Georgia ranks 50th in unemployment; but Strickland's donors are doing great!

Georgia ranks 50th in unemployment at the moment.  Our state economy is headed in the wrong direction but Brian Strickland is gushing about being "number 1 in job creation".  But there is a secret Brain Strickland is hiding behind with that statistic.  His political donors may be doing great but there is a dirty little secret that Strickland doesn't want to tell...

The problem is those number 1 rankings came with a "Pay-to-Play" price tag:

  CNBC named Georgia the “No. 1 state for business.”

The top guy at the state Department of Economic Development was so excited to finally win an economic honor fair-and-square, he told the newspaper, “And we didn’t buy this one, either.” 

Not so fast.There’s an even bigger problem with CNBC’s ranking than with Site Selection’s pay-for-play honor that cost taxpayers $134,000.
It turns out that CNBC relied on Gov. Deal’s donors and political allies for its data. 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published these political connections this morning but Nathan Deal doesn't want to talk about it -- at all.
"Initial indications this morning are that the Deal campaign is too angry to offer any coherent comment ," 

It turns out that CNBC used data from two politically aligned sources to create the rankings: the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness. 

And both of these groups have direct ties to Nathan Deal.

The chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers is also the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., a corporation that received a $44 million tax break from Gov. Deal’s administration to open a new factory in Georgia.
And the chairman of the Council on Competitiveness is the CEO of John Deere, whose PAC has donated $10,100 to Nathan Deal’s campaign and at least $140,650 to Georgia Republicans since 2011.
So, both of these groups had a vested interest in seeing Gov. Deal and Georgia do well in the rankings. 

Thanks to this politically polluted data, Georgia’s ranking for transportation infrastructure soared from No. 18 last year to No. 1 this year with no significant improvements. 

But Gov. Deal has an even bigger problem than his desperate attempt to find someone -- anyone -- to say that Georgia is a great place for corporations to do business. 

Gov. Deal’s bigger problem is that he’s focused on the wrong ranking.
Even CNBC admits that Georgia is near the bottom of its rankings for education and quality of life. 

Gov. Deal cares more about giving his donors and corporations multi-million dollar tax breaks than he does about fixing our schools, our hospitals and our communities. 

And then there’s Gov. Deal’s biggest problem of all. 

Whether he’s talking about his many ethics scandals or talking about Georgia’s economy, Gov. Deal just can’t tell the truth.

The real question is why is Brian Strickland always photobombing Nathan Deal no matter how large a crowd?

What is Brian hiding?  What is he running from?  What's the dirty little secret he's keeping from us?  Has Nathan Deal's corruption bought our State Representative?  What is Brian getting on the back end for all the smiles and cheerleading?  Why can't he tell the truth about the challenges we face?