Senatet til Trump om privatisering av ATC: F--k you - Curt Lewis

Senate ignores Trump, moves bill that keeps FAA intact


An air traffic controller works at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey in May 2015. (Julio Cortez/Associated Press)

The Senate on Thursday ignored President Trump's desire to lop more than 30,000 workers from the federal payroll, approving legislation that protects the Federal Aviation Administration from being split in two.

Trump endorsed with great fanfare this month a House plan to spin off air traffic controllers and close to 20,000 other workers into a nonprofit private corporation. Flanked by several former secretaries of transportation at a White House ceremony, Trump said: "The previous administration spent over $7 billion trying to upgrade the system and totally failed. Honestly, they didn't know what the hell they were doing, a total waste of money."

But an increasingly independent Senate, emboldened by Trump's legislative failures, opted to disregard the White House push to privatize the controllers and those working on modernizing the aviation system.

[Who's afraid of Trump? Not enough Republicans - at least for now.]