Senate passes bill letting states tax online sales

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate aimed to help traditional retailers and financially strapped state and local governments Monday by passing a bill that would widely subject online shopping — for many a largely tax-free frontier — to state sales taxes.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 27, getting support from Republicans and Democrats alike. But opposition from some conservatives who view it as a tax increase will make it a tougher sell in the House. President Barack Obama has conveyed his support for the measure.

Under current law, states can only require retailers to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state.

That means big retailers with stores all over the country like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target collect sales taxes when they sell goods over the Internet. But online retailers like eBay and Amazon don't have to collect sales taxes, except in states where they have offices or distribution centers.

As a result, many online sales are tax-free, giving Internet retailers an advantage over brick-and-mortar stores.

"We ought to have a structure in place in the states that treats all retail the same," said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation. "Small retailers are collecting (sales tax) on the first dollar of any sale they make, and it's only fair that other retailers who are selling to those same customers the same product have those same obligations."

The bill would empower states to require businesses to collect taxes for products they sell on the Internet, in catalogs and through radio and TV ads. Under the legislation, the sales taxes would be sent to the state where the shopper lives.

Supporters say the current tax disparity is turning some traditional stores into showrooms, where shoppers pick out items they like, then buy them on the Internet to avoid sales taxes.

"It's about the way commerce has changed in America," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "Bookstores, stores that sell running shoes, bicycles and appliances are at a distinct disadvantage. They've become showrooms."

Internet giant eBay is leading the fight against the bill, along with lawmakers from states with no sales tax and several prominent anti-tax groups. The bill's opponents say it would put an expensive obligation on small businesses because they are not as equipped as national merchandisers to collect and remit sales taxes at the multitude of state rates.

"Giant retailers have a requirement to collect sales taxes nationwide because they have physical presence nationwide," eBay president John Donahoe wrote in an online column over the weekend. "Likewise, today small retail stores and online retailers collect sales taxes for the one state where they are located. That's a fair requirement."

"If the bill passes, small online businesses would have the same tax compliance obligations and face the same enforcement risks as giant retailers, despite the fact that they are usually located in just one state."

Businesses with less than $1 million in online sales would be exempt. EBay wants to exempt businesses with up to $10 million in sales or fewer than 50 employees.

Some states have sales taxes as high as 7 percent, plus city and county taxes that can push the combined rate even higher. For example, the combined state and local sales tax is 9 percent in Los Angeles and 9.25 percent in Chicago. In New York City, it's 8.5 percent and in Richmond, Va., 5 percent. In many states, shoppers are already required to pay unpaid sales tax when they file their state income tax returns. However, states complain that few taxpayers comply.

Many governors — Republicans and Democrats — have been lobbying the federal government for years for the authority to collect sales taxes from online sales.

The issue is getting bigger for states as more people make purchases online. Last year, Internet sales in the U.S. totaled $226 billion, up nearly 16 percent from the previous year, according to government estimates.

States lost a total of $23 billion last year because they couldn't collect taxes on out-of-state sales, according to a study done for the National Conference of State Legislatures, which has lobbied for the bill. About half of that was lost from Internet sales; half from purchases made through catalogs, mail orders and telephone orders, the study said.

Supporters say the bill makes it relatively easy for Internet retailers to comply. States must provide free computer software to help retailers calculate sales taxes, based on where shoppers live. States must also establish a single entity to receive Internet sales tax revenue, so retailers don't have to send it to individual counties or cities.

Opponents worry the bill would give states too much power to reach across state lines to enforce their tax laws. States could audit out-of-state businesses, impose liens on their property and, ultimately, sue them in state court.

In the Senate, lawmakers from three states without sales taxes are leading the opposition: Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon. They argue that businesses based in their states should not have to collect taxes for other states.

Delaware also has sales tax, though Delaware's two senators support the bill.

Grover Norquist, an anti-tax advocate, and the conservative Heritage Foundation oppose the bill, and many Republicans have been wary of crossing them.

Even so, the issue has a bipartisan flavor. The main sponsor, Sen. Mike Enzi, is a conservative Republican from Wyoming. He has worked closely with Durbin, a liberal Democrat.

In the House, Republican Speaker John Boehner has not commented publicly about the bill, giving supporters hope that he could be won over.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which would have jurisdiction over the bill, has cited problems with the legislation but not rejected it outright.

"While it attempts to make tax collection simpler, it still has a long way to go," Goodlatte said in a statement. Without more uniformity in the bill, he said, "businesses would still be forced to wade through potentially hundreds of tax rates and a host of different tax codes and definitions."

Goodlatte said he's "open to considering legislation concerning this topic but these issues, along with others, would certainly have to be addressed."

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House Passes H.R. 588, Clearing a Path for Proper Recognition of Major Donors within the Education Center at The Wall

Senate will consider bill to eliminate "huge hurdle" to Education Center fundraising efforts

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This evening, with a 398-2 floor vote, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 588, the Vietnam Veterans Donor Acknowledgement Act of 2013. The bipartisan bill, authored by Congressman Don Young (R-AK) and co-sponsored by 38 other members of Congress, now moves to the U.S. Senate for consideration and action. When enacted, the bill will correct a problem with the original legislation that authorized the construction of the Education Center at The Wall, making it possible for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) to acknowledge donor contributions by displaying, inside the facility, an appropriate statement or credit acknowledging the contribution.

Read the full text of the bill here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d113:h.r.588:

VVMF's president and founder, Jan C. Scruggs says, "We are grateful for the work already done by Congressman Young and the bill's co-sponsors in the House. We are eager to get working in the Senate, and to work with Majority Leader Harry Reid, Chairman Ron Wyden and Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski to see this through."

The Education Center was authorized in 2003 by the 108^th Congress. Enabling legislation mandates that it be privately funded. While vigorous fundraising continues, the enabling legislation includes a restriction on donor recognition that inhibits a more successful effort among some of the potentially most generous donors. Recognizing donors in meaningful ways is an effective means of cultivating stronger relationships that may lead to additional, larger gifts, and stronger personal engagement.  Some potential donors over the years have delayed giving donations because of this issue.  H.R. 588 removes that restriction while respecting the inviolability of the National Mall.

The bill allows only short, discrete, and unobtrusive acknowledgments or credits; does not permit any advertising slogans or company logos; and complies with National Park Service (NPS) guidelines for indoor donor recognition. Final design approval will be granted by the NPS and will look similar to that on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial and other sites on the Mall.  The donor recognition envisioned for the Education Center will be inside this 43,000 sq. feet underground facility and will not be visible from the National Mall.  

Scruggs continues, "The Education Center has long since passed the design approval process and is now ready to move forward. Time is of the essence, and H.R. 588 is a clear, concise, and straightforward fix to a problem that has severely inhibited our fundraising efforts among substantial donors."

About VVMF and the Education Center at The Wall

Established in 1979, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., promoting healing and educating about the impact of the Vietnam War.

The Education Center at The Wall will be a place on our National Mall where our military heroes' stories and sacrifice will never be forgotten. With plans to begin construction in 2015, the Center is a technologically-innovative learning facility to be built on the grounds of the Vietnam Veterans and Lincoln Memorials. Visitors will better understand the profound impact that the Vietnam War and other wars had on their friends and family members, their hometowns and the nation. The Center will feature the faces and stories of the more than 58,000 men and women on The Wall, honoring those who fell in Vietnam, those who fought and returned, as well as the friends and families of all who served. The Center will also celebrate the legacy of service that links the heroes of America's past to those still serving today. It will provide an opportunity for visitors from around the world to more fully understand and appreciate the extraordinary sacrifice of those who have given their lives in the nation's defense.  Visitors will not simply read their names.  They will see these patriots and get to know them in ways not envisioned in any other facility on the National Mall. The Education Center will truly be a place of learning and reflection about the values exemplified by the lives of those who have served and died for our country.

Learn more about the Education Center at The Wall by visiting www.vvmf.org or by calling 866-990-WALL.

Contact: Lee Allen
Phone: (202) 393-0090, ext. 109
lallen@vvmf.org

SOURCE Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

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In a first, black voter turnout rate passes whites

WASHINGTON (AP) — America's blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time, reflecting a deeply polarized presidential election in which blacks strongly supported Barack Obama while many whites stayed home.

Had people voted last November at the same rates they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels, Republican Mitt Romney would have won narrowly, according to an analysis conducted for The Associated Press.

Census data and exit polling show that whites and blacks will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. Last year's heavy black turnout came despite concerns about the effect of new voter-identification laws on minority voting, outweighed by the desire to re-elect the first black president.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the 2012 elections for the AP using census data on eligible voters and turnout, along with November's exit polling. He estimated total votes for Obama and Romney under a scenario where 2012 turnout rates for all racial groups matched those in 2004. Overall, 2012 voter turnout was roughly 58 percent, down from 62 percent in 2008 and 60 percent in 2004.

The analysis also used population projections to estimate the shares of eligible voters by race group through 2030. The numbers are supplemented with material from the Pew Research Center and George Mason University associate professor Michael McDonald, a leader in the field of voter turnout who separately reviewed aggregate turnout levels across states, as well as AP interviews with the Census Bureau and other experts. The bureau is scheduled to release data on voter turnout in May.

Overall, the findings represent a tipping point for blacks, who for much of America's history were disenfranchised and then effectively barred from voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

But the numbers also offer a cautionary note to both Democrats and Republicans after Obama won in November with a historically low percentage of white supporters. While Latinos are now the biggest driver of U.S. population growth, they still trail whites and blacks in turnout and electoral share, because many of the Hispanics in the country are children or noncitizens.

In recent weeks, Republican leaders have urged a "year-round effort" to engage black and other minority voters, describing a grim future if their party does not expand its core support beyond white males.

The 2012 data suggest Romney was a particularly weak GOP candidate, unable to motivate white voters let alone attract significant black or Latino support. Obama's personal appeal and the slowly improving economy helped overcome doubts and spur record levels of minority voters in a way that may not be easily replicated for Democrats soon.

Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.

More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.

"The 2012 turnout is a milestone for blacks and a huge potential turning point," said Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University who has written extensively on black politicians. "What it suggests is that there is an 'Obama effect' where people were motivated to support Barack Obama. But it also means that black turnout may not always be higher, if future races aren't as salient."

Whit Ayres, a GOP consultant who is advising GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a possible 2016 presidential contender, says the last election reaffirmed that the Republican Party needs "a new message, a new messenger and a new tone." Change within the party need not be "lock, stock and barrel," Ayres said, but policy shifts such as GOP support for broad immigration legislation will be important to woo minority voters over the longer term.

"It remains to be seen how successful Democrats are if you don't have Barack Obama at the top of the ticket," he said.

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In Ohio, a battleground state where the share of eligible black voters is more than triple that of other minorities, 27-year-old Lauren Howie of Cleveland didn't start out thrilled with Obama in 2012. She felt he didn't deliver on promises to help students reduce college debt, promote women's rights and address climate change, she said. But she became determined to support Obama as she compared him with Romney.

"I got the feeling Mitt Romney couldn't care less about me and my fellow African-Americans," said Howie, an administrative assistant at Case Western Reserve University's medical school who is paying off college debt.

Howie said she saw some Romney comments as insensitive to the needs of the poor. "A white Mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees just doesn't quite fit my idea of a president," she said. "Bottom line, Romney was not someone I was willing to trust with my future."

The numbers show how population growth will translate into changes in who votes over the coming decade:

—The gap between non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black turnout in 2008 was the smallest on record, with voter turnout at 66.1 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively; turnout for Latinos and non-Hispanic Asians trailed at 50 percent and 47 percent. Rough calculations suggest that in 2012, 2 million to 5 million fewer whites voted compared with 2008, even though the pool of eligible white voters had increased.

—Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks "outperformed" their eligible voter share for the first time on record.

—Latinos now make up 17 percent of the population but 11 percent of eligible voters, due to a younger median age and lower rates of citizenship and voter registration. Because of lower turnout, they represented just 10 percent of total 2012 votes cast. Despite their fast growth, Latinos aren't projected to surpass the share of eligible black voters until 2024, when each group will be roughly 13 percent. By then, 1 in 3 eligible voters will be nonwhite.

—In 2026, the total Latino share of voters could jump to as high as 16 percent, if nearly 11 million immigrants here illegally become eligible for U.S. citizenship. Under a proposed bill in the Senate, those immigrants would have a 13-year path to citizenship. The share of eligible white voters could shrink to less than 64 percent in that scenario. An estimated 80 percent of immigrants here illegally, or 8.8 million, are Latino, although not all will meet the additional requirements to become citizens.

"The 2008 election was the first year when the minority vote was important to electing a U.S. president. By 2024, their vote will be essential to victory," Frey said. "Democrats will be looking at a landslide going into 2028 if the new Hispanic voters continue to favor Democrats."

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Even with demographics seeming to favor Democrats in the long term, it's unclear whether Obama's coalition will hold if blacks or younger voters become less motivated to vote or decide to switch parties.

Minority turnout tends to drop in midterm congressional elections, contributing to larger GOP victories as happened in 2010, when House control flipped to Republicans.

The economy and policy matter. Exit polling shows that even with Obama's re-election, voter support for a government that does more to solve problems declined from 51 percent in 2008 to 43 percent last year, bolstering the view among Republicans that their core principles of reducing government are sound.

The party's "Growth and Opportunity Project" report released last month by national leaders suggests that Latinos and Asians could become more receptive to GOP policies once comprehensive immigration legislation is passed.

Whether the economy continues its slow recovery also will shape voter opinion, including among blacks, who have the highest rate of unemployment.

Since the election, optimism among nonwhites about the direction of the country and the economy has waned, although support for Obama has held steady. In an October AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of nonwhites said the nation was heading in the right direction; that's dropped to 52 percent in a new AP-GfK poll. Among non-Hispanic whites, however, the numbers are about the same as in October, at 28 percent.

Democrats in Congress merit far lower approval ratings among nonwhites than does the president, with 49 percent approving of congressional Democrats and 74 percent approving of Obama.

William Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, says that in previous elections where an enduring majority of voters came to support one party, the president winning re-election — William McKinley in 1900, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 — attracted a larger turnout over his original election and also received a higher vote total and a higher share of the popular vote. None of those occurred for Obama in 2012.

Only once in the last 60 years has a political party been successful in holding the presidency more than eight years — Republicans from 1980-1992.

"This doesn't prove that Obama's presidency won't turn out to be the harbinger of a new political order," Galston says. "But it does warrant some analytical caution."

Early polling suggests that Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton could come close in 2016 to generating the level of support among nonwhites as Obama did in November, when he won 80 percent of their vote. In a Fox News poll in February, 75 percent of nonwhites said they thought Clinton would make a good president, outpacing the 58 percent who said that about Vice President Joe Biden.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP, predicts closely fought elections in the near term and worries that GOP-controlled state legislatures will step up efforts to pass voter ID and other restrictions to deter blacks and other minorities from voting. In 2012, African-Americans were able to turn out in large numbers only after a very determined get-out-the-vote effort by the Obama campaign and black groups, he said.

Jealous says the 2014 midterm election will be the real bellwether for black turnout. "Black turnout set records this year despite record attempts to suppress the black vote," he said.

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AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ "America at the Tipping Point: The Changing Face of a Nation" is an occasional series examining the cultural mosaic of the U.S. and its historic shift to a majority-minority nation.

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Congress passes plan to ease flight delays

By Doug Palmer and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a Senate plan to ease nationwide air-traffic delays caused by automatic federal spending cuts, seeking to calm irritated travelers but sparking a backlash from interest groups not spared from cuts.

The Senate had unanimously voted for the plan late Thursday and the House approved it by a 361-41 vote. White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama plans to sign the bill.

The legislation will give the Department of Transportation flexibility to use about $250 million in unspent funds to cover the costs of air traffic controllers and other essential employees at the Federal Aviation Administration who had been furloughed.

Congressional approval of the bill, barely four pages long, came as lawmakers looked to fly out of Washington for a week-long recess. It was not clear how quickly the air delays will ease once the bill is enacted.

Lawmakers were eager to stem the growing wrath of the traveling public, which had dealt with significant take-off and landing delays since the furloughs started on Sunday.

They had also faced anger from airline CEOs whose companies had mounted a grassroots campaign through a website called dontgroundamerica.com, encouraging Americans to send messages to Congress and the White House.

The quick legislative action marks a surprising bipartisan effort, especially after many Republicans had accused the Obama administration of manipulating funds to maximize the impact of the budget cuts and thus make Republicans look bad.

FRESH LOBBYING TO FOLLOW?

The move does come with the risk, though, of unleashing lobbying campaigns to ease other program cuts triggered by the controversial "sequestration" that took effect on March 1, requiring across-the-board spending cuts among most federal agencies.

Even as they lined up behind the bipartisan bill, House Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for what House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called "mindless" across-the-board spending cuts that brought the FAA furloughs.

Republican Representative Tom Latham of Iowa, who oversees transportation spending, accused the Obama administration of "shameful politics" by carrying out the furloughs, which the FAA said were required by the deficit-reduction law. "This is no way to run a government," he said.

Democrat after Democrat reminded Republicans that the Republican-controlled House had approved the sequestration in 2011. They complained that the FAA legislation fails to prevent 70,000 poor children from losing pre-school education, 4 million fewer meals from being delivered to poor, elderly people and stop the grounding of some military air combat units.

"Let's deal with all the adverse cuts, not just those that affect the affluent traveling sector," said Representative Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat.

JOB 'WELL DONE'

Democratic Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland summed up the quick passage of the bill, as Congress hurried to start its recess, by saying: "Members of this House are going to run for the airports. They're all going to be flying home on airplanes. And, yes, they will make it easier for members of Congress to get through those lines. And they will pat themselves on the back and say job well done."

The plan for the budget cuts was originally hatched by Washington in 2011 as a way to force the White House and Congress to find an alternative budget deal. But policymakers failed to reach such a deal earlier this year.

The cuts aimed to trim a total $109 billion from federal spending through September of this year and affect a broad range of programs, from early education to medical research.

Congress faces yet another round of these automatic spending cuts that would start on October 1.

Some interest groups immediately cried foul at the FAA fix.

Cynthia Pellegrini, an executive at March of Dimes, a nonprofit that advocates for the health of mothers and babies, said she was troubled by Congress acting on a case-by-case basis.

"Over the next several months we feel there are going to be significant impacts on women, children and families," Pellegrini said in an interview. "This may not be as visible as longer lines at the airport. You can't see that a child's belly is emptier because her family couldn't get food assistance."

The U.S. Travel Association on Friday said it appreciated Congress' swift action, but said it was concerned that funds may be diverted from critical infrastructure projects.

"At a time when we should be modernizing our infrastructure to improve efficiency, capacity and U.S. global competitiveness, sequestration-related issues should not be solved on the backs of airports," the group said in a statement.

BAND-AID

Without the legislation, the FAA said it would have to furlough 47,000 employees for up to 11 days through September 30 in order to save $637 million that is required by the sequestration.

Of those 47,000 workers, almost 15,000 are full-time air traffic controllers or trainees.

While supporting the legislation, the White House on Friday said it falls short of broader action needed to address sequestration. "It will be good news for America's traveling public if Congress spares them these unnecessary delays," White House spokesman Carney said in a statement.

Carney said lawmakers need to take additional steps to alleviate the impact felt beyond the airline industry from the cuts, such as among poorer elderly people, defense industry workers and others brought on by sequestration.

"Ultimately, this is no more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester's mindless across-the-board cuts," he said.

Transportation officials have made other cuts to their budget but furloughs of air traffic controllers began this week, prompting traveler backlash at major hubs like those in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta.

On Friday morning, departing flights at Newark Liberty International Airport were delayed more than an hour and 15 minutes, and Boston's Logan Airport had departure delays of more than 30 minutes, both due to staffing, the FAA said. Teterboro airport in New Jersey, which handles many corporate jets, also was experiencing delays of more than 90 minutes due to staffing.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Doug Palmer, Susan Heavey, Karen Jacobs and Alwyn Scott; Writing by Karey Van Hall; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Senate passes bill to ease FAA furloughs

WASHINGTON (AP) — With flight delays mounting, the Senate approved hurry-up legislation Thursday night to end air traffic controller furloughs blamed for inconveniencing large numbers of travelers.

A House vote on the measure was expected as early as Friday, with lawmakers eager to embark on a weeklong vacation.

Under the legislation, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA has said it will shut the facilities as it makes its share of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that took effect last month at numerous government agencies.

The Senate acted as the FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

There was no immediate reaction at the White House, although administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."

Senate approval followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.

Officials said a small group of senators insisted on a last-ditch effort at an agreement before Congress adjourned for a vacation that could have become politically problematic if the flight delays continued.

"I want to do it right now. There are other senators you'd have to ask what the hang-up is," Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said at a point when it appeared no compromise would emerge.

For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.

In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.

It added it was "learning of additional impacts nationwide, including open watches, increased restoration times, delays resulting from insufficient funding for parts and equipment, modernization delays, missed or deferred preventative maintenance, and reduced redundancy."

The airlines, too, were pressing Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.

In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, likened the furloughs to a "wildcat regulatory action."

He added, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."

In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.

Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.

One Senate Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, noted that without the type of comprehensive deficit deal that Obama favors, a bill that eases the spending crunch at the FAA would inevitably be followed by other single-issue measures. She listed funding at the National Institutes of Health as one example, and cuts that cause furloughs of civilians who work at military hospitals as a second.

At the same time, Democratic aides said resolve had crumbled under the weight of widespread delays for the traveling public and pressure from the airlines.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., involved in the discussions, said the issue was big enough so "most people want to find a solution as long as it doesn't spend any more money."

Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and another $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.

Across the Capitol, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said, "We're willing to look at what the Senate's going to propose."

He said he believes the FAA has the authority it needs under existing law to shift funds and end the furloughs of air traffic controllers, and any legislation should be "very, very limited" and direct the agency to use the flexibility it already has.

In a reflection of the political undercurrents, another House Republican, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said FAA employees "are being used as pawns by this (Obama) administration to be able to implement the maximum amount of pain on the American people when it does not have to be this way."

The White House and congressional Democrats vociferously dispute such claims.

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Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

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