The specific complaint is groundless that the US government should not
help the airline industry. It is not a bailout. It is more like
compensation.
The airline industry (including air package delivery) was the only
industry ordered to shut down by the federal government in the wake of
the tragedy. The aid package will include a government grant that will
compensate the airlines for the loss of revenue and continued overhead
expenses sustained by the airlines during the shutdown. The larger part
of the aid package will be low interest loans that the airline industry
will have to pay back. The money will not make up for the airlines'
shortfall, so they will have to cut expenses (which probably means more
layoffs).
The airlines are vital to the economy. If the government did nothing,
the airline industry would become even more of an oligopoly. That would
harm the public. Moreover, in the hearing before the Senate
Transportation committee, covered by C-SPAN, the head of FedEx Corp
testified that a significant share (between 60 and 90 percent, IIRC) of
the value of goods shipped are shipped by air carrier. He attributed
this to hi-tech goods.
The aid package has provisions to prevent the money from going to
executive salaries or bonuses.
The complaints we should make concern the lack of any aid money
directed to the airline workers who are losing their jobs.
Andrew Hagen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:41:16 -0500, Ken Hanly wrote:
>The Philadelphia Inquirer September 21, 2001
>
>A Bailout for the People
>
> by Richard B. DuBoff
>
>In possibly the worst debasement of public discourse in recent years - no
>mean feat - George W. Bush stated last fall, and repeats as President, that
>when you look at taxes or the government surplus, "it's not the government's
>money. It's your money."
>
>And yet the Bush administration plans a multibillion-dollar bailout for our
>airlines, already in financial trouble even before Sept. 11. So it's not
>your money - it's the airlines' money?
>
>America's airlines do need help - how much is something that must be
>carefully considered - without which there could be bankruptcies and
>declining capacity in the face of growing long-term demand for air travel.
>
>But if the national government can step in and help a private industry and
>its shareholders at a moment's notice, why is it wrong, or wasteful or a
>threat to "freedom," for government to provide increasing and long-term
>support for our economic and social infrastructure?
>
>"It's not the government's money. It's your money." It is also your
>dilapidated public school. Your frayed national parks. Your traffic jam.
>Your increasingly costly and inadequate medical insurance.
>
>And your catastrophically inadequate airline security system. No comparable
>country relies on privately hired and supervised workers to carry out basic
>security check-ins at airports. Our lives depend on such people - who
>receive barely a few hours of training, earn minimum wage, and rarely last
>more than six months on the job.
>
>Our lives also depend on those who teach us to read, calculate and think -
>and few comparable nations pay their teachers as poorly. Among high-income
>nations, the United States ranks far from the top. Average salaries of
>teachers with experience, as a percentage of per capita income, is very low
>in the United States - 99 percent compared to 136 percent on average for 30
>countries surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
>Development.
>
>Amtrak is now coping with large increases in ridership on all its lines -
>and we are on the verge of telling it to fold up shop if it fails to become
>"self-sufficient" by 2003. Instead, it should be subsidized to the tune of
>$2 billion to $3 billion per year. No other country imposes a
>private-profitability standard on its railroads, for good reason: They are
>part of national capital and are needed, more than ever, to support
>transportation systems under enormous and essentially irreparable strain on
>their motor vehicle and airway modes.
>
>Social Security is alive and well. Even under the most pessimistic
>projections for "financial adequacy" over the next 75 years, Social Security
>will claim an additional 2.5 percent of our gross domestic product. Guess
>what: Social Security benefits have been paid over the past 61 years, and
>they have taken an additional 4.2 percent of our GDP - and over that period
>our nation's economic productivity has been below what it now is, far below
>what it will be in future decades.
>
>Social Security's real problem is - can you guess? - its inadequacy compared
>to its counterparts abroad. For workers with average earnings, the U.S.
>replacement rate is less than half those of the French and Dutch systems,
>less than two-thirds those of the German, Belgian, Spanish and Italian
>systems.
>
>The first order of business should be repeal of the Bush tax cuts -
>backloaded for 2005-2010 and overloaded in favor of the richest households.
>Then we can begin to reverse two decades of Reaganomics and the purposeful
>shrinkage and starvation of the federal government. If Washington can bail
>out a private industry - and not for the first time - it can certainly begin
>to reinvest in our livelihoods, our well-being and our futures.
>
>
>Richard B. Du Boff is professor emeritus of economics at Bryn Mawr College.
>
>
>
>
>
