Radical FAA Funding Scheme

AOPA members are incensed about the Bush administration's attempt to radically alter the FAA funding scheme.

In an open letter to members, AOPA President Phil Boyer this week talked about the administration's plan to "coddle the airlines and kill general aviation with a 70-cents-a-gallon avgas tax, user fees for flying into Class B airspace, and new or increased fees for other FAA 'services.'"

One member, echoing the feelings of some others, wrote: "I'm going to sell my airplane now, Phil, and give up flying because I won't be able to afford it anymore."

While encouraging members not to despair because the winnable fight has just begun, Boyer unveiled AOPA's strategic battle plan. It calls for bringing pressure to bear on certain members of Congress at specific times. In the coming months, members will be called to help, but in a highly targeted fashion. And when the final bills are up for vote by the entire Congress, AOPA will issue a national call to action.

For those who want to write their representatives now, AOPA is providing detailed information on what to say and how to send it. With Congress in recess this week, Boyer also urged members to talk to congressional representatives while they are back at home meeting with constituents.

www.aopa.org

1907: Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

-- Theodore Roosevelt 1907