#ncsen: Hagan, Tillis and Obama’s stimulus
The 2009 so-called “stimulus” passed by the Congress was one of the biggest budget-busting, deficit-growing, big-government, cronyism-enabling scams to ever come out of our capital city. It appears that BOTH major party candidates in North Carolina’s US Senate race — and some close to them — benefited from that federal spending orgy:
When Kay Hagan voted for President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package, the Democratic senator hailed it as “the best way forward for working families across North Carolina.”
One of the families that later benefited is her own.
JDC Manufacturing, a company co-owned by the Democratic senator’s husband, Chip, received nearly $390,000 in federal grants for energy projects and tax credits created by the 2009 stimulus law, according to public records and information provided by the company.
[…]
Financial disclosure statements show that the Hagans’ income from JDC Manufacturing increased from less than $201 in 2008 to nearly $134,000 in 2013. Company representatives said higher rental income account for the uptick, not the stimulus-funded projects that were completed during that span.
In statement to POLITICO, the Hagan campaign said the senator did not help her husband win the federal funding and disputed any suggestion they have profited off the law. […]
This is the latest example of someone in the Hagan family scoring big at 
the expense of the taxpayers. We heard about brother-in-law David Hagan’s big payout in the Performing Arts Center deal in Greensboro. We also heard about senatorial hubby Chip Hagan’s big payday in a lawsuit settlement against a Piedmont-based regional water authority. (The judge that heard the case got promised a federal judgeship by Senator Hagan — only to be dropped like a hot potato when the media connected the dots.)
You would think this was a fatal PR blow to the Greensboro Democrat’s reelection bid. But Politico wasn’t finished:
[…] Hagan’s GOP opponent, statehouse Speaker Thom Tillis, voted in 2010 to allow the state to participate in the federal renewable energy tax credit program, which benefited a bank in which he owns at least $50,000 in stock.
Hagan and Tillis denied acting improperly. […]
Tillis benefited from the stimulus bill in a more indirect manner. He owns $50,000 to $100,000 in “founders investment private stock” in Aquesta Bank in Cornelius, N.C., according to his financial disclosure form. Tillis also has two loans from Aquesta worth between $30,000 to $100,000.
Aquesta specializes in projects that receive government tax credits, according to company officials, including some credits created by the stimulus package.
For instance, in 2011 Aquesta financed a solar farm built by a company, 02 Energies. Aquesta loaned O2 Energies $3 million for the project. The project also received $1.375 million in federal renewable energy tax credits under the stimulus program. A Tillis spokesman said that the GOP candidate has no control over Aquesta’s day-to-day operations or what projects it invests in.
In addition, Tillis voted to support North Carolina’s use of renewable energy tax credits from the federal stimulus bill.
Tillis states on his campaign website that he strongly opposes government intervention in the marketplace, decrying “big government handouts and bailouts.
However, a Tillis campaign official said that the GOP challenger’s opposition to government involvement in the private sector is not total. Spokesman Daniel Keylin noted that Tillis supports incentives for the film industry in North Carolina, as well as other business incentives.
“Thom Tillis believes that tax incentives and tax credits should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis based on their potential impact on taxpayers and their potential for job creation,” Keylin said. “His position is not blanket opposition or support for these types of programs, but rather a case-by-case evaluation process.”
Politico’s article forgot to mention the 2007 vote by rookie House member Thom Tillis to create alternative energy mandates or his 2013 efforts as speaker to kill legislation repealing those mandates.
*What a choice we have in November. *
Tillis is so out of touch with universe. Everything he does alienates nearly every grassroots republican in the state and demonstrates his utter detachment from any semblance of reality beyond the boundaries of the great and vast metropolis of Cornelius, Good grief, who in their right mind would have Jeb Bush support them?? Who in their right mind would let the chamber of commerce support them, after it clearly led to the demise of eric cantor?? I can only presume that mr Tillis never had any intention of winning the senate seat, and is only using this election to improve his personal business contacts and prepare to prostrate himself and curry further favors for the repub establishment prez candidates in 2016.
Write in John Rhodes.
We have a Big Government Democrat running against a Big Government ”Republican”. There is no evidence that there is even a dimes worth of difference. How did Republicans allow this loser dud Tillis to be imposed on us? We allowed out of state party bosses like Karl Rove and the NRSC to meddle in our primaries. We need state party leaders who will tell them to stay the hell out of our primaries and to very loudly denounce them if they do not take the hint.
Who got Harris to run in the primaries and what about that phony cell phone app lawsuit against Brannon? Cronyism is everywhere!
Rove put an end to Brannon’s candidacy and therefore reelected Kay Hagan. Kay got more help from the North Carolina Republican Party than she did the North Carolina Democratic Party. Chairman Voller will get the credit for reelecting Kay Hagan. Now that is a hoot!
Yeah we have a choice all right and that choice is John Rhodes
Brannon should have testified in his lawsuit. He was running for office and on that alone he should not have allowed the optics of having an attorney telling him not to tell his side of the story. Then upon losing, he should have withdrawn and thrown full support behind Harris. He didn’t. Tillis didn’t do it to us – we did it to ourselves.
I’m very unhappy with Tillis, but I just cut him a check. If I can avoid the continuing, stupefying, embarrassing experience of Kay Hagan in politics, 6 years of Tillis is a small price to pay. Then we will have the opportunity to become the first state ever to primary out 2 successive senators (speaking of Richard Burr). Now that would be history worth making.
Hagan has made no big mistakes. Obamacare is touted in the media as being one huge success. Her stance on abortion and gun control is never mentioned. The GOP has conceded the same sex marriage issue. The Christian right is just as satisfied with Hagan as Tillis. Obama is going to declare amnesty so that is off the table. Obama is bombing Syria and Iraq so he has preempted the hawks. Locally the Republican legislature has fumbled the ball terribly. In short the voters are more disgusted with the Republicans than the Democrats.
The voters are saying, “What is the difference between the two? Nothing. So let’s stick with experience and tenure.”
The autocratic demagogue in the White House does not have the power to declare amnesty by degree. It is a very potent issue where you have a candidate with the ability and desire to use it, but with Tillis telling the NC Farm Bureau that he supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens, we very unfortunately do not.
Obamacare is also a very potent issue for a candidate with the ability and desire to use it. In spite of that partisan propaganda from the biased media, the polls show that the American people do not consider Obamacare a success for them. Unfortunately we have a nominee who has called Obamacare ” a great idea” and pushed legislation through the NC House to set up a state Obamacare exchange in NC. Hagan fired a shot across Tillis’ bow early on that one and seems to have neutered his campaign on that issue.
It is hard for Tillis to use gun control when he told the primary debate that he was for ”practical gun control” and has gotten a D- from the National Association for Gun Rights on 2nd amendment issues.
Likewise Tillis cannot use homosexual marriage when he had one of the big money men financing the liberal side of that issue hold a big fundraiser for him in New York City.
Tillis is horribly positioned on these and other issues and that is why he was a loser as a candidate from the very beginning.
The Republican legislature has not fumbled the ball overall, although they have on a few issues like surrendering state sovereignty over coastal waters. The problem is that the far left has done an effective smear campaign against them with ”Blueprint” which the liberal media picked up and spread, serving as transmitters of political propaganda, and the NCGOP was absolutely incompetent under Robin Hayes in doing an effective pushback when it could have been nipped in the bud. The deranged demagogue Barber has been one of the chief propagandists of Blueprint.
An incumbent stuck down in the 40s in the polls at this point in the campaign is a weak and vulnerable incumbent. We just do not have the horsepower in the GOP candidate to take advantage of that, thanks to the meddling in our primary from Karl Rove and other out of staters to give us such a lousy nominee.
And that’s the problem that her out of touch votes on Abortion and The Second Amendment are never mentioned, vanilla Republicans are really getting sickening..
And the consultant class that ran Dole’s campaign, Romney’s campaign that connect Raleigh to D.C. need to go away!
Neither of these weasels deserves to represent NC, so I’ll be writing in John Rhodes’ name as a protest vote. It’s my way of sending a flashing neon “FU” to the RINOs and Tokyo Rove that even they can’t miss.
If Tillis wants to win, then he should start holding HIS nose, and supporting Conservatives. And, he’d better get with it.
Hagan has made this race 100% about the record of the Thom Tillis General Assembly. And all the public knows about the record of this General Assembly they have learned from Rev. Barber and his Moral Monday troupe.
I do not know what Karl Rove was thinking. Did he think that the Democrats were going to roll over and concede to whomever he put up as a candidate?
I think the National Republican Senate Committee will drop Tillis and North Carolina and move on to other states where the Republicans still have a chance.
And after this performance the Republicans will rule NC until we get non-partisan redistricting. Then the only Republican office holders will be those ones the children see in the Museum of Natural History. Look children, “Many years ago we had things called Republicans. But they vanished just like the hula-hoop and Karl Rove.”
Tillis’ handlers like Shumaker have incompetently allowed Hagan to set the agenda of the campaign and they did that themselves by talking about fluff instead of issues. Hagan is only surviving because her opponent has poor issue positioning combined with a brain trust of morons.
The NCGOP also is at fault for not doing early and strong pushback against Blueprint and thus allowing its propagandists like Barber and the liberal media to run rampant with their distortions and smears.
Rove should have known that Blueprint was too far advanced and unchecked to run anyone from the legislature for US Senate thisyear. It was political malpractice of the grossest sort that he dumped in millions to buy the Senate nomination for Tillis. Rove should be tarred and feathered and run out of the state on a rail if he ever shows up within our borders again.
Yep. Now that we have Thom Tillis, where is Karl Rove? Nowhere to be seen with his millions attacking conservatives like Greg Brannon!! Can’t he show up to attack an actual Ultra-Liberal Mrs. Hagan??? I guess he doesn’t attack liberals.
And like the pawns they are, many Republicans will go vote for Tillis in November.
Last night the Craven County GOP vice chair said there would be less than 1,000 write in votes. I think he underestimates the anger many have with the establishment GOP for forcing such a flawed candidate down our throat.
As I recall Gov. Perdue used $65 million of NC’s stimulus funding to connect Hwy 70 to the Harvey Parkway over at the Global Transpark.
Once complete it is estimated that 8 cars per day will take the exit to the Global Transpark. Of the 8 5 will be lost. The other 3 are driving along looking for aluminum cans.
Do you reckon there was some other road in North Carolina that might have needed $65 mil spent on it?
If TT does not use this in an ad starting yesterday, the whole campaign staff should be s***-canned. This is the most inept statewide campaign team in NC since Dole’s Senate reelection bid in 2008 when she lost to…wait for it…wait for it…Hagan, a no-name state senator whom nobody outside of Greensboro ever heard of. Heck, most of North Carolina has no idea who Hagan is NOW even after nearly 6 years in office. Good grief. Hang this and Obamacare around her neck from now ’til Nov. 4th, folks. I did NOT vote for TT in the primary but I’ll be doggoned if Dirty Harry is going to get a vote from NC for majority leader.
And, no, I’m not writing in anyone. No write-in candidate has won a US Senate race in the South since Strom Thurmond in 1954. And he wasn’t a no-name, having served as governor of SC from 1946-50 and having run for president in 1948.
Agree with you, I’m voting for Tillis because of Judges, and to stick it to Obama for 2 years, however Mr. Speaker has run a piss-poor campaign so far, along with the other policy issues that other people have noted so far.
I have given Tillis the chance to earn my vote, and he has not done a darn thing to do so. His campaign has done everything it can to show it does not want my vote. I suspect that he will do nothing to change that in the weeks that are left.
As to Majority Leader, that would be a bigger issue if the alternative were someone other than ”The Turtle”, Mitch ”Kentucky Kickback” McConnell, who is nothing but a RINO version of Harry Reid. If you see them side by side, they even physically resemble each other. McConnell has shown this primary season that he despises conservatives just as much as Reid does.
As to DC legislative positions, the one that might make conservatives think about holding their nose for bad RINO nominees is the possibility of staunch conservative Jeff Sessions becoming chairman of the committee that deals with immigration. If that were made more definite, then McConnell might shake loose more conservative votes to hold their nose for his RINO’s. But McConnell, like Boehner, is a closet amnesty supporter, so that is not likely to happen.