It means he’s lying

Posted by Marc Hodak on May 23, 2008 under Invisible trade-offs | 2 Comments to Read

The Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act, among other things, reduces taxes on lawyers with an offsetting increase in taxes on investment managers and corporations. If that doesn’t sound like the kind of bill a Republican would vote for, think again:

Republican Congressman David Hobson supported the bill with the following justification:

“Probably the responsible vote is ‘no,’ but how do you explain that in a media that’s frantic over gasoline prices? Frankly, this has nothing to do with gasoline prices, but you can’t explain it, and it taxes the rich guys,” Hobson said.

What does this mean?

It means that he must have thought there was a pony somewhere in the manure pile that was this legislation.

As it turns out, most of this bill was aimed at extending tax breaks to a myriad of industries. Would he be inclined to support those? Well, let’s just toggle over to his list of biggest campaign donors to see who we meet. Hey, there’s PMA Group, one of the largest industry lobbyists on K Street pushing those production incentives for renewable fuels. Hi PMA! Then we meet Forest City Enterprises, a major beneficiary of R&D tax credits. Hi FCE! So, you see, Hobson wasn’t compromising his supposed principles, he was just showing gratitude to his biggest supporters.

Then, we meet Pioneer PAC. Hi Pioneer! Wait, whose Pioneer?

Pioneer PAC supports targeted incumbents, open seat candidates, and a limited number of challengers

Gee, that doesn’t sound like Congressman Hobson. He’s not a targeted incumbent or open seat candidate. In fact, Congressman Hobson has one of those “safe” seats in a GOP district. He has won every re-election since 1990 with no less than 61 percent of the vote. In fact, Hobson is not even running for re-election next term. Even so, his campaign has nearly $900,000, much more cash than he could use in a re-election, if he was running.

So, why would Pioneer PAC be a major donor to Hobson? And why is Hobson’s smiling face at the top of Pioneer’s web site? Oh, wait…Pioneer IS Hobson.

What does that mean?