In a June 2011 press conference, President Obama singled out corporate jets for criticism no less than six times. He pushed corporate jet owners to give up a tax break that was part of his own stimulus. He pushed for the voluntary tax hike in the name of deficit reduction, despite the fact that the taxes total about $3 billion, when his budget deficits now run into the trillions. It was a class warfare gimmick, meant to play on resentment of the rich. But most Americans don’t resent the rich — they want to be the rich.
Corporate jet owners and manufacturers protested the president’s attacks. The president’s remarks plus his awful economy have hurt corporate jet manufacturers over the past year. So now, US taxpayers are about to subsidize them through the Export-Import Bank.
Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg plans to provide more financial aid to U.S. corporate jet manufacturers, branching out from a traditional support for Boeing Co. (BA) to help an industry where demand has suffered….
Ex-Im supported $90 million of corporate jet deliveries last year to customers of Textron Inc. (TXT)’s Cessna Aircraft Co, General Dynamics Corp. (GD)’s Gulfstream unit and Hawker Beechcraft Corp. Hochberg said he plans to boost the aid to $1 billion by 2014. The increased focus comes after order backlogs on corporate jets fell by more than half to $40 billion in three years.
It’s tempting to see a pattern: Obama breaks US industries, and then finds a way to take them over.
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