MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

MR PRESIDENT: YOU NEED A PRIMER ON SAVING JOBS

Two examples left in the United States that manufacture goods are the chip industry and transportation. We know that the US is a leader in automotive production, and we are also a leader in the production of airplanes.

The President wants to discontinue accelerated depreciation on new aircraft that has been in effect for the past 10 years. He states that is time that the “fat cats” who buy these jets pay their fair share. Mr President, it’s not the fat cats I’m worried about. It’s the laborer who builds these airplanes in the US that you are doing your ignorant best to put out of a job. Are these laborers fat cat millionaires? I think not. These are hard working people trying to stay afloat to pay their mortgagees and put food on the table.

Mr. President if you have your way many of these hard working people will line up on the unemployment line collecting unemployment insurance and not be able to afford health insurance. Companies will be closing plants which means less tax revenue to the municipalities in which they live.

So please explain to me Mr. President your economic plan to create more jobs which will result in job loss in an industry where we are a leader. You would think I just took this scenario out of “ATLAS SHRUGGED”.

The President should not take all the blame for this. I posed a question to a leading aviation manufacture asking what is the aviation industry doing about this. Their answer was that they have lobbyist in Washington working on it. I then asked why don’t the CEO’s request a meeting with the President in Washington. The reply was frightening...well we never thought of that. If the President refuses to meet with the CEO’s then use the media to your advantage.

Those people I know involved in aviation vote. They talk to their spouses and friends influencing them to vote. As it stands now the President, whose favorables are way down, could use all the support he could garner. There is no common sense in government...at any level.

While we are on the subject of incompetence in government, I would like to address the BARR program. This is a program that allowed blocking of airplane registration numbers on public websites. As it stands today any flight tracker program will show your flight in real time providing the registered owner of that aircraft and the complete flight track of that aircraft. Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, decided to do away with BARR. Mr. LaHood could not carry Norman Mineta’s lunch box if you get my drift. AOPA and NBAA have filed a lawsuit in Federal Court to reinstate BARR. Until that suit is decided upon, BARR ceases to exist.

The House of Representatives passed the FAA reauthorization bill today that would fund the FAA through January. In that bill is a provision to reinstate BARR. One can only hope this will survive the Senate.

Don’t even get me started about the FAA Administrator, who as president of the Pilot’s union at Eastern Airlines, forced the collapse of Eastern. What a fine bunch we have leading the Aviation industry in this country.