The EAS program is a prime example of wasteful spending, fares subsidized in multiples of the face value of the fare. There isn't any "normal" service at, say Ely, NV because there isn't a demand for it, taking it away from Harry "Pomegranate" Reid is just icing on the cake.
If you followed the link I posted above, you'd have read:
Originally Posted by Don Brown, in Get the Flick
You see, Mica intentionally set out to anger Senate Democrats over this issue. He did it by choosing an unrelated issue, one that is hard to understand and difficult to defend. You can understand it (people in rural places need access to air transportation too, just like roads) and it can be defended. It just takes more time than the average American’s attention span or your average news segment. Fortunately for me, my readers aren’t average......
........Mica, being the clever weasel that he is, gave himself an issue that is easy to “sound bite” and has nothing to do with the issue at hand. In other words, unless you have as much time to read as I do and some inside knowledge about the industry, you’ll never understand what is going on. If you wanted to be kind and reasonable, you might say Chairman Mica has obscured the issue. I don’t feel like being kind or reasonable with Chairman Mica so I’ll tell you flat out he is being deceitful.
(Bold added)
(And I'll also add that which you've probably already figured out; I have great respect for Mr. Brown's insights.)
And indeed, Reid gave in on the EAS, and the Agency is up and running again. Of course, the "issue at hand" that Don Brown refers to is the union issue. The EAS issue, example of waste or not, was a smokescreen for Mica's real interest.
If revenue and spending are disconnected, as you say, why is there any argument about--just let the Feds spend $10, 20, or 30 trillion each year. We cannot spend what we do not produce--Say's Law.
Sure we can. We've been doing it for years. That's why we're in debt. And debt is what the Republicans are screaming about.
The point is that now, there's $388 million that didn't go towards revenue, which otherwise would have. That isn't going to help make the hole any shallower, is it?
Regarding the "transfer" of $30 million/day, it isn't a transfer in any meaningful sense of the word. Congress didn't renew the law, giving up the revenue. The market between airlines and passengers decided who got it. Congress did not transfer the money to anybody.
Had Congress done what Congress is supposed to do; what the taxpayers pay Congress to do; and kept the agency fully functional, the money would be in the taxpayers' bank account, not the airlines' bank accounts.
That seems pretty meaningful to me, and a pretty straightforward example of cause and effect.
So, they could raise fares, by 7.5%, and reap a revenue windfall, due to Congress.
Yeah. What you said.
And what I said. They raised the fares because they could.
You can argue economics all you want. I'm talking about customer perceptions. I'm a very infrequent airline customer, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
Had an airline priced their tickets ex-taxes and buyers flocked to that airline (read: SWA, perhaps), the industry would NOT have raised their fares and passengers would have benefited.
Well, I guess we'll never know. I'd assume many travel plans were made in advance. I wonder if there would have been a quantifiable difference between airlines if this had gone on until September?
Is sponsoring Cowboy Poets Recitals essential service?
Wow. Now that I've heard of it, I feel my life is incomplete...
