ALEC - Lining the Pockets of the Rich for 40 Years

Excellent article on Alternet – please take the time to read the whole thing

>>>>HERE<<<<

Poverty Expert Peter Edelman Explains How Low Wages and Racial Politics Line the Pockets of the Rich

A few snips from the article (out of order as were published)

The minimum wage is what it is. It's not a living wage or a near-living wage. [The benefit of the proposal is] in terms of the effect that it has. It goes in the right direction, but it only gets part of the way to where we need to go. But we shouldn't disparage it, it's very important. At the margins, $9 an hour is a substantial increase over [the current rate of] $7.25. It will total a few million people out of poverty. He's the first president that proposed indexing it to inflation. That's all to the good. In terms of getting to a living wage, it might be, I don't know, 10 percent of the way or something like that.

Each of those is not going to be something that is likely to be achieved during the course of at least the first two years of this second term, because they all, regardless of sequestration, they all run into the Tea Party, and the fact that the Tea Party effectively controls the Republican Party now.

In relation to those comments I recommend you read this report:

The Politics of Wage Suppression: Inside ALEC’s Legislative Campaign Against Low Paid Workers

Suggest your read this piece of ALEC "model legislation":

Starting (Minimum) Wage Repeal Act

ALEC has been at the forefront of keeping the poor - poor and helping the rich get richer.

Edelman finds his answers in the tangle of racialized politics, mass incarceration, displacement caused by globalization, the explosion of low-wage jobs and the dilution of democracy by moneyed interests. In his 2012 book, So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America, Edelman writes, "The American economy did not stagnate over the past 40 years: it grew, but the fruits of that growth went to those at the top."

What a coincidence - ALEC is celebrating their 40th Anniversary this year!

The American Legislative Exchange Council, lining the pockets of the rich for 40 years, by keeping the general public in poverty – becausetheycan.

A coincidence?

I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to ALEC.