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OP-ED: Hidden Tax Increases on Airlines Tickets Won’t Fly

NNPA NEWSWIRE — Most Americans have probably never heard of the PFC, now capped at about $4.50 per person for each leg of a flight. But working families across the country, including our readers, may soon feel the impact if some members of Congress have their way.

Published

5 years ago

January 27, 2020

Oakland Post

While most people agree that it is in the public’s best interest to have safe and efficient airports that can accommodate increased passenger travel, proponents of increasing the passenger fee have been a little misleading about the condition of the nation’s airports. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA)

By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President and CEO, National Newspaper Publishers Association

Why is it that poor people are always asked to pay more in America? Last year, I warned about the possibility that Congress might try to impose a new tax on air travelers. Well, it’s 2020 — and here we go again.

Even in the midst of a historic impeachment trial and potential military conflict abroad, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have managed to find time to dust off its plan to soak air travelers, including working people who struggle everyday just to make ends meet.

Make no mistake about it: this is a tax hike, even though backers of this plan won’t call it a tax hike, for obvious reasons. And it’s one that hits relatively low-wage workers harder than it hits those who make a lot more money. And it hits those who routinely fly for business especially hard too.

This week, Democratic leaders are expected to unveil their broad infrastructure agenda for the coming year – a plan that is sorely needed given our aging highways, railways and other transportation needs.

But here is what is galling: sources tell me that buried in the broad array of transportation initiatives is a proposal to raise the so-called Passenger Facility Charge (PFC), a hidden fee on airline travelers that Congress enacted long ago to help pay for renovation projects at airports around the country.

Most Americans have probably never heard of the PFC, now capped at about $4.50 per person for each leg of a flight. But working families across the country, including our readers, may soon feel the impact if some members of Congress have their way.

Here is how the fee works. Passengers are charged the fee at the ticket counter, allowing the airport that collects it to keep it for local repairs and renovations. Current proposals in Congress include one to nearly double the fee to $8.50 per person for each leg of a flight. Another possibility is eliminating the cap entirely, thereby allowing airports to charge whatever they like.

If the fee is raised to $8.50, a family of four on a trip with a connecting flight would pay nearly $150 in this tax alone – a tax that is layered on top of the price of the ticket itself, a major reason people don’t notice it. Such a substantial increase could be the deciding factor between that family taking a much-deserved vacation or staying home.

In reality, airports are undergoing something of a revitalization, particularly when compared to rail or highway travel. Passengers are traveling at record rates, airport revenues are at all-time highs, and infrastructure upgrades are booming across the nation.

Just take a look at the balance sheets of our nation’s airports. U.S. airports have over $16 billion of unrestricted cash and investments on hand, with $7 billion sitting in the aviation trust fund. And, in the last decade, more than $165 billion in federal aid has been directed to airports for improvement projects at America’s largest 30 airports alone.

Some of these projects have been completed, others are currently underway, and some have received approval to move forward in the coming months. For example, Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport are both undergoing multi-billion-dollar upgrades. Smaller facilities like the Long Island MacArthur Airport and the Shawnee Regional Airport are also upgrading their terminals and runways.

The bottom line, then, is that there is no substantive basis for a fee hike. And it makes even less sense politically.

With Election Day just months away, most lawmakers will likely make the safe calculation and reject any proposed hike presented on the floor for a vote, lest they stir a voter backlash. Yet it should be worrisome that House Democratic leaders appear willing to put a fee hike on the table for consideration.

It could be nothing more than a trial balloon released in an attempt to test whether rank-and-file lawmakers have the stomach for taking up such a measure in an election year. But even if it is just that, there’s still reason for concern, given that even unpopular ideas have a way of gaining sudden momentum in the topsy-turvy politics of Congress.

Air travel remains one of the most popular and necessary forms of transportation because it is relatively safe and convenient. But it should not become more expensive because a hidden tax that few people expected is added.

Congress should not put air travel out of the reach of American families who are still trying to get out of poverty. Thus, increasing taxes on airline tickets won’t fly for Black Americans and won’t fly for all others who believe in economic fairness and equality of opportunity.

Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) representing the Black Press of America. He can be reached at dr.bchavis@nnpa.org.

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Fighting to Keep Blackness

BlackPressUSA NEWSWIRE — Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C.

Published

6 days ago

March 7, 2025

Oakland Post

By April Ryan

As this nation observes the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, the words of President Trump reverberate. “This country will be WOKE no longer”, an emboldened Trump offered during his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. Since then, Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter this morning that “Elon Musk and his DOGE bros have ordered GSA to sell off the site of the historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery.” Her post of little words went on to say, “This is outrageous and we will not let it stand! I am demanding an immediate reversal. Our civil rights history is not for sale!” DOGE trying to sell Freedom Rider Museum

Also, in the news today, the Associated Press is reporting they have a file of names and descriptions of more than 26,000 military images flagged for removal because of connections to women, minorities, culture, or DEI. In more attempts to downplay Blackness, a word that is interchanged with woke, Trump supporters have introduced another bill to take down the bright yellow letters of Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., in exchange for the name Liberty Plaza. D.C. Mayor Morial Bowser is allowing the name change to keep millions of federal dollars flowing there. Black Lives Matter Plaza was named in 2020 after a tense exchange between President Trump and George Floyd protesters in front of the White House. There are more reports about cuts to equity initiatives that impact HBCU students. Programs that recruited top HBCU students into the military and the pipeline for Department of Defense contracts have been canceled.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing back against this second-term Trump administration’s anti-DEI and Anti-woke message. In the wake of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, several Congressional Black Caucus leaders are reintroducing the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Democratic Congressman James Clyburn and Alabama Congresswoman Terry Sewell are sponsoring H.R. 14, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Six decades ago, Lewis was hit with a billy club by police as he marched for the right to vote for African Americans. The right for Black people to vote became law with the 1965 Voting Rights Act that has since been gutted, leaving the nation to vote without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Reflecting on the late Congressman Lewis, March 1, 2020, a few months before his death, Lewis said, “We need more than ever in these times many more someones to make good trouble- to make their own dent in the wall of injustice.”

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Rep. Al Green is Censured by The U.S. House After Protesting Trump on Medicaid

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question.

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

Oakland Post

By Lauren Burke

In one of the quickest punishments of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in the modern era, Congressman Al Green (D-TX) was censured by a 224-198 vote today in the House. His censure featured no hearing at the House Ethics Committee and his punishment was put on the floor for a vote by the Republican controlled House less than 72 hours after the infraction in question. Of the last three censures of members of the U.S. House, two have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus under GOP control. In 2023, Rep. Jamal Bowman was censured.

On the night of March 4, as President Trump delivered a Joint Address to Congress, Rep. Green interrupted him twice. Rep. Green shouted, “You don’t have a mandate to cut Medicare, and you need to raise the cap on social security,” to President Trump. In another rare event, Rep. Green was escorted off the House floor by security shortly after yelling at the President by order of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson. Over the last four years, members of Congress have yelled at President Biden during the State of the Union. Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor-Greene was joined by Republican Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-CO) in 2022 in yelling at President Biden. In 2023, Rep. Greene, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) yelled at Biden, interrupting his speech. In 2024, wearing a red MAGA hat, a violation of the rules of the U.S. House, Greene interrupted Biden again. She was never censured for her behavior. Rep. Green voted “present” on his censure and was joined by freshman Democrat Congressman Shomari Figures of Alabama who also voted “present”.

All other members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against censuring Green. Republicans hold a four-seat advantage in the U.S. House after the death of Texas Democrat and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner yesterday. Ten Democrats voted along with Republicans to censure Rep. Green, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, who is in the leadership as the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I respect them but, I would do it again,” and “it is a matter of conscience,” Rep. Green told Black Press USA’s April Ryan in an exclusive interview on March 5. After the vote, a group of Democrats sang “We Shall Overcome” in the well at the front of the House chamber. Several Republican members attempted to shout down the singing. House Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the House out of session and into a recess. During the brief recess members moved back to their seats and out of the well of the House. Shortly after the vote to censor Rep. Green, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee quickly filed legislation to punish members who participated in the singing of “We Shall Overcome.” Earlier this year, Rep. Ogles filed legislation to allow President Donald Trump to serve a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. As the debate started, the stock market dove down over one-point hours from close. The jobs report will be made public tomorrow.

Oakland Post

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Trump Moves to Dismantle Education Department

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia

The Trump administration is preparing to issue an executive order directing newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education. While the president lacks the authority to unilaterally shut down the agency—requiring congressional approval—McMahon has been tasked with taking “all necessary steps” to reduce its role “to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The administration justifies the move by claiming the department has spent over $1 trillion since its 1979 founding without improving student achievement. However, data from The Nation’s Report Card shows math scores have improved significantly since the 1990s, though reading levels have remained stagnant. The pandemic further widened achievement gaps, leaving many students behind.

The Education Department provides about 10% of public-school funding, primarily targeting low-income students, rural districts, and children with disabilities. A recent Data for Progress poll found that 61% of voters oppose Trump’s efforts to abolish the agency, while just 34% support it. In Washington, D.C., where student proficiency rates remain low—22% in math and 34% in English—federal funding is crucial. Serenity Brooker, an elementary education major, warned that cutting the department would worsen conditions in underfunded schools.

“D.C. testing scores aren’t very high right now, so cutting the Department of Education isn’t going to help that at all,” she told Hilltop News. A report from the Education Trust found that low-income schools in D.C. receive $2,200 less per student than wealthier districts, leading to shortages in essential classroom materials. The department oversees programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), serving 7.5 million students. Transferring IDEA oversight to another agency, as Trump’s plan suggests, could jeopardize services and protections for disabled students.

The Office for Civil Rights also plays a key role in enforcing laws that protect students from discrimination. Moving it to the Department of Justice, as proposed in Project 2025, would make it harder for families to file complaints, leaving vulnerable students with fewer protections. Federal student aid programs, including Pell Grants and loan repayment plans, could face disruption if the department is dismantled. Experts warn this could worsen the student debt crisis, pushing more borrowers into default. “With funding cuts, they don’t have the materials they need, like books or things to help with math,” Brooker said. “It makes learning less fun for them.”