The letter of the....week

No doubt many of you have heard of the letter and the movement to get representatives to sign it.  The letter urges the President to not propose user fees in his 2011 budget.  The fees were axed from the FAA reauthorization bill earlier this year, but we face them again in 2011.  I'm going to attempt to talk to Representative Paul Broun about the issue tomorrow (got the info too late today).  I'll report back as soon as I can.

Naturally I find it nerve-racking talking to politicians (though I'm skeptical about the chances of actually getting to talk to anyone), so I'm doing my homework.  So-far, there are many reasons user fees don't make sense.

• Administrative cost for the program would render it inefficient.  You'd have to pay people to collect the money and people to track the money and people to make sure everyone's paying the money and people to manage all the people.  Will the fees cover all of these peoples' salaries?
• The fees have already been rejected repeatedly by congress.  Another push for it and debate on the issue would only delay progress on more important issues.
• I've seen very few people mention the safety point of view.  If there's a fee for calling up ATC, some pilots will be less likely to use them.  If you're charged for filing a flight plan, some might hesitate and decide it's not worth it.

I'm finding more arguments as I go.  The airlines fully support the idea and, in some opinions, believe the fees will give them a degree of leverage in deciding how the air system is run.  As a General Aviation pilot, that 's a little frightening.

Anyway, we'll see.