House to Buy Executive Jets?

You can see it at www.airportbusiness.com. The House has voted (it must still get by the Senate) to spend some quarter of a billion dollars to buy business jets. The temptation is to jump on the guvmint for hypocrisy. This is the same guvmint that chastised corporations for operating jet aircraft. Now they want to buy a fleet of them to meet the “growing travel demand by congressional officials.†The temptation is to scream that they should not have any jets, much less a fleet of them. But think a minute… For once the guvmint agrees with us. They, too, realize that business jets fill a need that cannot be met any other way—that they can be a very efficient business tool. The guvmint seems to understand that a business jet is not bought just so executives won’t have to ride airlines, but is bought to get work done that can’t be done any other way. Our argument should be more that we understand and agree with the House, and that this does point out that these same jets are a profitable way for businesses to operate. Like many of you, I wonder if the guvmint will abuse the use of their jets in a thousand different ways, but that is a different argument. We should agree that business jets often make sense. Then if they use them in a wasteful way we can jump on them for that. But we don’t want to attack their obviously firm belief that business jets can be a smart purchase. At least that’s the way I see it. How about you? We'd love to post your comments. Please click the comment tab at the top.