A recent report dismantles claims by private prison industry and its backers—including the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—that private prisons are a better deal than publicly run facilities. The report also explores the influence private prison companies exert over criminal justice policymaking and the industry’s overall lack of transparency. Two of ALEC’s major sponsors are Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Security), the largest private prison firms in the country.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Imagine a plant in your state announcing it was closing and taking 5,000 jobs with it. That is the shock to the economy that Arizona can expect with budget bills introduced yesterday by the Republican tea party majority legislature. The bills were rushed through committee hearings with less than 24 hours notice to the public. The 5,000 state jobs cut or lost through attrition is just the start of it. Here are some other lowlights of the GOP proposed budget:

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams.  While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled legislature are moving fast to privatize all 29 prison facilities in 18 counties in southern Florida.

After the November elections, with its raft of new Republicans in governors’ seats and  in control of state legislatures, we’ve seen many of those states implement a corporate agenda that includes attacks on workers’ rights, new corporate tax cuts and privatization of state services.