There is a national emergency, but it’s not at the southern border – it’s in Washington, D.C.

Astounding how members of Congress and the administration can jump on planes and head home or elsewhere for their long weekends and expect unpaid air-traffic controllers in high-stress jobs and underpaid Transportation Security Administration personnel to work without paychecks to protect them!

Any rational citizen would think that all our so-called “representatives” would stick around to resolve the issues and problems – I guess it depends on whom they really represent. They still manage to collect their paychecks and benefits while doing little more than getting dressed in the morning and showing up for work three days a week. What arrogance! To be fair, there are a handful of true representatives, but they’re outnumbered.

With one or both houses of Congress under Republican control for the last decade, the only bills that hit the floor for a vote seemed to be more funding to investigate Hillary Clinton and proposals to unravel all things Obama administration, like the Affordable Care Act, any environmental safeguards and workers’ benefits.

Red-herring tactics have a purpose. Example: Since the 1980s and Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the air-traffic controllers union, there have been efforts to privatize our airspace. Imagine publicly traded companies charging fees for anything that uses airspace – you use airspace, you pay, including charging for U.S. military usage.

With the return of Elaine Chao (Sen. Mitch McConnell’s wife) to the Department of Transportation, someone so tied to Wall Street – well, you figure it out.

Loretta M. Turner

Biddeford