"If you look over the history of the fund, about 46-percent of
operations has been funded from the general fund. In the current
projections, which is the basis for the rhetoric that [the trust]
can't meet the needs, it's capped at 13-percent. So basically, if
you use your money for something you didn't used to use it for,
yeah, you'll spend more."
Source: NATCA Executive Vice President Ruth
Marlin, telling ANN that the Aviation Trust Fund may not be in as
much trouble as the FAA would have us believe. She recently
conducted an exhaustive study of the fund and concludes the entire
crisis -- which could lead to the imposition of user fees for
general and business aviation -- appears to have been manufactured
by the Bush administration as a step toward privatizing th