When President Barack Obama repeatedly criticized tax breaks for corporate jets in a recent press conference, there was one point he failed to mention: Those tax breaks were re-authorized as part of the Democrat "stimulus" package that he signed into law two years ago!
Six times in his press conference, the president blasted the tax breaks, declaring at one point, "I think it's only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up that tax break that no other business enjoys."
His clear purpose was to stir up public anger against "the rich" and build support for imposing much higher taxes not only on those who truly are wealthy but also on middle-class small-business owners, who provide lots of the jobs our people need and who often are far from "rich."
But if the tax breaks for corporate jets were so unwise, then why did Democrats, and almost no Republicans, vote in favor of them in the 2009 stimulus - and why did the president sign the stimulus legislation into law?
What's more, the breaks for corporate jets are such a tiny part of the budget that it's ridiculous to suggest that ending them is a serious effort to address our national debt. Perhaps they should be ended, but making them the focus isn't going to help our economy in a meaningful way.
It's easy for politicians to score political points by bashing corporations and "the rich," rather than addressing the far larger matters of out-of-control entitlement spending and federal government waste. Appeals to class envy are a diversion from the real issue. Such tactics waste precious time while our debt and the hundreds of billions of dollars in interest we must pay on it each year consume ever-larger portions of our economic output and endanger our country's future.
If the president now opposes the corporate jet tax breaks that he favored only two years ago, he's free to say so. But it is wrong to suggest that the continuation or the end of those particular breaks will do anything to solve our debt crisis.