WASHINGTON, Nov 20, (AP): Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth suggested during a hearing Wednesday that the Trump administration was playing politics with the aviation system during the shutdown to force an agreement to reopen the government. Duckworth, of Illinois, zeroed in on why the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy never shared the safety data they relied upon when they decided to order airlines to cut some of their flights at 40 busy airports near the end of the shutdown.

She also questioned why President Donald Trump didn't just find a way to pay air traffic controllers the way he did for the military, although the government relied on help from a private donor to pay soldiers. "It fails to strengthen confidence in good government, and the American people are understandably suspicious of a DOT and FAA that does not show its work,” Duckworth said during the Commerce Committee’s aviation subcommittee hearing.

During the shutdown, Duffy said repeatedly that the FAA ordered airlines to cut flights because of concerning safety data that FAA experts recognized. He said the order was based on the increasing number of controllers calling out of work as they dealt with the financial pressures of working without a paycheck, along with some reports from pilots concerned about controllers' responses and a number of runway incursions.

Duckworth got political during Wednesday's hearing because she took offense to the way Republican leaders on the committee said when they announced it that it would "examine the toll Democrats’ government shutdown took on the air traffic control system, airline operations, and training.” The White House said Duckworth was the one playing politics after her party repeatedly voted against reopening the government while Democrats tried to reach an agreement on health insurance subsidies.

"If Tammy Duckworth had a shred of integrity and honesty, she would be commending Secretary Duffy’s heroic efforts to keep the skies safe while she and fellow Democrats prioritized playing stupid political games,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said Wednesday. Although Duckworth led the hearing on a detour into the debate about health insurance subsidies, most of the discussion focused on worries that there could be lasting damage to efforts to eliminate the longstanding shortage of air traffic controllers and attract young people to the profession.