Amid all of the spurious talk about "tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires" (defined incongruously by the left as anyone with income of over $200,000), the Obama administration and its media lackeys are trying to raise support for an increase in taxes on corporate jets.
It's well-known that the amount of money that potentially would be raised by closing this loophole is miniscule, it'd take 5,000 years for it to equal the new debt added just last year, but since we're talking about tax cuts for the wealthy, it's worth noting that the Hollywood Left actually has managed to get a significant number of tax deductions to promote television and movie production. Magically, however, we aren't seeing much discussion about closing these tax loopholes from the elite media.
And loopholes they are indeed. The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, passed by former president George W. Bush and a Republican congress has a nice fat tax deduction of 9 percent for qualified films and television shows taped in the U.S.
Contrast the lack of effort being expended to end this loophole with the rhetoric of a group calling itself "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength" which boasts some celebrity members such as actress Edie Falco (pictured below) calling on Congress to raise taxes on incomes of over $1 million to promote "the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens."
As blogger "Ace" notes, though, this tax loophole and the lack of interest in closing it is pretty typical for the left:
[L]iberals always seem to understand that lower taxes spur economic activity -- but if and only if it is themselves getting the favorable tax treatment.
Hollywood of course lobbied for this special break, most likely to keep productions from moving to other countries (first England, and lately, Canada).
So when it comes to their industry, they get that higher taxes --and higher production costs due to unionized labor!-- create a barrier to economic production, and lower taxes and lower production costs due to cheaper labor create an environment for economic creativity.
But when it comes to every other industry? Every other American?
Suddenly they get dumb and pretend like they forgot about this.
Besides trying to end the film subsidy, Hollywood liberals who can't get enough taxes should also realize that right now, it is possible to voluntarily pay more in taxes thanks to a special program that the Treasury Department has set up formally called "Gifts to Reduce Debt Held by the Public."
As you might expect, though, it appears there are comparatively few people who are interested in paying more taxes. By Treasury's count, only $2.8 million was donated last year. In 2009, it was just over $3 million, in 2008, $2.2 million was given.
For comparative purposes, supposed tax loving liberals gave then-presidential candidate Barack Obama $750 million in 2008. That pales in comparison to the $10.6 billion Americans spent on video games in 2009 or the $63 billion they spent on tobacco products in 2010 (just to pick two random non-essential industries).
Needless to say, there are plenty of wealthy liberals who have not put their money where their mouths are.
