I Hate ALEC and Everything It Stands For

I hate the American Legislative Exchange Council and everything it stands for.

ALEC is the only organization in the history of our nation that has intentionally brought corporations into the legislative process.

ALEC is the only organization in the history of our nation that has intentionally taken away the representative government of, for and by the people and and surreptitiously handed it over to the corporations..

ALEC legislators are the buffoons of our government.  They suck up to ALEC corporate members that pay ALEC to ship them from their state to ALEC meetings.  Then these state ALEC morons meet privately with corporate lobbyists– behind closed doors – so the corporations can legislate America.  The corporations use each ALEC state legislator as their own personal doofus and corporate grunt.

ALEC legislators repeatedly whine about how they are vilified for their devotion to the “free market”.  When, in reality, these imbeciles, intentionally manipulate and destroy the free market by introducing pro-corporate ALEC legislation in our systems.

Some days I reel with anger at ALEC legislative members.
There are times when I feel absolute dismay that the people of the US elected these people as representatives of the government, with their imbecilic behaviors and statements.

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This weekend one of the biggest buffoons of ALEC, Scott Walker – will be enacting more vile ALEC policies onto the state of Wisconsin.  One of the most disturbing thing about these policies is that they are a decade old.  They have been ALEC’s to-do list of damage to do to the states for over ten years.

Here are snips from a recap that was compiled by the AFL-CIO entitled:

2013-2015 Wisconsin Budget Overview and Its Impact on Working Families

I have also included quotes from out-dated ALEC documents to show you that ALEC legislators and ALEC governors - can't think for themselves and they are only the marionettes of ALEC and ALEC corporations. 

In 2011, Gov. Walker and the Republican controlled legislature passed one of the most controversial and crippling budgets in history. Just months after unveiling extreme attacks on collective bargaining, Gov. Walker continued his crusade on the middle class and signed a state budget that enacted the largest and most sweeping cuts to education, health care and state aid to local communities in the entire history of the state.

In 2013, Gov. Walker and the Republican controlled legislature put forth an ideologically identical budget which rewarded corporate campaign contributors at the expense of Wisconsin’s working families.

A REVIEW OF THE BUDGET

ALEC Crisis in State Spending: A Guide for State Legislators

2002

Accordingly, I have formulated ten commandments that will help to maximize the prosperity of the citizens of your state:

First, thou shalt keep taxes low.

Second, thou shalt reduce taxes on income and wealth.

Third, thou shalt keep marginal tax rates low and relatively uniform.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget

$651 million in income tax cuts over the next two years, which will largely benefit people with six-figure incomes.

A tax bracket is eliminated which will put couples earning $29,000 in the same tax bracket as people earning $315,000.

ALEC's Report -  Show Me the Money

2003

Go Where the Money Is: Reduce Workforce Costs

One of the most effective short-term cost reduction measures is reducing workforce costs.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget

Ordering the elimination of 450 state employee positions.

Modernize Government: Reform Entitlement Programs States have no chance to solve their long-term budget problems without getting a handle on the rising cost of entitlements. Next to the recession, the runaway cost of Medicaid—the biggest budget cost driver in most states—is the biggest cause of the current state fiscal crisis.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget

Republicans rejected $4.38 billion in federal funds under the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid coverage,

The Joint Finance Committee implemented new changes to the unemployment insurance

system that will reduce payments to the unemployed in 2013-2015

Turn Capital Assets into Financial Assets: Sell or

Lease Government Assets and Enterprises

Over the past two decades, hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of state-owned enterprises and assets have been sold or leased to the private sector worldwide. These assets have included airports, stadiums, ports, utilities, liquor operations, buildings, land, and gas and electric utilities.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget

 Governor Walker’s budget authorizes the sale or lease of nearly all state-owned property including power plants, UW-buildings, highways and rest-stops. The ambiguity of the budget language allows for these transactions to be conducted through a no-bid process.

Apply Antitrust to Government: Introduce Competition in Service Delivery

For many social, health, and educational services, the best way to realize the benefits of competition is to allow service recipients to choose their own providers.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget

 Tax credits for private schools

2004

ALEC Family Education Tax Credit Program

A tax break for parents who send their children to private schools, costing state taxpayers $30 million in 2014.

From ALECExposed

The "Voucher" Strategy and Requiring Tax Subsidies for Private For-Profit Schools

For almost 20 years, a top priority item for ALEC has been the privatization of public schools through school vouchers.

Promoting voucher programs that drain public schools of resources by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school profits, and specifying that those schools must remain unregulated. Voucher programs have been pushed in the following ways:

Offering private school vouchers with "universal eligibility" (using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private schools for the rich and others); "means-testedeligibility," (using poverty as the first domino in an effort to privatize public schools); and "universal eligibility with means-testedscholarship." (Here, "scholarship" means using taxpayer dollars to pay private school tuition and/or profits.)

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget

State spending on private school vouchers will increase by at least $77 million over two years to expand a financially reckless education experiment that has failed after 20 years of taxpayer support.

In addition to the voucher program, there will be a new tax deduction starting in 2014 for

families who send children to any K-12 private school.

School privatization interests are major political donors in the state   …   Governor Walker alone received $2.35 million from pro-privatization groups.

These were highly sophisticated, researched schemes packaged by ALEC, pro-voucher operators and special interests groups to undermine public schools and privatize the ability of middle-class Wisconsinites to get a decent education in the future. Fearing public debate and discussion voucher items were tucked into the budget under the cover of night.

Establish a State Privatization and Efficiency Council

As discussed in the previous section, policymakers should embrace privatization and the competitive contracting of government services to drive service delivery improvements and better value for each taxpayer dollar spent..

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget 

Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) gets funding in spite of mismanagement of taxpayer dollars, losing track of millions of dollars in loans and possible illegal activity.

WEDC is the partially privatized entity created by Gov. Walker intended to be the engine for economic development in Wisconsin. In spite of terrible press and a damaging independent audit of the WEDC, the Joint Finance Committee approved an increase in funding by at least $7.5 million for WEDC operations and marketing.

The Legislative Audit Bureau issued a scathing audit on May 1, 2013, saying that WEDC’s reporting and management were so inadequate that it is not possible to “assess the effectiveness of WEDC’s economic development programs.” There are still no reliable accountability standards to show that taxpayer’s dollars are truly spent to create jobs.

From 2009 – Does the word recession or maybe depression  ring a bell – for 2009??

From the 2009 ALEC Report

Rich State, Poor States (2^nd Edition)

Principle #9: Income transfer payments (welfare) create a de facto “tax” on working and thus have a high impact on the vitality of a state’s economy. Unemployment benefits, welfare payments, and subsidies represent a redistribution of income.  …  Transfer payments represent a tax on production and a subsidy to leisure. Their automatic increase in the event of a fall in market income leads to an even sharper drop in output.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget 

The Joint Finance Committee implemented new changes to the unemployment insurance system that will reduce payments to the unemployed in 2013-2015

The definition of “misconduct” is expanded under unemployment insurance rules so that it will be easier to deny benefits to many more workers, 

They make it easier to deny unemployment insurance by eliminating seven of the “quit exceptions.”

A COMMONWEAL INSTITUTE report on “tort reform” suggests that unemployment is part of the right-wing “tort reform” argument.  CI’s argument holds that “tort reform arguments” such as those espoused by ALEC  “rest upon a broader, underlying ideological foundation, one built around the ideas of personal responsibility, free markets, deregulation of business, and privatization of government functions.”  The unemployment issue being part of the “personal responsibility”.

Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest that the public should be aware that whenever ALEC members express their concern for the common peon – they are really only talking about your need to have “personal responsibility” and your need to “buck up”.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget 

 Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) persuaded the committee to approve an amendment requiring the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct a full audit of the Government Accountability Board. The GOP has been dogging the GAB since the recalls of 2011 and 2012 and has accused the Board of wrongdoing. The audit is part of a larger effort to challenge Wisconsin’s electoral process and voting rights.

Nonpartisan – my a$$

Another attempt at ALEC legislators to destroy the election process and to stop Americans from voting – so corporations can totally take over our government.

Walker's 2013 -2015 Budget  

Legalizing bail bonds (bounty hunters), which have been illegal in Wisconsin since 1979,

Jerry Watson, American Bail Coalition - 2008 ALEC Meeting

ALEC must be destroyed!

ALEC legislators must NOT be re-elected.

ALEC leadership believes that the world is flat and things don’t change and they continue to push their decades old pro-corporate legislation on the people of the United States.

We must stop them!