Verbosities

OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail: Turbulence Ahead

If you think there are more airport delays and cancellations than ever, you're right. The percentage of late flights has doubled since 2002. And as bad as things are now, they're about to get worse. The Federal Aviation Administration predicts there will be 36% more people flying by 2015. If the U.S. doesn't dramatically expand the capacity of its overburdened air traffic control system, the airlines won't be able to keep up with demand and ticket prices will skyrocket.

Between a Minneapolis bridge collapse and Katrina's decimation of New Orleans' levees we're already seeing warnings from experts that our infrastructure is crumbling. In my opinion, problems with our ability to satisfy demand for aviation services can reasonably be added to this list. Some think it's fair to blame outdated air traffic control, others point to the proliferation of regional jets leading to overcrowded skies above major airports.

Whatever the reason, most people would say that problems with our infrastructure are so big that it's unreasonable to expect they can be fixed without large-scale investment. Whether that's reinforcing our bridges and roadways, rebuilding New Orleans or working to solve the overcrowded skies, it sounds like a job for...

Privatization?

Some 40 nations, including Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Fiji, have taken their air traffic control systems out of their calcified government bureaucracies and created public-private partnerships or self-supporting public-sector corporations that can move more quickly and nimbly to meet challenges. A 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that under the new entities have made it possible "to implement modernization projects more efficiently," while "safety of air navigation systems has remained the same or improved."

Since 1996, planes in Canada have been controlled by Nav Canada, an independent user-owned corporation that has unsnarled Canadian airspace. Nav Canada pays for itself through user fees and has thus been able to invest vast sums in new technology while cutting overhead, increasing staffing and raising the salaries of controllers. Airline-related delays have declined and customer service improved.

Even air traffic controllers supported Canada's shift to a privatized system, agreeing that having a government agency ensuring safety while also promoting expansion of air travel was a conflict of interest. In the U.S., privatization isn't popular with the turf-protective Congress, but the alternative--building more runways--faces fierce environmental resistance, and even if overcome would take a decade to implement.

More efficient! Independent! User-Owned! I love this quote especially: Nav Canada pays for itself through user fees and has thus been able to invest vast sums in new technology while cutting overhead, increasing staffing and raising the salaries of controllers. You know what "user fees" are, if they're issued by a government? TAXES. But when they're issued by a private company? Just a user fee. Not a tax.

Forget, for a minute, any bias you have towards the sheer bloat and bureaucracy you feel is part-and-parcel with governmental services. Theoretically speaking, if the government wanted to mobilize their centralized purchasing abilities and create economies of scale for delivering a productive return on their collected "user fees," couldn't they "invest vast sums in new technology while cutting overhead, increasing staffing and raising the salaries of controllers" too?

Republicans tend to answer that question with an incredulous are-you-kidding-me "no." They tend to believe this government is so irretrievably broken that it's impossible to ask it to deliver average-level returns on expectations. Me? I tend to believe this is an excuse to create industry and more wealth for those who are already wealthy enough to make the capital investment necessary to create these new industries, and I also believe it's part of a long-term strategy (er, economic theory) to divest the government of any involvement in the lives of its constituents beyond the realm of national security. There's a belief that if the only thing the government did was provide security, then Republicans would always win. True or false, that's the conventional wisdom.

I believe that there are projects that are so big and demand such central coordination that it is up to the government to deliver them. National security would be one. Running the post office another. Of course, the "free market capitalists" of The Wall Street Journal believe differently. Sell it all off to the richest bidders, let them take their profit, and continue to reinforce the belief that governments are less efficient than "the market" (like we saw with Enron) in delivering the services America relies upon.

So predictable.

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