Because of Congress' inaction, the Federal Aviation Administration was on partial shutdown. Four thousand workers were temporarily out of work, airport safety inspectors were working without pay and the government stood to lose roughly $1 billion in tax revenues on airline ticket sales from now to Labor Day — and most Congress members decided to take a five-week vacation without addressing the urgent issue.

This is no way to run any government, let alone a mature democracy. I guess we're now an immature democracy.

Clearly, the safety inspectors care more about our nation running smoothly than do the childish Republican and Democrat idiots in Congress, who, once again, refused to compromise. This time on a program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports. Initially, they couldn't even agree to play nice and pass a stopgap continuing FAA financing bill, as they have done in the past.

President Barack Obama should have exercised his constitutional prerogative and called all the brats back from their vacation and make them all get their homework done.

Robert Alan Gleave

Salt Lake City