The Kroog Versus ALEC

Paul Krugman arrives at a pretty solid conclusion about our friends at ALEC and their cloning of Florida's deadly "Stand Your Ground" law across the country.

But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture? In part it’s the same old story — the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It’s neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along. 

And ALEC, even more than other movement-conservative organizations, is clearly playing a long game. Its legislative templates aren’t just about generating immediate benefits to the organization’s corporate sponsors; they’re about creating a political climate that will favor even more corporation-friendly legislation in the future. 

Did I mention that ALEC has played a key role in promoting bills that make it hard for the poor and ethnic minorities to vote? 

Yet that’s not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex — prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its “life preserver.”) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it’s exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona’s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim. 

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population. 

Krugman, the Nobel laureate economist, simply follows the money.  Shocking, I know.  It doesn't take a Nobel Prize winner to figure ALEC's game out, either.  But Krugman is dead on the money here.  The privatization of government services is worth big money to corporate America, to the tune of trillions in guaranteed revenue.  The "small government push" is all about getting the profit margin into your water, phone, sewer, fire, police, ambulance, and public safety services.  If you can't pay, then brother, you don't play.  And you're going to pay.  Big time.