On Tuesday President Obama announced a new package of stimulus proposals intended to jumpstart hiring. Even though the aviation industry is among the hardest hit in terms of lost jobs, it was not mentioned. But there is a proven program that has worked in the past to spark airplane sales.

In the early 1980s, the aviation industry was in a dive. Maybe not as steep a plunge as we have seen over the past 12 months, but it was in bad shape. Interests rates and inflation were in double digits and all areas of the economy were hurting.

The new Reagan administration proposed and Congress passed new tax laws that awarded accelerated tax depreciation and tax credits to businesses large and small that purchased capital equipment. We now have accelerated depreciation, but the real kicker that is missing is a tax credit. A tax credit is just that, a credit. In the early 1980s the credit was 10 percent of the purchase price. Unlike a deduction which is diluted by your actual tax rate, everyone got the full 10 percent as a credit.

I bought a new Mooney 201 at the time to use in Flying magazine business, and it was the tax credit that made the purchase possible. Without that credit and the accelerated depreciation, I would have been forced to buy a used airplane. We all had to keep the airplane for three years to "earn" the credit, but that was no hardship.

Tax credits worked 30 years ago, and can work again as a sure fire way to sell airplanes and thus create jobs for people to build those airplanes.