No debate, no rants, just sharing:
Georgia’s Lt. Governor intends to abuse the power of his office to punish a private company:
Future headline: “Former Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle loses election!”
While somewhat assholish I don’t really see how it’s an abuse of power. He is the leader of Georgia’s Senate and can pursue whatever legislative agenda he wants.
He is using the power of his office to punish a private company that chooses to conduct its private business as it sees fit.
This being Georgia, I’m not holding my breath. He’s also the odds on favorite to be elected the next Governor of Georgia this November. His GOP Primary opponent isn’t that much better (Brian Kemp, the current Secretary of State) but I don’t think he wants to sign an RFRA like Cagle does. And I don’t think a blue wave will arrive on time for a Democrat to win the seat.
And yet the various tax codes, both state and federal, REWARD companies that do certain things. How is that any different in principle?
‘In the primary, run to the right…’
Obviously he knows that getting the Republican nomination will give him the advantage going into the general election in a red, only slightly purplish state such as Georgia.
I am fine with all of these NRA discounts - as long as they offer the same discount for my PBS membership. The lack of matching discounts is an attack on Liberals.
Hmm… he hasn’t yet threatened to *repeal *any already-existent tax benefit for Delta, has he? I suppose that’s for the general.
And if understand the report correctly, the bill he’s proposing to kill is worth $40 million, while Delta stands to benefit in the hundreds of millions from the federal tax law…
Oh it’ll help him with the GOP primary and I have no illusion he will not have a platform of “all of the rest of Georgia against Atlanta”. OTOH it’s interesting to see someone run honestly on “we conservatives want deference, more than we want jobs”.
The use of the tax code to reward or punish isn’t a great idea at all, but when done for the benefit of the state as a whole it is quite a bit different from using the tax code to punish a particular business for their political views. Even worse, in this case the threat is based on withdrawing of financial support for a political organization, a shake-down, “Give money to the NRA or we’ll fine you $40 million”.
It seems that a governmental attempt to regulate the speech of the “person” Delta would be unconstitutional. See Citizens United. Governmental regulation of speech is fundamentally different than, say, encouraging use of electric vehicles.
But as the article points out, Delta is not a company that Georgia wants to make feel too unwelcome or to kneecap. The tax break was there for reason and it was not because of the NRA discount. The company is Georgia’s number one private employer and “contributes $300 million annually to Georgia state and local governments through taxes and fees.” It was there, allegedly, to try to keep the Atlanta airport competitive as a hub as many other airline hubs already do not charge, or at least discount, sales tax on fuel for air carriers.
I wonder what the Lieutenant Governor of Georgia would do if Coca-Cola decided to donate some portion of its profits to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
Whine and lose a Twitter battle, most likely.
Next time this asshole flies Delta he’ll wind up in the middle seat way in the back of the plane between two mothers with screaming babies.
And be served by a fumble fingered flight attendant. Who spills hot coffee in his lap.
Just more evidence that today’s Republicans are Communists in disguise.
Or better yet, in second class.
I read that as “Whine and lose a Twister battle” which would be slightly yet definitively more entertaining.
They’re in disguise? Wow, I thought those terrible mustache-and-wig sets so laughably styled by Keri Russell and Matthhew Rhys in The Americans were supposed to be some kind of metajoke about how poorly actual Soviet spies integrated into the United States but this clown car of corruptibles don’t seem to be trying even that hard. Manafort apparears to have watched ten minutes of a Bourne film and dediced that having three passports would be sufficient to allow him to slip undetected between countries while Jared Kushner seems to be following the Johnny English model of subterfuge and many of Trump’s flunkies like Michael Flynn or Jeff Seesions have presumably never actaully watched a Bond film or understand what happens to loyal henchmen when they fail. Devin Nunes is so obviously a Russian plant that he probably has a tattoo of Putin’s soulessly staring eyes on his penis as a reminder of who owns him, and Melania is the genius spymaster ‘Karla’ who is wordlessly running a disinformation campaign so brilliant that even John le Carré is in awe as the narrative daring and scope.
“There are five of them, and Manafort.”
Stranger
“For what other reason would anyone want power?” --Wally (in “Dilbert”)