Obama's "Jet" Wars

Yesterday, during one of his getting-to-be-rarer press conferences, our anti-business President launched another rant/attack on corporate jets. This time he singled out the write-offs that the purchasers of corporate jets get as an incentive to buy one of these very expensive items that tend to last for decades if properly maintained. Yet, here's a guy that has no problem saddling-up Air Force One whenever he can; a plane costs $182,000/hour to operate and that is 60 times more expensive to fly than any corporate jet. In a recent "campaign trip" to Puerto Rico, Obama spent 6 hours in the air so he could spend a mere 4 hours on the ground at a cost of over a million dollars for Air Force One and all on the tax payers dime (God! I wish it only was a dime!). Last year, he ponied Air Force One around this country and the world for a total of 172 times and at a cost of around $200 million.

To me, this president has an unnatural obsession with "jets" in general; whether corporate or otherwise. I think he holds a long-harbored jealousy and hatred of the rich and those jets are representative of that wealth (a common neurosis among socialists). Or, maybe, he just sees all jet travel as hurting the environment. In fact, in my last blog entry (below) I questioned whether or not the extreme TSA pat-downs are just a means of greening America by hurting the high-carbon footprint of air travel in this country.

Yesterday wasn't Obama's only "jet" slap-down. Within a month after taking office, in a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana, he launched a similar attack to yesterday's attack on corporate jets and added an attack on corporations that "fly-in" to Las Vegas for conventions; a comment that resulted in both conference cancellations and avoidance and which, I'm quite sure, helped Las Vegas become one of this nation's highest unemployment centers. Then, there were the attacks on the auto CEO's when they "jetted in" for a Congressional hearing on the auto company bailouts. Oh, and lastly, lets not forget how the Obama-anointed National Labor Relations Board is going after Boeing for building a non-union manufacturing facility in South Carolina in order to remain competitive with the euro-subsidized and euro-built Airbus that employs zero American workers.

The fact is that the removal of the "jet" tax breaks would only amount to about $300 million a year in debt reduction against a $14+ trillion deficit. Obama, alone, spent two-thirds of that amount in 2010 flying Air Force One around. However, more importantly, the removal of these "breaks" could result in a substantial loss of jobs in the jet-building industry. Many companies, without these incentives, will probably hold on to their existing jets longer or they won't add aircraft because it would be just too expensive; thus, resulting in an industry slowdown and the forcing of layoffs in an already horrid job's market. It just seems like the Democrats never learn. By targeting the rich, it is always the workers who get hit the hardest. In 1991, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a Luxury Tax on yachts, furs, and luxury cars. The result was that more than 16,000 boat industry workers -- many highly-paid craftsmen -- lost their jobs. Hundreds of decades-old custom boat builders went out of business. Additionally, other workers in the luxury car and fur industries got laid off. Only 3 years after passage, the tax was "quietly" repealed by Bill Clinton. This President is a moron to ignore that history. But, that's what you get when you have a socialist ideologue as a President.