There are approximately 16.2 million flights in the US annually. The FAA's budget is $26 billion. Rather than making it subject to the whims of Congress, the FAA should be funded by takeoff and landing fees.

A simple back-of-the-envelope calculation would put the fee at around $1,605 per flight. This would not be a big deal for commercial passenger operations (less than $10 a passenger on a 175-seat aircraft), but would obviously be cost prohibitive for general aviation.

There were roughly 876 million passengers who flew in 2024. If we used that base solely to fund the FAA, this would work out to just under $30 per passenger per flight. At a cost of $60 per round trip this may cause some people to not fly, so we need to widen the base. There are between 8.4 and 13.7 million tons of cargo that fly annually, so we could say that 1 ton is the equivalent of 50 passengers in terms of the fee, which adds roughly another 420 million units to the denominator even at 8.4 million tons, which gets the fee to a little over $20 per flight.

Of course $26 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the total federal budget. But not relying on Congressional appropriations means air traffic controllers get paid regardless.

This is a lesson learned by everyone who wants government to control some aspect of their lives, such as healthcare and retirement. When Chuck Schumer doesnt get his tranny surgery money or healthcare for illegals, he'll make sure you dont get your retirement money or healthcare.

The Republicans should take the opportunity during the shutdown to propose reforming funding sources (e.g., user fees) and privatize functions no longer serving the broad public good.