Schumer Off Course with Spirit Air
Liz | 04/12 at 07:46 AM
Surely New York Senator Chuck Schumer is one of our nation’s most irritating legislators. The joke in our home state is “Where is the most dangerous place in the world? Between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera.”
Schumer never met a current event on which he couldn’t immediately pronounce judgment. For instance, he has been creating mischief left and right (well, mostly left) by insisting that the Chinese should devalue their currency. This is a complicated policy issue that could result in escalating trade wars and higher costs to Americans. Senator Schumer should stop trying to grab the spotlight (and union votes) and let Treasury officials sort this one out.
Most recently, Senator Schumer took on Spirit Air. That pint-sized airline announced it was implementing a fee of $45 on carry-on bags – clearly not a popular move for travelers avoiding luggage charges by dragging their worldly possessions down the aisle and stuffing them in the overhead bins. For many, this annoying fee might cause them to look elsewhere for cheap seats to Florida or the Caribbean. Except—the airline is coincidentally lowering ticket prices by $40. According to the CEO, Spirit hopes to make loading and unloading the airline quicker by encouraging checked luggage.
That’s not good enough for our local pol. Senator Schumer announced with all gravity that he wanted the Treasury to rule that carry-on suitcases are “necessities” and that the fee is therefore illegal. This is of course the same law-respecting traveler who just before Christmas called a flight attendant a “bitch” for making him turn off his cell phone.
It’s an absurd notion, of course. Tim Geithner actually does have more important things to worry about. (For example, China trade.) What it really reveals, however, is that Mr. Schumer needs to take an economics course. He and his Democrat counterparts do not believe in the power of free markets and competition. The notion that angry consumers could and will go elsewhere is too amorphous, too uncertain. Spirit describes itself as an Ultra Low Cost airline; our guess is that it faces competition, and that if it injudiciously raises fees and fares, it will suffer.
It all comes back to basic economics – the kind of economics that suggest that giving tens of millions of people access to free healthcare will not only create shortages, but will also drive up fees. Come to think of it, Senator Schumer is not the only legislator in need of a brush-up course.
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