EAA vs. AOPA Membership

[DENMACRES]

EAA vis AOPA

BOTH GROUPS FIGHT FOR PILOTS. WE NEED BOTH OF THEM.

 

[LettersFromFlyoverCountry]

I found it hard to send my money to an organization who on the back of voluteers pays there executives what EAA does. Additional perks of flying expensive warbirds that members can't bothers me. Wonder what the boys and girls at AOPA get paid and their perks.

Fuller makes a little over $500,000 in salary. Boyer got deferred compensation of about $1 million a year, AvWeb reported. AOPA is sitting on about $80 million in cash and assets.

Poberezny made about $533,000 in total compensation last year. That's not entirely without merit for a corporation the size of EAA. The-next-highest-paid exec -- the financial officer -- made about half that. Again, not out of line for a $33 million a year corporation.

BTW, EAA's lobbying costs aren't very high.

One of the problems with the whole lobbying thing is that these organizations are SINGLE issue special interests, supporting politicians who aren't single issue. So, yeah, AOPA -- through its PAC -- might've given a ton of money to, say, the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee (it did), but people get all the other issues those candidates stand for too.

The big recipient of AOPA money is Inhofe. I presume Oberstar got a good chunk of change before he got knocked off last November.

So the whole they're fighting for pilots thing, while valid on a single issue, comes -- maybe -- with a whole bunch of things many pilots may not be for.

The nature of the beast of special interest groups.

I've got a handful of pols in the Minnesota Legislature who are pilots and one of the reasons I got out of the local EAA chapter is they started offering political support to them just because they were pilots and cared about aviation issues. I supported that. I didn't support the OTHER 99% of what they stood for.

My AOPA dues will probably go to Colbert's Super PAC instead. "Making a better tomorrow.... tomorrow."