The BOTTOM line is that private aircraft are riding piggy back on a system that paid for by airline passengers.
The taxes charged on fuel alone cannot pay for the services a gulfstream requires to fly from LAX to TEB.
How do you know what the services used by a Gulfstream from LAX to TEB cost? How do you know the taxes on the 6 tons of gas burned are not enough? Please break this down for us.
In any event, attaching another seventy cents on to AvGas is going to result in many parked C172's and Bonanzas. Folks like me who use small airplanes for business will find themselves with an economic incentive to avoid the system - a system which is there for SAFETY.
Lets see, I could skirt the side of busy commercial Class B airspace with my nifty GPS allowing me the precision of staying exactly a half a mile from controlled airspace while I run around the side, or I could pay $40 for flight following. Or $80 to actually coordinate separation with a controller. What is safe? What will most private pilots choose?
Sticky - if you are a pilot, you should know, this is a safety issue as well as an economic issue. Would you want to land in Atlanta, where the controllers regularly vector traffic outside the class B on busy days, knowing Joe private pilot is avoiding talking to air traffic control because he does not have the extra $40 after paying over $200 to fill up his 1960 Cessna 172?
Look around Sun and Fun this year. If this passes, general aviation as we know it is on its way out. The "fat cats" will shrug it off and as a percentage of aviation operations they are too small to make a funding impact.
Bottom line is actually this - Our Constitution gave Congress the power of the budget and the Executive Branch the power to execute the law. The FAA is trying to make an end run around our nation's Constitution by taking funding direct from citizens bypassing Congressional scruitiny.
What if the White House decides to tax the war separately? Everyone could make a tax for their own little pet causes.
Our Nation is a nation of laws founded on a Constitution. Of all the concerns I have over our White House, George Bush's violation of his pledge to uphold our Nation's Constitution is the most serious.