Obama Grounds Corporate Jet Industry

President Obama's penchant for carpet bombing successful businesses with class-warfare rhetoric reached new lows during the recent debt reduction negotiations.  Using the bully pulpit afforded him by a pliant media, the president harangued tax breaks for corporate jets and their "fat cat" owners.

In what is becoming an all too familiar refrain, Obama admonished Republicans for supporting tax incentives for the rich.  The president called for ending these "egregious loopholes," which allow aircraft owners faster depreciation for tax purposes. 

By scrapping the tax advantage, Obama would raise $3 billion over the next 10 years, a minuscule fraction of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that most economists agree is needed.  Obviously, this wasn't about the money, but scoring political points with gullible, uniformed voters.

While the media remained silent, Obama hid the fact that his administration provided the tax incentive as part of his stimulus package in 2009.   Now Obama wants to take it away while trying to portray himself as an opponent of tax breaks for corporate jet owners.   It is the height of hypocrisy. 

In demonizing business aviation, the president has bludgeoned one of the few successful American manufacturing sectors that has withstood the lure of moving jobs to a low wage country.

Business aviation is a $150 billion business which employs 1.2 million U.S. workers.  However, the industry has suffered along with the rest of the economy.  Last year the industry cranked out nearly one-third fewer planes than it manufactured in 2008.  Removing tax benefits will further depress sales. 

Contrary to the president's characterizations, about 85 percent of business aircraft operators are small to mid-size companies with a single plane.  Only three percent of the approximately 15,000 business aircraft operating in the U.S. are registered to Fortune 500 companies.   The facts don't support the president's claims of fat cat jet owners.

From a jobs perspective, the vast majority of general aviation aircraft used for business purposes are manufactured, operated, serviced and maintained in the U.S.  There are thousands of jobs created by the industry at small, local firms across the country. 

The president's attacks on business aviation are at odds with his public support of U.S. manufacturing.  It isn't the first time that Obama has railed against corporate jets, famously scolding automobile executives for traveling to Washington on private aircraft for testimony before Congress a few years back.

Ed Bolen, president and chief executive officer for the National Business Aviation Association, was less than pleased with Obama's recent finger wagging.  "The president is promoting a caricature of the industry that is very much at odds with reality of who the industry is," he said.

An official with the industry's largest union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, made his group's position clear, calling the president's attacks "insulting."   "...I don't think he realizes how many people that this industry employs and how much revenue is brought in here from those types of aircraft," union leader Steve Rooney said.

Obama has often boasted of his goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years.  Yet general aviation is one of the few manufacturers that can claim 62 percent of its business is tied to exports, according to trade and labor groups.   Those exports support American jobs. 

General aviation needs an improved economy to jump start sales.  Instead of offering his support, the president's damaging words are adding to the woes of one of the country's manufacturing stalwarts.

Defaming whole industries is far easier than finding ways to facilitate business growth.   It proves once again that President Obama cares more about agitating class envy than he does about the country's economic recovery.