User fees have reared their head in President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 proposed budget. Longtime General Aviation News columnist Charles Spence wrote about a letter 100 mayors sent to President Obama regarding the budget’s potential $100-per-flight fee. The comments that follow are interesting. Commenter “gbin” says: “I wonder how many of the mayors who signed that letter were deliberately misled into thinking that the user fee pertains to all or nearly all of general aviation, rather than just to jet aircraft users?” and continues with “I wonder why the author of this piece felt entitled to obscure the rather significant fact that piston aircraft users — the great majority of general aviation — are exempt from the fee (as certain other writers here have also omitted), and to label the Obama administration’s proposal as “attacks on GA” (rather more politically partisan than most reporting here)?”

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