GOP Support Grows for Airline Payroll

• Author: William Asher
• Posted: 2024-09-18

America is a nation that has spent a lot of blood and treasure in wars to keep communism from growing around the globe. The reasoning of Americans a few generations ago was that a one-party system is too evil, because it's dictatorial and the antithesis of freedom. Though many critics of America's imperialism of the past suggest that the nation's two-party system isn't much better, as the only viable choices for political representation in America are the Democrats and the Republicans. For over a century now, Republicans have had a hard-nose reputation for not giving benefits out to people, instead demanding everyone earns via their own merit through hard work. Though with the Coronavirus still wreaking havoc in the nation, with over 4 million infected, Republicans are starting to relent on their stance by offering benefits.

Some of the benefits Republicans are considering right now include a new stimulus package in Congress and also another boost for the employees of airlines via a large grant. Many airline companies have been severely suffering since the pandemic started. Trump halted traveling to and from China and a lot of other nations, which means that people are not flying like they used to. Add to that most states mandating that their citizens shelter in place, and the number of flights people are taking in and out of the nation are on par with the time the Wright Brothers were still around.

Airline employees losing their jobs and going on federal benefits would cost a lot more than government merely bailing out the airline companies so that they can meet payroll. This is why the airline employee unions have been fighting for a personalized stimulus package, and they now believe that they are closer to a $25 billion grant from the federal government.

The government has been busy during the entirely of 2020 offering bailouts and stimulus spending, to the tune of trillions of dollars. However, what the airline unions seek is a grant, not a loan. They don't want to have to pay the money back. The reasoning here is quite simple. The airlines believe that it's the government's fault that their businesses are failing, nothing at all to do with the natural state of the economy. After all, if people weren't forced to stay home and if travel wasn't restricted, people would still be traveling and the airlines would be flush with cash. So the argument from the airline employee unions is that government's direction actions are entirely responsible for their downturn, and so they're seeking grant money to keep their employees afloat during these difficult times.

Ongoing Support for Airline Employees Expected

No one knows when the novel Coronavirus is finally going to be a thing of the past. By all accounts from experts in the field of virology, it might never go away, and it's something we'll be dealing with for years to come. So the airline employee unions are not simply seeking a simple injection to keep people paid for a few weeks. They want to be able to make their payroll numbers through March 2021. This is a move that has support from quite a few prominent Republican Senators, and even President Trump, also a Republican. It seems that as of August 6, the one thing holding back the stimulus grant for airline employees is the Democrats in Congress, who want to attach to the spending measures some sort of C02 reduction initiatives before handing the money over.

All told, a group consisting of 16 Republicans in the US Senate convened on Wednesday, August 5, in order to speak about the $25 billion in additional grants for the airlines. President Trump stated in a briefing in the White House that "it's important to keep our airlines going," being very succinct with his support of the grant money. Everyone who's been paying attention to the global pandemic can see that airlines are failing all over the world. In America alone, airline jobs account for tens of thousands of jobs, as you're dealing with everything from pilots and mechanics to security officers and vendors in airports. Airports themselves are like an entire miniature economy, and they're all suffering.

The good news for airlines is that something is predicted to happen on the stimulus grant money in as little as a week. As long as things do not get held up in the House, the airlines should soon be receiving some much needed money.