Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Soaring Entitlement Mentality


The entitlement mentality plagues our nation as we slowly bury ourselves in budget deficits that thrive on pork. This attitude has soared to new heights. On the NPR show Morning Edition news piece on the impact of fuel costs on flights to miniscule markets, the esteemed head of the House Transportation Committee had this to say:


'"The airspace is the common heritage of all Americans," says Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation Committee. "It doesn't belong to the CEOs of the airlines. It doesn't belong to the shareholders of the airlines. It belongs to all Americans."
Unless something's done, Oberstar says, more and more Americans are going to be left out. But he doesn't want to re-regulate the airlines, exactly. Instead, he's pushing to expand the Essential Air Service program. The House has already approved legislation that would boost the subsidies. Lawmakers are also considering changing the rules so that more airports qualify.
Some question whether it makes sense to keep planes flying where the market says they shouldn't. Thomas Firey of the Cato Institute says that in most places, Essential Air Service isn't essential and is a waste of money.
Oberstar calls that attitude "elitist" and says it shows contempt for small-town America.'



What? I can tell you as someone who has read the Constitution that nowhere does it mention airspace. Furthermore, while we are gifted with certain inalienable rights, I really don't think Thomas Jefferson had his head in clouds when he wrote that line. Where do these people get these ideas? Apparently from the 12 voters in their districts who have made a lifestyle choice to live in a small town. Most people that I know who live in small towns do so to escape big town things like airports. Like the Cato guy said, they simply drive (or take the shuttle) to the big city aeroplex.
But is it really that nasty tension between rural living and making a living that is at the bottom of this? Maybe, for so the argument goes that companies will not locate in such places without air access. So that means the government is really subsizing these companies and not the little old voter who, if asked, would probably say that s/he would pass on the airline.

I don't think people want to pay for other people to be able fly to little airports with their taxes any more than they want to pay to bail out bozo's who failed to read their mortgage contracts and are now surprised to learn that they never really could afford that McMansion in the first place-something I suspect they knew all along.

My question is this: how did a guy with such a poor grasp of logic get to be the head of anything, much less a congressional committee? And when will the voters realize that it is these obscure congress people who are doing us in and quit the celebritization of the presidency? This expenditure stuff will go a much farther distance to hurting this country than the war in Iraq. Just wait and see. In the meanwhile, I am booking my flight to Bozeman.



1 comment:

DeMarr's Most Excellent Adventures said...

Amen! I agree totally (well, I still want out of Iraq...) Anyway, we are living in small town Bend, Oregon, this summer and have been hearing this sort of thing all summer. The real kicker is that the ones crying the loudest claim to be REPUBLICANS who would deny ANY federal assistance to others!!!! The hypocrisy is beyond belief....sadly not really.