Comments

Obama's jabs at "fat cats" are lame politics, but really no different than the other side blaming the budget problems on "welfare queens". Both sides do it and it's a distraction. Beyond that distraction and the rhetoric, I see a bunch of smoke, but not much fire. At the end of the day Obama was stating (although clumsily) the obvious, eventually various stimulative tax breaks will have to be rolled back as part of an effort to balance the budget. As one who bought a single engine piston, put it on leaseback, and took the depreciation tax benefit, I can tell you it's a really good deal. Under bonus depreciation you buy a $350k aircraft and (assuming you have the income or business profits to offset), and knock most of that off your gross income in the first year. It was really nice getting and $50,ooo tax refund a couple years ago! However, without bonus depreciation, it takes just 5 years (oh, the horror). Five years to depreciate an aircraft that will last 30+ is still a good deal. In either depreciation case, the money is really just a loan from the IRS. When you go to sell the aircraft you get to recapture that $$ as ordinary income. My point is that the "Obama as Socialist" meme has gained such cultural traction that all it takes is the mere mention of "corporate CEOs" and "business jets" to get us frothing. In reality, tax policy under Obama has been VERY friendly to people in my tax bracket (although I do appreciate the promise of ongoing support from the Tea Party). Personally, I don't find the notion of rolling back some of those tax break goodies to be all that offensive as part of an overall budget plan that includes large spending cuts.