{"id":14763,"date":"2025-10-23T17:01:39","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/blaming-democrats-johnson-wont-bring-house-back-to-pay-air-traffic-controllers\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T17:01:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T17:01:39","slug":"blaming-democrats-johnson-wont-bring-house-back-to-pay-air-traffic-controllers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/blaming-democrats-johnson-wont-bring-house-back-to-pay-air-traffic-controllers\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaming Democrats, Johnson won\u2019t bring House back to pay air traffic controllers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> said he won\u2019t bring the House back to vote to pay air traffic controllers and other essential employees, saying the measure \u201cwould be spiked in the Senate\u201d anyway \u2014 and besides, \u201cit would take the pressure off [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer<\/a> to get his job done and open the government again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson made the comments Thursday at a press conference with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who noted that the government shutdown is leaving already overworked air traffic controllers without pay<\/a>, many of them forced to pick up second jobs to pay the bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext Tuesday is the first paycheck that they will not receive,\u201d Duffy said of the air traffic controllers, warning that more flights would be canceled or delayed if that is necessary to keep the skies safe as the shutdown drags on.<\/p>\n

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz<\/a> (R-Texas) has introduced<\/a> a bill that would fund air traffic controllers. But Johnson, pressed by reporters about passing such a standalone bill in the House, noted that House Republicans have already approved a “clean” stopgap funding bill a month ago \u2014 which includes funding for air traffic controllers and TSA agents\u2019 salaries. And, the speaker argued, even if he brought the House back to pay essential federal workers, Senate Democrats would block it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it would be a waste of our time,” Johnson added.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Schumer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Trump administration officials at the White House and the Transportation Department have been exploring ways to shift funding within the executive branch to pay air traffic controllers<\/a>, but it\u2019s a huge feat and would cost more than $500 million per month to pull off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going to get it,\u201d House Transportation Chair Sam Graves<\/a> (R-Mo.) said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really tough to find it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson said White House officials \u201care running out of creative ideas, and there is not an existing pot of money that could cover the air traffic controller\u2019s salaries right now. And so that is why we have to get the government reopened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Safety could become an issue as the shutdown stretches longer, Graves said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not right now, but that\u2019s a good question. I mean, it could eventually become one \u2014 a safety issue. If air traffic controllers don\u2019t get paid, then they\u2019re going to be frustrated because they have obligations as well,\u201d Graves said. \u201cThis just needs to end. That\u2019s just all there is to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaker Mike Johnson said he won\u2019t bring the House back to vote to pay air traffic controllers and other essential employees, saying the measure \u201cwould be spiked in the Senate\u201d anyway \u2014 and besides, \u201cit would take the pressure off [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer to get his job done and open the government again.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}