Be careful what you wish for. “More attention” by the typical bureaucrat know-nothings who will be enabled by the spending in the GA sector doesn’t sound like something that will automatically be a positive.
From the official FAA FY 2023 Budget Submission, total FY 2023 funding for FAA is $23.6 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office and the Biden proposal, the estimated cost of Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is approximately $400 billion. I’ll bet you a trip to California (well, these days, maybe a trip to Florida) that among the panders and giveaways in the Biden administration budget sufficient funds can be found for the FAA.
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Addendum: Without having to raise the debt ceiling.
“None of us are safe, so long as Congress is in session”. (Mark Twain)
Everyone seems to get hung up on an Administrator but given the past several we in GA are likely better off without a new one. As for the debt ceiling, its a farce anyway but given the state of government I’m all for “less”.
MOSAIC would be one of the best steps forward GA for since Basic Med. The acting administrator promised last year that he would make it happen but despite EAA’s best efforts the promise remains yet another hollow commitment from an unaccountable bureaucrat.
Hopefully, Pelton will stick up for certified piston aviation. Don’t think AOPA will be any real help.
I care less about the funding levels than the priorities and oversight. FAA, like so many agencies, no longer works for the right missions and priorities but rather some useless metrics and a lot of career enhancement.
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I just read in the Feb 2023 ‘Sport Aviation’ Commentary by Jack Pelton, he makes a point of saying that the 1958 Act establishing the FAA had two main tenets … Aviation Safety and Promulgation of Aviation. In the 1994 ReAuthorization, they quietly dropped the ‘promulgation’ part whereupon the FAA became ‘the enforcer.’ He makes a point of saying that GA HAS to be recognized as the fertile ground from whence everything springs. GREAT point ans we can only hope that Rep Graves knows this and somehow inserts it into the ReAuthorization language. Some might argue that LSA, BasicMed and now MOSAIC only benefit aging pilots, I don’t fully agree. The aviation infrastructure in this Country has to be sustained. GA is a part of that. So Pelton is on to something in his Commentary.
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Context clarification: OMB estimate of the cost of student loan forgiveness is $400 billion over 30 years.
That’s $13.3 billion per year.
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/27/1125272287/student-loan-forgiveness-cost-billion
Perhaps they can hurry up with the new LSA rulings so I can get back in the air in something other than a 70 year old Ercoupe, one of the only “affordable” LSA aircraft available.
Sorry, meant to say ignore what the AOPA says…