Buttigieg’s DOT: A woke agenda’s costly toll on American infrastructure and skies

Skewed priorities loomed for a potential 2028 Democratic frontrunner as air traffic control upgrades were reportedly eschewed for $80 billion in advancing Marxist ideology.

Faced with a leadership vacuum after the loss of the 2024 presidential election, leftists already appear to be jockeying for position to make a White House bid in 2028. Among the top contenders, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who infamously took umbrage with “racist bridges,” is facing new heat over lackluster air travel after steering $80 billion toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) grants.

“He was definitely pushing an agenda,” an industry official told the New York Post regarding Buttigieg’s tenure, and having “little to no interest,” took “definitely zero action” in favor of updating air traffic control.

Sources that spoke with the newspaper said that the then-Biden administration official told industry executives that upgrades to air traffic control systems would simply mean they could fly more planes, “and so why would that be in his interest?”

“At first, [the Department of Transportation] and he were reluctant to say there was an air traffic controller shortage or that the shortage had anything to do with flight delays or flight cancellations,” an official told the Post as Buttigieg was slammed for spending his time as a cabinet member “vilifying” the industry.

Meanwhile, on his way out the door ahead of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, where the administration was immediately faced with a tragic collision between a passenger plane and a U.S. Army helicopter, the DOT boasted of “Buttigieg’s leadership” with roughly half of one year’s budget being used for DEI grants over the four-year term.

This included programs like Justice40, described as “an opportunity to address gaps in transportation infrastructure” with a goal of directing 40% of grants and initiatives to “communities left out of previous funding opportunities,” and setting a 21% goal of federal contracts going to small and “disadvantaged businesses.”

“Suggesting that Secretary Buttigieg chose not to pursue air traffic control modernization is absurd,” argued spokesman Chris Meagher to the Post as he contended the secretary was behind increased hiring, software changes aimed at improving runway efficiency, communications developments to decrease delays, and new flight routes aimed at decreasing travel time.

He also argued that Republicans had blocked then-President Joe Biden’s FY 2025 budget request that included another $8 billion in funding for transportation safety measures: “Secretary Buttigieg’s focus was always on safety — not just in aviation, but also on roads and bridges, where 40,000 Americans die on our country’s roads each year. Fixing issues with air traffic control was a priority.”

Still, the March 2024 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, proved an ample opportunity to recall Buttigieg’s focus in Nov. 2021, shortly after returning from paternity leave that lasted throughout a supply chain crisis.

“… if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach, or that would have been, in New York, was designed too low for it to pass by, that that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices,” the then-secretary said.

Clip of Buttigieg lecturing about ‘racist bridges’ doesn’t age well

A video clip of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is coming under renewed criticism in the wake of the bridge collapse in Maryland.

Though the post on X did not note when the video of President Joe… pic.twitter.com/LiqsHpOEZU

— American Wire News (@americanwire_) March 26, 2024

As roughly one-third of delays during Buttigieg’s tenure were attributed to air carriers, and a little over 10% were marked as failures of the national aviation system, industry officials argued to the Post that much of the funding from Biden’s infrastructure law “went to maintenance,” amounting to $3.5 billion per year that wasn’t going toward “modernization.”