the vortex of actually reading through parts of the House proposal. The legislation is 2200 pages long. Here’s a summary that is excruciatingly long itself. The list of things included, totally unrelated to Covid, that get this Christmas tree up to $2.2 trillion is amazing. Would you believe $50 million for violence against women programs on Indian reservations?
There are programs that may have perfect validity of course, but anything anyone ever wanted has been bundled such as $250 million to discourage recidivism by ex-prisoners; $100 million for victims of child abuse programs; $24mm to create maps of where broadband internet is available (semi-related to Covid there’s $12 billion in wifi hotspots for schools and libraries).
The General Services Administration would get $1 billion for technology purchases; Postal workers would get ‘additional protections’ on top of a $15 billion bailout; $30 million to care for endangered species; $15mm to fight wildlife trafficking; $50 million to study the link between pollution and health; $8.5 billion for substance abuse programs; $350mm for AmeriCorps; $175mm for PBS; $100mm to the Veterans Administration for supply chain management; $1.5mm for the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation – I could go on.
In the grand scheme of things maybe a second round of airline bailouts aren’t even the worst thing the government has been on the verge of doing. After 9/11 Congressman Jim Moran said “It’s an open grab bag, so let’s grab.” And a crisis like this creates a huge opportunity to steal from the taxpayer purse.
@ Gary — They should receive ZERO. Ungrateful…
The tea leaves I’m reading say that even if Mnuchin & Pelosi strike a deal today, the Senate won’t pass it.
The sad thing is that nobody cares anymore even Republicans are used to pretend they care about these things, now with Trump it’s open party
Mitch is so very smart. He will loose his majority though.
Zero for the airlines and their over paid staff. Airline personnel are not any more important than the 28,000 Disney workers who are going to be let go, or the 700,000 gym workers who have lost their jobs or the countless number of wait staff, cooks, etc. Over 800,000 people filed for unemployment last week, what’s another 40,000 other than the unions have lobbyist who pass out money to congressional members to get preferential treatment. If they feel that they have to give them something then the ones who were going to lose their jobs should go to minimum wage. And don’t forget the PPP program only covered 4 weeks of payroll, while the airline personnel have had 6 months of full pay (except those that took leave, etc.). That in itself is reason enough to deny any additional funds for the airlines.