Chris Edwards, Cato of Liberty, May 20, 2025
excerpt:
Transport Secretary Sean Duffy is in the incident, but so far he has suggested throwing more money into the matter. By itself, more money will not cure deep flaws in the ATC system. This is due to the attempt to operate a high-tech industry from within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bureaucracy.
With all the deficits, risk aversion and political interference inherent in federal officials, FAA performance could worsen over time as global aviation demand continues to increase and the skies become even more crowded.
Congress mass structure ATC. The obvious model of reform is Canada, and the HOE ATC system has excelled for 30 years as a self-funded, nonprofit corporation other than the government’s bureaucracy.
and:
Canadian System
Robyn: “Nav Canada, the Canadian ATC provider, model for the House of Representatives bill in 2018, handles significantly more traffic with a smaller number of staff than in 1996. It beats the FAA in unit costs.
JD Tuccille, Reason, May 21, 2025.
excerpt:
In 1988, the Californians passed Proposition 103. This, according to the state’s overview, “needs Insolve.” The California Supreme Court has changed this to allow what state officials deemed a “fair return rate,” but there are more voters who pay premiums than they work for insurance companies with predictable outcomes.
The problem of voting for your own discounts at someone else’s expense
As of 2020, according to the Center for International Law and Economics 2023 paper, EVY Sky-High Property Values and the Risk of a Prominent Wildfires, Californians “paid $1,319 a yearly availage of $1,285 on the national average homeowner insurance premium. Economic reality. Naturally, long before Los Angeles fired, insurers had restricted coverage and left the state.
Even the insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara said, “We don’t need to be here, and when we try to over-adjust what happened after the Northridge earthquake, when Congress came and tried to get through the regulars.
Robert Poole, Reason, May 21, 2025.
excerpt:
As detailed in the 2023 Department of Transport General Report, the Philadelphia Control Tower and Terminal Radar Approach Control (Tracon) facility serving Newark airspace was one of the most understaffed by major FAA facilities. However, the New York Times recently reported on the serious air traffic control staffing shortages affecting Newark Airport. The Philadelphia Tracon, who is responsible for managing Newark’s airspace, will “only be 22 certified controllers to guide plans both inside and outside the airport,” the Times reports. “The overall staffing level of Philadelphia facilities is responsible for several other airports in the area, but is around 70%.”
And fewer controllers can use workable offenses. The Times points out that it’s not that small [Philadelphia] Facility that guides plans both inside and outside Newark – just one of the 14 goals of that shift. ”
This raises the third problem: the outdated communications technology of air traffic control systems. All flight data for New Jersey Airports (Newark, Teterboro, Morristown) is sent to Philadelphia via a 25-year-old telecommunications system and routed to a standard terminal automation exchange system called Stars. Stars processes Newark’s radar data, and according to the FAA, “Telecommunications Line will supply this data from New York to the Philadelphia Tracon.
Note: Robert Pool is one of my people when you want to understand something about transportation policy. If I recall correctly, he was on the forefront in 2001 claiming that the TSA had no monopoly on airport security. The original law allowed Kansas City, Missouri and San Francisco to have private contractors, not particularly TSA.
Gary Winslet, Washington Post, May 14, 2025.
excerpt:
There is a popular story that political party politicians want to tell us. The rusty belt was a thriving region until China, Mexico and American business allies ripped their manufacturing jobs with Lopsid trade deals. Whether it’s President Donald Trump’s President Tarif or a democratic alternative, he’s now back in Washington.
This is a politically useful story for coursegent voters in key swing states, pinning the situation before. The problem is that it’s not true – and that leads to summer polydesion.
A massive shortage of the story: interstate competition. The decline in the manufacturing of rubber belts is not primarily a job that goes to Mexico. It’s about jobs going to Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee. To make it a college football term, the traditional Big Ten competed in the Southeastern Conference. In 1970, the rusty belt was responsible for almost half of all manufacturing exports, and was produced in less than a quarter in the south. Today, the role has been revised, with more than a quarter of all manufactured exports of rusty belts and double what Rust belts do.
