[seosoftseo]

Isn't this great? Taxpayers have to pay to fly empty planes in and out of rural airports that hardly anybody visits.

Spend, baby. Spend.

Aug 11, 9:42 PM EDT

Gov't pays for empty flights to rural airports

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...08-11-21-42-37

[c-cialis]

GOP Congressman David MacKinley: http://mckinley.house.gov/index.cfm?...,25&itemid=132

Clarksburg, W.Va., is a city of about 16,000 along the Monongahela River, a former mid-size city that has shrunk in population but has enjoyed a growing technology and federal employment base in recent years. It’s a two-hour drive to the nearest international airport, in Pittsburgh, and a four-hour car ride away from the closest major hub, Washington’s Dulles International Airport.

But instead of spending all that money on gas, one could simply fly from Clarksburg’s North Central West Virginia Airport to Washington. The airport operated by the Benedum Airport Authority receives more than $1 million in federal funding annually. And amid Republican hopes of slashing spending, it’s federal funding the area’s new GOP congressman says is essential to job growth in his district, though most of his colleagues don’t feel the same way.

The Clarksburg airport is one of 108 small fields around the nation that receives funding from the little-known Essential Air Service program, operated by the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2010, airlines operating out of those airports in the Continental United States received more than $163 million to subsidize low-customer flight traffic between rural airports and larger hub destinations.

But the version of the FAA reauthorization measure that passed the Republican-led House would phase out the EAS after 2013, a provision Democrats and some Republicans who represent rural constituents say would hurt fragile economies still recovering from an economic downturn.

“For Clarksburg in particular, with its budding high-tech area, we’ve got to have access outside West Virginia,” said Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., a freshman who voted against the House GOP’s version of the FAA reauthorization bill. “It may not have much traffic, but it is crucial to the economic development of those communities.”

The House’s version, with its phaseout of the EAS, passed on April 1 on a nearly party-line vote. McKinley was one of 11 Republicans to vote against the bill. Collectively, those Republicans represent 29 airports that receive about $42.4 million in federal subsidies. Saving that $163 million a year, after all, helped Republicans tally additional budget cuts.

[hechicxxrr]

Richard is like Paul Harvey: That's the rest of the story.

G'Day.