Flying High

Two vignettes from my brief tenure as a limousine liberal.

Tooling around the West and East Coasts lo these last few weeks on my book tour, I took a lot of rides in chauffeured sedans. The publishing industry is woefully archaic; if it worked for Maxwell Perkins and F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 1920s, no reason to stop doing it exactly the same way in 2008, even if the promotional budget could be much better spent on, say, blog ads. David Sirota definitely has the right idea; he's renting an RV.

Limo life was exceptionally strange: it's quite rude, it turns out, not to wait for your driver (who calls you, habitually, "Mr. Perlstein") to open the door for you upon arriving at your destination; rude, too, to not let him carry all your bags, no matter how many or how heavy. The two times I've appeared on MSNBC I was chauffeured, too, though a $2 bus ride would have taken me right to NBC's doorstep in downtown Chicago, and just as fast. Constantly being waited upon like that has to have a baleful impact on the insufferable economic antipopulists who pollute our airwaves, no matter how much they pretend to be cultural populists, and insist they don't occupy society's "winner's circle."

Anyhoo, something productive came of my skin-crawlingly creepy introduction to the aristocratic rituals of the winner-takes-all society: grist for the Big Con mill.

Every limousine that squired me sported a copy, in the seatback, of that old bathroom-reading standby Business Jet Traveler magazine. (The latest trend—but you knew this—is customized jet interiors by top fashion designers; then there's Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud's plans to put the first private Airbus A380 Superjumbo, complete with jacuzzi, into operation by 2010, with an estimated price tag of $519 million.)

So guess who's the cover boy for the February-March issue? Hard-fightin' economic populist and coon-hunter Ragin' Cajun James Carville, who, the headline informs us, "loves Democrats, his wife—and private jets."

Some highlights of the interview therein:

You get to the point where it's the ultimate, you know, people dream, 'boy, if I was really flush, I'd have a house in the Caribbean or the Alps.' If my ship came in, I'd turn it into a plane that day. You can take every other accoutrement really rich people have and it doesn't add up to one airplane.

(Good to know that Carville, like Chris Matthews, appears to believe he hasn't yet entered America's "winner's circle.")

Then he defends his liberal bona fides. I bet you didn't know this:

"Crossfire" was probably the most relentlessly antiwar show on television.

(Possibly so. It's funny because it's true.)

Then this question:

I saw the cover of one of your books, with its list of the top ten things you don't like about Republicans, including "they lie like a rug," "they have no sense of humor," and "they're a pack of crooks." I wonder how you reconcile such a harsh view of Republicans with your marriage to a Republican.

He responds in a way America's overclass can easily understand: it's not personal, it's business.

Well, it's how you reconcile selling books [laughs].

Another article in the same issue:

As the presidential primary season heats up and Election Day approaches, you may be asked to make your aircraft available for travel by government officials and political candidates.

(Don't you hate when that happens? Sooooooo awkward.)

Before you say yes to your favorite candidate's request for a ride, you'd be smart to talk with a tax adviser, attorney, or accountant who understands all the regulations and restrictions.

But that's not my fave. That comes in the latest issue, on the pressing subject of how to cash in on the federal tax provision for "bonus depreciation" on corporate jets, which allows you to "start your tax depreciation with a 30 percent bonus in year one," whatever that means. (Contact a tax adviser, attorney, or accountant who understands all the regulations; I know I did.) Here's the punchline: you have to have purchased "a factory-new aircraft on or after 9/11," because, yes, this provision "was introduced in the so-called job creation and worker assistance act of 2002 in response to the economic slowdown following 9/11. Then, in the jobs and growth tax relief act of 2003, Congress extended the time periods and increased the bonus to 50 percent."

Emphasis very much mine. What a revealing window on how Washington's malefactors of great wealth work. A world-historic cataclysm becomes the perfect occasion to provide a handout for business-jet owners. Then, once the warm glow of tragedy wears off, you can make the boondoggle permanent.

Good thing the Democrats are back in control of Congress. Oh, wait: "The economic stimulus act of 2008 resurrects 50 percent bonus depreciation for factory-new aircraft. In this latest incarnation, to be entitled to bonus depreciation, you basically have to enter into a binding contract to purchase the business jet in 2008, and take delivery and place the aircraft in service in 2008 or 2009."

Cut some slack for those certain prominent Democratic advisers who harbor an affection for private jets. After all, is this not in the end an example of economic populism—a subsidy for good U.S. manufacturing jobs?

Turns out not. Here's my even favorite-er part:

An aircraft doesn't have to be manufactured in the U.S. to be entitled to bonus depreciation.

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