Taxing

Mar. 6th, 2010 02:35 pm
thessalian: (Default)
[personal profile] thessalian
Apparently, charging $10 for the privilege of entering the US as a tourist is promoting tourism.

See, the main problem I have there is wording. I was never overly fond of airport taxes, but I do get it. The chances are high that one is going to have to spend a very long time at an airport, after all, between the necessity of getting there early enough to get through check-in and security and then still have time to have your carry-on searched before boarding the plane and the very real possibility of weather-related delays, and they can be really confusing places. Therefore, I want a comfortable airport with well-trained staff so that if I have to blunder around an airport for several hours, I won't feel quite so lost and alone and uncomfortable.

This here? What Mr Obama's done? That's not paying for airports. That's paying for a 'multi-channel marketing campaign' to get tourists into the country. So it's "Hey! Good to see you! But before you come in, pay us money so we can throw more advertising at you later and hope it makes you come back and pay us more money in a vicious cycle of 'cash in our pockets', okay?" Things have changed a fair bit since I last travelled to the US, but we didn't used to have to fill in an electronic form to enter the US. There was a little customs and immigration card handed to us on the plane, sure, but that was about it. Now apparently not only do you have to fill these bastards out, but you have to pay $10 for the privilege. All to pay for advertising. Woo.

I'm trying to figure out exactly how charging people for something that used to be free and then siphoning that money into advertising that really tends to annoy people more than anything else is going to encourage people to travel in the current economy. It doesn't work, in my head. To be fair, even if I had all the money I could ever need to do so, the only reason I would travel to the US is because of the friends I have there. I don't really care about the rest of it.

To be honest? The real issue is flying. I used to love to fly. Now, though, with all the restrictions on what you cannot do or bring or what have you, it's become less fun. It's bad enough sitting on an eleven-hour flight with some six-year-old repeatedly kicking the back of your chair for about half of it. It's even worse that some people decide to express their displeasure with the fact that you have reclined your seat back an inch or two by kicking the back of your seat as hard as possible (because seriously, I tried to be considerate and I still would have readjusted my seat if the arsehole had just asked me to move). I somehow always end up sitting next to the children in the family of sixteen who have been spread out across half the plane and who ends up falling asleep using my upper arm as a pillow, drooling on my sleeve for three hours. I'm used to removing my shoes before walking through airport security (hold-over from years of wearing steel-toed boots) so that doesn't bother me. But for pity's sake, they ought to let me take my iPod. Any decent scanner and a cursory flip-through of pages will demonstrate that my copy of "The Secret History" isn't going to blow up en route. But if I'm going to be treated like a potential terrorist and informed that I can like it or lump it because flying is a privilege and not a right? Fine. I just won't bother.

It's a mixed message situation. They want us to travel to the US, but on their terms, which apparently means treating us like cargo until we get there, at which point we are money-stuffed pinatas. And this is okay because 'it's for our safety' and 'travel is a privilege and not a right'. I don't think it's okay. I certainly don't think it's okay to ask tourists to pay more money for the 'privilege' of being treated like a non-sentient commodity however you look at it, particularly when the 'more money' is only going to try to con other poor sods into being the non-sentient commodities.

(Also, Scenes from the Living Room 6: As I was typing this, I got a wary look from [personal profile] mitchy
Me: Yes, I am ranting.
Mitchy: I thought so.

At least this time I was actually doing the thing what gets the wary looks.)
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