In light of the unmasking of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, a look back in time...

Yesterday, when the Center for Media and Democracy released their report showing the Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) to be funded by a network of large corporations and right-wing lunatics, the exchange between an employee of the MCPP and myself in the comments section of this previous post didn't come to mind.  I was reminded of it by David McDowell, though, who doesn't miss much.  Here's the particular comment that is now laughable in light of yesterday's revelations:

Now, you might remember Jake McGuire as the guy whose personal attacks on senators via twitter was partially blamed for Joel Bomgar being denied a spot on the State Board of Education.  But that's not really the issue here.

The issue here is that the Mississippi Center for Public Policy advocated vociferously for charter schools.  Whilst their Communications Coordinator denied being funded by "giant corporations" like K12, Inc., which made over $730M last year alone by running charter schools.

***MS CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY EXPOSED***

Wow.  Check out what the Center for Media and Democracy has just uncovered about the Mississippi Center for Public Policy:

The State Policy Network (SPN) is an umbrella group of right-wing think tanks across the country. The Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) is SPN’s cookie-cutter think tank in Mississippi. While MCPP claims to be focused on issues important to the people of Mississippi, it actually pushes an agenda dictated by its national right-wing funders and partners.

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy has always fought hard to maintain the secrecy of its funding. They've also fought to defund public schools, cut corporate tax rates, and pushed Personhood.

Would you have guessed that they're just a front for Fortune 500 businesses looking to dodge taxes and radical right-wing wackos like the Koch brothers?  You'd have guessed correctly.

But wait, THERE'S MORE! The newly uncovered legal brief also wants to shift PERS management to private hands

I mean, really.  Who saw this coming?

Yesterday, I said that the Republican attack on PERS is nothing more than a political payback scheme designed at a national level to shift management of state pensions to private hands.  So, guess what's in that legal brief from the Mississippi Center for Public Policy?  One of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy's recommended solutions reads as follows:

New employees and all persons hired after July 1, 2007 who have not accrued eight years of time in service can be switched to a defined-contribution plan. (Savings to the State multiply: When each employee manages his own fund, PERS won’t need to employ so many investment managers. PERS added 12 managers over the past ten years to the 17 that were on staff in 2000. Switching to the defined-contribution plan would allow most of the 29 investment managers to leave PERS and find work in the private sector – perhaps advising state employees seeking to invest the funds in their retirement accounts. The State would stop paying the high salaries of several public investment managers and would stop contributing to those investment managers’ retirements.) - Page 6 (Emphasis added)

So, there you go.  Republicans would have public employees, on their low wages, hire investment analysts to tell them how to invest their money.  Honestly, haven't we done enough to bail out Wall Street?