Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue......
Posted on 04/12/2013 1:35:41 PM PDT by Army Air Corps
The White House on April 10 released a budget proposal that includes a $100-per-flight user fee—a charge AOPA warns could be disastrous for general aviation.
“We are disappointed to see this misguided idea resurfacing after it has been repeatedly and overwhelmingly rejected in the past. This is the wrong way to fund our aviation system,” said AOPA President Craig Fuller. “Congress has said it will not tolerate user fees, and neither will the general aviation community.”
Two previous budgets from the Obama administration have included similar user fee proposals, but in each case Congress has rejected the idea. And opposition to user fees on Capitol Hill is growing. Last week, 223 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives signed a letter to the president, urging him to “abandon this idea once and for all.”
User fees appear to be just the latest salvo in a series of attacks on GA. The community is also contending with an FAA plan to close 149 contract air traffic control towers, selected primarily because they serve GA. Other challenges include attempts to change the way taxes are calculated for business aircraft, long wait times for customs at GA airports, and anticipated cuts to medical and certification services.
“Taken together, these proposals represent a serious assault on general aviation, an industry that creates jobs, grows businesses, provides critical services, and donates tens of thousands of flight hours to charitable causes,” Fuller said. “Either the Administration doesn’t recognize the consequences of their actions, or they just don’t care.”
AOPA and others have stridently opposed user fees, preferring to continue funding the aviation system through excise taxes on fuel.
“Imposing user fees is expensive, cumbersome, and inefficient,” Fuller said. “Pay-at-the-pump has worked since the dawn of powered flight, and it still makes sense today.”
(Excerpt) Read more at m.aopa.org ...
Looks like I picked the wrong week to try and solo...
It is for the chirrun...or for Momma Gaia. I cannot wait for this class warfare baiting clown to go away.
Ping.
This administration? Stupid, stupid, stupid, arrogant dumbarse in an evil way - can’t be gone soon enough. Words can’t begin to field a rant applicable and descriptive enough. Can’t begin...can’t beg...
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue......
Obama and his Marxist buddies are coming after you. They will not quit until either you or they are room temperature.
That’s the point of the fee. No private aviation.
Yep. Another class-warfare bogeyman of Dear Leader.
The implication to this fee is that it would be collected upon use of services that currently the FAA knows about. That means, if its IFR, the $100 would apply. VFR flights would not pay the fee.
The ramification of that is that many IFR flights of today would just proceed under VFR. Those flights that are debatable today VFR or IFR, would proceed to go VFR to avoid the fee. This will lead to more accidents where a VFR flight has strayed, or skud-runned, into weather non-conducive to VFR flight.
Typically, a cross-country IFR flight involves numerous fuel stops. Each one, as far as the FAA is concerned, is a separate IFR flight, as you stop for an hour or so to fuel-up, bladder-down, etc. If each IFR flight is charged, it will lead to more flights running down their tanks to vapors, and thus lead to more fuel-exhaustion accidents.
Excellent points and spot on. More “unintended consequences.”
“That’s the point of the fee. No private aviation.”
Exactly. They’re building a prison right before our eyes and we’re the inmates.
Hint to AOPA cocmmunications staff: if you are going to write a press release you might want to once mention that your organization is the Aircraf Owners and Pilots Association, since 99% of the public has no clue what AOPA is.
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