Trump tax scam paying for 'golden age' of private jet sales
We get layoffs, they get luxury jets.
The Trump tax scam has resulted in thousands of layoffs, but it has freed companies up to invest in luxury private air travel.
Trump and the GOP have tried everything they can to sell their trillion-dollar giveaway, up to and including absurdly claiming it will benefit education, but the real beneficiaries are all too apparent.
Even before passage of the bill, CEOs were quite clearly saying they would not be investing their windfall in their own workers, but rather, would use it for themselves. And according to CNBC, that includes ushering in a “golden age” for private jet sales.
On Tuesday, Steve Varsano, CEO of The Jet Business, explained on CNBC how the Trump tax scam helps the private jet industry. The business has been steadily increasing since the 2008 financial crisis, he said, but it has “skyrocketed” recently.
“The decrease in corporate taxes has given the companies a lot more free cash flow to invest in” things like private jets, he said, and new depreciation rules give companies “a lot more cash to invest in assets.”
Varsano went on to explain that the overwhelming majority of sales are of used jets, and indeed, industry experts only project new sales to increase by 58 planes in 2018, from 660 sales in 2017 to 718 this year. According to Varsano, used planes account for about 2,500 sales per year.
That means a lot of expensive toys for billionaires, but few new jobs for manufacturing them, and lots of money not being spent on jobs and wages.
It’s no surprise that Trump’s tax scam would be a boon to luxury air travel, since his Cabinet members have made U.S. taxpayers into unwitting customers, racking up millions in private flights.
Meanwhile, Republicans are trying to claim their tax scam is benefitting average American workers because of one-time bonuses and $1.50-a-week pay bumps. No wonder the bill remains unpopular among voters, even as the wealthiest Americans and corporations celebrate the “free cash flow” to buy private jets.
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