"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:SSCBf.11315$jR.11298@fed1read01...
[...]
Are we ever truly free of, or without need of, the GA "infrastructure?"

Depends on what services you actually use. But plenty of pilots use
practically no infrastructure except the pavement they operate from.

That said, I think it's a mistake to expect any of the fees to be rational.
Registration fees for cars are not exclusively used for roads and related
maintenance for example. The actual cost of registration varies from state
to state (just as it does for airplanes), as does the means of calculating
(fees, taxes, some combination).

The different in infrastructure expenses is just a single example of why the
fees can't really be compared directly. It's not an entire explanation, nor
should one expect the fees to be otherwise comparable if the infrastructure
costs did happen to be similar, or even the same.

The cost of registering an airplane, and of registering a car, is fairly
arbitrary. Fees are structured however each individual state chooses to
structure them, with the money going to wherever each individual state
choose to send them. Each state constitution may restrict those aspects,
but each state has its own constitution as well. Some states may appear to
make more sense than some others, but I don't think there's any reason for
any state to be expected to be entirely sensible. It's government, after
all.

Pete