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The Register Guard – EDITORIAL

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

A risky option…

A proposal to privatize the United States’ air traffic control system has surfaced again…

Last year, GOP Congressman Bill Shuster, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, introduced a bill that would have dismantled the air traffic control system and turned its functions and responsibilities over to a private, nonprofit corporation…

This is not a system to be discarded lightly or turned over to private interests without an assurance that the prosperity and security of the United States would be as well-served under private management as it has been under public…

…[Rep. Peter] DeFazio argued that privatization would “tear apart aviation programs, risk unnecessary duplication and complexity, and ultimately cost money for taxpayers and travelers.”…

Any move to dismantle the existing system for a new, untried system with the potential for massive conflicts of interest should be firmly squashed.

We Respond & Your Comments

“As a traditional government agency constrained by federal budget rules and micromanaged by Congress, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is poorly suited to run what amounts to a capital-intensive, high-tech service business.” So declared Clinton and Obama administration policy expert Dorothy Robyn in a Brookings Institution study.

“A look at the five countries where private groups handle air traffic shows there need not be any safety risks” according to bloomberg.com.

One report charges that the FAA is using “technology from the World War II era.”

Private enterprise is almost always preferable to government control. And when Progressive statists such as The Register Guard, New York Times and Rep. Defazio line up against private enterprise we get suspicious.

We say if private air traffic control is good enough for Canada and other countries it’s probably good enough for us!

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One response to “The Register Guard – EDITORIAL”

  1. John Mehlert says:

    i agree,put it in private hands and you will see better traffic control and less waste on money.