In December of 2003, President Bush signed a law that trained pilots and other flight officers on how to properly carry guns on planes. This program, called the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, is run through the Federal Air Marshal Service – the same guys that are tasked with protecting us when we fly. Since then, estimates suggest that there are somewhere around 12,000 trained and armed federal flight deck officers.
The current White House administration wants to significantly cut the program. They want to drop the budget from this program from $25 million to $12 million, which breaks down to about $1000 per trained, armed flight deck officer.
Now, before you think that’s a lot of money to keep you and your family safe while flying the terrorist skies, take into consideration that the same White House administration just built a brand new, $774,000 soccer field for the prisoners down at Guantanamo Bay. Mind you, this soccer field will only be used by about 120 prisoners, which means that the field cost about $6450 per terrorist Pele.
The White House approves spending $6450 per terrorist to let them play soccer, but feels that paying anything more than $1000 per pilot to keep your family safe is too much.
Does anybody else have a problem with this?