ALEC Legislators - Use Myopic, Ill-informed ALEC Tax Policies

YOUR State ALEC legilsators is an ALEC sheeple - just doing whatever ALEC tells them to do when it comes to economic policy

YOUR state legislators are at the the ALEC meeting in OKC - supposedly working on economic legislation - legislation that is detrimental to your state and your personal economic well-being.

Take this example this morning from NonProfit Quarterly:

For example, News & Observer columnist Rob Christensen reports that Governor McCrory has proposed to slash the budget of the Rural Economic Development Center from $18 million to $6.6 million, the Biotechnology Center from $17.2 million to $7.2 million, and the Biofuels Center from $4.3 million to $3.3 million. Christensen is careful not to charge McCrory with an anti-rural bias, but says that these and other proposals of the former Charlotte mayor “are likely to harm rural areas.”

McCrory might be gutting various programs, but that doesn’t mean that businesses are losing their tax loopholes. Dan Kane writes that North Carolina has been exceptionally generous with tax incentives for businesses recently, though he emphasizes that the corporate tax breaks were generated by Republicans and Democrats alike. The latest proposal is an offer to MetLife of a $94 million subsidy if it relocates some of its operations to North Carolina. That’s roughly $35,000 a job

This type of STINKING TAX THINKING is based on the erroneous and damaging economic policies promoted to legislators of the American Legislative Exchange Council, by pro-corporate right-wing, extremist stink tanks - that belong to ALEC.  Where does YOUR legislator get this flawed information / legislation?  At an ALEC meeting - like the one being held in OKC right now!

ALEC tax policies, provide a recipe

wage suppression, 

and stagnant incomes,

and 

for depriving state and local governments

of the revenue needed to maintain

the public infrastructure and education systems

They’re all basically tax-cutting, government-shrinking organizations. That’s their goal,” he said. “Their goal is to change state policy, so they have to invent a state business climate in order to do that.”

Like the so-called "austerity" statistics that have now been proven as flawed and damaging to our country, ALEC is also pushing flawed tax statistics which have been refuted multiple times as incorrect, manipulate data - and yet ALEC legislators continue to use them for flawed pro-corporate tax cuts.

YOUR ALEC state legislator refuses to listen to the truth - he chooses to believe the pro-corporate LIES he/she hears at ALEC meetings - with total disregard for the well-being of you state.

YOUR ALEC legislators is ill-informed and is choosing to remain ignorant.  They listen to ALEC sponsored speakers - read ALEC sponsored literature and do not look beyond that for their economic policies - AND ALEC economic policies are FLAWED.

ALEC legislators MUST NOT BE re-elected.

Selling Snake Oil to the States:

The American Legislative Exchange Council’s  Flawed Prescriptions for Prosperity

We conclude that the evidence cited to

support Rich States, Poor States’ policy

menu ranges from deeply flawed to nonexistent.

Subjected to scrutiny, these policies

are revealed to explain nothing about

why some states have created more jobs

or enjoyed higher income growth than

others over the past five years.

In actuality, Rich States, Poor States provides

a recipe for economic inequality,

wage suppression, and stagnant incomes,

and for depriving state and local governments

of the revenue needed to maintain

the public infrastructure and education

systems that are the true foundations of

long term economic growth and shared

prosperity.

Grading Places:

What Do the Business Climate Rankings Really Tell Us?

by Peter Fisher, with a Preface by Greg LeRoy

May 2013

Prominent studies that purport to measure and rank the states’ “business climates” are actually politicized grab-bags of data. They contradict each other wildly, have no predictive value, and should not be used to inform public policies. This is only the third such analysis of pseudo-social science “business climatology” in 27 years.

"Business Climate" Rankings Bogus Says New Report

by Nick Surgey — May 2, 2013 - 8:46am

Six influential state tax studies by anti-tax organizations including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), are “deeply flawed,” include “highly inconsistent findings” and constitute “ideologically charged pseudo-social science published to further the interests of corporations and rich people,” according to a major new report released by Good Jobs First, titled "Grading Places: What Do the Business Climate Rankings Really Tell Us?"

SNIP

According to Good Jobs First, the studies “are not about jobs and income, but rather about ideology." The success criteria selected by the authors of the studies, match the organization’s policy objectives.

The ALEC report, called “Rich States, Poor States,” embodies “the policy agenda that ALEC pushes to state legislators: reduction or abolition of progressive taxes, fewer investments in education and other public services, a smaller social safety net, and weaker or non-existent unions.”