Corporate Jets

In recent days, Pres. Obama has been on TV several times ranting about tax breaks for corporate jets.

The purpose of the rant is to accentuate jealousy in the minds of the voters, which will be favorable to his reelection in 2012. More simply, he is saying that since the average voter does not have access to a corporate jet, why should we have a special class. Let's remove that by removing corporate jet tax breaks.

Effectively, he is calling for a tax increase. This is in spite of the fact that the last elections clearly sent out a message to government that the public wants to cut spending. However, this is contrary to Pres. Obama's concept of the brave new world, wherein government is all seeing, all knowing, and all powerful. He will not give up that position easily, because it increases his power base, which seems to be his only single interest.

Without such speculation, let's take a look at corporate jets. Corporations purchase these jets for use by their employees, generally officers, in order that they may operate more efficiently in performance of their duties. Such expenses are a normal part of doing business and are considered such in calculating profits for corporate taxes. There may also be some special unknown to me tax benefit for corporate jets, but that's not significant. The main point is that a corporate jet is an efficiency tool, no different than a pen or pencil.

On a comparative basis, Pres. Obama himself uses a corporate jet. It is called Air Force One. It is part of government expense for the President to more efficiently perform his duties. If society collectively judges that Air Force One does not improve efficiency, it should be eliminated. Another way to look at it is that since the average citizen does not have access to Air Force One, why should Pres. Obama have special privileges? Note the class warfare card.