Fly America Act
Here's one of the very few letters I've ever written to a politician -- DBx
..........
23 May 2007
Mr. Tom Davis, U.S. Rep.
U.S. House of Representatives
2348 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4611
Dear Rep. Davis:
I am employed by George Mason University. My fellow faculty members and I today were reminded by a University administrator of the requirements of the "Fly America Act." I confess that I'd never before heard of this statute. As explained by the GMU administrator, this Act "requires Federal employees and their dependents, consultants, contractors, grantees, and others performing United States Government financed foreign air travel to travel by U.S. flag air carriers." Because college professors often receive research grants from Uncle Sam, it's good that administrators at my school warned us not to commit a federal offense unwittingly by using, say, NSF grant funds to pay for air travel on the likes of Lufthansa or Taca.
I applaud your brilliant scheme! Even if it costs taxpayers more money, obviously this Act helps to protect American carriers from the nefarious competition of foreign airlines.
But why stop there? I propose a "Study America Act." The Congressional wisdom and spirit behind the Fly America Act, I submit, requires also that "Federal employees and their dependents, consultants, contractors, grantees, and others performing United States Government financed research to buy books, journals, articles, magazines, data sets, and all other scholarly materials produced only by U.S. scholars" (such as myself).
Why must hard-working, high-wage American researchers compete against foreign researchers - a competition that undoubtedly jeopardizes our nation's defense? Why, for example, should researchers at the Centers for Disease Control use American tax dollars to pay for subscriptions to the British medical journal The Lancet? Doing so shrinks the market for American medical research and thereby hurts America's health-care industry and, ultimately, America's children. Or why should federally funded social-science researchers use tax dollars to buy books on international trade written by foreigners when my own book on globalization will soon be out? My book, I assure you, is as good a product as any rival tome penned by a foreign scholar.
I look forward to your consideration and response.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman and Professor
Department of Economics
George Mason University
..........
23 May 2007
Mr. Tom Davis, U.S. Rep.
U.S. House of Representatives
2348 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4611
Dear Rep. Davis:
I am employed by George Mason University. My fellow faculty members and I today were reminded by a University administrator of the requirements of the "Fly America Act." I confess that I'd never before heard of this statute. As explained by the GMU administrator, this Act "requires Federal employees and their dependents, consultants, contractors, grantees, and others performing United States Government financed foreign air travel to travel by U.S. flag air carriers." Because college professors often receive research grants from Uncle Sam, it's good that administrators at my school warned us not to commit a federal offense unwittingly by using, say, NSF grant funds to pay for air travel on the likes of Lufthansa or Taca.
I applaud your brilliant scheme! Even if it costs taxpayers more money, obviously this Act helps to protect American carriers from the nefarious competition of foreign airlines.
But why stop there? I propose a "Study America Act." The Congressional wisdom and spirit behind the Fly America Act, I submit, requires also that "Federal employees and their dependents, consultants, contractors, grantees, and others performing United States Government financed research to buy books, journals, articles, magazines, data sets, and all other scholarly materials produced only by U.S. scholars" (such as myself).
Why must hard-working, high-wage American researchers compete against foreign researchers - a competition that undoubtedly jeopardizes our nation's defense? Why, for example, should researchers at the Centers for Disease Control use American tax dollars to pay for subscriptions to the British medical journal The Lancet? Doing so shrinks the market for American medical research and thereby hurts America's health-care industry and, ultimately, America's children. Or why should federally funded social-science researchers use tax dollars to buy books on international trade written by foreigners when my own book on globalization will soon be out? My book, I assure you, is as good a product as any rival tome penned by a foreign scholar.
I look forward to your consideration and response.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman and Professor
Department of Economics
George Mason University
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Sunday January 13, 2008 at 2:33pm