GA's "fair share"

On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 15:37:56 -0700, Newps wrote:

You're making it a thousand times harder than it needs to be. User fees
will not be on a per use basis, you will pay a yearly fee most probably
based on the weight of your plane. Canada has user fees. Your typical
single engine spamcan pays less than $50 per year for his user fees.
That's Canadian money of course. So even if the average US owner got a
bill each year for $50 it is trivial to the cost of flying.

I used to pay $25/year to the IRS for the aircraft use tax. That tax
was dropped in the early 1980s because, as was reported at the time,
it cost the IRS more to collect than it brought in. Except for the
inconvenience of filling out an IRS form, I wouldn't mind paying
$50/year.

But that's not the proposal that has had me lying awake at night. I
remember reading a proposal from the Reason Foundation, which has been
a major advocate for user fees, in the Wall Street Journal. As I
recall, that proposal included fees of $50 per touch and go and
$100/hour for IFR operations. That's an unbearable expense, making ATC
cost more far more than gas, depreciation, or insurance.

I think the push for user fees is thinly-veiled attempt at wealth
redistribution. They consider private pilots to be idle rich playboys.
Certain politicians have referred to them as such. The idea of user
fees is to strip them of their ill-gotten riches, acquired only by
stealing from the hard-working poor. These proposals are intended
serve as an interim measure to deal with idle rich playboy pilots, who
do no work and contribute nothing to society, until the worker revolt
finally comes and provides a permanent solution to inequality.

That's why President Clinton proposed FAA user fees with the money
being earmarked for social programs. If the FAA actually needs money
to operate, then why did he even mention social programs? This
proposal completely exposed the purpose of user fees. It's obvious
that the FAA has nothing to do with it.

RK Henry

by RK Henry Nov 8, 2005 at 06:31 PM


On Fri, 04 Nov 2005 15:37:56 -0700, Newps wrote:

You're making it a thousand times harder than it needs to be. User fees

will not be on a per use basis, you will pay a yearly fee most probably
based on the weight of your plane. Canada has user fees. Your typical
single engine spamcan pays less than $50 per year for his user fees.
That's Canadian money of course. So even if the average US owner got a
bill each year for $50 it is trivial to the cost of flying.

I used to pay $25/year to the IRS for the aircraft use tax. That tax
was dropped in the early 1980s because, as was reported at the time,
it cost the IRS more to collect than it brought in. Except for the
inconvenience of filling out an IRS form, I wouldn't mind paying
$50/year.

But that's not the proposal that has had me lying awake at night. I
remember reading a proposal from the Reason Foundation, which has been
a major advocate for user fees, in the Wall Street Journal. As I
recall, that proposal included fees of $50 per touch and go and
$100/hour for IFR operations. That's an unbearable expense, making ATC
cost more far more than gas, depreciation, or insurance.

I think the push for user fees is thinly-veiled attempt at wealth
redistribution. They consider private pilots to be idle rich playboys.
Certain politicians have referred to them as such. The idea of user
fees is to strip them of their ill-gotten riches, acquired only by
stealing from the hard-working poor. These proposals are intended
serve as an interim measure to deal with idle rich playboy pilots, who
do no work and contribute nothing to society, until the worker revolt
finally comes and provides a permanent solution to inequality.

That's why President Clinton proposed FAA user fees with the money
being earmarked for social programs. If the FAA actually needs money
to operate, then why did he even mention social programs? This
proposal completely exposed the purpose of user fees. It's obvious
that the FAA has nothing to do with it.

RK Henry"

The Reason Foundation is a influential Washington think tank that is
dedicated to free markets. It generally opposes pork spending, including
bridges to nowhere in alaska, subsidies to mass transit, subsidies to GA,
etc. It eschews redistribution of wealth. Politically, it is usually
slotted as "conservative." Here is their web site:




http://www.reason.org/

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.

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...

Just a request to Skylune - since your quoting doesn't quite work, at
least manually put two arrows before and after what you are quoting.


for example, this would be quoted


Even if it isn't internet style, it sets a quote apart from the rest,
and is fairly easy to do even in plain text.

Jose
--
He who laughs, lasts.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"by Jose Nov 8, 2005 at 08:47 PM


Just a request to Skylune - since your quoting doesn't quite work, at
least manually put two arrows before and after what you are quoting.


for example, this would be quoted


Even if it isn't internet style, it sets a quote apart from the rest,
and is fairly easy to do even in plain text.

Jose
--
He who laughs, lasts.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address."

Sorry 'bout that, Jose. The "newsreaders" (I think they are called that)
seem to do that automatically, whereas my talkaboutaviation.com site
doesn't automatically put stuff in context when I hit "Post a Reply." I
tried cutting and pasting and putting quotes before the post I'm
responding to (like this). I know that's not protocol, but its a real
pain to put arrows and double arrows, etc. in manually.

I tried cutting and pasting and
putting quotes before the post I'm
responding to (like this).

Well, that didn't quite work, and you ran into another internet standard.

You did start with "by Jose..., but there wasn't any place where you
said "end quote" or something like that. It is this that is the problem
reading some of your posts - knowing when the quoted stuff ENDS.

That's why I suggested the ending arrows too.

Now, there is another internet standard - that is that of a signature
line. Any lines which follow a line which consists of just two dashes
and a space will be considered a signature, and many newsreaders will
format it differently. Some newsreaders can be set to hide signatures.
Your post quoted mine in its entirety (including the signature) and
your new text followed mine, after my signature line separator, and was
thus considered a "signature" by my newsreader (and most other
newsreaders I'm sure). You probably want to avoid that. So, be aware
(or make your website aware) of signature line separators when you post,
and more of your posts will be readable.

Yes, manually inserting arrows on each line is a pain, which is why I
suggested a simple "quote" and "end quote" method for you. I do it
myself when necessary.

Jose
--
He who laughs, lasts.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Skylune" wrote in message
lkaboutaviation.com...
"by Jose Nov 8, 2005 at 08:47 PM


Just a request to Skylune - since your quoting doesn't quite work, at
least manually put two arrows before and after what you are quoting.


for example, this would be quoted


Even if it isn't internet style, it sets a quote apart from the rest,
and is fairly easy to do even in plain text.

Jose
--
He who laughs, lasts.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address."

Sorry 'bout that, Jose. The "newsreaders" (I think they are called that)
seem to do that automatically, whereas my talkaboutaviation.com site
doesn't automatically put stuff in context when I hit "Post a Reply." I
tried cutting and pasting and putting quotes before the post I'm
responding to (like this). I know that's not protocol, but its a real
pain to put arrows and double arrows, etc. in manually.



The solution is to stop using talkaboutaviation.com, and use a news reader
against the appropriate USENET news group. You do have home Internet access
don't you? If so then your ISP should provide the address for the news
server. If you are doing all your posting from work then shame on you for
goofing off instead of working.

Like it or not, you do have some valid points, but they are getting lost in
your out-of-control, unintelligible posts.

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,

Precisely...averages, but I want to read about marginal costs of
GA, or why this approach is not valid. In our Class B area, it's
basically about bizjets, burning like $50/hour in fuel tax. It's
very clear to me that if those guys weren't up there, only one ATC
position -- the "satellite controller" -- goes away. But knowing
gov't from the inside as I do, FAA will find a position for that
guy in some understaffed place. A net loss to the Treasury. User
fees are all about getting additional money that Congress won't
provide through the appropriations process, unless they repeal the
fuel tax. Is that seriously the plan?

Fred F.

Fred said:
Precisely...averages, but I want to read about marginal costs of
GA, or why this approach is not valid. In our Class B area, it's
basically about bizjets, burning like $50/hour in fuel tax. It's
very clear to me that if those guys weren't up there, only one ATC
position -- the "satellite controller" -- goes away. But knowing
gov't from the inside as I do, FAA will find a position for that
guy in some understaffed place. A net loss to the Treasury. User
fees are all about getting additional money that Congress won't
provide through the appropriations process, unless they repeal the
fuel tax. Is that seriously the plan?

Fred F.

I don't think the plan is to eliminate the fuel tax, but who knows. I
agree that this is about getting additional funding because of pressure on
General Fund subsidies.

As far as using the marginal cost approach, I don't think this is the
right way to measure the costs GA imposes on the system relative to the
economic benefits and the taxes paid in. If one additional light plane
(or commercial airplane) were to take to the skies, the marginal cost
would be nil, or close.

I think you are right though, that if air traffic decreases, funding
levels will stay about where they are for FAA staffing....