Preserving The American Political Philosophy: Big Money, Redistributed Wealth and Legal Opacity Make For Happy Bed Fellows!

This is an update of a post written in 2013 in response to the Expanded and Improved Seed Capital Tax Credit unanimously passed by the Maine legislature amid a flurry of biased news coverage focusing almost exclusively on businesses that stand to get a cash infusion from the passage of the bill. No single bill is passed in isolation but is part of a larger and incremental strategy dating approximately back to the charter of the Maine Development Foundation Corporation serving as the foundation stone for the ever expanding corporation of Maine- a corporation that goes without an official name but is in fact an interlink web of state corporations all of which do have names. This post adds recent information expanding the historical context from past to present which sheds light on the true function of the Seed Capital Tax Credit and its role as a device for implementing special interest politics. This post is technical but a perfect example of "the devil is in the details"
http://bit.ly/1CLqAwG

Preserving The American Political Philosophy: Bill Proposed to Include Town of Berwick, Maine in Pine Tree Zone Corporate Welfare Benefits

Representative Beth O'Connor is sponsoring a bill to include the town of Berwick, Maine as an area qualified to receive Maine's Pine Tree Zone Corporate Welfare benefits. When I joined the conversation and pointed out that there is something wrong with a picture where in there has to be special acts of legislation passed in order to include a specific town in Maine for a benefit which was originally created in 2003 for any area in the state of Maine that has high unemployment and low income. The Pine tree Zone statute was fundamentally transformed in 2009 amid minimal media coverage. The minimal media coverage reported that the Pine Tree Zone was being expanded to cover the entire state. If that was true why is Representative Beth O'Connor proposing a special act of legislation to include the town of Berwick in Pine Tree Zone benefits?
http://bit.ly/1D9mHoF