The Air Boehner Tax ["Sorry. My Irish is up."]

The American Spectator ^ | December 17, 2013 | Jeffrey Lord

[Svartalfiar]

This particular issue was the subject of an interesting radio interview I heard last weekend, and the consensus of the participants was that one of the long-term goals of the GOP is to gradually replace general tax revenues with industry-specific taxes and fees that actually make more sense from the perspective of a user-beneficiary comparison.

Sorry, but this is just as much crap as any other excise tax. The federal government should not be in the business or killing off certain industries, or boosting others. And federal level taxes should be 100% completely even and general across the board. The only fees the feds should be able to charge are direct fees for direct federal services. EVERYTHING else is state-level.

[Alberta's Child]

Let's be clear about something here:

1. I agree with you 100%.

2. If we're going to have the Federal government stop spending, then let's start by eliminating the FAA and turning the responsibility for its operations over to the airlines. Do you think the airline industry would be OK with that?

[Alberta's Child]

That's not a synopsis of the TSA. It's a description of Federal expenditures for the aviation industry other than those involving the TSA.

[Alberta's Child]

How would a state charge a fee for airline passengers? Would the states where a flight departs and lands be the only ones who could charge a fee, or would a state also be able to charge a fee if an aircraft flies over it?

This is why Federal regulation of interstate travel -- which is clearly established in the U.S. Constitution -- is a necessity in a nation that is engaged in anything more than subsistence agriculture.

[Svartalfiar]

Sorry, my comment wasn’t directed directly at the airline fees. I was commenting on a sentence in the article about the GOP in general trying to move away from general tax revenue into industry-specific taxes. And yes, you pay for your ticket in the city you fly out of, so that’s where your tax-basis is. But really, should a state even be charging a fee for airline travel? Doesn’t sales tax already cover that?

However, if you are justifying this fee based on interstate-ness, How do you justify the fee on a flight from Dallas to Houston? Columbia to St. Louis? Those are fully within a single state, so how would the Fed have any jurisdiction there?

But how is this not an area where states have say-so? they control their direct airspace, this isn’t exactly interstate commerce (where the only role the Feds should have there is ensuring all states are equal to each other in terms of cross-border), and really, like you said in another post, the airlines/airport owners should be controlling their own airports, not the Fed.

[Alberta's Child]

Understood. Keep in mind that when I mentioned the "industry-specific taxes" I was referring specifically to industries that rely heavily on government for either regulatory oversight or even direct funding of infrastructure (highways, for example) and operations (air traffic control, for example).

It's hard to separate "interstate" from "intrastate" in an area like air travel because it's not as if the intrastate flights always operate out of different airports, with different air traffic control systems, or with different types of aircraft. In some cases they may actually do this, but I'm not sure there would be any major Federal oversight for small airports anyway -- even for flights that cross state lines.

[Svartalfiar]

It's hard to separate "interstate" from "intrastate" in an area like air travel because it's not as if the intrastate flights always operate out of different airports, with different air traffic control systems, or with different types of aircraft. In some cases they may actually do this, but I'm not sure there would be any major Federal oversight for small airports anyway -- even for flights that cross state lines.

True, but there are many smaller airports that do only do intrastate, and I doubt every single one of them has Federal people there. Most of air control can be done by local authorities (Does atc even bother with controlling flights everywhere, or is it only local airspace around the airport?), and the Feds can be set to only get involved at a certain ceiling level, or for international flights. IF there's even any flight control in areas not close to an airport.