Obama implores Congress to end aviation shutdown

President Barack Obama today implored the House and Senate to end within days the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration. “My expectation, and I think the American people’s expectation, is that this gets resolved by the end of this week,” Obama says. Yet it remains unclear how and whether that will happen. Addressing reporters at the start of a Cabinet meeting, Obama was asked whether he would intervene to end the dispute. The president says he has made calls to key leaders and urged them to do their work. He says the legislation needed to solve the crisis is not complicated and has been done many times before. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the easiest course of action is for Congress to return to town to resolve the impasse. LaHood says the deadlock, now in its 12th day, has idled 4,000 FAA employees and some 70,000 construction workers on airport projects. Air traffic controllers, however, remain on the job. Legislation has stalled because some members of Congress object to cuts to air service subsidies received by some rural communities.