Hey Alabama, what do you have cooking? Or, what do you have in the terms of natural beauty and ways to allow people to drive and vote? Because starting now, Alabama is going to make it harder to get a driver’s license or allow people to visit their state parks. I mean, are you actually surprised? Because the government leaders in this state are loving this, they would like to see fewer people to vote in rural areas, where people lean more towards the Democrats. And they would love people to skip going to state parks, and instead spend their money at a store, so tax revenue from the extremely high sales taxes can help the state.
The general fund budget for 2016 keeps some things in the state like prisons and Medicare intact with level funding, but for everything else, the legislature is saying “screw you!” 31 driver license offices will close down across the state, and most of them will be in rural areas, especially in the black belt, where most people tends to vote democratic. As you can see, in Alabama you must have a photo ID to vote, that is not expired. So, let’s make it much harder for people to obtain a photo ID to vote. Not everyone has the funds or the transportation to get the ID they need to vote. And for the ones who say you can renew online, you can’t do that every time! You eventually have to update your photo.
Second, five state parks will close down, most of them in the rural black belt area. So, for Alabama to continue advertising to people to spend time outdoors, unless you have the money and transportation to travel to another part of the state to experience the outdoors, you will be giving false hope to those who wants to enjoy the outdoors in Alabama, but don’t have the means to do so. Not only some state parks are closing, other services in other state parks are closing for the Winter, like restaurants and golf courses. And with the way things are going, expect more state parks to close, because the legislature in Montgomery would rather make sure out-of-state corporations don’t pay any taxes instead of allowing anyone to enjoy nature in this state.
Third, over 20 National Guard armories across Alabama will be closing down. So the next time a tornado or weather disaster strikes in the state, you are telling many of the citizens that you are on your own. If your house is destroyed by a tornado, hope you have the money to protect what you have left and to rebuild. As you can see, the legislature did the least amount possible to not have the citizens boycott what is going on. I mean, it could have been worse, as every state park would have closed down, and only four driver’s license offices would remain open in Alabama, which would have meant very long lines and people driving with expired licenses.
But, there is one organization in Alabama to blame for all of this mess. It’s not the legislature; it’s the Alabama Farmers Federation, or ALFA Insurance. You see, the legislature wanted to pass a business privilege tax so big corporations would pay a tax in the state, but ALFA lobbied to stop that, saying the tax would harm growth in Alabama. These same folks are also against any property tax increase in the state. The property taxes in Alabama are the lowest in the United States, if the state doubled the property taxes, we would still have some of the lowest property taxes in the state.
So, if you need to blame someone for seeing state parks close down, and making it harder to get or renew a driver’s license, blame ALFA! You need someone to blame for the mess across the state, blame ALFA! You need someone to blame when the education budgets are raided because the legislature don’t have to raise some taxes, blame ALFA! You get the picture; ALFA Insurance is the main reason why things are closing down across the state. Maybe you will think about this the next time you are considering doing business with ALFA, take your business somewhere else, so your money is not used lobbying the Alabama legislature to keep this state stuck in the past.
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