While the unimaginably wasteful airport in Rep. John Murtha’s district — serving just twenty people per day — may be the most infamous of federally-subsidized airports, it’s hardly the only one.

In fact, ABC News reports that American taxpayers are now paying about $1 million per daily flight out of Greenbrier Valley Airport in West Virginia.

The Greenbrier Valley Airport, the gateway to the ritzy Greenbrier resort where rooms start at $500 a night, is about to get more than $2 million in federal stimulus funds to spruce up the terminal building.

Only two commercial flights a day come in and out of the Lewisburg, W.Va., airport and, on average, each plane carries six passengers.

But U.S. tax dollars keep the airport in business. In addition to stimulus funds the airport received, the federal government subsidizes the commercial flights to the tune of $562 per passenger through the FAA’s Essential Air Service program, which supports rural airports through a $175 million annual appropriation.

Indeed, dozens of small, U.S. airports depend on federal funds for their survival, prompting critics to complain that these “airports to nowhere” fly too few passengers to justify the subsidies.

We’re paying about $2 million to subsidize an airport that serves just two commercial flights, or twelve passengers, per day. As if that’s not outrageous enough, be sure to check out the excuse given for this continued waste:

“In Washington terms, $175 million is really just a rounding error,” O’Sullivan said. “And to cancel [the funds] would be too widespread pain for too little gain.”

Hear that, average American making around $50,000 per year? $175 million is “just a rounding error” and canceling it would be “too little gain”. And yet these are the same people who say a CEO of a profitable company making $100 million a year is too much and worthy of federal regulation.

Via Hot Air.