If you’ve been in an airport this week, you’ve felt it. The lines are longer, the departure boards are a sea of red “delayed” warnings, and a palpable tension is in the air.
The partial government shutdown – for weeks a political headline from a distant Washington, D.C. – has now spiraled into a full-blown crisis in the skies.
This isn’t a manufactured problem. It is the direct, real-world consequence of a failure to execute one of the most basic functions of our government. It’s a story about the immense stress on the “essential” workers who hold our safety in their hands, and it’s rooted in one of the most powerful and absolute clauses in the U.S. Constitution.
At a Glance: The Air Travel Crisis
- What’s Happening: A worsening government shutdown is causing cascading flight delays and cancellations at major U.S. airports.
- The Direct Cause: An increasing number of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) – who are federally required to work as “essential” employees – are not being paid. This has led to critical staffing shortages as many call in sick.
- The Administration’s Stance: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has confirmed that controllers are missing full paychecks, putting the entire system under unbearable strain.
- The Constitutional Issue: This is a direct result of Congress’s “power of the purse” (Article I, Section 9). Without a budget passed by Congress, the Treasury is legally forbidden from paying federal employees, even for work they are forced to do.
The ‘Essential’ Employee Trap
During a government shutdown, federal employees are split into two groups. “Non-essential” workers are furloughed – sent home without pay. “Essential” workers, however, are in a far more difficult position.
This group includes our military, federal law enforcement, and, critically, the more than 14,000 air traffic controllers who manage the most complex airspace in the world. They are required by law to show up to their high-stress, life-and-death jobs. But the government is legally prohibited from paying them until the shutdown ends.
These are highly skilled professionals who are now watching their bills pile up. They are being asked to guide your plane safely to its destination while wondering how they will make their next mortgage payment. The result is a predictable spike in “sick outs” – not an organized strike, which is illegal for federal employees – but a wave of workers who are financially or mentally unable to show up for their shifts.
A Crisis of Constitutional Design
This entire mess is a crisis of the Constitution’s own making. The power that has shut down our skies is one of the most important in our system of government: the “power of the purse.”
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
This single sentence is the bedrock of legislative power. It was designed by the Founders to be the ultimate check on a king or a president. It ensures that the executive branch can spend nothing without the express consent of the people’s representatives in Congress.
The “essential” employee is in an impossible bind: legally required to work, but legally unable to be paid. This is the paradoxical and perilous result of a shutdown.
This power is reinforced by the Antideficiency Act, a law that makes it a crime for a federal official to spend money that Congress has not appropriated.
In this standoff, President Trump cannot simply “find the money” to pay the air traffic controllers, even if he wants to. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy cannot order them to be paid. The Treasury is locked, and only a new law from Congress can open it.
A Political Failure with Real-World Consequences
This constitutional power was never intended to be a weapon in a routine budget dispute. It was designed to prevent tyranny.
Today, it is being used as a political bargaining chip in a high-stakes standoff between Congress and the White… House over the federal budget. Each side is holding the government hostage, betting that the American public will blame the other side for the chaos.
But the consequences are no longer abstract.
This is no longer a political game. When the highly-stressed professionals we trust to keep airplanes from colliding are forced to work for free, a political failure becomes a direct threat to public safety.
The delays at the airport are not just an inconvenience; they are the visible symptom of a system at its breaking point. This is the human cost of a constitutional failure – a failure of our elected leaders to perform their most basic duty: to fund the government and keep the nation running.