Larry Dighera wrote:

The article mentions both aviation related taxes and general tax
revenues as sources for US aviation infrastructure funding.
Unfortunately it fails to provide any idea of the proportion
contributed by each.

Years ago, the majority of this came from the general fund. This was because
the politicos felt that it was advantageous to keep a large aviation "Trust
Fund" surplus on the books. It made to budget deficits look better. The trust
fund was taken off line during the Clinton administration. Although groups
like AOPA had pushed for it to be taken off the books to allow some of it to
be spent for airport improvements (arguably its intended purpose), the
politicos started fundind the FAA primarily from this source, and the fund
has been seriously depleted. I believe that C.J. Campbell quoted the balance
as being 80% from the fuel and ticket taxes.

The lesson is that it is VERY important for you to find out when one of these
articles was written. If it was written more than about 10 years ago, it will
no longer be factual (if it ever was).

George Patterson
The optimist feels that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The
pessimist is afraid that he's correct.
James Branch Cavel