The "hobby" flying that people, including the wealthy, do adds so
little to the cost of maintaining the national airspace system that
it is hardly worth mentioning. The things that get money spent on
them like airports are helping the struggling masses by supporting
businesses that create jobs.

I strongly suspect that GA is more of a burden than an asset for the
population and society at large. Commercial air travel is a
necessity; general aviation is not.

I can think of 3 major companies that together employee ~2500 people in my
town of ~20,000 that would not be here if it weren't for the availability
of
GA flight. In fact, the town would probably dry up and blow away if any
one
of these left and would certainly do so if any two of them did.

And since one of these companies just decided to pay for the college
education of every single person that graduates from our school system I'd
say that means pretty much everybody here benefits from GA.

I might go so far as to say that GA, Freight, and Military are necessary and
that Air Taxi is usefull.

OTOH, the east usefull, to the healthy functioning of our economy is
scheduled pasenger service.

Peter
Just my $0.02
(Wearing Nomex, of course)