Delta Doesn’t Need The Tax Break

Suddenly, Democrats are defending an obscene government tax subsidy for a corporation that doesn’t actually need the tax break, because a Republican wants to punish the firm for ideological noncompliance.

You’re getting played.

I’d like you all to consider the possibility that, in light of the major tax changes at the federal level this year, that state government might have been finally prepared to fight the fuel subsidy definitively — that the move was already in the bag, and that the NRA thing provided needed political cover. Delta is providing a political rationale for doing the right thing.

Consider also that Delta signed a 20-year operating agreement with the city of Atlanta in 2016, and isn’t going anywhere.

Before the Delta-NRA thing, Democrats wanted to kill the tax benefit on fuel sold at the airport. Those taxes benefit Clayton County and would have a significant impact on the county’s schools and policing. And Republican support for ending the fuel subsidy existed as well — it’s exactly the sort of crony capitalism the Tea Party wanted government to stop.

Delta has been making a play for the fuel subsidy because … well, why not? There’s no penalty for working the ref in 21st century America. Any corporation that can whisper the word “jobs” is going to ask for anything and everything it can. Delta had pre-tax income of $5.5 billion last year. A $50 million tax benefit is … nice. It’s nice. It’s a rounding error on $41.2 billion in revenue, but it’s nice. It is not, and never would have been, a deciding factor for Delta to bail on Atlanta.

Corporate subsidies are corrupting, and we’re seeing what that looks like right now.

The state has no duty to respect Delta with a corporate freebie. And it shouldn’t.

Delta, of course, has a perfect right — and I would argue a responsibility — to disassociate itself from support for gun violence, which is basically the NRA’s position right now. It’s not obligated to give the NRA a special break on flights.

Conservatives are caterwauling about it as though being a gun owner is some kind of equivalent to being born black, or gay, or female — a protected class due special treatment by society. Tim Echols decried Delta’s lack of commitment to “diversity.” as though ideological positions are something corporations — or anyone else! — must respect in a democracy. By doing so, though, it helps the NRA’s core membership feel like they can make a claim of oppression (!) and turn the arguments of people of color or women or the LGBT community on its head. It seems clever, until you realize it equates being disrespected as a gun owner with the far more damaging treatment of people due legitimate protection.

Cagle has made a habit of loud appeals to the base in his run for governor so far, starting early with specious attacks on Decatur for being a “sanctuary city.” It’s not, but that’s beside the point. Decatur is full of white yuppies who eat toast with avocado and commute to work on bikes and hate Confederate monuments; throwing sticks at them looks good to downstate conservatives. This is more of the same.