A Corporate Jet in Your Future

It would have been sad if it wasn’t so amusing.  I am talking about the photo of President Obama signing the budget and debt ceiling deal.  He is sitting at his Oval Office desk with the usual array of commemorative pens lined up in front of him.  There must have been 20 pens there, ready to be handed out as high value souvenirs of a major legislative accomplishment.  What hurt the heart of anyone who has been the last one picked for a sandlot ball game, was the fact that there was not a single soul in the room.  It was as if some fatherless child had just been born and no one wanted to be seen in the vicinity for fear of being taken as a possible sperm donor. 

Even the usual suspects couldn’t be rounded up for this bill signing and President Obama had to carry the burden alone.  The good news is, he was up to it.  He even ventured into the Rose Garden and gave us a steady stream of the old rancid.  Right on cue, he blamed big oil, big corporations and tax loopholes for those pesky corporate jets.  He and his cohorts in the Senate and House then went on to say that what we should have been doing all this time is creating jobs.  Well, that is a good idea and I have a suggestion along those lines.

Instead of vilifying the owners of all those corporate jets, let’s start celebrating them.  Let’s give both thanks and encouragement to those who buy corporate jets.  Let’s put thousands of people back to work.  And since I may be easy but never cheap, let’s consider the Cadillac of corporate jets—the Gulfstream 650.  Now there is a sweet ride.  

Gulfstream is an American success story.  Grumman aircraft, a leader in military aircraft, evolved into Gulfstream, a builder of high quality, private aircraft.  The company settled in the Savannah, Georgia area.  It went from a company of 100 local employees in 1967 to 9,700 people in seven locations around the United States, in the U.K. and Mexico.   In fact, if you live in or near Savannah or Brunswick, GA; Dallas, TX; Long Beach, CA; or Appleton, WS you had better hope people keep buying these corporate jets, because these Gulfstream employees are earning paychecks, buying houses, cars, insurance, food and entertainment.  They are paying school, local and state taxes.  They are coaching little league and supporting

United Way

.  In other words, they are being good citizens.  Every dollar they spend is multiplied about 2 times throughout the local economy in one way or another. 

            Of the 219,000 non-commercial, non-military planes used privately in the U.S. the vast majority are small, prop planes.  But jet aircraft saw its largest increase in demand in 2005, up 27% to 700 units.  Every order meant jobs in the aviation industry and all its ancillary businesses.  But that was before the economy went south and our President starting treating corporate jet owners as the bad guys.  [Notice, he never criticized his Hollywood cronies for their jets.  Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and John Travolta are all allowed to have jets and get a pass on nasty comments.]  With the current climate, Gulfstream has to lay off 6000 workers at its Georgia and Texas plants.  So I have a way to save those jobs.  Let’s encourage every major industry in this great land to buy a new corporate jet.  Tell them it’s the patriotic thing to do and it may be the way to turn our economy around.  And since every worker employed pays taxes, we won't need to raise corporate taxes to increase revenue.  

Be a job creator, buy a jet and keep the faith.