Summary Of The One Percent Solution By Gordon Lafer

In, The One Percent Solution, by Gordon Lafer, he argues that lobbyist groups are taking advantage of the 2008 recession to work to advance the interests of the wealthy. This is being done at the expense of the poor by influencing the policy that government institutions introduce, vote on and implement. The lobbyist’s underlying agenda is to try and change the relationship between the workers and the owners as well as shift the expectations for government protections that the workers currently have. Lafer argues that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), affects every aspect of state politics. ALEC is a nonprofit organization consisting of state legislators and private sector representatives such as GM, Ford, Home Depot and McDonalds who work together to
They have this leverage in state governments because money goes much further. In the state of Wisconsin, following, the 2010 Citizens United decision, these corporate lobbyists efforts have been very illustrative of Lafer’s argument. In 2011, Wisconsin passed the Budget Repair Bill and this was one of the most significant successes for ALEC. This bill diminished the power of the public sector unions, prohibited the negotiation of anything but wages and destroyed several union rights that were once offered. Following all of these cuts, the Governor was able to cut taxes due to the surplus. These budget cuts significantly benefitted the wealthy over the middle and lower class citizens. In the state of Wisconsin, right to work laws were also implemented. These laws guaranteed that no person could be compelled to join or forced to contribute to a labor union as a condition of employment. The argument for these laws was that by unionizing people it limited the amount of competition in which lessened the ability of the economy growing. With the implementation of these laws it makes makes the unions much less effective because they cannot negotiate and do their jobs as well with less money