These two pernicious pieces of legislation, written by and for the American Legislative Exchange Council, are headed to Governor Jindal's desk as I write this.
Basically, because of Occupy it is now the case that Republican governors can no longer further cut taxes for the rich, so ALEC gives them a whole panoply of other ways further to increase wealth inequality. For example, a significant part of Jindal's bills involve making labor conditions for public school teachers so insufferable that they work for even less money for all of the new private schools. Also, wealthy people will be able to get tax refunds for establishing "scholarships" at the private schools where their kids go, private schools that can discriminate based on a whole panoply of things.
ALEC has also been quite successful at disenfranchising poor people, decimating collective bargaining, and promoting climate change denialism. The website ALEC Exposed, subdivides all of their awfulness into the following: Worker and Consumer Rights Tort Reform and Injured Americans Privatizing Schools and Higher Ed Policy Health, Pharmaceuticals and Safety Net Programs Environment, Energy and Agriculture Democracy, Voter Rights and Federal Power Taxes and Budgets Guns, Prisons, Crime and Immigration
The most distressing link on the whole site though is to the companies funding all of this (including our own tax money with government agencies, the most Orwellian perhaps being the U.S. Department of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program paying money to disenfranchise the families of their own soldiers).
Given Alec's role in writing and passing "stand your ground laws," and the Trayvon Martin tragedy, Intuit, Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Kraft have recently withdrawn their support. But the amount of sheer awfulness is sublimely nauseating, as is the thought that so many of our own purchases trickle up through these companies to make us so much poorer.
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