Essential Air Services: pure pork

The Sunday Detroit Free Press had an interesting article about the regulation of airports. It involves a stipulation called Essential Air Services, or EAS, in which the federal government will subsidize certain air routes considered, obviously enough, essential. You know, essential, as when the bureaucrats and not the free market think something should be done. In other words, when the government deems the market too stupid to know what's good for it and uses your money to, ahem, correct it.

In this case, Washington is trying to keep open air service to four airports in Michigan where the airline serving them had planned to close the routes because they could not make money on them. To do this, it is ordering the current airline to keep flying the routes while others are allowed to bid on them. If no one antes up, the Feds will. In the cases where this is already happening instate, involving airports in Escanaba and Iron Mountain, the cost to taxpayers is $2.8 million.

That's not much, in itself, in terms of all the other reckless spending Washington does. But you must consider the cost of the entire program rather than the rates for one aspect. In fiscal 2007, the cost of the program was $114 million nationwide.

Multiply this by all the other pork in any given federal budget in any particular fiscal year, and it is easy to see why our spending is so out of whack.

But there are health concerns, supporters will argue. It is difficult to attract doctors to rural, isolated areas, and the drive to such places as Ironwood to work part time in the hospital there would be impossible in bad weather, according to Dr. Walter Beusse. He drives to Milwaukee a couple times a month to catch a plane to Ironwood for his part time job. Hmm...he drives an hour or an hour and a half to Milwaukee, to wait two hours for his flight, which takes about an hour. Granted that weather can be an issue (Though it is a fair to ask how often it would in fact be), it would seem that, generally, he could drive all the way to Ironwood almost as quickly. Besides, it is also fair to ask whether that particular route (Milwaukee to Ironwood) should be kept open for the benefit of a relative handful of people, even doctors.

Free Press travel writer Ellen Creagher says that the lack of air routes to certain areas hurts our state's tourism. Seeing as there aren't enough people paying to get to these places by air anyway, it doesn't sound as though anyone has that great of an interest in touring there. Further, in the instance of certain nonexistent routes she decries that Michiganders "aren't connected enough'. There isn't a route from Traverse City to Grand Rapids, for example. But we've driven between the two cities. In this day of extra vigilance against terrorism, you can get to those places by car about as quickly as by plane anyway. The same with an Alpena to Sault Ste. Marie air route which does in fact exist. For those who really want to get there, they can get there overland ridiculously easily. Why fly?

We know what will be said; Ms. Creager has really already said it in her article, in essence: we must keep these lines open so that people can get to and from there. It isn't fair that people in areas of less demand can't get air service.

Bosh; no one asked them to live there. No one is morally obligated to go there either. That people choose to live in or travel to remote areas is their choice; as such, I am not obliged as a taxpayer to see to their movements in or out of the areas. Not that it applies to all questions, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few as a general rule. In this case, I see no reason why the taxpayers should underwrite the free will choices of those folks in outlying areas. Especially in these days of errant and out of control federal spending, we must rein in every bit of pork that we can. And this is one fatty piece of bacon.