The White House released its proposed 2011 federal budget today, including the transportation budget. For the most part, this budget is an extension of past budgets, but it includes a few new programs.
First, the budget includes $4 billion for a National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund, also known as an “infrastructure bank.” The Antiplanner has a couple of problems with this idea. First, infrastructure should be paid for out of user fees, not tax dollars. Second, unlike many other transportation funds, which are distributed based on specific formulas, this fund will be an “open bucket.” This will give states incentives to come up with the wackiest, most expensive transportation projects.
Second, the budget predictably includes a new program for regulating transit safety at the federal level. This is a reversal of Ronald Reagan’s formula: if it stops moving, subsidize it; if it moves, regulate it.
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The budget also seeks $527 million for “livability” grants that it will make to states and metropolitan areas to encourage them to promote compact development and other smart-growth programs. Needless to say, the Antiplanner consider this replusive.
Obama also proposes another $1 billion for high-speed rail. He asked for $1 billion in the 2010 budget, but Congress gave him $2.5 billion. So why ask for more? Even one more penny for high-speed rail is a complete waste.
Finally, Obama repeats that he wants Congress to delay transportation reauthorization until 2011. Until then, the administration “will work with the Congress to reform surface transportation pro- grams and put the system on a viable financing path.” Since user fees are the only “sustainable” financial path, this sounds good — except what both Obama and the House Transportation Committee really want is to take money from some transportation users and give it to others.
The Antiplanner wrote:
> Third, Obama proposes to increase funding for modernizing
> the country’s antiquated air traffic control system. While
> this system desperately needs modernization, this is the
> wrong way to do it. The GAO considers this program to be
> a high risk for fraud and abuse. Air traffic control
> should be privatized, or at least commercialized and
> funded exclusively out of user fees paid by air travelers,
> not funded out of tax dollars.
For several years back in the 1980’s, I worked on a project that was hot at the time – the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control modernization project, usuallly known as the Advanced Automation System (AAS for short).
Some of AAS, notably the replacement of 1960’s-vintage computers at the Air Route Traffic Control Centers with modern (by late-1980’s standards)computer systems was implemented. In spite of spending large amounts of (taxpayer) money on AAS, most of the rest of it never got implemented, and it is my strong opinion that people running the project for the FAA (and not the private contractors hired to develop AAS) were in way over their heads.
In my opinion, the FAA should set the standards for air traffic control, assure that the standards are complied with, but let some other entity actually run ATC. And why not ask users of the nation’s airspace to fund ATC? That makes pretty good sense.
I realize I’m playing against type by noting this, but for military and police reasons, air traffic control should probably remain the exclusive province of the government — at least, at levels higher than the municipal airstrip full of buzzwings. Worldwide, American air traffic rules basically hold sway, including the use of English for all communications and adherence to all FAA-imposed safety requirements, because with an aircraft, there’s very little margin for error. You can’t pull over and have a stretch while you and the tower work out a customs issue or passport problem. Every plane in the air will eventually, on a long enough timeline, end up on the ground. Air traffic control must be sufficiently reliable to ensure that most such planes end up on the ground intact.
For more on the FAA’s failed Advanced Automation System, read this (from 2002): The Ugly History of Tool Development at the FAA
“I realize I’m playing against type…”
Boy howdy you are!
“Air traffic control must be sufficiently reliable to ensure that most such planes end up on the ground intact.”
And you think the government is best suited to do this? I’m confused on where the free-market-zealots draw the line.
bennett,
It could be contracted out, but I’m pretty sure competition in this field would cause physical disaster. Can you imagine an airplane being told by two separate TRACONs to take two different and incompatible landing approaches? Or an airplane showing up at the destination low on fuel, needing to land, only to discover that the carrier hasn’t renewed its “premium” membership with that TRACON, so the plane will not be cleared to land until all “premium” incoming traffic has touched down. Or what have you.
A lot of this kind of stuff is totally fair game in commerce, where a buyer is free to walk away if the terms of the deal do not suit him. Once airborne, a person is more like a patient on an operating table… the instrumentality of safety is controlled by another entity. We have strict liability for res ipsa loquitur medmal for that reason — the patient could not have contributed to the harm, because the patient was not in control of the instrumentality. (and may not have even been conscious!) And there are laws (and professional ethical requirements) that a doctor not interfere with a patient being treated by another doctor except in emergent situations. In fact, on second thought, perhaps there could be competition among air traffic controllers… but the liability and risk would be off the charts. The necessary regulation might be sufficiently onerous to make it impossible to implement.
There can’t be competition between military forces protecting our country for similar reasons.
I wish the antiplanner was more like Mike. 😉
What would the “user fee” have to be (in $$$) to fund this massive overhaul of the ATC system? Is this problem too big and too dangerous to wait for a user fee implementation? After reading C.P.Z’s link and O’Tooles’s reason paper I’m afraid to get on my flight tomorrow (Which is Southwest from Austin to Lubbock in case Scott is reading).
“Austin to Lubbock”
What are the odds?
Out of all flight-miles, <1% are for trips <500 miles.
If only there was a HSR,
which actually has more capital costs than an airplane
& could easily be more prone to terrorism
& is less safe for accidents.
Hey let's have complete openness in the sky: planes can land & take-off, wherever & whenever they want, without any controls. And the drunk pilots don't even need licensing.
Mike,
What is it that government-administered air traffic control can do that is not possible by private operators?
Is this problem too big and too dangerous to wait for a user fee implementation?
If it is too big for user fee implementation (and I doubt it is), then it probably should not be undertaken. I cannot imagine how it would be “too dangerous”.
MJ,
What is it that government-administered air traffic control can do that is not possible by private operators?
Maintain exclusivity of operations. That’s pretty much it. As I replied to bennett, it’s likely the actual duties can be contracted out to private entities. But the characteristics of air traffic control seem too congruent to me to those of the military and/or police, and those are legitimate government organs that exist (and operate with citizen-vested monopolies) to protect individual rights, including of course “life.”
Just as competing militaries or police forces or court systems cannot protect individual rights, I’m thinking air traffic control would fall under the military purview. I am still open to convincing arguments otherwise on this issue.