Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2014
Floor Speech
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Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Chairman, the Essential Air Service program is an expensive government handout. It is, in effect, welfare for airplanes.
Page 9 of the bill expressly states that the per passenger subsidy extended to rural communities--and by the way, we're not talking about Hawaii and Alaska here; we're talking about places like Muscle Shoals--for a flight that would not otherwise exist is capped at $500. I think that's too high. I don't know why we should be, in effect, paying people $500 to fly to Muscle Shoals. I don't see the sense of that at a time when we're cutting food stamps and cutting block grants to communities. I think it's a poor way to spend taxpayer funds. My amendment would reduce this subsidy to a still-very-high $250 per passenger because $500 per passenger is simply outrageous.
If passengers don't want to pay for aviation routes, then they simply shouldn't exist. For 500 bucks per passenger, we could literally rent a limousine for every single person aboard each flight and drive them to the single nearest commercial airport.
I understand the need for rural services in necessary aspects of life, like Postal Services, telephones, and even the Internet; but I cannot understand the need to subsidize regular airline flights that would otherwise not exist to the tune of $500 per passenger.
The bill before us today would cut community development funds in half--to the lowest level since the program began in 1975. It would cut HOME Investment Partnerships to the lowest level since that program began in 1992. And it would drastically reduce the amount of section 8 rental assistance and increase homelessness. Under these circumstances, I cannot stand by in good conscience and allow a subsidy like this to continue.
I offer this amendment today because it's more important to put a roof over the heads of the poor than it is to hand out corporate welfare to United Airlines and to support aviation routes that simply should not exist.
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