Good info, but the article isn't referring to events that took place between 1872-2002. If you look at the details of the article these anomalies in pricing began in the 2007 timeframe, and the attached chart starts in 2005.
That timeframe coincides with a wave of privatization within the state, including the divestment of IT from state governance to an outsourcing deal and broad tax cuts that devastated local government and education.
I'm not engaging in knee-jerk partisanship. The playbook for modern republican governance calls for contracting services out, diminishing the role of civil servants, and making tax reduction a cornerstone policy position. When you replace civil servants with political appointees of any party, this sort of thing happens. It just so happens that republicans are the offenders in this story.
You are blaming red state governance for a program that dates back to at least 1966, 36 years before Georgia broke a 130 years streak of consecutive Democrat governors. The article doesn't say that the program has changed, but that poultry companies started supplying bad data. You are jumping to the conclusion that this was affected by outsourcing, tax cuts, or replacing civil servants with political appointees, none of which is stated in the article.
The article doesn't claim the problem went back to '66, but rather says it's a more recent problem in a previously successful program. Are you saying the problem goes back further than the article claims, or was this just a misunderstanding on your part?
That timeframe coincides with a wave of privatization within the state, including the divestment of IT from state governance to an outsourcing deal and broad tax cuts that devastated local government and education.
I'm not engaging in knee-jerk partisanship. The playbook for modern republican governance calls for contracting services out, diminishing the role of civil servants, and making tax reduction a cornerstone policy position. When you replace civil servants with political appointees of any party, this sort of thing happens. It just so happens that republicans are the offenders in this story.