According to ABC News, the House and Senate have almost finalized the War Package although they insisted on limiting President Bush's control of the funds. Over the objections of the White House, this War Package includes approximately $3.1 billion dollars in aid to US Airlines. According to a Bush administration official, We could buy them for less.

I did some research today and looked up the market values of the airlines mentioned by the Bush official. US Airways is not included in my research because they are still coming out of bankruptcy and technically have no market value. There are some airlines in the US that are not included in this graph as I only included those mentioned by the Bush official. The market value of the airlines will change with their stock prices - the values on the graph are based upon the market value when I looked them up today.

This is an outrage! This is pork with no economic justification. The Senators and Congressmen who voted for this should be ashamed of themselves. This is corporate welfare at its worse. How can politicians justify cutting welfare while shoveling taxpayer money to the airlines by the planeful? They can't.

If the airlines truly need this amount of money to stay afloat, let them go bankrupt. Or let them receive money equal to their market capitalization (the amount that is currently budgeted), but Uncle Sam would then own 50% of every airline that took taxpayer money. These stocks could be turned over the Social Security Administration for the benefit of all Americans.

I urge you to write your Congressman and Senators and ask them to stop this travesty. Feel free to link to this site and recommend that the airlines either be self-sufficient or must give equity to the American taxpayer in exchange for receiving their hard-earned money.