Robert Bentley says he chose to walk away from office, still sees Rebekah Mason ‘occasionally’
Former Gov. Robert Bentley emerged from the shadows this week, telling the Decatur Daily he decided to leave office rather than risk facing felony charges and losing his medical license. “I was told that I was going to be charged, even though the grand jury had not met, that I was going to be charged with a felony for (two ethics violations related to his campaign finance account). If you have a felony, you lose your medical license, and I was not going to lose my medical license,” Bentley, who now owns a dermatology clinic in Tuscaloosa, told the Decatur Daily. “So, I agreed to (two misdemeanors) and walked away.” In April, Bentley was booked on two misdemeanor charges — one for failing to file a major contribution report and another for knowingly using campaign contributions for personal use — in the midst of a corruption and willful neglect of duty investigation against him, a month after he acknowledged making inappropriate remarks to a female political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. Upon pleading guilty, he resigned from the Governor’s office. When asked about Mason, Bentley said told the Decatur Daily, “I still see her occasionally.” Read Bentley’s full interview here.
Lawmakers announce flat income tax proposal
With the frustration of doing taxes still fresh on the minds of the American people, two Alabama state lawmakers have unveiled a plan that would restructure Alabama’s individual and corporate income tax to permanently change the way taxes are done in the state. Republicans Sen. Bill Hightower of Mobile and Rep. Lynn Greer of Rogersville announced a “radical new approach” to simplify the state’s income tax structure at press conference Tuesday afternoon, according to AL.com. The senator’s plan will serve to remedy what the Times Daily describes as an “unbalanced tax code has posed revenue problems [in Alabama] for decades,” by implementing a flat tax. Defined as “one tax rate that is applied to all income with no exceptions” by the Alabama Policy Institute, a flat tax essentially means that everyone in the state of Alabama would pay the same share of their income, no matter how much or how little they make. Further, a flat tax would not tax savings and investment, promoting job creation and capital formation, in order to help bolster Alabama’s economy. “Every year, [the] state government gives away over $2 billion in incentives, credits, and exemptions,” Hightower said. His plan would solve that problem by reducing the individual income tax rate from 5 percent to 2.75 percent; the corporate rate would drop from 6.5 percent to 4.59 percent, according to details obtained by the Decatur Daily. Designed to be revenue neutral, no official legislation has been filed or made public, should the Alabama Legislature pass the plan, it would still require a constitutional amendment and the endorsement of Alabama voters through a statewide vote before becoming permanent law. That could only happen in a special election, next year’s presidential primary or the general election.
