Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on KTBB AM & FM, Friday, July 1, 2011.
So now it’s private jets and those that own and fly in them that stand in the way of getting America’s finances in order. So said the Demagouger-in-Chief during a press conference on Wednesday about raising the debt ceiling. According to the president, the tax income that is being forgone from these stingy jet-setting fat cats must be collected in order for America to reign in ruinous levels of federal borrowing.
As if that alone weren’t sufficiently preposterous, the president tied his attack on private jets to the need to raise income taxes on those making $250,000 per year or more, as if those meeting this presidentially-approved definition of rich are the same ones that own and fly around in private jets.
Mr. President, your populist demagoguery needs work. Go read up on Huey Long. Now that man knew how to demagogue. You are a piker.
I’m a pilot. I have been since 1981. I hold an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, the highest level of pilot certification there is. I own an airplane. (No it’s not a jet.) I have been around airplanes and the people who own them and fly them for 30 years. I know a lot about airplanes.
So let me share some of that knowledge with you.
A quarter million dollars in annual income, no matter how well that number tests in Democratic Party focus groups, does not get you into the private jet club. It doesn’t come anywhere close.
One entry-level jet is the Cessna Citation II. You can pick one up that was built in 1980 for about $1.5 million. Assuming you put down a third of that price and finance the rest, you’ll make note payments on it of about $110,000 per year.
Now let’s go fly it. The Citation costs about $3,000 per hour to operate and a round-trip to New York will take seven and a half hours. That’s $22,500 for one trip to the Big Apple and back. Let’s say you make one such trip or its equivalent every other month. That’s six trips per year for a total of $135,000 and 42 hours on the airplane. Never mind that 42 hours isn’t much use of an asset for which you’re on the hook for a million five plus interest. Let’s just use the number.
One hundred ten thousand in debt service and $135,000 in operating expenses comes to $245,000. Your quarter million dollars in gross income is gone and you haven’t bought a bite of food, paid for a roof over your head or paid your “fair share” of taxes as defined by President Obama.
No, a quarter million in annual income won’t let you run around in private jet circles. A half million won’t do it either. Even a million a year won’t do it.
So characterizing people who earn $250,000 per year as being fat cat jet owners the under-taxation of whom is leading the country to bankruptcy is pure sophistry.
Our problem is not under-taxation. Tax these earners at 100 percent and you don’t make a rounding error difference in the deficit.
Our problem is the profligate spending that was taking place in prior administrations only to be exponentially accelerated by the Obama administration.
For the president to use the private jet illustration in his press conference on Wednesday would be laughable were the subject not so serious.
And while we’re talking about it, Mr. President, if you’re going to demonize private jets, remember that Lear, Cessna, Beechcraft and others employ over 30,000 workers in Wichita, Kansas building those very airplanes. In addition to serving the U.S. market, these companies are major exporters to the world.
We all remember sir, what happened to the hospitality industry in Las Vegas when you criticized companies for holding meetings there. So are there enough “green energy” and “shovel ready” jobs to absorb these aircraft workers in Kansas if you succeed in killing demand for the product that feeds their families and pays their taxes?
Or do they not matter because Kansas is a right-to-work Red State?
WHY, if he is so concerned about revenue and putting people to work, did he allow unions to block BOEING from building a plant in South Carolina (a right to work state) that would have put about 800 people or more to work ??
and WHY does the media not report this and point it out –
also why does he want to REDUCE social security tax on those who are working when social security is underfunded UNLESS it is to just increase tax revenue for him and his cohorts to recklessly waste ?
hmmmmmm
The democrats play on the fact that people tend to be myoptic in that they see things only how it affects their little world. People can not see the big picture, therefore, when the left starts this class warfare by demagoguing the wealthy, they fall right into the lefts hands. They can not see that the wealthy are the ones who provides JOBS. There are a minimum of five different jobs connected to these corporate jets, which helps feed, clothe, house and educate no telling how many familes.
This president has no room to talk when he and his wife have galivanted all over the world in Airforce 1 and other jets to carry all their friends, obama’s ARMORED MONSTER along with security on TAXPAYER’S tab. He spends money like it was water on bringing in chefs from all over and only eats the FINEST fare.
If people want to get mad, they should be mad at the gluttony shown by obama and his cohorts spending money like there was no tomorrow on FRIVOLOUSNESS! What obama has spent on jaunts around the world and chefs catering to his whims could pay a LOT of faltering mortages and put food on the tables of people who have lost their jobs due to his incompetence. No one seems to notice this, but falls hook, line and sinker for the left’s bashing the wealthy. We NEED the wealthy, for they are the ones who provide the JOBS! In order for them to keep providing jobs, they need to make a PROFIT, they need tax breaks and breaks from the stranglehold the government keeps drawing tighter and tighter. People need to improve their range of vision if America is going to survive. If people keep on the path they are on, not looking right or left, but stubbornly looking only at what is infront of them…they may not survive the collision that is about to happen.
Let’s just bump everyone up to 40% fed tax rate, no exceptions, no deductions, no more churches exempt. No one exempt. Then people in the lower brackets know what it’s like to pay a far share.
It appears to me, I’m no expert but I do know B/S when I see it, that all of this rhetoric by Team Obama is just a smoke screen. Sure, they would love to have higher taxes (except for them) on everything from brownies to Boeings. It is the Progressive Socialist way. But, when they know they cannot win (House of Reps) they create diversions and smoke screens. Then, they will put in place small agenda items by circumventing the Congress and the People. All the while we are watching the left hand and while the right hand is stabbing us in the back. Only when the blade is buried deep do we notice. Call it slight of hand, diversionary tactics or displacment of blame…it works for the uneducated or devoted masses. He must be watched every minute of every day or We the People will live to regret it.
Rick Armstrong
Tyler, Texas
eliminate ALL income tax on everything and implement a sales tax of 10% on every item sold – including beer and cigarettes and any alcohol or tobacco profit – the ONLT exception would be FOOD – and even that would taxed if already prepared (fast food, frozen food, deli food, bakery food, etc)
that way, EVERYONE would pay their fair share of taxes and not be EXEMPT due to fraud, etc, perpetrated by many on WELFARE – eliminate ALL perks, retirement, benefits of any kind for congress, judges, appointees, president included, until budget is balanced and spending is reduced – eliminate ALL benefits to those in prison – SS, veterans, medicare, medicaid, etc and STOP the dream act (aka AMNESTY rewarding crminals for criminal behavior – if you got here illegally or were born to parent who came here illegally, you, too are a guilty of criminal behavior and not entitled to ANYTHING but deportation)
remember how well the tax on NEW yachts worked years ago ? i do – many lost their jobs, etc
that is what will happen if obama gets his way with the jet tax –
stand up AMERICANS and vote – as of today, that is still your right
Who will Paul blame when Boehner and the Repubs cave on the size of the spending cuts, or even tax increases, because they will on at least one if not both. I hope I am wrong but I bet not.
This man-child, barack, must believe that he can score points with a majority of the American people by pretending to CARE for the less fortunate by articulating his hatred for the so-called rich, over, and over, again. Therefore, he must believe that most of the American people share his hatred and envy for anyone that is more successful than they are. This is pure Marxist evil that has destroyed any country that adopts this ideology.
In other words, barack has established HATE and ENVY as the cornerstone of his pathetic administration. This is not uniformed populist drivel, but on the contrary, is an attempt to replace (Constitutional) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY with (Government enforced) EQUAL OUTCOME of Marxism. How can we possibly trust anything this man-child says with such a warped sense of reality?
Does he justify this belief system with facts to support the “redistribution of the wealth” that he advocates? NO! He can’t, because the vast majority of the income and accumulated wealth in this country belongs to the so-called middle class because of Capitalism the last 235 years. The simple facts of math don’t support his dogma. We are a classless, mobile society in which the poor can become rich and the rich can become poor as INDIVIDUAL career and financial decisions are made. That is what is so wonderful about Capitalism; no one is trapped in a particular class. The INDIVIDUAL, not the STATE, determines outcome. Only the heavy hand of a Marxist/Socialist government can alter the natural rights of individuals to seek success by making all of us poor as demonstrated by the history of civilization where liberty has been suppressed in favor of the collective.
Why are the fundamental ideas of Marxism so appealing to self-appointed False Messiahs like barack? Marxism leverages mass discontent of the population caused by autocratic State subterfuge of Capitalism in order to lift the greedy ruling class to even higher levels of power over their would-be subjects with promises of economic relief, impossible to carry out.
Where are the voices of liberty in Congress that represent us and warn us of the perils of barack and his regime as he takes us down the road to economic hell? They are few and far between. Sadly, only a few have the courage of their convictions to stand for Constitutional government and expose barack’s deception. If your Representative doesn’t clearly take a stand against this deception as obvious as it is, you should be looking for another one that is willing to fight to restore and protect your unalienable rights as the Constitution intended!
Post Script:
Please don’t be diverted by a discussion on taxes that can solve the deficit and debt problems of the country. The discussion should be about the dissolution of the monstrous federal and, in some cases, state governments down to small, limited governments that stay out of social and economic engineering. Only demagogues that know little about natural rights and economics gravitate to positions in BIG government. Believe me, they are walking disasters that love to hide in a bureaucracy.
Mr. Miles hit the nail on the head. “The discussion should be about the dissolution of the monstrous federal and, in some cases, state governments down to small, limited governments that stay out of social and economic engineering.” We should start with our own state government which has seen fit to involve itself in the abortion issue by requiring ultra sound scans. It’s a matter between patient and doctor.
The elephant in the room that no one wants to recognize is that almost 50% of our population pays no federal income tax. Until EVERYONE is affected by tax increases, there will not be sufficient concern to reign in the runaway spending and taxation. A significant portion of President Obama’s and the Democrats’ constituencies are in the population who only benefit from this income distribution; therefore, the employers and the ones who drive the free market are restrained by the burden of paying for those who do not share in the privilege of paying taxes. As our Vice-President so eloquently stated, “we all need to have some skin in the game”. If only someone would have the courage to publish widely the breakdown of how federal income taxes are paid, according to the different ethnic groups, I think it would be stunning and disgusting to most people. When these liberal politicians demagogue about how the successful in our society should “pay their fair share”, someone needs to remind them that if they only paid their fair share, there would not be enough income tax revenue to run the country for a day. If we do not get a tax system that allows for all citizens to participate, our republic will not survive, and then there will not be a safety net for anyone.