Here come the user fees

On Feb 15, 8:50 am, ktbr wrote:
Larry Dighera wrote:

The bill will eliminate the domestic passenger ticket tax

It's the damn airline passengers that necessitate the ATC system in
the first place. What possible motivation could there be to eliminate
airline passengers from paying their fair share of ATC facility and
personnel costs?

Don't worry, when GA is pretty much destroyed in a few years and
gas tax revenues go away they'll be back and revivie the ticket tax.

Amen... traditional supply and demand curve... if you increase the
tax by a factor of 3, the demand will go down. If the demand goes
down by a factor of 3, you haven't increased revenues at all. If it
goes down more than that, you are worse off than before, unless you
believe the FAA will save money not having to service as many GA
planes. I doubt that they will since most of the infrastructure costs
are associated with the airlines and major airports.

On the bright side, think of all the new drag strips, tract housing
and shopping malls that we will gain in place of the small airports
that go away. God knows we need more of those. Maybe a new Walmart
or two as well!

Dean

More news about the FAA's skeptical reception in Congress:

http://www.eaa.org/communications/ea...user_fees.html

No member of Congress seems willing to state it openly but any
proposal to take budgetary authority out from under Congress and give
it to the executive branch is not going to fly (no pun intended) on
Capitol Hill.