ALECer Pushes RTW Using Flawed Economic Variables

The crap that is distributed by ALECers never ceases to amaze me.

Posted this morning on their blogsite is a real piece 

Right-to-Work Would Have Put Michigan in Top 10 in Rich States, Poor States

Will Freeland | June 25, 2013 |

Economic growth has been at the top of legislative agenda in Michigan in recent years. The state has repealed the Michigan Business Tax, initiated the phase-out of the personal property tax, and reformed labor policy through the passage of Right-to-Work. These, in addition to many other notable pro-growth reforms, have had a major positive effect in the state that ranks dead last in economic performance over the last decade in the 6th Edition of Rich States, Poor States. Looking forward to the future economic potential of the state, Michigan ranked 20th in this year’s Economic Outlook Index. But, had the state’s new Right-to-Work been implemented by the January 1st, 2013 cut-off-date to be considered in the outlook index (the law became active in March 28, 2013), the state would have ranked 10th overall, a testament to the implementation of a pro-growth agenda.

What a crock!

Two weeks after the RSPS edition 6 release,  ALECers are still trying to get press time for the flawed, partisan economic report of the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council.

Unfortunately the ALEC flunkies in Michigan will actually believe this crap and use it for the next two weeks - as they piss and moan about their plight as poor 'ol pro-coporate ALEC members..

 

Well today we also have an article that contains the following snips:

ALEC's New Report Proves What We Knew All Along — Right-Wing Economics Is a Fraud

Not only are the ALEC rankings wrong, they are almost diametrically so.

Since ALEC's report has been around for six years, we can actually tell how highly-ranked states perform. Not well.

As an example, this year’s BEA numbers show Washington, Oregon, California, and Utah growing at about the same rate. So why on earth does ALEC rank Utah as number 1 while ranking Oregon as number 44, California as number 47, and Washington as number 36? There’s no good reason for the rankings, other than a general belief in “liberal malaise.”

The purpose of these rankings is to push the ugly legislative agenda of ALEC, which gives a state like Wisconsin, which has grown terribly but whose governor has shown a penchant for union-busting, a gold star while other union-friendly states get hit with low marks.

Unsurprisingly, with these variables, only states with a Republican governor are in the top 10 of the analysis.

The worst thing about the rankings isn’t even the partisanship masquerading as “fact-based analysis.” Sadly, state governments take these rankings seriously.

But ALEC is also symbolic of an even deeper malaise at the heart of American politics. 

The purpose of these rankings is to push the ugly legislative agenda of ALEC, which gives a state like Wisconsin, which has grown terribly but whose governor has shown a penchant for union-busting, a gold star while other union-friendly states get hit with low marks

YEP!

AND 

ALEC-ers want to keep it that way!

But, had the state’s new Right-to-Work been implemented by the January 1st, 2013 cut-off-date to be considered in the outlook index (the law became active in March 28, 2013), the state would have ranked 10th overall, 

As noted in a recent report by Good Jobs First and the Iowa Policy Project

Selling Snake Oil to the States: The American Legislative Exchange Council's Flawed Prescriptions for Prosperity

"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."

It's one thing to read that - it's another to see how ALEC policies  actually play out.

"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.

What does that mean?
A research report based on:
    BIASED, PARTISAN, ARTIFICIAL, OR BOGUS  VARIABLES

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

And that is an overall pro-corporate ideology that does not serve the citizens of the United States.

Our nation has never seen a bolder private bid to transform public life—even in the heyday of corporate influence, the Gilded Age. Every school child (at least in public schools) encounters the irrefutable evidence that this period between the overthrow of Reconstruction in 1877 and the progressive reforms of the early 1900s was the nadir of American democracy; a period in which corporations controlled both major parties, virtually ran the Congress, and produced corruption on a scale that left even brilliant humorists like Mark Twain at a loss for words. What most people today don’t understand, though, is that this dismal era was the golden age of the ALEC version of “liberty.”

As someone who has researched the ideas and organizations flowing into the current tsunami of destructive legislation, I do not exaggerate when I say that ALEC and its allies are determined to roll back a century’s worth of popularly sought progress.