John Mica: “I thank the gentleman. Why are we here? We're here because of a colossal failure of leadership in the ability to manage…”

“I thank the gentleman. Why are we here? We're here because of a colossal failure of leadership in the ability to manage resources. First of all, I can tell you that there are plenty of air traffic controllers. Just go online and get this report, ``Plan for the Future.'' Some of our airports have far more air traffic controllers than we need. In fact, air traffic control for the last 10 years is down 27 percent, and we still have close to 15,000 air traffic controllers. This legislation does provide a fig leaf for the administration who said they don't have the authority. I can tell you, they had the authority and the ability to move people and resources around, so that gives us the opportunity to get the flying public flying again. Again, we have the resources, they had the money, and here we're giving them the final fig leaf that they have asked for and they say they need to get this done. I can tell you that if Ronald Reagan were President, we would not be in this mess.”