New article posted by Abolish ALEC group at our website today.
___________
It isn’t often with ALEC that one can actually see firsthand the entire procedure from creation through outcome of an initiative advanced by this “charity” through manipulation of state and federal legislation. Usually when we buy a happy meal at McDonalds, or a two liter of Coke or Pepsi, use TurboTax to prepare our income taxes, we are not aware of or see the laws that have been put in place to increase the profits, allow less regulation concerning food safety or reducing corporate taxes to increase profits. As consumers we are interested in the end product and put less thought into what determines the cost or safety standards in manufacturing or delivering the products we buy.
In one specific instance we can dissect both the legislation advanced by ALEC, who it was designed to benefit and which consumer market has been targeted. It involves senior citizens, ALEC, Intuit and Reverse Mortgages.
Today several prominent corporations - most with national markets - have publicly ceased membership to/with the American Legislative Exchange Council. These companies; Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Mars, Intuit, Kraft Foods, American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Arizona Public Service Company (APS, Arizona's largest electric utility) made this choice following an intense campaign by activists to expose their involvement with ALEC. Though these efforts of separating ALEC from their affluent benefactors and members has been ongoing for a couple of years, the discovery that the Stand Your Ground law in Florida that may allow the murderer of a 17 year old to go free, has served as a new catalyst.
Each of the (now) eleven corporations that have left ALEC over the past few days have benefited from their membership with ALEC. The important aspect is that these benefits will continue to drive profits to these companies after they've quit ALEC. The laws they helped enable that extracts profits from costs to consumers and taxpayers will continue. I believe they should not be allowed to so easily walk away unscathed....
Please visit: http://www.vltp.net/... to read the rest of this and other articles published on ALEC.