Don't Blame A Democratic Administration For GA's Woes
By Guest Columnist John W. Owen
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I've been a real fan of ANN but your political expounding is
getting real tiresome. If you want to have a philosophical debate
about the merits of an overblown plutocracy vs economic democracy
then get to it. But swiping at the Democrats and a Democratic
president because he doesn't kiss the ass of spoiled plutocrats
which are acting an awful lot like the old English Gentry prior to
the Revolutionary War is a cheap shot blame game. The wealthy do
pay a high percentage of income taxes but in the last decade your
Republican ideologues have gotten tax breaks for shipping jobs
overseas and now attack professionals in government services,
education, health and security sectors. A decade ago a Democratic
president left office with a budget surplus and the Democratic
candidate for president had the foresight to address the issue of
Social Security funding and Medicare and Medicaid solvency. Two
off-book wars, Wall Street favoritism and legalized usury have
damaged America so much that the middle class is nearly wiped out
and yet you blame this president for not bowing to those who wish
to "tinkle down" their extravagant wealth on the rest of us with
cleaning their frickin Citations!
As a border state resident with
frequent business all over Eastern Canada, I'm struck by the
difference I see in local aviation there compared to here in the
USA. Yes, socialist Canada with its high taxes, health care for
all, and a penchant for not pissing off the rest of the world with
their snobbery, seems to have plenty of well maintained paved
runway airports for general aviation. I see nice hangers, good
fencing, and a lot of good GA aircraft. As well, I see prosperous
and dynamic corporations using higher end aircraft for business but
not given the same latitude for personal use as American corporate
crooks.
I appreciate that business aviation is a multi billion dollar
contributor to general aviation but GA aviation would, could and
should be a much more dynamic part of the gross domestic product if
the American middle class wasn't being so eviscerated by an
over-reaching corporatcracy-plutocracy where the 400 wealthiest
families in America own or control as much assets as the poorest
150 MILLION Americans. An excellent article on this was recently
published by the
LA Times. While Walmart may have a small fleet
of business jets, they have put many smaller main street stores out
of business and those businesses used to be owned by people who
were living a comfortable middle class life and could have gone the
traditional 150 (Cessna, Piper, Mooney) start to aviation and over
time upgraded to 172s, 180s, 206s (or the Piper and Mooney
equivalents). As well, Republicans and their lobbyists have killed
so many of the good paying middle class jobs with tax breaks and
rigging the economic system that jobs are outsourced and offshored
to the point that our country has become a nation of underpaid,
service workers bereft of benefits and liveable wages, The last
thing the general population can think of is flying for hobby or
even their own small business interests.
In the last two years of our nascent
economic recovery 85% of the increase in income has gone to the
wealthiest 5% of Americans with 80% of Americans either seeing no
increase in income or a drop in real income. We spend 26% of our
GDP on health care yet 50 million American have no health care
coverage and 100 million more Americans are underinsured which
means that anyone with serious medical issues are at financial risk
of losing their savings, their homes and acquiring debts that will
never be resolved though bankruptcy since Sen Phil Graham of Texas
rewrote the laws in favor of corporate controlled creditors.
Creditors that can now charge interest rates on credit cards that
in my youth were usury rates only charged by gangsters and thugs.
If we were to have tax rates equivalent to those during the
Eisenhower administration, with import trade regulations that
required at least some parity in environmental protection,
workplace safety and liveable wages, our government would have the
revenues that would allow us to build the aviation, and especially
the general aviation facilities and infrastructure equivalent to
the interstate system that Ike knew was not only an economic good
in facilitating business transportation but also a national defense
issue which is why in the interstate system there is a requirement
that one mile in five be straight enough to use as a landing strip.
That interstate infrastructure has too long been neglected and no
state is without bridges on the system that are in need of repair
such as the one that collapsed with fatalities and severe
transportation disruptions during Tim Pawlenty's reign as goveunor
of MN. Imagine if we could invest in that infrastructure, the good
paying skilled jobs that would be created as well as the
adjunctively created jobs with what economists call the multiplier
effect. Also, there is no reason we could not invest in the now
technologically feasible "highway in the sky" programs and the 40
to 50 billion that it would take to switch our air traffic control
system to a GPS system. And can you imagine the screams from this
Republican Congress if this Democratic President wanted to invest
in NASA science programs that might indicate our world is more than
6000 years old?
What we have now is lack of innovation,
a lack of investment, a loss of assets like Cirrus to China, with
GA barely being more than a hobbyist's endeavor. We don't need
Harley Davidsons in the sky, which are basically 1950's technology
at 2011 prices. We need Ducattis, Triumphs, Hondas, Yamahas and
BMWs in the sky like Oma Sud's newly certified plane (EASA) and we
sure as hell don't need Lycoming and Continentals running on LL100
when we should be using Mistral 200s and 300s using 85% fewer
moving parts with adaptable fuel capabilities.
While you may think it patriotic and politically expedient to bow
to your corporate masters, the age of the lords and ladies that has
returned our nation to a class system echoing that of England prior
to our Revolutionary War will end within a decade. The pressure on
working men and women will become too great, and the treatment of
women as theocratic chattel will be resisted again. With your
bitter writings about them damn ol' Democrats who want to tax and
hinder you've clearly shown a streak of fascism that I'm sure has
ol' Ike turning in his grave as he was the first to sound the
warning of the military-industrial complex and now we know why. As
Warren Buffett said:
"There's class warfare, all right,
but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're
winning." New York Times, November 26, 2006.
"It's class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn't be."
CNN Interview, May 25 2005, in arguing the need to raise taxes on
the rich.
While I doubt that you made it to the
bottom of this, if you have thank you for your time and attention
and I do hope you look at the LA Times article.