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May 2, 2007
Since
everyone in General Aviation is concerned about the aviation user fees that the
FAA is trying to push through Congress, I thought I'd print an email I received
from my friend David Board this week, who makes some excellent points about the
fallacy of such fees.
Steve,
There is a general feeling that U.S.
GA users are not paying their share of the trust fund. The truth is that the
Aviation Trust Fund was for years and years the most successful and most solvent
fund in U.S. government history. However, in the 1980's attempts were being made
to draw that fund down and spend those billions of dollars on frivolous non
aviation projects... It was like the vast amount in the fund was an
embarrassment to the bureaucrats in Washington DC.
Over roughly the same time period, there have been numerous attempts
to make the so called 'wealthy people' who own piston airplanes to pay more of
the cost of the aviation system (a system that already had more money than the
Pope in Rome).... So how can anyone justify this kind of new form of taxation
when there is this highly solvent aviation fund just sitting there in fort Knox
or some other secret government bank account?
The real truth behind all of this nonsense is the fact is that in
America today we have an administrator who is not truly qualified to run the
greatest aviation bureaucracy in the world. Our FAA administrator is a dyed in
the wool career bureaucrat and a lawyer to boot. When this administrator was
actually appointed as our administrator of the FAA she had absolutely zero
qualification as a pilot. I understand that there have been attempts to remedy
that glaring discrepancy since her appointment, but the fact remains that this
administration dose not speak aviation-ese as her mother tongue. Having this non
aviation as an FAA administrator is like having a chief justice of the supreme
court or a U.S. Attorney General who is illiterate! It is pure heresy!
The craziest thing about the whole situation to me is that the minions
in the FAA offices all over America are not revolting! Yet they the ones who are
going to pay the cost of the demise of general aviation with smaller offices
with less people. Hey, I remember when Wheeling and Clarksburgh and Charleston
and Huntinton and Parkersburgh all had a Flight Service Stations! Well, maybe
the FAA are revolting in other ways, it is revolting to me that they are
allowing this hatchet woman to overstep her bounds as an administrator and not "promote"
aviation, which is what the prime directive of the FAA is, but to do the
opposite and drive a wooden stake through the heart of GA in America. And make
no mistake this is exactly what is happening with the new User fees, (hey we are
all rich and can afford it) and the FAA piggy back fees on our medical exams;
the increase in fees for registration... In Europe you pay a license fee for
every rating that you hole, that can't be far away...the list is as endless as
the avarice of the bureaucrats in Washington DC who can dream up pay raises for
themselves at the expense of.... the U S General aviation industry.
I am loath to preach sedition here but.... General Aviation in the
U.S. of A has always been the envy of the world. Yes, they charge these so
called user fees in Europe, but have you ever tried to fly a general aviation
airplane in Europe? General aviation is non existent in Eur ope. Oh OK they have
their micro lights and gliders over there. Is that what we want to happen over
here?
This is the land of Rosey the riveter and the B 24 for goodness sake!
Yankee ingenuity has nothing to do with Confederates Troops up north you know,
it is a general term for everything Americans in Europe. Hitler thought that
because America had no apprenticeship programs in place that it would take at
least 5 years to be ready for war! Boy did he make a mistake!
War today is dominated by supremacy in the air. Europe has a very
limited amount of pilots, Africa and India and China even less! American had the
most vibrant GA sector that the world has ever seen. There are more pilots, with
more experience in the US than all of the rest of the world put together!
Well say good-by to all of that. And you can thank Administrator
Blakeley for that! Should I say andminis-traitor Blakeley?
I know it sounds trite but it really is a matter of national security
that aviation be kept alive and thriving in this country... You are going to
miss it when it has gone!
There should be a change the rules to make the qualification for
Aviation Administrator be 10,000 hours PIC! and 1000 hours of Flight instruction
given!
Truly disgustedly yours,
David Board
tero26041@yahoo.com
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