Cobb SPLOST: Thou That Speaketh With Forked Tongue Should Be Tazed, Bro’
by politicalvine
Rumors have it that the organization formed to promote the upcoming Cobb County SPLOST vote on March 15th is going to engage in communicating messages that are deliberately misleading as to the truth about what this SPLOST contains.
For those of you sitting at home in your comfy chair in any other county, you can interpret “deliberately misleading” to be the same as “lying, conning, flim-flamming, grifting” or any other number of terms you wish to come-up with to describe the mule manure that the group Citizens for Cobb’s Future is going to be directly sending out to the Cobb County voters to try and con them into voting for this SPLOST.
PV Provides The Facts: During last night’s debate forum at the Commission’s headquarters, an auto-call poll was dialing numbers of Cobb County voting households. The homes in which the poll was delivered received a few questions, all of which contained the word “SPLOST” and the phrase “911 Services.”
The questions in the poll were a fishing expedition to try and see if they could get a reasonably positive response from voters on how they would feel if the message for voting in favor of the SPLOST was phrased as something of the order of “If you knew that the SPLOST contained crucial funds to support Cobb’s 911 emergency system, would you vote for or against the SPLOST?”
Here’s where the deception comes in: In this SPLOST, the county is hoping for a total of $492 million in tax collections over 4 years. (You can view a shrunk-down version of the SPLOST package proposed by going to this Website and choosing the “4-Year SPLOST Booklet” PDF version (2nd one down)
And, of that $492 million total, what is the amount designated to be used for 911 system upgrades? On page 38 of 64 of that Booklet PDF, it states $1.3 million…a teeny-tiny percentage of 0.26% of the total.
So, by phrasing their messages in the way they will, they are hoping voters will interpret the messages to mean: “911. Emergency services. Very important. We must support 911 and provide funds for it at any cost. I love my county. They are great. I will support them and pay because I am a gullible moron.”
If the only way the county of Cobb can find $1.3 million over 4 years to upgrade the parts of the 911 service that will need to be upgraded is to fabricate a SPLOST stuffed full of projects valued at $490.7 million of other crap, then we must have the most incompetent county government ANYWHERE in metro-Atlanta!
And, when we say “ANYWHERE” in metro-Atlanta, that means Cobb County must be more incompetent than DeKalb County. Cobb County’s incompetence will brighten DeKalb County to the point that they might want to get a plaque carved for them that states “We’re Not The Suckiest County Anymore!” and hang that on their Commission wall to boost county morale.
And, yes, to the organization called Citizen’s For Cobb’s Future, with their lengthy list of people who are members and supporters of it…if your organization sends out any mail, any TV, any auto-calls, anything at all as misleading and as deceptive as stating/implying/inferring, etc. that IF this SPLOST does not pass, all of our lives will be in danger because the county cannot find $1.3 million to use to upgrade the parts of the 911 system that need to be upgraded, then every single one of you on that list will have your personal integrity and name questioned.
It’d be one thing, you see, if you didn’t know this deception was going to be attempted. Then you could reasonably and reliably claim that you didn’t know, and you’re sorry and blah-blah-blah…
Well, PV is giving you a heads-up right now. This, or something like this, is what your organization is going to engage in to attempt to con Cobb voters into voting for the SPLOST.
Most of you individual members are mere political pawns in this organization. The ones in true control (i.e., the public affairs firm and political consultants involved) don’t…actually…care…about the real truth. They are out to win at all costs and they will try to convince you that this is “acceptable” in the world of political communications.
“Sure, it is acceptable”, they will argue. “There’s no law against it. If it was really bad, why, someone would have surely written a law and passed it prohibiting it, right?”
No, not right. Deception and misleading is wrong, regardless of whether there is a law written to prohibit it or not.
And, one final thought: If deception is what is required to drive someone to make a decision to have their money taken from them and turned over to what must be the most incompetently-run county in metro-Atlanta, then you folks on that committee whom we know to be Republicans should not EVER criticize Obama or ANY other Democrat for being a “Socialist” again. You will have ZERO moral standing to do so.
