You Know The Government Is Going to Demand the Money Retroactiveley

I blogged about this a few days ago. Because the FAA asn't been funded, the extra fees that airlines have put onto airline tickets to pay the taxes demanded by the FAA, are not going to the FAA. Most airlines are continuing to charge that extra money - in other words the price of their tickets is staying the same - but not having to give that money to the government.

And there's people upset about this.

As I said a few days ago, there are several legitimate reasons why the airlines should not lower their fares by the equivalent amount of the government's taxes.

1. When the FAA is back up and running, do you really think they will not demand that those taxes be sent to them retroactively? It's only common sense to continue to collect the money and put it in the bank in case the feds can make that stick.

2. Airlines are barely staying in business as it is. They all have unions, remember. So if they can get a windfall like this to help shore up their financial picture, why not take it?

3. If they drop their fares and then the government starts taxing them again (as it will), the customers will be even more angry that the prices had dropped and have now risen. And they won't be blaming the government for it.

4. The complexities of changing the price for tickets would probably be quite expensive. Yes, the fares are all on computers, but still...computer programmers want money.

Here's what Rush had to say about it:

Story #1: Libs: Airlines Making Millions on FAA Shutdown

RUSH: If you want to know why Obama's upset about the FAA -- he mentioned the FAA in his Rose Garden speech -- this is from The Atlantic Wire, the headline: "Airlines Are Making Millions From An FAA Shutdown -- Congress failed to pass new legislation to fund the Federal Aviation Agency by Friday so the agency is now unable to collect taxes on excises, fuel and cargo. FAA head Randy Babbitt told reporters on Monday that which is costing the agency millions of dollars of lost revenue a day.

"The situation amounts to a tax holiday for airlines. One would think that travelers might save a buck or two from the airlines' windfall, but Scott McCartney at The Wall Street Journal reports they are not in a sharing mood. ... the FAA is out a total of $200 million a week or roughly $30 million a day." They're not collecting because the FAA legislation to fund it. And this was part of the show of the debt ceiling. "Oh, no, this is an example of what's gonna happen, we can't fund the FAA." So they're not collecting all these taxes. Can't have that. So Obama had to specifically mention that. In Obama's view the airlines are stealing from his stash. Can't have that.

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