Kathryn,
Among other things, this suggests how much trust fund revenue is lost by not taxing ancillary fees—which used to be part of (taxable) fares. If it’s not “enough” then the 7.5% tax rate needs to be reconsidered. Bob Distler From: Kathryn Creedy via Mifnet <mifnet@lists.mifnet.com> Sent: Friday, 25 July, 2025 11:59 To: mifnet@lists.mifnet.com Cc: Kathryn Creedy <kcre...@gmail.com> Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 73339] Re: FW: Aviation Policy News #236 I'm reading Bob Poole's Aviation Policy report posted to Mifnet recently. I do so enjoy his reporting. He reminds us that the aviation trust fund is SUPPOSED to pay for ATC improvements and warns that once it moves to depending on general revenues it competes with everything else. He also reminds us FAA is completely underfunded for its missions, something everyone has been complaining about for years. So, it seems to me that if FAA is underfunding when aviation trust fund monies were available, then it still is at the mercy of Congressional budget vagaries. In the 1980s, Daniel Patrick Moynihan railed against Congressional budgets, reporting that every trust fund SS, Medicaid, aviation, highway ... was full of cobwebs because Congress "borrowed" the funds to make the deficit look smaller. So now it seems to me we are in the lack-of-funding boat no matter which way we fund ATC. But I maintain that all the headlines of the past 6 months declaring "victory" or "liberty" or whatever, were just that headlines designed to fool the electorate. The BBB was the Congressional version of this flimflammery, making headlines of what it was able to accomplish only to claw back funding under appropriations bills. So, now that the combined efforts of the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle have spent decades not allowing government to do its job and generally making it useless, how do we put humpty dumpty back together again? But the bottom line here is the deficit and we should all be worried. Congress -- Dems and Reps both -- have raised the deficit to a staggering 36T. Well, having broken government and put the US on the fiscal brink, there is no way forward except to raise taxes, whether it is for the ATF or general revenues. This is going to be very painful. I have never understood why social security taxes are only on the first couple of 100k. The rest of this issue is equally fascinating and the quotable quotes at the end? Priceless. Cheers -- Kathryn
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