TPA’s 2021 Taxpayer Turkeys

The pumpkins have been put away, the Butterballs are selling fast, and the Philadelphia Eagles are in a futile hunt for a Wildcard spot in the NFL playoffs. Thanksgiving is almost here! But before digging in on the stuffing and cranberry sauce, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) would love to serve you a healthy helping of Taxpayer Turkeys. Given the soaring national debt and out-of-control regulations, there was no shortage of options this year (but a shortage of everything else). But we did manage to narrow it down to three:

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) and Tom Cotton (R–Ark.)

There’s nothing like a little good ol’ fashioned bipartisanship, especially when “working together” means advancing crony interests on both sides of the aisle. Sens. Klobuchar and Cotton have been busy sounding the alarm on the evils of Big Tech, despite social media and e-commerce platforms making our lives easier during the pandemic at ZERO cost. Corporate acquisitions such as Facebook’s purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram are suddenly flashpoints of controversy, despite these platforms’ improved function and features following acquisition. Klobuchar and Cotton are offering “solutions” to the non-existent problem of tech acquisitions in their recently-introduced Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, which would put the burden on companies (instead of the government) to show that their acquisitions aren’t anti-competitive. The burden should always be on the government.

While there are many good reasons for opposing this reckless policy, there’s a curious provision tucked away in the fine print. As Reason commentator Robby Soave points out, “the bill stipulates that it only covers firms that are over the $600 billion line ‘as of the date of enactment.’ In other words, if a company has a market cap under $600 billion on the day the bill becomes law, then that company is permanently exempt—even if it later crosses the threshold.” As a result, the bill would apply to Amazon and Facebook, but leave out Target and Walmart (two companies with rapidly growing e-commerce operations). Target and Walmart are located…you guessed it…in the states represented by Sens. Klobuchar and Cotton respectively. It looks like these politicians know where the gravy train leads.

Baltimore City’s State Attorney Marilyn Mosby

One would hope that a major city’s top prosecutor would help maintain the rule of law, not repeatedly undermine it on the taxpayer’s dime. Baltimore City’s State Attorney Marilyn Mosby has seen no shortage of controversy since assuming office in 2015. There was the $45,000 federal tax lien imposed by the Internal Revenue Service, which the prosecutor and her husband (City Council President Nick Mosby) denied existed.

Records appear to show that the Mosby’s finally paid off their lien this year, but the incident may be the tip of the iceberg given a wide-ranging federal investigation of the couple “including tax returns, bank statements, credit card statements, loan documents and canceled checks.” As if financial irregularities weren’t enough, the Criminal Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice is currently investigating the prosecutor for allegedly committing perjury on a signed document though the federal government has declined to go into further detail. The Mosby’s have set up a legal defense fund in response to proliferating investigations, despite the couple pulling in a combined $350,000 per year and selling their second home for a $150,000 profit.

Then there was the lavish travel spree that Mosby went on, paid for by the city’s struggling taxpayers.  While Mosby’s office claims that no taxpayer dollars were spent on these lavish trips, organizations that funded the trips (e.g. Vera Institute of Justice) in turn have received taxpayer dollars. Marilyn Mosby then criticized Isabel Cumming, the Baltimore City Inspector General, for reporting her excessive travel.

In combatting all these charges, Mosby could and should have committed to full transparency. Instead, she’s responded to (well-deserved) criticism by trying to get the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to silence the media outlets reporting on her.

To conclude….

Turkeys may be a brisk business this time of year, but let’s make sure that the Turkeys in government don’t sell out to special interests. TPA wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving and hopes that politicians will stop gobbling up taxpayer money.