Washington Post calls Sen. Reid 'irresponsible' on air-traffic problem

Editors at the Washington Post are admonishing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) who on Monday said, "We cannot and we should not address only the [Federal Aviation Administration] cuts."

Reid's point, made on the Senate floor, was that effects of sequestration should be addressed as a whole and not in specific areas, such as recent cuts that have resulted in the furlough of air-traffic controllers. "We cannot ignore the sequestration’s overall effect on Americans" he said.

From a Wednesday editorial in the Post:

Actually, if the air-traffic furloughs pose both a big inconvenience and a short-term danger to the U.S. economy — and they do — it would be irresponsible to let them go on until an unlikely grand bargain is struck, or even to use them as political leverage to achieve one. Mr. Reid is not a powerless bystander; he should work with the White House and Republicans to help the FAA offset the furloughs, which account for $160 million of the $637 million FAA sequester. That’s not small change, but surely it could be scrounged out of the Transportation Department’s $70 billion budget, given appropriate legislation.

@eScarry