(CNN) -- It's the holiday season, and that means air travelers across the United States have shelled out good money to spend time with their families. With record fuel prices squeezing airline margins, travelers may have paid more than they expected this year. And if the government has its way, you might be paying even more next year for less frequent flights, especially to small cities.
As we all know, the federal government is short on revenue, and it has been trying to find a way to reduce costs as well as increase money coming in the door. A small part of that plan involves the airlines.
The plan being put forth has two tax changes. One would see the security fee increase from $2.50 per segment to a flat $5 each way. With proposed yearly increases, it will hit $7.50 each way by 2017 and may climb from there. (The rule only specifies that it can't go below $7.50, but the Department of Homeland Security can continue to bump the tax up).
Would this help pay for better security? Not so much. About 60% of the revenue from this would be directed solely toward deficit reduction and not toward security at all.
The other tax would slap a $100 fee on every single airline departure. That might sound like peanuts in the scheme of things, but it could have some pretty negative impacts, especially on small cities that are already hurting for service. Small cities are served by small aircraft, so a $100 fee per airplane has a much higher impact per passenger on smaller planes.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/21/travel/ai ... ?hpt=us_c2
TAX, TAX, TAX !! The gov thinks all they need to do when they need more money is to TAX. Somehow WE need to put a stop to this BS!!!
They need to start trimming the FAT in their own d@am house first. (NOW) Over half of congress are millionaires!! $hit!