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Bend again eyeing airport annexation
2/20/09 - The idea, still being researched, would increase city control and ease bureaucratic tangles for businesses, officials say. more
The Foolish War on Corporate Aircraft
From The American Thinker February 18th, 2009. more
Aviation companies split over Bend tower
Several of Bend’s aviation business leaders believe a control tower at Bend Municipal Airport would improve safety and encourage economic development... more
The Foolish War on Corporate Aircraft
By Jeff Eriksen
If President Obama and Congress are serious about stimulating the economy, they might better consider why businesses use private aircraft before they vilify such expenditures.
For the aspiring entrepreneur, private aircraft are not luxuries that are to be indulged upon once success has been achieved, but rather necessary tools to support the drive toward success itself. No plane is cheap. However, what many businesses, a majority of Congress, and perhaps most Americans fail to grasp is the true cost of business travel by any other means.
A Hypothetical Example
I live in beautiful Bellingham, WA, a bastion of activist liberalism on par with Berkeley, CA and Boulder, CO. We're "home to the longest-running weekly peace vigil in the nation." Bellingham is sandwiched between four oil refineries and blessed with some of the highest prices at the gas pump in the state. 142 miles as the plane flies to the southwest is Hoquiam, WA, new home of one of the nation's largest bio-diesel production facilities and former home of a vibrant timber industry prior to the Spotted Owl's placement on the list of endangered species in 1990.