SpeedyVagabond

I agree completely. I would never be comfortable with a pension anyway. An administration change and one stroke of a fancy pen and one can be screwed in retirement. I enjoy learning about money management and growing my own money. That in my opinion creates stability. It promotes safe and sensible investing which in turn stabilizes and secures our markets and banks. There definitely is a storm coming with so many people retiring with just the shirts on their backs and the promise of social security.

SpeedyVagabond

The fact is there are none. And most GA pilots are very considerate of their airline brethren anyway. Every time I'm at a smaller field they voluntarily and eagerly offer to extend a downwind so we can get in first. I fly GA on the side in aerobatic planes for fun. I love GA and think it's a big reason why we have, in my opinion, the best manned flight decks in the world. We should do everything we can to nurture it and grow it. I'm absolutely opposed to taxing it out of existence.

ryane946

Fuel taxes are far and away the cheapest and most efficient way to collect tax money in aviation. Taxes are collected at the refinery and cost almost nothing to collect. Contrast that to user fees which would take an entire agency to oversee, bill, collect, etc...

Think how much it cost to collect sales tax (hardly anything), versus having an entire federal agency (the IRS, which costs $10+ billion to run). If smaller government is really their aim, then they should be in favor of continuing to use aviation fuel tax instead of user fees which will add a large cost and tons of government employees to collect user fees.

Don't forget that general aviation is a major industry in the US, and a major contributor to helping decrease the trade deficit. Implementing user fees would be an unrecoverable blow to all these companies.

Fortunately, while a lot of presidential budgets include aviation user fees, congress is adamantly against them (with bi-partisan support). I am thankful for a great organization like AOPA who spends lots of effort to protect everyone's right to fly. Well worth the $59 a year to join!

cardiomd

You have outlined the main problem with pensions - can be raided, disbanded, expensive to maintain, and prone to mismanagement, etc. Current 401k-mania motivated by the management fees offered by many corporate plans but still often better than the alternative.

However, these really require a bit of sense to manage, which is often in short supply.

I agree, and a skilled GA pilot will generally have zero impact on the flow of airline traffic - clever controllers can sneak us in quickly to the short runways, from downwind I can be on ground and off the runway in a literal minute if asked, or do LAHSO if available etc. Unfortunately sometimes things like that recent Hobby crash happen, which I fear will make controllers worried and treat us like airline traffic, or even our bigger aircraft cousins.

kevbo

And he got a little something extra in his paycheck for getting so much more work done, right? Or did just get unemployed when they were finished with hm. How many of you really think your superior work ethic will save you from the next layoff?

No Land 3

His job wasn't affected, he retired and came to Mesa. The government has a list of contractors that they are approved to use. He said the company was told that it would cost 1 million dollars and 6 month to bury and run a T1 line to where they needed it. The private company erupted with contempt, and said, "screw that! We'll use our own people, it'll cost 10,000$, and be done next week!" And guess what? It was!