The airline industry received a $15 billion bailout last year from the federal government due to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. But the industry has crawled back to Congress yet again, crying uncle and pleading for financial assistance.
Congress should answer the industry with an emphatic no. The U.S. market economy is founded on fundamental principles of competition. Competition between companies, firms and the rest of the economy creates a diversified marketplace that does not allow the economy to become idle and content with resting on its laurels of success.
The conditions of the competitive market economy inevitably create both winners and losers -- some businesses must fail while others succeed. Failure must be permitted just as success is permitted. But in bailing out the airline companies, the U.S. government is not allowing failure to exist in the competition. The federal government believes major airlines are so important to the economy that to let them fail would create a domino effect within the economy. Yet, belief in this notion only hurts the economy. The airline industry needs to cut the cancers out of its body in order to heal itself. Those cancers allow major airlines to stay afloat through government subsidies and bailouts. The economic engines that power major airline corporations are failing and the once powerful juggernauts are free-falling. Yet the government refuses to let them hit the ground. Now while the entire industry reaps the benefits of bailouts, tax breaks and economic relief from the government, not even every airline company is seeking such assistance. The profitable airline companies inadvertently receive an extra boost if the government caves in and decides to help struggling companies begging for assistance.
Presently, the airline industry is asking Congress to consider a number of measures -- one in particular is the reimbursement for security measures on planes. Authorities ordered these measures because of a lax in airline security discovered after last year
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