Duncan (ALEC-ALUM) - Legislating "The Market"

Snips from HuffPo this morning -

GOP Census Bill Would Eliminate America's Economic Indicators

Posted: 05/01/2013 7:31 am EDT  |  Updated: 05/01/2013 9:06 am EDT

Rep. Jeff Duncan has introduced a bill to stop nearly all U.S. Census surveys. ,

WASHINGTON --

The bill, introduced last week by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), would bar the U.S. Census Bureau from conducting nearly all surveys except for a decennial population count. Such a step that would end the government's ability to provide reliable estimates of the employment rate. Indeed, the government would not be able to produce any of the major economic indices that move markets every month, said multiple statistics experts, who were aghast at the proposal.

"They simply wouldn't exist.   … ," said Ken Prewitt, the former director of the U.S. Census who is now a professor of public affairs at Columbia University.

"I don't know how the market reacts if there is suddenly no unemployment rate at the start of the month," Prewitt said. "How does the market react if we don't have a GDP [gross domestic product]?"

But the proposed Census Reform Act is explicit in its intent to end nearly every survey the Census conducts, mandating the "repeal" of the nation's agricultural census, economic census, government census and mid-decade census

  SNIP 

Haver also suggested there is a fundamental divide between people who are interested in solid, reality-based data and those who are not.

"If you know what you think, you don't need information to help you assess what's going on," she said. "The people that need information are the people who use it because they really want the truth, not people who think that because they believe it, it becomes the truth."

That may be one the real issues at the heart of things – the goal being - let the Koch-funded, right wing, extremist organizations make up whatever “facts” they want – with no way to dispute them.

But the key thing for me is this:
Being this was introduced by an ALEC ALUM:

How does this benefit corporations - that's the big, huge questions behind this.
How does this legislation benefit corporation - there's no benefit for the public that I can figure out.

Here we have an alum of the pro-corporate, extremist American Legislative Exchange Council introducing FEDERAL legislation that will potentially manipulate/disrupt the market.

"I don't know how the market reacts if there is suddenly no unemployment rate at the start of the month," Prewitt said. "How does the market react if we don't have a GDP [gross domestic product]?"

Manipulation of the market – intentionally done – using legislation - by ALEC legislators at both the state and federal level.

How can a free market exist -
when ALEC members are continually introducing legislation
that manipulates the free market?

(BTW - Reason Online published this post haste - which makes the legislation even more worrisome from a free market perspective.)