Wisconsin Taxpayers foot the bill for ALEC memberships

in my email this morning...

Dear Scuba:

You are one of our 53,000 online supporters from around Wisconsin, and we are giving youthis shocker before we even give it to the media.

The breakingnews: One Wisconsin Now has obtained documents showing that 12 current Republican members of the State Senate are forcing you to pay the cost fortheir private membership inone of the nation’s most powerful and influential corporate policy outfits –the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The mediaw ill get this information Monday, but you have been there for us andwe thought you deserve to get the news first.

As you know, ALEC is the corporate front group that has concocted and supporteddisastrous attacks on the middle class like ending collective bargaining,privatizing public schools, preventing access to affordable healthcare and starving local governments – taking police officers and firefighters off the streets.

When youthink about how the people on this list, such as Dan Kapanke, Alberta Darlingand Scott Fitzgerald have claimed over and over that Wisconsin is broke and wehave to cut workers’ rights, dismantle public education and raise health carecosts for seniors, children and working families, their hypocrisy is enough tomake your blood boil. Use this link to the see the Senate’s Dishonorable Dozen:

http://www.onewisconsinnow.org/blog/WI%20Senate%20Republicans%20ALEC%20Membership.pdf

You areprobably well aware ALEC was founded nearly 40 years ago to createpro-corporate legislation at the expense of the middle class. Among the manycorporate and conservative interests to finance the group is the KochFoundation and Milwaukee’s Bradley Foundation. All 23 members of its publicboard are identified Republicans and 71 of its 73 state legislative chairs areRepublicans.
Not onlyhave Senate Republicans spent tax dollars on ALEC memberships, but also thereare substantial ties between ALEC and Gov. Scott Walker, as well as the Republican Assembly Majority. Walker has served previously as a speaker at ALEC,Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald was appointed Wisconsin Chair of ALECin 2008 and Republican Assembly Joint Finance Chair Robin Vos is current Wisconsin ALEC chair.

Let’s notmince words here. The American Legislative Exchange Council is nothing more than a corporate propaganda machine and Kapanke, Darling and the other 10S enate Republicans should immediate return the taxpayers’ money and apologize for this improper use of our tax dollars.

If past is prologue, ALEC and its minions may retaliate against One Wisconsin Now.After all, when a University of Wisconsin professor criticized the group, theRepublican Party of Wisconsin launched an unprecedented attack on him.

But we arenot going to back down from any corporate special interest group or anypolitical party. The stakes are simply too high.
For all youdo, my thanks. If you can, let your friends know about the research we’veuncovered…

scot

PS: OneWisconsin Now is only able to do this research and strategic communicationbecause we have the resources you provide us. Please consider a contributiontoday to support our work. As a hypocrisy bonus, we also uncovered this:According to the IRS, ALEC, which says on its State Budget Reform page that,“states face structural deficits created by overspending,” spent more than itraised in both 2008 and 2009.

What gall these depraved POS corporate dicks have.

This will NOT be tolerated well...

:kick: