If we only eliminated all help to the poor

[JDPriestly]

20. The airport subsidies such as taxpayer funded air traffic control are all for the wealthy

and megacorps. People who work at McDonalds, people who earn minimum wage, fly very rarely if at all.

Middle class people fly occasionally but not often.

It's big business that uses the airports the most. Yet corporations do not pay the taxes that keep up our costly security and everything else related to air travel. Here is an article on the cost of airport security.

. . . .

Yet the TSA still commands a budget of nearly $8 billion—which is why the agency is left with too many officers and not enough to do. The TSA’s “Top Good Catches of 2011,” reported on its blog, did include 1,200 firearms and—their top find—a single batch of C4 explosives (though those were discovered only on the return flight). A longer list of TSA’s confiscations would include a G.I. Joe action doll’s 4-inch plastic rifle (“it’s a replica”) and a light saber. And needless to say, the TSA didn’t spot a single terrorist trying to board an airline in the U.S., notes Bruce Schneier.

According to one estimate of direct and indirect costs borne by the U.S. as a result of 9/11, the New York Times suggested the attacks themselves caused $55 billion in “toll and physical damage,” while the economic impact was $123 billion. But costs related to increased homeland security and counterterrorism spending, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaled $3,105 billion. Mueller and Stewart estimate that government spending on homeland security over the 2002-11 period accounted for around $580 billion of that total.

Article dated Nov. 18, 2011

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-security-is-killing-us

And from the right-wing CATO Institute, the admission:

In fiscal 2011, the FAA budget will be about $16.4 billion.1 Of the total, $9.7 billion will go toward "operations," which includes $7.6 billion for air traffic control operations, $1.3 billion for safety regulation and certification, and $0.8 billion for other functions. In addition, the FAA will spend $3.3 billion in 2011 on capital investments in ATC facilities, equipment, and research. Most of the rest of FAA's budget, about $3.4 billion, will go toward grants to state and local governments for airport investments.

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/airports-atc

That is only a tiny percentage of what was spent on food stamps last year, but food stamps keep people alive. If the FAA and airport security budgets were paid directly out of taxes on airline ticket sales and totally covered by those taxes, it would make a lot more sense.

If airport customers cannot cover the costs of flying, why encourage airport use? Why subsidize the travel of people who could afford to pay more? Many of the people who fly most frequently are the most enthusiastic about budget cuts. I'm sure they won't mind.