Jay Honeck wrote:

As always with tax laws, "divide and conquer" is the order of the day.
The strategy is to get each segment of aviation pointing at each other,
so that we all forget the fact that there is NO reason to give the Feds
a nickel more.

What is your basis for saying this? Do you have data that shows that
aviation today is contributing more to the Feds than we are getting back
in services? I haven't seen much data on that, but what I saw some
years back showed just the opposite to be true. I know that for the
small airports near me, there is no way that the revenues these airports
generate come even close to supporting the airport. The revenues don't
even support the operating costs of the airport let alone the capital costs.

It isn't an equation I like to admit, but it certainly is the reality.
One can probably make the same case for highways though so I'm not sure
how best to form an argument here, but we need to be very careful when
we suggest that we are getting more that we pay for as I just don't
think that is true for most aspects of aviation.

Matt