On Tuesday I helped a friend pick up his airplane from a maintenance shop in Newburgh, New York (KSWF). The FBO in Newburgh had a stack of local papers, the Times Herald-Record and I picked one up to see how life in New York was 60 miles from the TARP bubble that protects Manhattan. Newburgh’s airport should be a significant source of income for the community. It is home to a fleet of C5 cargo airplane that cost nearly $50,000 per hour to operate; this results in hundreds of jobs for pilots, mechanics, and administrators in the New York Air National Guard. The FBOs at Newburgh are doing well this week because so many foreign governments have flown in enormous Boeing and Airbus planes so that their dignitaries can attend a United Nations conference. There is no room to park these planes at JFK, so they reposition up to Stewart and then tank up with jet fuel.
The cover story was about a property tax hike for 2011 that would raise property tax rates between 41 and 62 percent (most homeowners would see their rate go up by 62 percent). The tax increases are necessary to make up for years of profligate spending by local government. What have they spent the money on? Page three has an article about a school system administrator collecting more than $400,000 per year. Page four had an article about the DARE anti-drug program in schools, which has consumed more than $1 billion per year in tax dollars. According to the article, the DARE program “has been dismissed as being a waste of time and money by 30 studies and countless individuals. … Other studies have even found that DARE graduates had a higher rate of drug use than non-participants.”
The trip from Bedford (KBED) to Newburgh (KSWF) was conducted in a Piper Warrior of uncertain vintage, worth perhaps $30,000. Against a light headwind, it took 1.6 hours from engine start to engine shut-down. The return was conducted in a $3 million twin-engine jet. With a bit of a tailwind, it took 1.1 hours to reverse the journey.