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July 15, 2011
Air Farce One, the Tax-Free Personal Jet
Posted by Dave Blount at July 15, 2011 6:32 AM
Rich Karlgaard provides a little context for the class warfare rhetoric our Community Organizer in Chief recently used to denounce Americans who are successful enough to fly personal jets:
Barack Obama, who rails against tax breaks for corporate jets, flies in the biggest jet of all — a Boeing 747.
A normal 747 costs $320 million. Lord Obama's comes with all sorts of special features out of a James Bond movie that probably bring the cost to around $500 million. Operation costs come to about $100 million per year.
Gee, wouldn't you call that a form of compensation? The president of the U.S. makes $400,000 in salary but he gets a perk that is worth $100 million a year. Cool! I'm not even counting the annual costs of his other perks — ground transportation in limos, free digs at the White House, the parties, the First Lady's trips, and so on.
Just one perk, Air Force One, is worth $100 million a year.
You are right, Mr. President. Let's end this tax break for corporate jets. Which means, you pay up, Big Guy! You owe the IRS roughly $35 million a year for your personal jet.
But of course, jets are only decadent if you pay for them with wealth you created. If they are paid for with money stolen from others, there's no moral stigma. As for taxes — as Democrat donor Leona Helmsley famously said and Obama's crony capitalist buddies at GE confirm — only little people pay them.
On a tip from Byron.
