After John Kline endorsed Darlene Miller to replace him in Congress, I did some checking into who she was and what she stood for. One of the first things that I found was this memo from the “President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness,” which is chaired by Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE.
Another thing I found was this article, which talks about Miller being invited to be “one of 23 guests sitting in First Lady Michelle Obama’s box for President Barack Obama’s jobs speech to Congress tonight.” The speech happened in September, 2011. I mention this because somehow, that experience isn’t listed on Ms. Miller’s ‘Meet Darlene’ page.
Among the things that are included in Ms. Miller’s Meet Darlene page is her “2016 Induction into the Minnesota Women Business Owner Hall of Fame,” her serving “as the first female President of Precision Machined Products Association (PMPA)” in 2014 and her being named as the “2010 Burnsville Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year.”
Further, the DCCC put together this 203-page research report on Miller. Here’s something worth noting:
Miller: “I Have Never Received Any Money From The Federal Government In A Form Of A Check.”
Then she tried explaining:
MODERATOR: Darlene, it has been reported that your company PERMAC, has previously taken some of the federal stimulus money, please explain.
MILLER: Well I wish I could take about a half hour and explain some accounting practices. I have never received any money from the federal government in a form of a check. This is strictly a tax … I won’t even call it an incentive, it’s just a tax, uh, the way we actually depreciate our equipment, instead of the government deciding that we can depreciate it over five years so they can get their money sooner, we’re allowed to depreciate it as we purchase it, so when I pay for it, I can depreciate it in that same year. And you know when you do that, and you buy equipment, you hire more people, and you create jobs, so that is what I have done and the Democrats are just strictly afraid of telling the whole truth because they don’t understand business.
I don’t have problem with Ms. Miller’s company using the deduction. It’s her fiduciary responsibility as CEO to PERMAC to increase profits. The problem I have is with the coy way that she tried explaining away the tax cut, saying “I have never received any money from the federal government in a form of a check.”
Any lawyer worth their salt that heard that would ask if she got a tax break by reducing the amount of taxes owed rather than in the form of a check. It’s foolish to think that the DCCC won’t go after her hard on this issue.
With all these ‘bipartisan moments, it’s fair to ask whether Darlene Miller is a conservative or just another cookie-cutter Republican that sounds conservative campaigning, then governs like a moderate.
Technorati: Darlene Miller, John Kline, President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Michelle Obama, Jeffrey Immelt, Laura D’Andrea Tyson, Richard Trumka, Republicans, Jason Lewis, Movement Conservative, Election 2016
