GOP Cookie Jar Lid Slams on Rep. Jodi Lott

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The November 2014 race to fill Georgia’s House District 122 seat, vacated by retiring Representative Ben Harbin of Evans, was the ugliest, most hotly contested election in the modern history of Columbia County. It saw 2 months of nonstop attacks by radio station talk show host Austin Rhodes on hapless candidate Joe Mullins conjoined with the collapse of the campaign of departing Columbia County District 3 Commissioner Mack Taylor. Taylor’s efforts became mired in a nasty war with Mullins, complete with subterfuge, private investigators, and backdoor conniving with the radio talker. Columbia County, sick of the carnage, chose political newcomer Jodi Lott in the December runoff.

Representative-elect Lott was probably giddy with excitement still when she was sworn in this January. Her refreshing enthusiasm, undiminished by the grinding reality check of public life, was apparent to everyone in the area. Her primary campaign issue, a “fairtax” (a sales tax) to replace the state income tax, seemed unstoppable in the Georgia House of Representatives, as leadership and the membership voiced support.

Like the rest of us, Jodi Lott found the meaning of “lip service,” that when grizzled politicians like House leaders move their lips, you can count on it being in service to a lie. In this case her treasured tax relief met uncompromising doom at the hands of Governor Nathan Deal, who cited the danger that moving from an income tax to a sales tax would pose to Georgia’s burgeoning film industry, which heavily benefits from income tax credits. The House leadership beat a retreat, citing the futility of going against the governor’s wishes.

That is the “official story.” Here is a much more accurate explanation. The reason that the citizenry of Georgia will never see their income taxes cut, or replaced by a sales tax, is that other income tax credits have been a back-door, almost totally-unaccounted for, stream of public funds to connected political donors from the Republican hierarchy in the legislative and executive branches. They give away income taxes that have to be made up by increased income taxes on us. No income tax means that the payola scheme dies.

Our City Stink/Agraynation.com collaborative effort uncovered the scandal in 2012, during investigation into the details of the Magnolia Trace subsidized housing development uproar. After the public fury, this writer had traveled to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) offices and spent an afternoon pouring over records of the Magnolia Trace income tax credit applications in the company of DCA attorney Phyllis Carr. The review did not uncover any smoking guns assignable to Columbia County Officials, but found a huge one wafting smoke toward the Georgia Republican Party and its senior officeholders in government.

You see, the availability of income tax credits, especially the low income housing tax credit, had been around for years. Most of these credits expired unused. That was until Missouri based Affordable Equity Partners got measures through the Georgia legislature allowing the credits to be exchanged, marketed and sold to taxpayers, who could use the tax credits.  Affordable Equity and its sister Capital Health Management, Inc. funded a bevy of GOP-beneficent PACs and made direct contributions to nearly all of the important party office holders. To date, Governor Deal has received $10,000, House Speaker David Ralston has received $9,500, and Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle has received more than $17,000 from this stable of companies and related PACs. The GOP, its incumbents in the legislature, and other supporting PACs have received another $240,000.

The Magnolia Trace affair was also a scandal in its approval process and the political donation largess was a deciding factor for approval, in this writer’s opinion. How widespread are these failures and malpractices by DCA and how much is it costing the people of Georgia?

Representative Lott and tax reformers, take note! To get tax reform for the people the path is directly through your leaders’ hefty campaign finances.

Let’s see if the candidates now running for Senate 24 and House 123 seats on passing a “fairtax” have that much tenacity.

Arrowflinger Sings in Georgia Senate Chambers – Ethics? Where?

It’s hard to be humble when you are a Georgia legislator. The Arrowflinger Al tackles the hot topic of Ethics in the Georgia Legislature – There aren’t any. So he decided to put his frustrations over Georgia Gold-Domers to song. See his video serenade below.

After Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson went down in flames of scandal and personal ruin in late 2009, in the early days of 2010 Arrowflinger Al went on a local talk radio program, the Austin Rhodes Show, on WGAC in Augusta, Georgia to endorse David Ralston as a “Reformer.”

That summer Ralston took a $17,000 European vacation courtesy of lobbyists. More recently he received $5,000 from Affordable Equity Partners of Missouri who plopped down a public housing development, Magnolia Trace, in the middle of a sedate part of Columbia County.

There is also the matter of Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols, also touted by the Arrowflinger on the Austin Rhodes Show as a “reformer.” Then he went about soliciting sporting event tickets on PSC letterhead!

Then some months ago, old Al confronted Representative Tom McCall about the lack of ethics at a Concerned Citizens of Lincoln County meeting and got blown off. The newspaper reporter failed to report what was a heated discussion.

This seemed to be an appropriate response.

If the good men and women of the Georgia General Assembly don’t do something and fast, they will be laughed out of the state and shunned at home.

The Arrowflinger has been let down by politicians more often than a practice dummy at funeral training school.

The original footage was shady and a mite crooked. That is PERFECT!

Revenge is sweet?

(Note: The sounds, rendition, images, and execution of ideas within this post are entered under Fair Use, for the purposes of Journalism, Education, and Commentary. They are transformative in nature and protected in their entry under Fair Use).