Why not privatize the air traffic control? Canada has done it and they are certainly more “socialist” than the U.S.
Privatizing it will get the Congressional politics and federal budget out of it. The governance structure of it can give voting voice to all the various stakeholders, large and small, and include a bit of U.S. federal representation on its board, even leaving an FAA that approves regulations but no longer operates the air traffic control system.
Its funding would come primarily from already collected federal fees in the aviation field, and fees the privatized system would charge stakeholders based on their load-demand on the air traffic control network. With the stakeholders having a voice in the governance of the privatized system (voice votes on its board of directors) they would participate in the network design & requirements of its operations, the plans for changes to that system and the fees they’d each pay. The politicians would be out of it.
Nav Canada’s a monopoly that is at best nominally private, what with being created by an act of Canada’s parliament (I’m reminded of the railroads in Ireland prior to CIE/Irish Rail). They aren’t without their problems to be sure. They may be better in ways than the state-run monopoly, but they have inherent inefficiencies.