Max1, I can tell you who will be paying for the $100 million subsidy for ADS-B – it is the passengers. Don’t think for a second that the airlines pay the airways charges – they don’t. They pass every cent (and a bit more) on to the passengers. Once the passengers know that they will be subsidising equipment in general aviation aircraft when there is no measurable safety advantage, they will object to it.
How will the passengers know? Eventually it will filter out through the media and to the political players.