Monkey Business Update: party disloyalty, HB 1224, and film incentives back from the dead | Eastern North Carolina Now

Well, the effort to bring party disloyalty into the debate on HB 1224 blew up rather unceremoniously. Apparently, some "pain-in-the-ass-teabagger web site" spilled the beans before the plan could get underway.

ENCNow
    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton shows that cutting down of corporate brings out the worst in some people in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    Well, the effort to bring party disloyalty into the debate on HB 1224 blew up rather unceremoniously. Apparently, some "pain-in-the-ass-teabagger web site" spilled the beans before the plan could get underway. Sources inside the GOP House caucus meeting on Monday told us that Speaker Tillis got an unpleasant earful about the party disloyalty tactic. Tillis assured his troops that he would not — after all — call for the in-caucus vote because he already had the votes he needed.

    HB 1224 got sent to the House Rules Committee, where it passed by a narrow margin of 11-8. Two Democrats voted for it. (Moore County's Jamie Boles provided a key vote to get it out of the committee and on its way to the House floor.)

    How might ol' Thom have finagled these votes for this legislative boondoggle? Quite possibly by doling out more "goodies" to "bribe" reluctant legislators. In fact, one can see some of this in action with HB 189. HERE is the version posted on the NCGA web site. Here are photo copies of a hard-copy version handed out to legislators yesterday. What started out as a bill dealing mainly with child support enforcement is now packed with new details ranging from tax breaks for farmers, exemptions from sales tax caps for certain counties, and film incentives for Hollywood. My NCGA sources tell me that leadership has said the failure on the floor of either HB 1224 or HB 189 kills both bills. There's a little something to bribe everyone here in this bill. If you vote NO on any of it, you and your district miss out on the goodies.

    The exemption from the sales tax cap is clearly aimed at winning over Democrat votes to compensate for Republican holdouts. (Isn't it amazing that this tactic is being used when there is a GOP super majority?) The counties that would get the exemption from the sales tax cap would be Durham, Orange, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg, and Wake. Wake Republicans — from what my sources tell me — are adamantly opposed to exempting Wake County from the cap. Democrat House leader Larry Hall is from Durham.

    The tax breaks for farmers are clearly aimed at winning over some legislators from rural districts. It exempts farmers who have farm income of $10,000 — or an average of $10,000 over the previous three years — from relevant sales and use taxes.

    The film incentives — highly controversial — also got slipped into HB 189. You can get up to $5 million in taxpayer funds for shooting a single episode of a TV show or "video series" (podcast ????) in North Carolina. You can get $250,000 in taxpayer funds for "a commercial for theatrical or television viewing." We've posted before about Tillis announcing his support for film incentives, then getting a load of cash from a movie studio a few days later. We also posted about a study showing greater economic benefits for North Carolina with an across-the-board tax cut equal to the same amount as the film incentives. This piece of HB 189 is clearly aimed at, um, "bribing" some coastal / Wilmington-area legislators.ors.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Memo to Establishment: Sometimes, taxes mean more than freebies Related to State, The Daily Haymaker Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Dear Commissioners, August 31, 2014; with an Update to for "Dear Commissioners, August 28"


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, admitted that he cheated on his first wife with the couple’s babysitter after a report was published on Saturday that said the marriage ended after he got the babysitter pregnant.
A black Georgia activist became the center of attention at a rally for former president Donald Trump on Saturday when she riled the crowd in support of Trump and how his policies benefit black Americans.
Former President has been indicted by a federal judge in Pennsylvania for inciting an assassination attempt that nearly killed him.
A federal judge ruled on Monday that Google has a monopoly over general search engine services, siding with the Justice Department and more than two dozen states that sued the tech company, alleging antitrust violations.
3 debates and Twitter interview
If we vote the way we have always voted we will get the kind of government we have always gotten
Check it out and see if you think this is an exhibit of Open Government

HbAD1

Acting U.S. Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told reporters on Friday that his agency was fully responsible for the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last month and that the agency “should have had eyes” on the roof where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Smartmatic was at center of voting machine controversy in US 2020 election
If we vote the way we have always voted we will get the kind of government we have always gotten
Shooter was identified on the roof with a weapon with enough time to stop him...but, officers were not prepared to access the roof

HbAD2

 
Back to Top