Democrats Just Can't Help Themselves
By haystack Posted in Blood from a turnip | Liberals | Political Heroes | Tax the rich — Comments (26) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In the general scheme of things, this is no big deal I guess, but it fries my grits just thinking about all the new and ever-creative ways Democrats are finding to increase taxes. It's probably just me being cynical again, but it seems they first villify CEOs and Big Corporations, then they beat up on the eeeeevil rich folk (while happily and quietly taking their money to get elected...thank you very much). If it suits them, they fault others for taking campaign money they have taken themselves, and when no one is looking they punish (read "bite the hand that feeds") them via tax increases:
U.S. business-jet owners would pay 65 percent more in fuel taxes to finance federal air-traffic control upgrades, under an agreement among Senate leaders.
The levy would increase to 36 cents a gallon from 21.8 cents now, under the accord announced in a statement today in Washington by Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat. Airline passenger fees and taxes wouldn't rise, he said.
The agreement between Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate aviation subcommittee, and Montana Democrat Max Baucus, who runs the Senate Finance Committee, ends a seven-month standoff that stalled an aviation-funding bill. Today's deal clears the way for an April 28 vote to bring the bill to the full Senate.
Rockefeller wanted to double fuel taxes for corporate aircraft while cutting fees for airlines, which he said paid disproportionately for aviation services. Instead, he settled for the smaller boost, so that small-jet owners will pay 5 percent of federal aviation costs, up from 3 percent.
"This agreement is a good down payment toward ending the growing inequities that exist between airline passengers and corporate jet users," Rockefeller said in the statement.
Growing inequities? Why do we need to make everyday airline passengers and Corporate jet users more "equal" in the first place? The mind reels.
More below the "it gets better" fold...
Maybe this passage sums it up best:
The Senate bill also creates a new $400 million FAA account dedicated to upgrading the air-traffic control system. Raising the excise tax on fuel used by private jet owners will bring in an additional $240 million a year.
It's a beautiful thing, really. Take more money from the guys that already have it (and keep giving it to you so you can get elected) because you've already convinced everyone else they are bad people anyway and don't deserve all that money they worked so hard to earn in the first place...totally awesome.
Hey guys on there on the Hill? CUT SPENDING...m'kay? We're drowning out here in fees and taxes and fuel costs which are all helping drive up food costs and helping persuade businesses to cut headcount. Those rich guys are going to stay rich...they're just going to pass all these costs you impose on THEM down to US. What was that Clinton line? Oh yeah... "are you better off now than you were (in this case) two years ago? I'd give a resounding NO...
Could you Political Heroes Google "free market" and "capitalism" please?
Democrats Just Can't Help Themselves 26 Comments (0 topical, 26 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
... politicians are swine --- you have to hit them between the eyes with a two by four to get their attention; and even that does not work all the time.
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course
Iustum et tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava iubentium, non vultus instantis tyranni mente quatit solida.
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Who's turn was it to clean up the barn?
"40 million American households with guns are generally happier
than those people in households that don't have guns."
Between box seating and the nose bleeders? The ballpark gap grows larger each year.
Also, what about the growing inequities between people in cars and bus riders? They ought to impose a steering wheel tax of 12 cents per turn and use the revenues to install personal satellite stereos, GPS systems, and the ability to make the bus go whereever you want. Inequity!!!!
Also the growing inequity between bloggers and Senators. Where's my intern?!??
Get on it Senators.
absentee
Also now available at Political Machine.
Iustum et tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava iubentium, non vultus instantis tyranni mente quatit solida.
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
And toss in private underground subway systems, just like Congress has, and of course private gyms, again like Congress. A 3 1/2 day work week would be nice, paid access to all the best restaurants, and regular televised opportunities to insult and berate people who have more than you while sitting on a raised dais looking down on them. It gives you the illusion of superiority.
There's no idiocy you can't get away with using the inequality crutch. Rockefeller remains true to form, a dim bulb at his best.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
"Tax the business jets!" is at least as good an idea as "Tax the Luxury Yachts!" was. Having decimated the U.S. boatbuilding industry, wiping out thousands of highly-paid craft jobs in the process, the Democrats now return to snuff thousands of "high-paid manufacturing jobs." Piper, Hawker Beechcraft, Cessna, Gulfstream... what these companies need is for government to make their products more expensive to operate. That will help them Create Jobs™
Democrats — for when you don't need employers anymore.
Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.
From what I'm reading here, this is a tax that will go toward upgrading the nation's air traffic control system.
There are a lot of ways the Government wastes money, but this doesn't sound like one of them. Air traffic congestion is now worse than it has been since the 1980s. And now that companies like Embraer are actually marketing small jets to soccer moms as "flying SUVs," that is only going to get worse.
If you just chant "Cut Spending!" as a mantra, you're liable to get spending cut in areas you won't like, like the Iraq War or the air traffic control system. Because Congress is run by liberal Democrats who don't have the same spending priorities that you or I might have.
We definitely need to have a debate in this country about spending priorities. But right now is not the time for that. That would be a great question to ask the GOP and Dem candidates after the conventions though.
where direct taxes are levied punitively, and targeted towards groups already made acceptable to target by Democrat rhetoric. We'll gently agree to disagree about cutting spending. The cuts need to be intelligently derived - cutting air traffic control and war funding wouldn't be targeted (successfully) because of their immediate collective imperative.
There are LOTS of extravagances that can, and SHOULD be cut with little or no immediate impact on what we NEED to keep the country going.
Iustum et tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava iubentium, non vultus instantis tyranni mente quatit solida.
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
I’m sorry, but I disagree, and I think Haystack has the right of it here.
It’s not that the (alleged) goal or destination for this money is not laudable (improved air traffic control is a good thing); so are many other things – money for “the children”, etc. ad nauseum. (and I say “alleged” because it’s amazing how funds bleed off into all sorts of unintended directions once the levy has been successfully imposed)
What’s at issue is where they intend to get it – more rapacious taxes, with nary a thought to perhaps skiving a bit off of the Robert Byrd Endless Memorial Fund, or some other set of spending initiatives of similar worthy mien.
Also, it’s a selective tax – (only these guys, ‘cause they’re bad – spare the poor “little peepul”) – this mantra is tried and true in the MSM.
It costs money to fly, and have a safe system to do it in. If you’re gonna tax it to pay for improvements, everybody should pay equally – or find some money elsewhere to pay for it.
I like affordable plane tickets just like anyone else, but market realities are market realities. Don’t wanna pay the big ticket price with all those extra taxes? Take the train – the train industry could use the business. Market realities.
(Yeah, OK, the train won’t be much help if you want to go to France - they haven’t built the Trans-Atlantic Chunnel yet. But why would you WANT to go to France anyway?)
I'll repeat what I said before: You won't get a Congress controlled by liberal Democrats to cut the type of spending that YOU want cut. Hence if you just yell "Cut Spending!" you will either not get any spending cuts and we'll just live with huge deficits (most likely), or they will cut things you won't like.
Obama is running on a platform whose major cuts in Government spending are to end the Iraq War and cut the rest of the defense budget as well, especially national missile defense. Not to cut Senator Byrd's earmarks. That's what you will get if they really do "Cut Spending".
In the meantime, the saturation of the nation's infrastructure, including the air traffic control system, is hurting our economy and in an age of terrorism it even has major national security implications.
Every time you fly commercially, $5 of your ticket goes toward maintaining and upgrading the air traffic control system. Till now, private jet owners have largely gotten a free ride; they have paid only 3% of the cost of maintaining and upgrading that system. Commercial passenger and cargo jets pay the lion's share.
As a conservative, I am appalled that we continue to give tax breaks to wealthy soccer moms. Who do you think is benefiting from the current situation? The wives of the millionaires who have their own private jets and don't have to fly commercially. That's exactly the kind of conservatism we do NOT need--aimed at the corporate rich rather than at Main Street mom-and-pop business.
And now, Embraer is marketing the Phenom 100, a tiny jet aimed directly at soccer moms so they can fly their kids to Disney World rather than fly commercially--essentially a "flying SUV." Why should the rest of us subsidize that?
In the meantime, average Joes have to fly crappy commercial service and pay through the nose for it.
It would probably make most sense to level a per flight usage fee. After all the ATC costs are pretty much per vehicle in the system with a modification for how long the flight is.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
The application of user fees on a per flight basis is totally unacceptable. The reason being; I am required to access ATC while traveling above 18,000 ft. Yes, this is on an IFR flight plan and certainly I do use the exact same facilities and manpower as a 777, but not usually to the extent as I will often get my hand off and go to smaller airports where there is considerably less control.
Thus if the fee is say $500 per ATC Center use, and I travel to Houston, then I would be assessed a 3 Center fee of $1500 bucks. I could skirt and save 1 Center fee if I go over El Paso as opposed to St. Johns, but that will add a bit of distance and then of course more fuel costs. And I get to pay the full amount, whereas Southwest gets to spread it across all the occupied seats. Hence the disparity.
There is no reason to fee us to death. The federal government can and should allocate adequate dollars to support federal programs like this because ATC control is 100% about aviation safety. And if accessing ATC for any use would result in a fee, then when I fly VFR I won't file flight plans, or request flight following service. And ultimately this will increase the likelihood of accidents.
The real problem in ATC is that the technology can and does update much too quickly for the system to upgrade in a timely manner. Heck, Traffic Alert/Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), the onboard anti-collision system wasn;t even mandated on commercial aircraft until 1986.
So no, use fees won;t work. IMO.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
I commented, below, about usage fees, but I qualified it with a pre-admission that I was talking out my backside.
Would the fees really need to be as high as in your examples to recoup system operating costs?
It depends.
Use fees have been bandied about for the last 20 years from every group in and around the aviation community. There was even a time that it was proposed that for every crash investigation the operator would be responsible for the costs. And NTSB investigations are serious, both in scope and cost.
AOPA (the NRA of aviation) has a very good and vocal President, Phil Boyer that can and does represent the interests of the aviation community well. He is in front of government committees all the time. Here is one with video links.
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2005/050504boyer.html
The underlying problem with user fees and the push for them is a traditional class envy situation. How dare these millionaires flying a Gulfstream V and taxing the ATC system not pay their fair share. When in fact, the vast majority of ATC use is by the part 121 air carriers (scheduled commercial). They are lobbying hard to shift the cost across more users to effectively lower their operating costs. What they are doing is utilizing the Clinton/Gore government outsourcing model to prove that by turning most ATC functions over to a private operators, then removing the federal funding then who ever is the then president can show a reduced federal government size and subsequent burden. Don;t even get me started on the Gore outsourcing of the 1990's, it's such a sham.
So, under the charge for use, every attempt to use the system the user would be charged a set cost per occurrence. And when operating under IFR, interaction is from the point a flight plan is made till the engine stops at the destination, a 1000 mi trip certainly would be very costly.
Keeping in mind that it is possible to fly all over in Class E airspace, up to 17,00 ft AGL and never use the radio. Granted you would not be using prudence or even common sense in doing so, but you can.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
Thank you for your response.
I certainly harbor no "soak the rich" sentiment, but one general observation is that the further a government-run remuneration system gets from billing for itemized services at rates related to the cost of delivering those services, the more room there is for Congress to play games like soak-the-rich. We will never get a smaller federal government so long as we keep giving them the power to spend other people's money. There will always be lobbyists ready to buy that spending from them.
In a fair system, the usage charges would reflect the cost of providing the service. If the airlines are hogging the services, then the airlines should be footing most of the bill, and I am well aware that the cost would be included in ticket prices.
Again, please forgive my ignorance, but given the hypothetical 1000mi trip in your comment, is it that expensive for the FAA to deliver air traffic control service? If so, who pays now?
I am by no means an expert of the funding for the FAA or the further down ARTCC system. All I know for sure is that airline lobbyists are pushing hard to implement a user pays program that shifts that burden onto the General Aviation community.
So how the funding is collected, I don;t know. But I do know that the tax on a gallon of AVFuel (100LL) is higher then a gallon of Jet-A. Yet my 150 gallons of 100LL between PHX-HOU hardly measures up to the 5700 gallons a 737 would carry. This certainly creates a taxation disparity but I pay for my recreational flying whereas Southwest is in business to fly.
There is a reason why American aviation is the safest and best controlled system in the world. It's not completely a result of good equipment, but also because the FAA goes to great lengths to ensure that is the case. Ask any controller the training they go through to become one. Pilots too. Mandatory retirement, required retraining/recertification and more. The real problem I see is that we all pay into a tax system that is designed to create a better nation for all. The continued funding of BS projects and the entitlement attitude is why we are even having this discussion because there certainly is enough money already being collected.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0103/p02s01-usgn.html
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
the same amount of ATC time, and the ATC is under real pressure due to the growth in traffic. Commercial aviation - aka private jets- is responsible for much of that growth.
The system must be upgraded. In paying for that upgrade, it makes sense to take into account the source of the congestion. YMMV.
I'm talking out my backside here, but if costs are assigned to
1. Takeoffs
2. Landings
3. Entering a center's control area
4. Time spent in a center's control area
5. Leaving a center's control area
and charged according to actual usage rather than having fuel usage proxy these costs, then we start approaching fairness.
I remember reading something in the WSJ about how small regional jets take up a lot of airspace. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a high speed train start at big hubs (Chicago O'Hare, LAX, etc.), and then have it go out to the downtown areas of outlying cities? Also, this would clear up a lot of gates for when the 787 and the 1,000-some odd people Airbus start flying. The trains probably emit less CO2 per passenger than planes do, so the trains are also greener, which is something that the dems like to talk a whole deal about.
An aircraft under IFR rules takes the same amount of space no matter what size it is. Controllers will and do often will space based on the potential for in-flight problems as needed, i.e. a Cessna 182 following a 737 needs more trailing distance to ensure no upset from wake turbulence occurs.
The real problem we are facing now is from the Hub model. Southwest, who still uses a somewhat blended point-to-point and hub model seems to have the least amount of congestion problems. However, they don;t service the largest cities and the availability of non-stop flights are limited, especially if traveling great distances. Nothing like 3 stops to go from LA to NY-Islip (but thats a story for another time).
I do agree that certain high speed rail options with full baggage transfer is a viable solution. By my house (PHX) is overburdened and the use of IWA (Williams Gateway) would be a great solution. But they are 40 miles apart and transferring between the two is exceptionally diffucult. And southwest does not offer interline transfers anyway.
_____________________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle
there's no point in trying to get the Republicans in Congress to try and stop madness like this. That horse is out of the barn. When the Republican nominee says things like this:
"Americans are also right to be offended when the extravagant salaries and severance deals of CEO's -- in some cases, the very same CEO's who helped to bring on these market troubles -- bear no relation to the success of the company or the wishes of shareholders. Something is seriously wrong when the American people are left to bear the consequences of reckless corporate conduct, while Mr. Cayne of Bear Stearns, Mr. Mozilo of Countrywide, and others are packed off with another forty- or fifty million for the road."
The issue is already lost. There will be no heart at all to oppose this class warfare in Congress when the leader has already capitulated and agreed with the opposition.
Iustum et tenacem propositi virum non civium ardor prava iubentium, non vultus instantis tyranni mente quatit solida.
-Quintus Horatius Flaccus
What my fellow aviation friends are trying to say, is user fees are a bad idea. The reason for your delay into LAX, JFK, and other assorted "bottlenecks" is NOT due to ATC. You simply have a "asphalt" problem, i.e. not enough space to land on. General Aviaiton (including corporate jets) are NOT the problem at your major airports. The airlines are. When an airport can only accept 60 departures an hour and one carrier schedules 45 within that hour, what are the other 9 carriers supposed to do? Competition is good, but do we need 20 routes to DCA at the same time? When the seats aren't even full? How about a slightly larger airplane? User fees are a horrendous idea. They would simply put the little guy completely under. That is what is discussed above. For instance, in 2006 Australia charged $15 to conduct a practice instrument approach to a tax-funded and built airport. This was on top of the $100 per hour cost of the aircraft. You need six of those to remain proficient. Meanwhile, the airlines get to do that for free. Congress is caving into the airlines and the controllers union (NATCA). I know, because I belong to it. Snoop around some more, and you will find many things that stink. The FAA is pretty smelly and in bed with the some very strange bedfellows.
... due to the fact that those on the left (and large numbers on the right for that matter) do not comprehend that business does not actually pay taxes, they ultimately tranfer them to their customers.
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course