MUST READ - Krugman (NYTimes) On ALEC

A snip:

Op-Ed Columnist

Lobbyists, Guns and Money

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 25, 2012

Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy — and it is. And it’s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations.

Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence  ... 

What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC’s claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism.

>>>>READ IT HERE<<<<


UPDATE:  Monday, 3/26

Found this comment regarding Krugman’s column and I just love the way it is framed – so I had to share.

This is the whole blurb – but you can find it here.

Krugman Nails It! Problem Is Crony Capitalism, Not Free Market Fundamentalism  

Monday, 26 March 2012 06:45 

Get out a second Nobel for Paul Krugman. His column today is exactly on the mark in its framing of the right-wing legislative agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This is not a group that is committed to the free market.

In area of after area, private prisons, private charter schools, private roads, ALEC is about allowing their members to feed off the public trough with sweetheart contracts. Calling these people "free market fundamentalists" is doing them a great favor. It implies that they are acting on a commitment to libertarian principles, as opposed to the reality where they are acting out of a commitment to stuffing their pockets.