LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic Universe-Document

LEXIS-NEXIS® Academic

February 7, 1999, Sunday

SECTION: Editorial; Ed. FINAL; Pg. 2B

LENGTH: 267 words

HEADLINE: AIR PASSENGERS PAY ENOUGH

BODY:
Airline passengers have complained of being treated like cattle. There's another, more apt comparison: sheep for the shearing.

The Clinton administration is proposing new tax increases on airline passengers and $1.5 billion in new user fees on the aviation industry, much of which will inevitably be footed by passengers and shippers. Passengers already pay an 8 percent federal tax on their airline tickets plus a $2 federal fee for each leg of the trip. The federal government also lets state and local governments charge a PFC, for passenger facility charge, of $3 a stop for local airport improvements with a limit of $12 a trip.

The Clinton administration proposes to raise the individual PFCs from $3 to $5 a stop - a 67 percent increase - with a limit of $20 a trip.

These taxes would be fine if they were needed for airport improvements, as the administration says, but they are not. The aviation trust fund, the beneficiary of federal taxes on aviation, exists to pay for airport improvements. It will have a surplus of $6.8 billion by Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year, and, thanks to these proposed new taxes and user fees, a surplus of $8.2 billion in 2000.

The Clinton administration, like its predecessors, has hung onto the surpluses in the aviation trust fund, and other dedicated funds, to make the budget deficits look smaller and the budget surpluses look larger.

The government has no business raising taxes until it spends the tax money it has. The cattle and sheep are bad enough without adding pigs to the equation.

LOAD-DATE: February 10, 1999