Maryland Democrats in 2010 tried to impose a “rain tax” before Republican Larry Hogan won the governorship and killed the idea. A rain tax is a tax on paved surfaces that cause stormwater runoff. The worst part of the process came after the Democrats realized that suburban and rural churches have big parking lots and not a lot of disposable money.
The Democrats’ creepy solution: offer a partial rain-tax exemption for churches that gave environmentally correct sermons and take other “green” steps. A tax break for spreading a message the government wants you to spread is the same thing economically as a tax on not preaching what the government wants you to tax. So for churches, this “rain tax” was really a “lack of politically useful sermons tax.”
Something similar is happening in Florida today, if we are to believe the lieutenant governor: Disney is being offered a special tax break if it will refrain from opposing Republican legislation.
Of course, Disney is being stupid and is caught up in liberal media-inspired hair-on-fire campaign against a bill — just as MLB and others fell for the media freakout on voting in Georgia last year. Also, Disney benefits from way too many corporate-welfare gifts from Florida, local governments, and the federal governments.
So on the substance of the relevant policies: the sex education bill and Disney’s special tax treatment. There are lots of good matters to debate. I am closer to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on those than to Disney or most of the establishment media. But here’s why I have a big problem with what Florida Republicans are doing here.
Lt. Gov. Jeannette Nunez went on Newsmax television with Eric Bolling and made a true point, which I don’t believe either she or DeSantis had made before this year: “I don’t think that anyone that is watching this program would agree that one corporation in the state of Florida should be treated differently compared to others that are in the same industry.”
Bolling pointed out that losing this special tax status would cost Disney “tens of billions of dollars” and then asked the key question:
“Is there an opportunity for Disney to change their mind and say, ‘We will disregard this whole woke agenda. We’ll go back to what we originally dealt with the state of Florida,’ and the Governor would say ‘OK, you keep your status, but let’s talk more. We’re gonna keep an eye on you now?’ How does this play out for Disney? A lot of people like Disney, and they don’t want to not like Disney anymore.”
Nunez gave a long rambling answer that began with an ambiguous “sure,” but she never answered Bolling’s question directly. Instead, she discussed what will happen when Disney lobbies to restore the privileges that will be erased with this new bill. “That’ll be something that the legislature will have to decide,” she said. “So we’ll see. … They’ll have their day. Obviously, the legislature will decide, and at that point, the governor will decide what to do as well.”
You never know what we’ll do next year. Of course, we’ll listen to Disney’s case then…
This is familiar language. Usually, it comes from lawmakers wishing to derive partisan loyalty and campaign cash from affected companies. Former New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, the longtime chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, constantly used to promise massive tax overhauls in which “everything is on the table.” This was a call to every tax lobbyist and every CEO that they had better pony up to Uncle Charlie’s reelection/legal defense fund.
DeSantis and Nunez may not be trying to milk Disney for donations, but this remark suggests they are milking Disney for political cooperation in the form of neutrality.
If the Republicans running the state consistently said that “Disney’s special treatment is wrong, and we will end it now and forever,” we’d be in the position of questioning the timing of an objectively good action. But now that the DeSantis-Nunez administration says they will listen to Disney’s petition next year to restore its tax privileges, this looks like a quid pro quo, which is corrupt.
