Archives for August 2011

August 31st, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today called on the White House to publicly ask Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, to settle its $1 billion in outstanding potential tax liability for 2002-2009:

“Barack Obama should ask his friend Warren Buffett to pay the $1 billion that the IRS says his company owes to demonstrate his true commitment to ‘shared sacrifice’ by paying what is due under the current tax law. Perhaps this $1 billion tax fight from 2002 to 2009 is why he felt as if he was undertaxed. Not every American has hundreds of lawyers and accountants to protect them from the IRS. So it would be fitting if Obama asked Buffett to put himself in the position of the average American and pay without the benefit of the advice of thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyers.”

Attachments:

“Buffett’s Billion Dollar Tax Hypocrisy,” ALG President Bill Wilson, August 31st, 2011 at http://netrightdaily.com/2011/08/buffetts-billion-dollar-tax-hypocrisy/ .

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 29, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Gibson Guitar was raided by the U.S. Department of Justice recently for an alleged violation of environmental laws including the Lacey Act. Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today called on Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander to investigate whether the Department is selectively targeting companies for criminal investigations that do business in right-to-work states:

“Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander should immediately demand a full explanation from the Obama Administration for their apparent targeting of Gibson Guitar — which makes all of their guitars in the U.S. Based upon facts available, the only thing that distinguishes Gibson’s import of wood and that of its competitors is that Gibson is located in Tennessee, a right-to-work state, and its main competitors are located in non-right-to-work California and Pennsylvania.

“In the wake of Obama’s National Labor Relations Board’s attempt to prevent Boeing from expanding into right-to-work South Carolina, it is reasonable to question whether the Justice Department raid of Gibson is a gross abuse of power to appease their politically important Big Labor allies. It is up to Senators Corker and Alexander to get to the truth, no matter how ugly it might be.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 25th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today blasted an Obama Administration proposal to offer $85 billion of refinance loans for underwater mortgage borrowers:

“With homeowners underwater in their homes by about $700 billion, Obama’s $85 billion of bailout-refinance loans will not address 88 percent of the negative equity that is out there. The whole reason the crisis began was because cheap loans were provided to those with poor credit. Now, the Obama Administration wants to return to this failed policy to prop up his sagging reelection prospects by directing the money to favored constituencies that took out loans which could not be repaid. This is nothing more than an $85 billion Obama-Reelect slush fund.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 19th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today blasted an Obama Administration proposal for yet another new make-work “stimulus” spending program:

“Even if Obama borrows yet more money from the Fed and China to expand the federal workforce by a million, it would only result in a 0.65 percent decrease in the nation’s unemployment rate. With borrowing costs and benefits are included, it would cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars with little noticeable impact on the nation’s ailing economic health. There are more efficient — and profitable — ways to create jobs.

“To foster a robust economic recovery, the government need only get out of the way. The Fed has held interest rates so low for so long, that it is more profitable and safer for financial institutions to borrow at near-zero rates and invest in treasuries than it is to engage in traditional lending. Moreover, the nation’s structural trillion-dollar-plus deficit steers more money than ever away from equities and into government bonds. That is precisely the opposite of what needs to happen to expand the economy.

“The weak dollar has also fostered higher consumer and producer prices, which has led to a commensurate slowdown in spending. A combination of smaller government and sounder money is needed to get our economy moving again, and free up resources for the private sector to create the jobs we need for a sustained recovery.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 17th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today praised Texas Governor Rick Perry for calling any attempt to print money to benefit the Barack Obama’s reelection chances over the national interest “almost treasonous”:

“Continuing to print money to pay the debt is nothing more than a political dodge from the hard choices that our elected officials are hired to make. Governor Perry is to be commended for recognizing this pernicious scheme for what it is.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or atrrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 12th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today praised the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for striking down ObamaCare’s individual mandate:

“This is just one more confirmation that ObamaCare’s individual mandate does not pass constitutional muster. We are disappointed that the court chose to reverse Judge Vinson’s ruling declaring the entire law null and void. The Democrat-controlled Congress of 2010 would have never implemented ObamaCare without the inclusion of the individual mandate. It is more important than ever that the Supreme Court resolve this issue by affirming Vinson’s original decision that the individual mandate is both unconstitutional and cannot be severed from the rest of the law.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 11th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is reportedly considering Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) to be a delegate to the joint deficit reduction committee. Today, Americans for Limited Government released a report entitled “Pay-To-Play Politics” which anoints Clyburn as the “King of Schemes.” President Bill Wilson released the following comments on the potential Clyburn super-committee appointment.

“James Clyburn’s propensity for pay-to-play politics disqualifies him from serving on any committee tasked with reducing spending,” Wilson said.me

“Clyburn has earmarked over $200 million over the past six years, making him the biggest congressional spender in South Carolina,” Wilson said. “That includes a $3 million earmark to teach children to play golf after the center had renamed itself to the ‘James E. Clyburn Golf
Center,’ and built a statue in his honor.”

“Clyburn’s role on the super-committee would be to protect what he spent decades fighting for: pork-barrel spending,” Wilson added.

Other earmarks included $54.4 million for South Carolina universities in return for tens of thousands of campaign contributions and even a transportation center named after Clyburn, $2.1 million for the city of Charleston that his cousin lobbied for who gave Clyburn $3,250 in campaign money, and $1.3 million to Palmetto Health in return for $9,500 in contributions.

That included $40 million to the South Carolina State University for the James E. Clyburn
University Transportation Center, where the congressman intends to house his official papers.

The U.S. Department of Transportation cut off funding, and a federal audit was unable to determine how tax dollars had been spent. Like federal auditors, a local paper had difficulty making sense of SCSU’s finances. Records were disorganized and difficult to track down.44
Clyburn’s transportation center was also investigated by the state Legislative Audit Council. Thirteen years after receiving the initial money, the center has still not been completed.

Wilson concluded, “Politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouths on ‘pay-to-play’ have no place on any committee that is supposed to be reducing the debt. James Clyburn has been nothing but a hypocrite on this issue for his entire career.”

Attachments:

“James Clyburn: Pay-to-Play Politics,” Americans for Limited Government Research Foundation, August 11th, 2011 atwww.getliberty.org/files/ClyburnPaytoPlay8-11-11.pdf .

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 11th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned the appointment of Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) to be a delegate to the joint committee on deficit-reduction:

“This is like appointing Ben & Jerry’s to a committee on nutrition. James Clyburn has spent his entire career giving away earmarks in exchange for campaign contributions. Clyburn is pay-to-play’s king of schemes, and has earmarked over $200 million in just the past six years.

“Clyburn’s appointment tells the American people everything they need to know about the super-committee. Its mission will not be to cut trillions of spending; it will be to protect Congress’ pay-to-play schemes. What a farce.”

Attachments:

“Clyburn Considered for Super-committee, ALG Blasts Congressman’s Pay-to-Play Earmarks,” Americans for Limited Government, August 11th, 2011 at http://getliberty.org/content.asp?pl=10&sl=5&contentid=740 .

“James Clyburn: Pay-to-Play Politics,” Americans for Limited Government Research Foundation, August 11th, 2011 atwww.getliberty.org/files/ClyburnPaytoPlay8-11-11.pdf .

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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August 10th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for placing Senator Patty Murray on the deficit reduction committee:

“Senator Murray serves as the Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, whose job is to raise money to maintain the Senate Majority. Murray’s inclusion indicates that Harry Reid is using the super-committee as a means to shake down political interests in exchange for protection in the budget process.

“The cynical misuse of this budget experiment virtually ensures that it will fail and fail spectacularly to reduce the debt and regain our Triple-A rating. It will be up to the media to closely scrutinize the actions both past and future of each of these committee members to ensure that typical Washington, D.C. pay-to-play politics will not rule the day.

“This is one reason why Americans for Limited Government opposed the super-committee concept from its inception. America cannot afford yet another backroom budget deal insulated from public scrutiny and full and honest debate. That is how we got downgraded in the first place.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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