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Airline Passenger Tax Hike Diverted by Congress

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 5, 2006
Bush Administration attempts to double the airline passenger tax appear dead. For the second time in two years, the Transportation Security Administration [TSA] tried but failed to fill its dwindling coffers by taxing the traveling public.

Had it found favor in Congress, the $5 tax on a one-way ticket would have been the largest tax hike for the budget year that begins Oct. 1.

The $1.4 billion the flight tax would have raised will have to come from other sources, according to the chairman of the House subcommittee that monitors Homeland Security spending.

An angry Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) Told TSA chief Kip Hawley that Congress would not okay the measure -- especially in a year when the entire House is up for re-election.

"We've got to find a way out of the mess you made," Rogers told Hawley during a congressional hearing. "Next time you come here and propose a tax you can't pass, I'm going to make you pay the price."

Hawley countered that it is only fair to ask airline passengers to pay for airline security.

"I don't like to do it," he said, "but the money has to come from somewhere."

Rogers said he was upset that the Administration budgeted for a tax increase that was virtually certain to be rejected.

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