Bryan Long, Salon (via Flagpole: Back in 2007, Georgia Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham noticed something funny in the state budget. What he discovered would bring to light a scandal then nearly 20 years old, yet which still hasn't ended. What caught Graham's attention was a scheme set up in 1990 that granted regional monopolies to a handful of businesses for performing mandatory title inspections on salvaged cars. Funny thing, not only did these shops have no competition, but they never bid for the contracts, and on top of that, the state was paying the inspectors to the tune of well over a million dollars a year. And lo and behold, the sweetest contract -- for the populous region, including Gainesville and Atlanta, where fees were higher than anywhere else -- had been handed to a company called Gainesville Salvage Disposal, co-owned by none other than [current Georgia Gov.] Nathan Deal, a state senator in 1990, and, by 2007, a U.S. representative in Washington.
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