War of words
You could easily get the impression that President Barack Obama does not like business jets. In June 2011 he attacked corporate jets six times in just one speech. Last week he mentioned them again in the presidential debate. If you want to understand why he is doing this I recommend a book by Dr Frank Lutz called Words that Work. Lutz was a senior adviser to the Republican Party and now advises companies. The Boston Globe called him: “the hottest pollster in America”.
You could easily get the impression that President Barack Obama does not like business jets. In June 2011 he attacked corporate jets six times in just one speech. Last week he mentioned them again in the presidential debate. If you want to understand why he is doing this I recommend a book by Dr Frank Lutz called Words that Work. Lutz was a senior adviser to the Republican Party and now advises companies. The Boston Globe called him: “the hottest pollster in America”.
The phrase: “people who own corporate jets should pay taxes on them” is clearly popular with focus groups and polling well. Even if it is a little misleading, his advisers think it is working.
Obama is basically using one line to attack a complex issue. He is actually talking about accelerated depreciation on business aircraft. The argument is over whether a business that uses an aircraft should depreciate it over five years or seven years. Obama’s own 2009 stimulus plan lowered it to five years.
The National Business Aviation Association and others, like JSSI, have been doing a good job arguing against Obama. But whilst it is easy for him to attack corporate jet tax breaks it is much harder to argue why they should have accelerated depreciation. This is not because there are not good reasons why accelerated depreciation should stay. There are (although aircraft operators that do not benefit from it could argue that it is unfair to them).
No, the fundamental problem is that in order to defend accelerated depreciation you need to be able to explain why it makes sense. It is impossible to do this in one sentence. Or even two. This makes business jets an easy target.
Words matter. Lutz believes one of his biggest personal successes was getting Republicans to use the phrase death tax rather than estate tax. Whilst a narrow majority favoured cutting estate taxes more than 70% favoured cutting death taxes. He has also been involved in rebranding oil companies – another target of Obama. Lutz was one of the people that encouraged them to change from oil companies to energy companies. You may not have noticed, but energy companies are no longer drilling for oil instead they are now exploring for energy.
The image of business aviation is different to oil companies. America is an aspirational country and many people hope one day to own or fly in a corporate jet. But there are lessons here and we should all be careful about the words we use to describe the industry. As others have said, we need to continue to highlight that corporate aircraft are business tools, not luxury toys.
Lutz’s book includes lists of words that poll well. Should you find yourself arguing the case for business aviation, here are three lines which contain eight phrases (in italics) that are proven to work with US voters.
Businesses – including many small companies – invest in aircraft because they save time and get results. The majority of business jets are built in America and flown by Main Street – not Wall Street. These jets give them new opportunities and help revitalize the US economy.
Update: The NBAA has launched a campaign top get new members to join at a reduced rate for their first year’s membership.
Subscribe to our free newsletter
For more opinions from Corporate Jet Investor, subscribe to our One Minute Week newsletter.
