That's right, as reported by the AOPA, President Obama's 2011 budget proposal does not contain any user fees for general aviation!

AOPA president Craig Fuller even prepared a video statement about the great news:

Not long ago, the Aviation Subcomitee started circulating a letter against GA User Fees for the White House. They hoped to gain widespread support and send a clear message to the President. Now, less than two weeks later, I'd say they've succeeded.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing about user fees for general aviation. It's proven to be a bad idea in other countries and it would be a bad idea in the United States as well. Unfortunately though, the fight against user fees is not yet over.

Just when you thought lawmakers were starting to catch on about how bad the idea of user fees is, Aviation Week reports that another tax is threatening to cripple aviation in the United States. A clean energy bill employing a cap-and-trade carbon reduction strategy has made it through the House and moved on to the Senate.

As the battle against user fees begins to heat up again, AOPA has launched their new campaign aimed at educating the non-flying public on the uses and benefits of General Aviation. Titled "GA Serves America", the effort has headliners like Harrison Ford starring in commercials highlighting GA benefits. In addition to the multimedia content they've begun to leverage some of the geek resources made popular in this past election. You can now become a facebook fan and grab updates via twitter, just check out the link below for details. Take a couple of minutes and see what you can do to contribute to this effort, if you don't it might just bite you in the pocketbook later...

AOPA isn't the only organization astounded and disappointed by President Obama's apparent affinity for GA user fees. Charter X has posted a statement from the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) expressing their opposition to the idea. Their statement is a nice, concise summary of how I think many of us feel. When you contact your representatives to tell them what a bad idea user fees are, the NBAA's comments are a good starting point for wording your own argument.

I am very disappointed to report that in spite of an FAA policy announcement that I considered to close the debate on user fees, the AOPA reports that President Barack Obama is including user fees in his proposed budget.

I found an AviationWeek article talking about the FAA's mid-term plans for their NextGen air traffic control system. I understand why their policies have been written this way, and, for better or for worse, I think their new explanation of policy finally makes it painfully obvious that general aviation user fees are not an appropriate way to fund the NextGen ATC system.