Second payroll stimulus for airlines
 

There is an ALPA Call to Action that needs your immediate attention and participation now. This could very likely save the many jobs on the line across the industry as a whole. The CARES Act extension is just as it sounds, an extension of the CARES Act that would cover September 30, 2020 to March 31, 2021. Join us in asking Congress to support a clean extension of the Payroll Support Program, not just to bolster our industry and save pilot jobs, but also to support our nation’s economic recovery.

Through the ALPA Government Affairs Committee and your participation in this Call to Action, the extension is possible and could protect all our jobs, hopefully until we see a full recovery of the airline industry. It is also important to note that this Call to Action is not limited to ALPA pilots, or even pilots in general. It is open to everyone – friends, family, the general public - and I highly recommend you share this Call to Action with those around you to support us in this effort.

http://send.alpa.org/link.cfm?r=JJ2M...kz2K3lL87ZMw~~

Signed. Good Luck to us all.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship" - Alexander Fraser Tytler

Done! Anything to save jobs in these troubled times is worth a shot

it is funny how pilots are staunchly against any sort of aid or handout until it’s us in the bread line.

no doubt. Fiscal conservatism goes right out the window when it’s you in the welfare line. Hand outs are terrible, until it’s you that needs one. Then it’s all good.

^^^This^^^

+1. I want to keep my job...but I’m tired of punting to the next generation.

Cognitive dissonance is a very real thing for most people

What mental illness do you suffer from and hide from your AME and the FAA?

None... that I know of... :cool:

Human nature.

The trick is to run things so most folks don't actually need handouts (tough this year with covid). If most people are concerned with the hard-earned fruits of their labor being squandered by government, then government might be compelled to behave in a fiscally prudent manner. I think that's the trick to keep/wean folks off largesse from the treasury.


Even though the fed won't, at least some states have balanced budget requirements (including some that might surprise you, such as CA).

In fairness, our republic has thrived and lasted a lot longer than Lord Tytler would have predicted. He did point out a very valid weakness though, definitely worth bearing in mind.

Virginia is also a state with a balance budget requirement.

Why don’t we just say that we want to go back to the pre-1978 days. This proposal won’t end in March they will be back asking for an extension by then.

commendable and clearly needed, but Fiscal Year ends Sept 30. Congress is out entire month of August.

It is unknown if any such measure could be enacted with no budget and in a CR

our leaders may be focused on keeping their own jobs. not sure how Mr Taxpayer feels about this

Scenario 1:

A loser who doesn't pay attention in school and does not have the brains or ability to excel at anything goes out into the world and realizes that no one will pay them a dollar for a day's work because they fail to provide anything of value to society. Knowing full well they can't pay their own bills or anyone else's, they have children. They then ask the government (John Q. Taxpayer, that is) for a handout.

Scenario 2:

The government overreacts to a minor illness similar to the flu and shuts down the economy, putting 30+ million capable people out of work practically overnight, destroying entire industries in the process, all to save an infinitesimal number of people (0.03% to be precise) who would have died anyway from a variety of co-morbidities if they had caught the common cold.

I would argue Scenario 1 warrants no assistance but scenario 2 does, by virtue of the fact that we all want to work and are fully capable of working, yet the government's inept and irrational policies restrict us from doing so. They created the problem, so they're responsible for cleaning it up.

The best government is small government, and certainly a government that has little direct control over our lives, and the sooner people realize that the better off we'll all be.

Funny thing, I’d argue anti-government religion is what got us into this problem. Notice the countries with “big government” are on their way to living normal lives with control of corona?

Which states would that be? I currently live in California and I can assure you this big -government state has screwed up the corona response as good as anyone, if not worse. The governor just announced today essentially the closing of all schools until January. Many of my business owner neighbors are staring at bankruptcy due to the mandatory shut down, reopen, shutdown goat rope here. This is a cluster everywhere it is ignorant and plain deceitful to suggest Democrat controlled states have somehow done a better job.

First of all he said counties not states. Second of all, basically, All of Europe.

Yeah that’s about as subjective as it gets. Italy would beg to differ. Hell I bet North Korea is also doing great with this pandemic but not really a selling point for heavy handed governments.

Except that anything the government gives to people is stolen from someone else. Inflation is a tax and taxation is theft.

The government screwed up, why should I be forced to pay the bill?

That mental illness acting up again, is it?

Western Europe, Aus, NZ, and the developed East Asian countries all have a better hold on the virus due to generally high-trust societies and governments that took swift action.

Italy has 3x the population of Florida and had 1/10th the amount of deaths yesterday.

Democracy was so repugnant to rulers because the serfs (>50% of the population) would be able to write laws taxing the lords.
It is only in recent times the desire to tax the lords has wained, but that might be changing.
Most Americans have been paying taxes in paycheck after paycheck while living some form of paycheck to paycheck life yet when they need a little help for the first in over a decade they become a “burden”. Meanwhile at the palace...

i dont have any kids, so I don't mind punting to the next generation

It’s ok, at the rate we’re going kids won’t be well educated or socialized enough to actually catch the punt.

Not sure about mental illness but his first statement is 100% accurate

We're all going to be paying the bill either way. It would probably be better to keep most of our salaries and our health insurance for another six months than deplete our savings. Compared to the unfathomable amounts spent over the past few months, airline payroll support is a drop in the bucket.

i wonder if you’d feel the same if it was city transit workers being bailed out instead of you?

second payroll stimulus is unlikely.

I tend to agree. But if enough voters with a vested interest (ie us) write in to show we care a little, that might influence future legislation and policies which affect our industry and jobs. Organized labor gets the attention of the left, because we can also be organized to vote and they know it.

That conversation and many more like it are coming soon. The tax base has been destroyed everywhere.

Heres the problem.... this narrative is almost as dumb as the flipside that we can just shutdown forever. People were already making the choice not to fly or go out without any stay at home orders.... the only thing that would have made this better was an actual rational thought out plan instead of the half assed mostly reactionary bs that went on, which obviously is seemingly impossible in our country atm. Thus we are where we are.

So the transit system where I live has been bailed out multiple times and will needs it again. I am totally cool with it as I understand some folks need that transportation to get to and from work. This is like the schools debate to me. I could a pay a little more now to improve the schools in my area or I can pay more when the inevitable consequences of not funding them come home to roost, in the form of increased welfare, healthcare, and criminal justice spending.

They are generally bailed out all day, every day. Few such systems operate in the black. Sure doesn't in my town.

The only such system that's comparable to airlines as national infrastructure is AMTRACK... and those trains use red ink instead of diesel for fuel.

Not that I like competition but I wonder if more elements of the passenger rail network had reasonable service times if it could be more viable. It works in the northeast because the transit times are reasonable.

Hamburg to Munich is about 5 hours by train. New York to Chicago is about 50% farther but that train is 23 hours instead of 8. Of course that's because it's mandated to stop in every town with a population over 50 and probably because the track speed is 35 mph half the time.

For all the whining about airline bailouts, Amtrak has been on the dole since Nixon was president.

Rail in the US is inherently limited by our vast distances relative to other places where it is more successful.

Travel time can be improved by speed, but that requires new infrastructure which is hard for several reasons...

1) Vast distances mean vast expense. That could be overcome with enough money, but it would be a LOT of money.
2) Fast trains need fairly straight rail lines. Either they'd have to drill through some big mountain ranges ($$$$$) or go the long way around. The latter would increase cost and travel time.
3) NIMBY. Existing rail lines have right-of-way going back as far two centuries. New lines would need new right-of-way. The locals won't like it one bit, especially the one's who will lose their homes. This nation doesn't have the political guts to force the imminent domain issue on that large of a scale, for a dubious benefit in the first place. If limited to existing right-of-ways in populated areas, fast trains would have to slow down to handle the curves (and possibly noise).

So even if you overcome all of that, a 200mph train that could in theory do a transcon in 11 hours is probably going to have to go the long way around some terrain and urban areas, and slow down for others. Not even counting planned stops along the way, your're easily pushing 20 hours NY-LA.

Airplane infrastructure at least already exists, with established right of ways (and the air is free with zero mx costs).

Also... there's the security issue. A 200+ mph train has a lot of 1/2MV^2. How do you keep it safe? With the plane you screen everything that gets on board and then once you leave the gate nothing can really touch you. For a train, you'd have to secure every inch of a high-speed rail. And if you didn't, the bad guys would see it to it soon enough. $$$$$$

Also, don’t forget Amtrak is charged with stopping at every farm field, doing milk can runs. Back before deregulation, Ozark did those runs from Memphis to Minneapolis. Five intermediate stops. Took all day to get there with a DC-9. Often only picked up or dropped off two or three passengers at each intermediate stop.

Plus, most places they run on freight tracks. They are second priority. A “Z“ express freight can put an Amtrak on a siding, waiting for the express freight to pass.