Here's a great story, one of hundreds and hundreds, that boils down the Republican efforts to govern the states over the last few years to its essence. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley recently signed a bill barring the cities in his state from raising their minimum wage. They're not allowed to do it now, don't care the reason, because Robert Bentley doesn't believe in that sort of thing. Bentley led the state in a spending purge that, like the similar efforts in other states with Republican governors, slashed uncouth things the common rabble might use under the omnipresent GOP motto: We Just Can't Afford Nice Things Anymore.
You know what's next for the people in Robert Bentley's office, right? Raises all around!
Now, news has emerged that Bentley recently gave four of his cabinet members $73,405 raises — an 80 percent increase from the $91,000 salaries they were making previously. [...]
The raises reportedly went into effect late last year, though news of them just broke this week. While the $73,405 salary increases were the largest, more than a dozen members of Bentley’s cabinet and a number of his staff members reportedly received raises as well.
An eighty percent raise for the people helping him gut state services? Ka-ching. If that isn't 2016-era Republicanism in a nutshell I don't know what would be.
Not to say this episode isn't in the running:
This isn’t the first time in recent months that Bentley’s budgetary choices have come under fire. In December, he diverted funding from the 2010 BP oil spill recovery effort to finance the renovation of a second Governor’s mansion on the Gulf Coast.
Between Jindal's very effective crippling of Louisiana finances, Rick Scott's vow to not notice climate change as people paddle through Miami streets, and Bentley's Damn Obvious Crookedness, our American Gulf Coast is getting very third-worldy from a governance standpoint. If any of these guys start showing up for work in frilly new military uniforms, it might be time for a Jade Helm-style intervention.