Thanks to ALEC, corporate titans have the same power, influence and voting rights as elected officials: Representatives from America’s largest corporations, including Koch Industries, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, Reynolds, and Altria/Phillip Morris fund ALEC and sit on its private sector governing board. Through ALEC task forces, corporate lobbyists and elected officials vote as equals on templates to change the rights of workers, limit the rights of families if their loved one is killed or injured by a dangerous drug, the rights of children to a fully funded public education, and countless other bills that make it harder for citizens to vote, make it easier for vigilantes, more difficult for the government to protect our air and water from pollution, and that create tax loopholes for some of the richest corporations and people in the world.

Citizens in Racine, well aware of the potentially dangerous consequences of having special interests write our laws, have decided to find out the truth about their representative’s involvement in this shadow legislature.

Sen. Van Wanggaard has been linked to ALEC in the past. The Senator has spent $100 in taxpayer money to pay ALEC membership dues and he’s sponsored or co-sponsored 6 bills that are based on ALEC model legislation including Act 174 (Retail Theft, Proof of Ownership for Flea Market Sales, and Providing Penalties), Act 94 (Castle Doctrine Act), AB 94 (The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Expansion), Act 38 (Reinstating Truth in Sentencing), Act 23 (Voter ID Law), and Act 22 (Telecommunications Modernization Act). But, does the Senator makes these associations clear?

At a February 23 listening session in Burlington, when asked about the group and its influence, Senator Van Wanggaard downplayed the association as nothing more than any other club membership — like the NRA. When asked if he served on a committee within ALEC he responded, “No I don’t,” and also claims that, while he has joined ALEC, he has “never attended a meeting.”

However, a report released May 17 by the Center for Media and Democracy clearly shows that Van Wanggaard is a sitting member of the ALEC Telecommunications & Information Technology Task Force as well as a Tax & Fiscal Policy Task Force Alternate Member. In addition, Senator Wanggaard is the 6th highest recipient of contributions from ALEC corporate members in the legislature – netting a whopping $12,925 (including thousands from AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and other’s with a vested interest in telecommunications regulation.

Clearly the Senator is involved in ALEC’s shadow legislature whether he knows it or not. The time is now for him to come clean. If he has nothing to do with ALEC, like he would have us believe, why is he sponsoring and co-sponsoring their model legislation? If he isn’t involved, why does he sit on one of their Task Forces? If he isn’t involved, why do corporations with an interest in the legislation coming out of his ALEC task force contribute thousands of dollars to this campaign?

With this in mind, constituents of the Senator’s will be gathering outside of his campaign headquarters in Racine to demand that Van Wanggaard tell the truth and fess up to his connections to ALEC. We may not all be lawyers, but if he’s receiving contributions, sitting on a task force, and paying for membership dues with taxpayer dollars it seems like he’s pretty connected to us.

Join them May 18 at 12PM
Van Wanggaard Campaign Office
6211 Durand Ave., Mt. Pleasant, WI

As shown in the video, constituents also questioned Rep. Ribble’s staff as to why he would be voting against the interest of his constituents. Although they were met with polite dismissal, constituents will not be giving up. As of this writing, the Ryan budget has passed in the House. Both Reid Ribble and Sean Duffy voted in favor of the plan, and, thus, in favor of ending Medicare as we know it in order to hand more money to wealthy 1% elites and their corporate interests.

As Paul Krugman sums it up, “a lasting budget deal can only work if both parties can be counted on to be both responsible and honest — and House Republicans have just demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could wish, that they are neither.”

Call Reid Ribble at (202) 225-5665 or Sean Duffy at (202) 225-3365 and let them know that their votes in favor of the “budget for millionaires” are out of touch with the people of Wisconsin.

BadgerCare is Under Attack!

UPDATE: Thanks to you we’ve been able to collect over 1000 petition signatures in 48 Hours! Keep sharing the petition and let’s see those numbers hit the roof!

Federal officials have given the green light to cut Wisconsin health programs. These Walker-supported cuts will lead to over 17,000 people losing their access to healthcare July 1. The move comes after the state Joint Finance Committee approved revised Medicaid funding reductions on a party-line vote last month.

We can make BadgerCare healthy again by passing the BadgerCare Protection Act.

The BadgerCare Protection Act reFUNDS BadgerCare by rolling back just one of Walker’s tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%. Walker has given away four times more in corporate tax breaks than it would take to keep families on BadgerCare. Enough is enough.

BadgerCare is Under Attack!

UPDATE: Thanks to you we’ve been able to collect over 1000 petition signatures in 48 Hours! Keep sharing the petition and let’s see those numbers hit the roof!

Federal officials have given the green light to cut Wisconsin health programs. These Walker-supported cuts will lead to over 17,000 people losing their access to healthcare July 1. The move comes after the state Joint Finance Committee approved revised Medicaid funding reductions on a party-line vote last month.

We can make BadgerCare healthy again by passing the BadgerCare Protection Act.

The BadgerCare Protection Act reFUNDS BadgerCare by rolling back just one of Walker’s tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%. Walker has given away four times more in corporate tax breaks than it would take to keep families on BadgerCare. Enough is enough.

Sign the petition today to demand that the legislature schedule a special session and pass the BadgerCare Protection Act. The 17,000 families affected by these cuts shouldn’t have to go without.

The demonstrators, who began chanting “Pay Your Fair Share” when the meeting began, were quickly ushered out of the meeting but could still be heard chanting protests as the meeting got underway.

The shareholding group then joined the hundreds of protesters outside in the street to create a monumental show of force. Stopping over 8 lanes of traffic as they marched, protesters and police were respectful of one another and the march ended peacefully, loudly, and with a clear message for the 1%: We’ll be back.

Audio of the confrontation inside the meeting:

Take action against the wealthiest 1% subverting our democracy and fight for good jobs, education, healthcare, and corporate accountability by signing up for updates here at wisconsinjobsnow.org.

April 24 – Nearly 200 people boarded buses early in the morning at the Wisconsin Department of Revenue building in Milwaukee. They are going to protest GE at their annual shareholder meeting in Detroit. GE has paid $0 in Wisconsin income tax from 2003-2008 while paying a negative federal tax rate from 2008-2010. During the same time period their top five executives took home $234 million and they spent $84.35 million in lobbying expenditures.

Over the next day pay attention to Twitter and Facebook for breaking updates as events develop on the ground.

As one of the nation’s largest tax dodgers, GE paid nothing in federal income taxes from 2008-2010. Worse, the company actually received more than $4 billion in tax refunds (an effective tax rate of - 45.3%) while paying lobbyists more than $85 million. Wisconsin’s share of this massive corporate tax giveaway comes to OVER $87 MILLION. If General Electric had paid its fair share in 2010, what could it have meant for spending on these vital programs in Wisconsin?

• Over $9 million for Medicaid – enough to serve over 1,600 people.
• Over $2 million for anti-hunger programs
• Over $1 million for education programs, including
• $195,000 in aid for high-poverty schools
• $705,000 in Pell Grants
• Over $1 million in Earned Income Tax Credits
• Over $1 million in disability compensation for veterans

“I pay my fair share of taxes but GE and other mega-corporations don’t,” says  Edward Jude, a retiree from Milwaukee, who is going on the bus to Detroit. “This hasn’t been fair for a long time, and it will take many voices speaking out against GE to fix that. I want to make sure mine is one of them.”

This new wave of 99% activism comes on the heels of several significant protests and upsets at Fortune 100 shareholder meetings nationwide: Citigroup (NYSE:C) shareholders’ unprecedented rejection of CEO Vikram Pandit’s exorbitant pay package; Tax Day protests that saw thousands of people in the streets in anger over the 1% economy and unchecked power of rich corporations executives shutting down EQT Corp.’s (NYSE: EQT) meeting; executives at Carnival Cruise Lines (NYSE: CLL) cutting the company’s live broadcast; and two hours of protests and ejections from the BNY Mellon (NYSE: BK) meeting.

Stay tuned to WisconsinJobsNow.org to get updates on the ongoing movement.

Senators like Ron Johnson and organizations like the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce fight tooth and nail to ensure that the wealthiest members of our country enjoy all the benefits society brings to commerce. It would be very difficult for businessmen like Rep. Reid Ribble to operate a roofing company without things like roads and schools. But why then, when you ask a millionaire like Ron Johnson to pay back into the system at a fair rate, do we only hear the argument that we can’t tax millionaires because then they’ll have to cut jobs?

The same logical structure is used by Governor Walker when he bemoans the fact that our state is broke and that he’s FORCED to cut essential public services with one hand while he signs huge tax giveaways to big business and the wealthy with the other. The fact of the matter is that the wealthy 1% believe they can pull the wool over our eyes.

“Times are tough and we all need to sacrifice.”

We’ve heard this line a thousand times before. But why is it that we’re the only ones doing the sacrificing? Does Gov. Walker lie awake at night worrying about student loan debt, decreased wages, and the fact that he doesn’t have access to healthcare anymore? If a millionaire’s personal income is taxed at a fairer rate are they going to lose the ability to feed their families? Are the richest Americans so rife with avarice that when forced to chose between getting richer at a slower rate and forcing families into poverty they’ll always choose the former?

There comes a time when reasonable people look around and realize that enough is enough. This was the case on April 17. Citizens took to the streets to demand that we return to an America where “freedom” means more than freedom from government intrusion, it means freedom from death by preventable disease, freedom from crushing debt, and freedom from poverty. We decided that as long as America operates as a country by the rich and for the rich we don’t stand a chance unless we fight back. We don’t stand a chance unless we’re organized against their multi-billion dollar economic and communication machines. We don’t stand a chance without each other.

If you believe we can win and make the this country a more equitable place, then prove it. Get involved today. Text REFUND to 64336 and join the fight to reclaim and reFund Wisconsin. Otherwise, we don’t stand a chance.

Bear with us. It’s pretty big, but pretty neat too! It’s like you were there (unless you were actually there).

Click here to watch

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