Proposed Budget Includes User Fees

It seems to be official. Bush’s budget proposal includes user fees for general aviation. Ed Bolen, president and CEO of NBAA, is up in arms and making no bones about it. He reported today that "after more than a year of intense lobbying by the nation's big airlines, the White House has decided to introduce a budget that shifts airline costs to other segments of the industry and gives airlines more control over the air traffic system. NBAA and the rest of the general aviation community will oppose this toxic mix of higher taxes, new fees, and airline control." "Toxic mix." That’s pretty strong, and he is absolutely right about the other GenAv acronym groups. They will fight this tooth and nail. Back in the early 1970s, Ted Kennedy literally tried to ground GenAv during our first oil crisis. For once, all of GenAv fought as one and Washington found out that GenAv wasn’t just a few rich folks flying personal airplanes. GenAv included some of our largest and most respected corporations and they rose up in arms right along with Cub owners and rich doctors. The entire idea was dropped post haste. (You’d have thought that Ted would have known better, since his family used a transport airplane—they called it the Caroline, if I remember right—to get around the country.) User fees? We’ve already got them in the form of avfuel taxes. If you must have a tax, the fuel tax works fairly well. The more you use, the more you pay. Fly a guzzler—the aviation version of a big SUV—and you pay more. Fly a really fuel-efficient aircraft and you pay less. That’s mighty simple, isn’t it? And—let me say it one more time—most of us fear that any user fee is like the camel with his nose under the tent. That’s just the beginning. Plus, we just flat don’t trust the guvmint. I, for one, remember when they misused our trust fund. Aviators of the world, rise up! We'd love to post your comments. Please click the comment tab at the top.