US Government Can't Pay Air Traffic Controllers, Can Still Fund Overseas Bombs
While essential services like air traffic control crumble, leading to pay disruptions for federal employees, the gears of the military-industrial complex grind on uninterrupted. Take the recent $14.5 billion aid package for Israel, for instance. This passed with bipartisan support (HR 6126, 2023), including 'defense' spending that, unlike domestic paychecks, apparently isn't subject to the
vagaries of a government shutdown. Representative Jared Kushner, for instance, received over $500,000 from AIPAC-linked PACs in 2022, according to OpenSecrets.org, then promptly championed such foreign aid packages. So, while US citizens experience travel chaos and federal workers struggle to put food on the table, the money keeps flowing to overseas conflicts. One might almost call it a feature,
not a bug, of a system designed to prioritize geopolitical maneuvering over the welfare of its own populace. Perhaps those air traffic controllers could apply for a job managing a weapons factory in Ohio (owned by an Israeli company, naturally), where funding seems eternally secure.