Oklahoma Energy Secretary Michael Ming has resigned to take a job with General Electric's planned Oil and Gas Technology Center here in Oklahoma. Governor Mary Fallin appointed Ming to her cabinet in January 2011. The news comes a month after GE was given $3,000,000 from the governor's Quick Action Closing Fund to bring the company's project to Oklahoma. This is the first time Governor Fallin has used the fund.
Maybe I'm wrong, but when a large corporation is given millions of taxpayer dollars by the governor, and one of the governor's cabinet members resigns to head up the project for the company, it just doesn't sit well with me.
What do you think? Is it just me?
No, I don't think it is fair for government officials to profit from tax giveaways to big business. GE manipulates their tax obligations and proffer a revolving door of job opportunities better than any other megabusiness in America.
ReplyDeleteTheir tax strategies are legendary in the business world and other big corporations strive to emulate them. Ronald Reagan's Tax Reform Act of 1986 has been gutted by GE lobbying efforts and now GE never owes a dime in federal taxes. Successfully storing their wealth in offshore tax havens and usually coming up with a tax rebate each year.
The federal government in the 1950s was funded 30% by business taxes. Now that figure is less than 6%.
Who gets hurt? Everyone who will experience the ultimate default on the mounting federal debt. You can't fund a government without reasonable business taxes. But now the businesses control the politicians.
Eisenhower warned us about big business. But greed has encompassed the bureaucrats and they play the silly charade shell game in Washington. One day the foreign and domestic debt collectors will come calling and the resulting US economy will make Greece look like a fond location.
Good catch. Suspicious indeed.
ReplyDeleteI've got another one for you. Maybe you can figure out the hook...
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is currently debating whether or not to raise phone usage fees to raise universal service fund assets. In turn, they'd use these assets to subsidize a number of phone providers in the state. The strange this is that 1) the universal service fund generally helps organizations like schools, not private corporations; 2) they just had a very quiet series of hearings with these same telecom companies. They did nothing else to discuss this issue with the public.
What do you think? It seems like another government deal that stinks, but you're the one with the good nose...