well I guess we get there from different directions Jeff, but I bet we agree on one thing. It is best not to act like a low hanging fruit.
well I guess we get there from different directions Jeff, but I bet we agree on one thing. It is best not to act like a low hanging fruit.
Jeff, At least 28 Senators from both parties disagree with you about their intent for the FAA budget and the provision they made for fully funded ATC operations.
In DoD, we are on a 20% pay cut for the rest of the year. Many of the politically appointed leadership (people with "secretary" in their titles), who are otherwise exempt from the furlough, are voluntarily returning 20% of their pay to the Treasury for the same time that the furlough lasts. Although we may not like it, no one that I know is complaining about the furlough. We know that something is necessary. We are trying to be smart about what to cut, where, and when. Is it too much to ask the FAA to do the same?
I do not at all like the Ottoman notion of bureaucrats demanding baksheesh for services, especially when those services are fully funded.
Well, as far as cutting items in the budget to save money, we all know how much a part of the overall budget that $500,000 that FAA wants from EAA is.
There are some non believers that might suggest not having the IRS spend all that money on their conventions or the TSA not spend $50 million on new uniforms. Perhaps the Air Force Academy could even do without repaving their roads every year or our airport with the pavement on the ramp that really did not need redoing or the Eagle and Jeffco, could get by with the control towers they already had instead of $millions for new ones. But any sort of logic or thrift or common sense is not the way things are done in our gov.
If there is a big plate of gravy everyone wants a turn at the platter.
And most of all, aren't we lucky that our govt seems to always be able to find a war of two to spend a few trillion $$$$$$$ on.
There are some wimps that think we ought to be spending most of our money on things that actually help people, but every politician knows there really isn't much markup and profit in peace time.
If EAA pays the half million $$, just think of it as our little one percent of the price of the next F35 or whatever the new must have techno hardware is.
Last edited by Bill Greenwood; 06-11-2013 at 07:28 PM.
This pretty much sums up where all the money has gone
exactamundo!Originally Posted by scott f
I'll post this link in each of these threads, just to make sure that you all see it:
http://www.eaa.org/news/2013/2013-06...TC-demands.asp
Hal Bryan
EAA Lifetime 638979
Vintage 714005 | Warbirds 553527
Managing Editor
EAA—The Spirit of Aviation
Hal, with all due respect to you and all of your co workers including Mr Pelton, I have to say a very bad decision has been made. The door to user fees of all kinds has just been opened wide and invites the demise of avaition as we know it. Mr Pelton should have told the FAA in the nicest way possible to shove it. Blackmail and extortion is never acceptable. Give in to it once and you had better be willing to live with it forever. My apreciation to all of you for your hard work and that includes Mr Pelton, but I cannot agree with this decision.
Through out the history of EAA AirVenture convention,
did EAA ever have to cover FAA expenses related to air traffic control services?
I believe the FAA was looking for a easy target to extract money from.
With Jack Pelton, holding the new chairman of the board position and acting
as president and CEO of EAA while a replacement is found since October 2012.
FAA may have thought they could catch EAA in flux. Maybe they did.
Especially springing these last minute expenses on EAA right before their Annual convention.
Sounds like dirty pool to me.
Maybe the best thing to do is fight and pay, so you can live to fight another day.
The United States Post Office has been running in the red for years why can't the FAA?
Jack, the BOD and the entire EAA organizational staff have just experienced the classic definition of "between a rock and a hard place." How does one choose amongst a list of nothing but catastrophic choices. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I don't believe the wisdom of Soloman could have helped.
Perhaps Wrongway has summarized the only common sense solution available. For it does allow EAA to fiscally(it does take big bucks) lead the assault on the FAA on behalf of GA by indeed getting up off the mat, tail between legs, wipe of the blood spatter, but with the ability to fight another day.
Don't forget the wording of EAA's announcement: "EAA today finalized a one-time agreement..."
As Dick's posting said a few pages back, the FAA didn't give EAA a definitive answer on whether they were going to get charged until barely three months before the show. Not really enough time to do anything drastic. Now, this gives them the opportunity to fight hard for 2014, and come up with some alternatives if the FAA stays firm.
With the time they had, the only real alternative would have been to cancel the show. I don't think that would have been in the best interests of EAA, for the hundreds of vendors who count on making serious sales contacts during the show, or for the hundreds of thousands of people for whom this is the high point of their aviation year.
EAA really made the only choice that was possible...but as the news release says, the agreement is ONE TIME. Sure, it sets a precedent, which won't help, but EAA will now have a year to come up with alternate arrangements.
Ron Wanttaja
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