Notorious Pro-Corporate Group ALEC's Hidden Role in Stoking Class War in Wisconsin & America

[marmar]

AlterNet / By David Rosen

Notorious Pro-Corporate Group ALEC's Hidden Role in Stoking Class War in Wisconsin and the Rest of America
The American Legislative Executive Council works behind the scenes, using state-legislative stooges to implement the agenda of giant corporations and the super-rich.


February 22, 2011 | The current anti-union campaign being implemented in Wisconsin and other states has the fingerprints of the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) all over it.

AlterNet writer Joshua Holland recently identified ALEC as one of the behind-the-scenes players in the Wisconsin showdown. It's important to shine a bright light on ALEC to reveal how one aspect of the class war gripping America today is being fought out.

ALEC has unprecedented influence in Washington and state capitols throughout the country. According to Jonathan Williams, ALEC's fiscal policy director, "Wisconsin has become ground zero." He adds, "What happens could serve as a domino, win or lose, in either direction."

Williams, like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, hides his union-bashing politics behind the threat of fiscal crisis. In an interview of PBS's New Hour, he elaborated: "Wisconsin is a state in serious fiscal problems right now. So, the question is, is, you know, the budgeting as usual isn't working here, and, so, what are the major reforms that we can accomplish to solve this budget shortfall without going back to the taxpayers and asking for more?" ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/150001/notorious_pro-corporate_group_alec%27s_hidden_role_in_stoking_class_war_in_wisconsin_and_the_rest_of_america/

[Fuddnik]

1. ALEC is where the money and the traitors meet.

Rpublican state legislators and corporations.

It's where the REAL mischief is done.

[Uncle Joe]

2. This is what ALEC is about.

Fortune reported that during the 2009 legislative session, ALEC developed 826 state bills and 115 of them were made into law. (In 2010, the GOP picked up more than 700 seats in state legislatures and now controls 25 state legislatures, up from 14.) According to Edwin Bender, executive director, National Institute on Money in State Politics, "Corporations can implement their agendas very effectively using ALEC."

Its principal funding comes from large corporate backers and right-wing foundations. About 300 corporate sponsors pay membership fees ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. Its backers include American Express, Coors, Wal-Mart, Texaco, GlaxoSmithKline, Philip Morris, Corrections Corporation of America and Koch Industries as well as the National Rifle Association. Among its telecommunications backers are AT&T, Sprint and Verizon as well as the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA).

ALEC actively supports repealing the minimum wage, privatizing Social Security and replacing guaranteed health benefits with medical savings accounts. It gives large donations and other perks to legislators, most often reactionary Republicans, in states across the country to carryout corporate initiatives. A couple of these efforts are illustrative.

It took a strong hand in shaping the opposition of conservative state politicians to national health-care reform. Under the federal program, Medicaid will expand and states will be expected to play a major role in implementing the health care law and to create exchanges for individuals to compare and purchase coverage. ALEC played a key role developing the campaign pushed by Republican attorney generals, led by Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli, against "Obamacare."

It doesn't surprise me that a private for profit prison corporation; would be a party to this, anything to financially weaken the American People; making them more susceptible to bending or breaking the law out of desperation which in turn would add to the crime rate increasing the right wing demand for more draconian laws and thus creating more prisoners for that malignant institution's non-ending appetite.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[AllyCat]

3. Bookmarking for later