Tue, Oct 11, 2011
House Aviation Subcommittee Letter Sent To 'Super
Committee'
Last week, a total of 134 members of the U.S. House of
Representatives signed letters to the Joint Committee on Deficit
Reduction ("Super Committee") and to House and Senate leadership
expressing strong opposition to the Obama administration’s
proposal to impose a $100-per-flight fee as part of its deficit
reducing package. GAMA and its member companies played a very
active role in building support for both of these efforts.
Representatives Sam Graves (R-MO) and John Barrow (D-GA),
co-chairs of the House General Aviation Caucus, authored a letter
describing how detrimental user fees would be to the recovery and
health of the general aviation (GA) industry. “General
aviation user fees have been proposed several times by different
Administrations, both Republican and Democrat. The U.S. House of
Representatives has repeatedly and overwhelmingly opposed
them,” the GA Caucus declared. “We support the current
system of aviation excise taxes, which are a stable, efficient, and
equitable source of funding. Per flight user fees have crippled the
general aviation industry in other countries and we are concerned
about the ramifications such fees would have in the U.S.”
A similar letter from the House Subcommittee on Aviation echoed
this strong opposition for the user fee proposal. Chairman Tom
Petri (R-WI) and Ranking Member Jerry Costello (D-IL) wrote,
“Imposing a new fee on the aviation industry in order to
raise revenue would have a devastating impact on the aviation
industry and fails to achieve our shared goal of improving the
economy and creating jobs.”
“We are very appreciative for the bi-partisan opposition
to a proposal that would place a significant administrative burden
on the GA industry and require the creation of costly new federal
collection bureaucracy,” said GAMA’s President and CEO,
Pete Bunce. “We could not ask for greater leadership
from Chairman Petri, Ranking Member Costello, House GA Caucus
Chairmen Graves and Barrow, and Senate GA Caucus Chairmen Mark
Begich (D-AK) and Mike Johanns (R-NE). Like their House
counterparts, the Senate GA Caucus leadership has been active in
rallying their colleagues against these proposals. Together, they
have sent a powerful message to the members of the “super
committee” and to the White House.”
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