Deal's deal #4

Nathan Deal wants us to turn over the reins of state government to his stewardship, including the $17.9 billion dollar budget for fiscal year 2011.

And he is trying to shrug off the serious questions raised about his financial judgment and ethics raised both by his car salvage business and his personal loan guarantees to his daughter and son-in-law. His defense is to say that parents have a responsibility to help their children, and that's what he was doing; and now that their business has failed and they escaped into bankruptcy, he's going to be a good citizen and man up to the debt he guaranteed to the tune of $2.3 million that will come due in January 2011. Admirable, no? That's what he hopes voters will think.

The trouble is that the Deal family just keeps on forgetting to report certain things and wants us to overlook it as "inadvertant" and "unintended."

First, there was the matter of irregularities in his financial reporting as a congressman that was part of what got him into an ethics inquiry.

Then there was the fact that he had that $2.3 million debt that he did not reveal to the voters -- nor presumably to the party officials -- before they voted him in as the Republican nominee for governor.

Then there was the fact that the son-in-law's 2001 bankruptcy was not reported when he applied for a 2009 bankruptcy -- a clear violation, perhaps criminal, of the requirements to disclose.

And presumably he didn't disclose it when he applied for the bank loan in 2005 for the business. Or perhaps that's why the bank required Deal to co-sign the loans -- which would mean that Deal had to have known about the prior bankruptcy.

Which means that Deal's financial situation was even more precarious, as well as skidding into a gray area -- and he knew it -- when he put himself forth as the Republican nominee for governor.

And now -- if that's not enough to make him seem less than the upright fiscal conservative he claims to be -- comes the fact that he just happened to fail to disclose another debt in his campaign financial disclosure. His car salvage business also has outstanding loans of $2.85 million.

Now there are other matters that have Republican leaders worried, according to AJC political writer Jim Galloway. Although both Deal and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle have denied that Casey had any involvement in the loan deals, Cagle sits on the board of the bank that made some of the loans to the son-in-law. And note that Cagle was also the one in whose office Deal met with lawmakers to stop their effort to change the car salvage from a non-competitive monopoly for Deal's business to a contract bid process. And he was successful. I think Deal has previously referred to Casey as an old friend.

So there is good reason to think at the very least that the Deal family enjoyed special privileges and influence that got them loans that were not well secured. So what special privileges does he intend to call upon to help him repay a debt that he does not have assets to cover now?

All of this should raise serious questions in the mind of voters about both the financial wisdom and the ethics of Nathan Deal. More and more, I'm beginning to think it's not so much a matter of financial wisdom as it is playing the system of insider influence and special deals -- in other words: ethics, which got Deal in trouble in Washington even before he resigned to run for governor. He may be smart enough about money but was relying on his insider influence to get special deals that an ordinary citizen couldn't get. That's why he doesn't have to worry about the size of his debt.

To use a southern phrase that Nathan would understand: Methinks the Republicans bought a pig in a poke.

Let's hope the Democrats take full political advantage of these little inconveniences. When Deal talks about taking responsibility, ask him about the responsibility to tell the truth on loan applications and financial disclosure reports.

Ralph