Columnist: People Thought: They Were Voting for John Wayne, instead got Sheriff of Nottingham

[JPZenger]

Excellent column from the Scranton times-Tribune. Worth a read.



http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/but-while-pennsylvanians-voted-for-john-wayne-they-may-be-stuck-with-sheriff-of-nottingham-1.1118041#axzz1I2tFgOEO

[Divernan]

1. Excellent article. Please rec this to get it on the Greatest Page.

The rest of DU & the country needs to follow how Pennsylvania is getting raped by Corbett. He is certainly being watched by other GOP governors to see what they can get by with. He is ALEC's poster boy.

If by some miracle Corbett should ever be charged with malfeasance/corruption/whatever, he could probably get off on the insanity defense, because his behavior is so egregiously over the top one really questions his sanity.

[Divernan]

2. Corbett: A cynical fearmonger or a dangerous fool? I say, both!

"Let's make Pennsylvania the Texas of the natural gas boom," Sheriff Corbett said. The line drew hearty applause, but its irony was apparently lost on the speaker and his audience. Texas has a severance tax. So do at least 30 other gas-producing states. Texas rakes in nearly $2.8 billion in severance taxes annually, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. Some of that money comes from oil and asphalt production, but nobody drills for free in the Lone Star State.

"I have no quarrel with landowners cashing in on their mineral rights. If I had gas under my house, I'd probably sign a drilling lease for the living room. Property rights are a central strand of the American DNA. That said, the gas companies aren't drilling in a vacuum, they are drilling in Pennsylvania. The impact of that drilling will stretch far beyond the property lines of leaseholders.

"Moreover, the shale gas is a resource of the people, not unlike state parks, the whitetail deer herd or the rivers that flow through the state. Alaska imposes six separate taxes on seafood harvested in its waters. Its fish are considered a natural resource for which Alaskans deserve compensation.

"Reasonable people can disagree with such levies, but it cannot be argued that Sheriff Corbett's repeated and ridiculous warnings about "scaring off the drillers" doesn't pose a troubling conundrum for all Pennsylvanians. Either his warnings are a political scare tactic or he actually believes the drillers might walk away from the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. If the former is true, Sheriff Corbett is a cynical fearmonger who should not be trusted to run a lemonade stand. If the latter is true, he is a dangerous fool who has at least four years to do untold damage to Pennsylvania and its people.

[livetohike]

5. My vote is that he is a "dangerous fool"

and we are well on our way to having untold damage :-(.

[PA Democrat]

3. Recommended, and mailed out far and wide.

I am bookmarking this for future reference on the severance taxes being collected by other states.

[old mark]

4. K&R...People thought they were getting the MOVIE John Wayne, not the real life person,

who was more like Tom Corbett than Rooster Cogburn...


mark