Daily Inspiration Quote by Michael Burgess

Burgess is doing what effective legislators do when they want the public to stop asking for big structural change: he frames the status quo as both prosperous and fragile. “Fortunate” is the tell. It recasts a man-made policy arrangement (two airports competing and coexisting in North Texas) as a kind of civic weather pattern you’d be foolish to disrupt. That single word turns debate into superstition: why tempt fate?

The quote is built like a protective charm. First, the appeal to scale: “millions of satisfied customers.” That number isn’t just about travelers; it’s a proxy for legitimacy. If millions pass through without revolt, the system must be right. Then, the economic cudgel: “hundreds of thousands of North Texans” employed. The phrasing makes the airports sound like an ecosystem, not businesses with winners, losers, contracts, and lobbying muscle. By tying jobs to the existing arrangement, Burgess raises the cost of dissent. You’re no longer proposing a policy tweak; you’re “jeopardizing” livelihoods.

The most revealing phrase is “that which is working well already.” It’s deliberately vague, because specificity invites argument. Working well for whom: passengers, airlines, local governments, bondholders, surrounding neighborhoods? In a region where airport politics are famously intertwined with municipal rivalry, real estate development, and federal aviation regulation, vagueness is strategic. Burgess signals to constituents that he’s guarding stability while signaling to powerful stakeholders that he’s guarding their settlement. The subtext: growth is welcome, but only on terms that don’t rearrange the chessboard.