GA's "fair share"

GA's
by "TaxSrv" Nov 8, 2005 at 02:55 PM


The Reason Foundation is a influential Washington think tank that
is
dedicated to free markets...opposes...subsidies to GA,

Is there a credible study somewhere as to how much is this subsidy
really is? If you start with FAA's waste of billions to get their
systems to work (documented by GAO), then you may indeed get IFR
flights at a $100 each. But ban GA completely, and how much does
ATC staffing go down, if at all? Go to fligthaware.com, pick
random airports of all sizes, and see whose doing the GA IFR. It's
mostly jets and turboprops, and the hefty fuel taxes they pay are
lost, for perhaps a net loss to gov't if ATC costs are reduced only
somewhat.

The avg recreational flyer does 30+ hours a year, perhaps $50 in
fed fuel taxes. Many of these guys avoid ATC and even FSS, by using
the Weather Channel on a nice day and a local flight. Ban them,
and gov't loses $50 a pop profit per year. So, how much is the
subsidy -- on a proper, marginal cost computation?

Fred F."

The opening post on this thread has the Federal DOT site, which has the
data the Reason Foundation uses. They use the operating subsidy per
passenger mile statistic, so I think it is somewhat biased in favor of
long-range (airplane) transportation. Nonetheless, their data and
methodology are transparent, so it can be used for a serious debate.

The AOPA stuff is just nonsense on a stick. No data, no statistics, no
anything. Just "don't raise our taxes, cut the FAA budget." SOP, a
boring, and ultimately losing argument...