GA's Biggest Threat Makes Landfall -- User Fees And Tax Hikes
In President's Budget
For months, AOPA has felt the
tension in the calm before a federal funding hurricane. But now
with the release of the president's fiscal 2008 budget proposal on
February 5, that storm has taken shape and is gathering energy: Tax
increases and user fees for general aviation are now upon us.
"This is real, and it's just as bad as we thought it was going
to be," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. "That's why we've been
aligning opposition in Congress. It's going to take an all-out
fight by the aviation community to defeat this."
Boyer isn't wasting any time. He'll continue his extensive round
of meetings with lawmakers and be on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. This
dovetails AOPA's press conference with reporters last week.
President Bush released his $2.9 trillion spending plan in four
massive volumes. The overarching philosophy is to increase military
spending while squeezing the rest of the government. Unfortunately,
the proposal would radically alter the funding mechanism for the
world's largest, safest, and most successful air traffic control
system. If that were not enough, the budget would slash airport
funding by $1 billion.
The president's budget sets the tone for the FAA's
coming reauthorization bill, which needs to be passed into law by
the end of this September. The bill will determine who pays what
and how much the FAA will receive in its budget.
"While we won't know the specifics until the actual FAA
reauthorization proposal is released later this month, we have
strong reason to believe it will increase GA fuel taxes by nearly
fourfold," said Boyer (pictured above).
"As if a huge tax increase isn't bad
enough, the budget makes it clear that the FAA will charge user
fees for GA operations in 'the nation's most congested airspace,'
which sounds like Class B airspace."
AOPA maintains that the current system has worked well over the
past four decades and should be preserved. Special interests in
Washington, D.C., are coalescing to destroy it. The FAA wants user
fees, which are different than taxes, because the source of funding
would allow it to sidestep the congressional budget process. The
agency could spend the money the way it wants to without
congressional scrutiny and use the fees to fund its manufactured
budgetary crisis.
The White House Office of Management and Budget, meanwhile,
wants to spend less from the Treasury's general funds to help
reduce the budget deficit. And the airlines simply want to wrest
control of the system and use it for their own benefit. No one has
explained how the user fees would be collected and accounted
for.
"All this ridiculous funding scheme would do is make aviation
more expensive and more complex," Boyer said. "Why destroy a
critical function that the government actually does well?"