GOP bill will eliminate some airport subsidies

Last year another Obama-radicalized agency, the National Mediation Board, reversed 70 years of established labor law by requiring a majority of voters--not a majority of workers--to authorize a union workplace in the air and rail industries. Since gaining control of the House and picking up seats in the Senate last fall.

Since then the GOP has been trying to return to the old rule, but President Obama is threatening to veto any bill that overturns the NMB improvisiation.

A Florida Republican, meanwhile, is suggesting that we curb some ridiculous subidies for small airports that are quite close to major municipal ones.

From the Commercial Appeal of Memphis:

Airports in Jackson, Tenn., and Jonesboro, Ark., would lose their Essential Air Service subsidies because of their proximity to Memphis under a bill introduced today extending Federal Aviation Administration programs for the 21st time.

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the chairman of the Transportation Committee, introduced a bill that modified his earlier proposal to scrap Essential Air Service subsidies to 110 rural airports, including Muscle Shoals, Ala.; Hot Springs, El Dorado, and Harrison, Ark.; Tupelo, Greenville, Hattiesburg and Meridian, Miss.; and Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Under the new proposal, just 13 airports would lose the subsidy either because it costs more than $1,000 per passenger to provide service to those airports or because they are within 90 miles of a large or medium airport hub. The airport in Ely, Nevada, for instance, receives $3,720 per passenger to maintain its service and would lose the subsidy under Mica's plan. The elimination of the 13 airports would save $16.6 million a year.

Mica complained that the Democratic Senate's refusal to accept a House Republican plan to reverse a National Mediation Board decision that made it easier for aviation workers to form unions was the reason for failing to pass a new, multi-year bill in over seven years. He called it "political posturing and payoffs to the labor movement."

It could save the federal government over $16 million dollars. Okay, that's not a lot, but we are in the midst of a contentious fight over the debt ceiling.

$16 million here...$16 million there....

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