North Carolina's Toxic Future
By Margaret Carlson
A dystopian nightmare is unfolding in North Carolina. It is what the whole country would look like if you were to marry David Koch to Ted Cruz, with a prenup by ALEC, the outside agitator also known as the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is the group that writes regressive laws, saving right-wingers the trouble of having to do it themselves.
Republicans in North Carolina took over both houses of the legislature with the election of Governor Pat McCrory in 2012, the first time the party has had complete control of state government in more than 100 years.
They went straight to work. If the Republicans were to inscribe their philosophy above the statehouse door it would read: "Let us seek to deregulate business and regulate everyone else."
The legislature promptly raised taxes on the bottom 80 percent, eliminated the earned income tax credit for 900,000 people, slashed education spending, declined the Medicaid expansion (leaving 500,000 of its poorest residents without health insurance), and grafted a draconian abortion restriction onto a motorcycle safety law. If you were a worker, a minority, a teacher, a woman, a doctor or poor, the legislature got you.
more
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-04/north-carolina-s-toxic-future