Two Ark. columnists on the "blockhead wing" & the National Debt Relief Amendment scheme from ALEC

[highplainsdem]

These quotes are from the Arkansas Times, a weekly alternative newspaper (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Times for info).

The comments on ALEC and the blockhead wing are in a column by Max Brantley

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/02/14/raperts-folly-the-blockhead-wings-debt-amendment

commenting on and quoting a column by another Arkansas Times writer, Ernie Dumas, which should be in this week's issue but isn't online yet.

This is what Dumas wrote (and I'll add a direct link to his column later):

Tough times require harebrained solutions, one of which is national suicide. That is the unspoken motto of what James Marshall Crotty of the conservative magazine Forbes calls the blockhead wing of the Republican Party.

It was onstage at the state Capitol last week when 16 state lawmakers announced an effort in Arkansas to change the national constitution written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and company and turn over federal budgeting, war and peace and the handling of all national crises to the 50 state legislatures.

Brantley goes into detail on this legislation, which is another of the cookie-cutter bills from the American Legislative Exchange Council -- "another ALEC scheme, courtesy of the billionaire Koch brothers," as Brantey puts it:

Fifteen Republicans, led by Sen. Jason Rapert of Bigelow, pledged support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to do just that—along with one Democrat, Rep. Gene Jeffress of Louann. Jeffress is running for Congress from the Second District, and by endorsing the idea of making Congress subservient to state legislatures declared himself intellectually and temperamentally unqualified for the job.

They have filed a resolution in the state Senate and House of Representatives petitioning Congress to call a constitutional convention, the first since 1787. They hope the convention would refer a constitutional amendment to the states to prohibit any future increase in the federal debt limit until most state legislatures had voted to do it and agreed on exactly the same amount. If the convention chose, it could skip that amendment and engage in other mischief like, say, repealing the Bill of Rights.

All of this, maybe including this commentary, is pointless because 34 state legislatures would have to petition Congress (Louisiana and North Dakota have done so), Congress would actually need to call the convention, the convention would need to adopt such an amendment, and 38 state legislatures would have to ratify it. None of it will happen. Conservative groups, among them the John Birch Society, think it’s a nutty idea, and even Michele Bachmann, who loves squirrelly ideas, thinks this one is scary.

The National Debt Relief Amendment is the brainchild of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a secretive right-wing group funded by Exxon Mobil, the billionaire Koch, Scaife and Olin families and other big petroleum, coal and chemical companies. It churns out and feeds to state legislatures and Congress legislation to roll back health, environmental and safety rules and taxes on corporations and the rich.

As Brantley points out, this insane scheme "would boot the United States off the cliff where Greece is hanging by its fingernails."

The lone Democratic state lawmaker who joined the blockheads in suggesting this said he was doing this because Congress had failed to balance the budget. He's apparently forgotten the Clinton administration.

Brantley brings up the usual argument made by conservative state lawmakers, that states usually balance their budgets and thus can show Congress how to do it. But that argument ignores the very salient fact that states don't usually have to deal with domestic and international crises, including weather disasters -- or even with predictable needs like health care -- without getting additional funding from the federal government, with the federal government often providing much more money than the state.

This "debt relief" madness from ALEC might help the billionaires and corporations behind the organization keep their taxes lower, but it's a wrecking ball for almost everything else.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Brantley's a solid writer for the Arkansas Times.

[SteveG]

2. Sounds like they want to return to the Articles of Confederation

which was an abject failure. The U.S. as a nation would soon cease to exist under this scheme.

[Vincardog]

3. That is what they want/ If the USA ceased to exist who or what could stand in their

way of decimating all of humanity, forcing us to pay them for: putrid water rancid food and miserable living conditions?
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