Hasn’t Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle of Georgia Just Asked for a Bribe to the NRA?
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Republican of Georgia, has just told Delta Airlines that it must restore its Flight Discount to NRA members, or as President of the Georgia State Senate, he will have them deny Delta a 50 million dollar tax exemption on jet fuel. Let’s set this straight: the NRA is a private organization, (which undoubtedly backs Casey Cagle, with his A+ rating), and Cagle is demanding a bribe from Delta to the NRA, in order to get the Georgia legislature to show tax favoritism to Delta Air Lines. The Delta discount is only a 2% to 10% discount to NRA members flying to their annual meeting in Dallas.
The other question is if Lt. Gov. Cagle is acting as a lobbyist for the NRA. The NRA has said that it would fight back to punish the sponsors who have decided to disconnect from the NRA. Is Cagle illegally acting as an undeclared lobbyist for the NRA? Aren’t Georgia’s elected officials forbidden from working as a lobbyist?
Delta is the largest private employer in the state. In 2015, it had 33,000 employees in Georgia. It contributes $300 million yearly to state and local taxes and fees. Atlanta’s airport generated $58 billion in economic impact. These data are from Delta’s News Hub.
Cagle has been Lt. Gov. since 2007, or 11 years. He is now running for Georgia’s governor.
Georgia’s Senate is almost two-to-one Republican, 37 to 19, out of 56. The Georgia House of Representatives is also almost two-to-one Republicans, 116 to 64, out of 180. Elections for both are held every even numbered years. All of the elected Executive officials are Republican, starting with Governor Nathan Deal. He is ending his second and last allowed four-year term this year.
Donald Trump won Georgia with 51.1% of the popular vote, to Hillary Clinton’s 45.9%. The margin of victory was 5.2%. This is hardly the two-to-one Republican dominance of the Assembly, and perhaps an indication of severe gerrymandering.
Update on March 2: Delta has found that only 13 people have taken the discount to the NRA meeting! I don’t know if that means just this year’s meeting. But my estimate of 2,000 attendees taking advantage of the discount is off by two orders of magnitude! Mea Culpa, not to mention Cagle Culpa. So at a $40 estimated savings a ticket, the amount Cagle fought for is only worth $520, versus Delta’s $58 billion. So Cagle loses by 100 million to one. I put the now discredited estimate in square brackets. Atlanta is Delta’s main hub, and its airport is the biggest in the world. The Georgia Senate passed the tax bill without the Delta fuel break by 44-10, and the Georgia House passed it by 135-24. Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal, said he would sign it.
Since physicists like to do back-of-the-envelope estimates, lets see how big the discount might be. Say 10% off of a $400 round trip ticket is $40. [Say 2,000 go to the NRA convention. That amounts to $80,000 to NRA members.] And yet Cagle thinks this is so important that he is willing to balance this against a boycott’s effect on Delta’s 33,000 employees, or $58 billion in economic impact to the state of Georgia, which he is campaigning to govern. Weird.
So many questions about the NRA. Such a long time available to investigate them, but nobody to do so.
