Archives for September 2012

Sept. 27, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson reacted to the news that the nation’s Gross Domestic Product was revised downward to 1.3 percent by the government’s Commerce Department.

“This significant, .4 percent final revision of the 2^nd quarter Gross Domestic Product measurement calls into question whether we are seeing more data manipulation by this Administration.  Going into the political conventions in August, this same Commerce Department produced a picture of a slightly better economy putting growth at 1.7 percent.  Now, after the conventions are over and the media is more interested in polling than facts, it turns out that Obama’s Commerce Department was wrong and the economy actually shrunk significantly to a meager 1.3 percent growth rate and shrinking.

“There were unspoken suspicions of data manipulation last month in light of other economic reports that pointed to slower growth, and this month’s final GDP numbers confirm that at best, Obama’s Commerce Department gave a mistaken view of the state of the economy and at worse, a politically skewed one.

“In either case, today’s final 2^nd Quarter GDP report shows that the Obama economy continues to weaken, which is terrible news for all those who were hoping to enter the holiday season with a new job and renewed hope.”

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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Sept. 24, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement responding to Obama strategist David Axelrod’s refusal to “have [a] discussion right now” about Social Security because “Social Security is a more distant problem”:

“It truly is pathetic that David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Team Obama, admits they have no plan to proactively work toward fixing any entitlement program like Social Security until the program reaches a crisis level. This is not the kind of leadership that America expects from their president, but is revealing about the central tenet of the Obama Administration. Bounce between crisis to crisis reacting with big government ‘solutions’ rather than anticipating problems and working to deal with them before we hit the brink of a government shutdown, default on our debts or even failing to meet obligations to seniors and pensioners.

“Adults don’t act this way, Obama’s term in office has proven that he neither has the vision or courage of an adult leading our nation, but rather Obama’s term is more like a petulant child who is always pointing his finger at others. Our nation faces a world of nearly unprecedented financial and international peril; it is time for the adults to take over.”

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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Sept. 18, 2012, Fairfax, VA—In light of the release of a video of Mitt Romney at a May 17 fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida fundraiser, which has fueled a national debate over welfare state dependency, Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today released a commentary in response to the controversy, calling it a “discussion worth having.”

Excerpts:

“Romney is telling the truth about the state of dependency in the U.S., and is calling attention to the perverse incentives politically that are created when government assistance becomes a way of life for millions of Americans.”

“Romney is explaining a basic economic truth: that the more dependent an individual becomes on government welfare, the less likely he or she is to be able to advance in society and improve his or her standard of living. This is a very stark contrast, and it is worth expounding upon.”

“This video may, in the end, be a blessing in disguise for Romney. But only if he quickly takes advantage of the opportunity it has created for him to explain why government dependency is destroying America.”

Attachments:

“Romney’s opportunity,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, Sept. 18, 2012, at http://netrightdaily.com/2012/09/romneys-opportunity/

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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Sept. 17, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson expressed the need today to pass current legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that throws a wrench in this administration’s war on coal.

The Stop the War on Coal Act (H.R. 3409) includes various provisions prohibiting the EPA and the Obama administration from continuing its war on coal.  Bipartisan support of the Energy Tax Prevention Act, the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act, and the Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act will save countless jobs and keep energy prices down for American families and businesses.

“Just looking at the EPA’s mercury emission regulations alone—which require power plants to be retrofitted with new technologies—costs billions of dollars to implement,” says Bill Wilson, president of ALG.  “However due to the prohibitively high cost of this new technology, many older coal-fired plants are being shut down, ending countless Americans jobs for those who depend on coal for their livelihoods.

“Taking into account the great loss of Americans jobs as well as the source of nearly 50 percent of the country’s electric energy, the costs of cutting coal production far outweigh any alleged benefits,” Wilson continues.

“If our hope is to bring America out of this recession in one piece then affordable energy is a must.  The House must pass this legislation and begin the arduous task of reining in the out-of-control EPA.”

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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Sept. 14, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement blasting a ruling by Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas overturning Wisconsin’s law limiting collective bargaining for public sector unions:

“It is distressing that a judge in Wisconsin has chosen to usurp the will of the people in dealing with core financial issues.  State elected officials established collective bargaining for public employees, and they have an absolute right and responsibility to end them in order to restore control over the major cost centers of government.”

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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Sept. 13, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement praising Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) for his voter integrity fight:

“Representative Joe Walsh’s effort to insure the integrity of the federal voting process is both a stroke of common sense, but also courageous.  Predictably, those intent upon corrupting the process will attack Walsh’s efforts to protect one of our citizen’s most sacred rights – the vote.  It is the virulence of these attacks that proves their maker’s intent, and Joe Walsh deserves an A-plus for staring them down through his re-introduction of the Federal Election Integrity Act, which simply requires a picture identification be shown as part of the federal election voting process.”

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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Sept. 13, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement responding to the Federal Reserve’s action to increase its holdings of mortgage-backed securities by $40 billion a month, or at an annualized pace of $480 billion a year:

“The fact that the Fed is acting a few short weeks before the election is outrageous. At best, it indicates they are willing to risk attacks on the central bank’s independence due to the appearance of being political, revealing just how bad the Obama economy really is. At worst, they are desperately trying to juice markets to change the outcome in November. Neither is good.

“Bernanke has fired his last bullet. Since August 2007 when the crisis began, the Fed has increased its balance sheet from $897 billion to $2.865 trillion today, more than tripling it. The federal funds rate has been at near-zero percent since December 2008—all with little to no effect. It could not prevent the market downturn. It has not restored sustainable economic growth. Unemployment is still unacceptably high. If the last $2 trillion of monetary expansion and easy money did not cure markets or restore robust growth, what makes the Fed think another $480 billion will do the trick?

“Never has so much been done to so little effect. At least, not since Japan did precisely the same thing in the 1990s and 2000s. Just one more exclamation point that Obama’s economy is adrift with no wind in its sails.”

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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Sept. 12, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement urging the U.S. Senate to reject Dawn Liberi to be U.S. Ambassador to Burundi in a vote tomorrow, citing Inspector General reports of her record as mission director for USAID in Iraq from 2005 to 2006:

“Eight separate inspector general reports that cover the short time period that Liberi was running the USAID/Iraq Mission all cover problems with keeping track of property or making sure that contractors were doing their job. One is particularly embarrassing — $90 million for the development of local Iraqi governments was not properly monitored even after the inspector general had already complained about the way USAID was managing the contract.

“These reports on Liberi’s tenure in Iraq are rife with waste and mismanagement, and raise the legitimate question of her competency. She could not have done a worse job than if she were attempting to actively sabotage these programs. The Senate must vet this nominee, not rubberstamp her confirmation.”

Here are selections from each IG report:

“USAID/Iraq property valued at $23.5 million in its nonexpendable property database was not managed in accordance with USAID guidance…. We could not verify the existence of a projected $2.9 million in nonexpendable property included in the database. Furthermore, Mission vehicles valued at $2.3 million were not properly safeguarded.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy06rpts/e-267-06-002-p.pdf

“We could not determine if USAID/Iraq’s local governance activities achieved their intended outputs because USAID/Iraq did not require Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International to submit all reporting and monitoring documents specified in the contract.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy06rpts/e-267-06-003-p.pdf

“ADF’s [a USAID/Iraq contractor] Performance Monitoring Plan was neither complete nor achievable.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/e-267-07-001-p.pdf

“USAID/Iraq failed to enforce contract requirements…. The audit also found that USAID/Iraq failed to perform the required contractor performance evaluations….The current audit found that the Mission’s actions taken in response to the prior audit to enforce the contract requirements and to complete the contractor performance evaluation were ineffective.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/e-267-07-007-p.pdf

“It was not possible to determine if intended outputs were achieved for the remaining 22 activities [of 61 total activities] due to a lack of adequate supporting documentation…. During the audit, we also determined that OFDA [USAID Office of Foreign Disaster] did not properly designate cognizant technical officers [who oversee grants and cooperative agreements].”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/e-267-07-006-p.pdf

“The lack of sufficient documentation was due to USAID/Iraq’s and Bechtel’s management oversight.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/e-267-07-004-p.pdf

“the audit found that USAID/Iraq’s education activities achieved 7 out of 16 selected intended outputs…. It could not be determined if two of the selected outputs were achieved due to a lack of sufficient documentation….The remaining seven selected intended outputs were not achieved.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/e-267-07-003-p.pdf

“USAID/Iraq did not properly administer its contract with Development Alternatives, Inc.”

http://transition.usaid.gov/oig/public/fy07rpts/e-267-07-002-p.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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Sept. 12, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the German constitutional court’s decision to uphold the €500 billion European Stability Mechanism:

 “The ESM as drafted allows the board of governors to arbitrarily increase the amount of money each country must pledge for bailouts without any legislative approval. This was blatantly unconstitutional, and instead the court pulled a John Roberts and twisted the law to avoid their appointed responsibility, pretending this was not the case. This will forever be known as the Pontius Pilate decision; they can wash their hands forever, but they can never remove the stain.”

 Attachments: “Another Black September?” By ALG President Bill Wilson, Aug. 31, at http://netrightdaily.com/2012/08/another-black-september/

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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Obama administration welfare-to-work waiver threatens future success.

Sept. 11, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on President Obama’s gutting of the welfare work requirements under the federal welfare law:

“Obama’s unilateral gutting of the welfare work requirements under the federal welfare law renews his attempt to create an entitlement society where individuals are dependent upon the largesse of government rather than on their own initiative to live and thrive.

“In looking closely at the specific changes that Congress will attempt to overturn in the weeks ahead, one ramification is that Obama’s changes would leave the door open for states to not only not require work, but could even go so far as to make college students eligible for government aid.

“This potential expansion of government dependency of students when they are supposed to be experiencing the growth that the independence of college provides is a disaster waiting to happen.

“Our young people are our next great hope in this nation.  To put them into the cocoon of government entitlement when they should be struggling through the growing pains of independence is disastrous for the individual students and our nation as a whole.  The struggle of college independence, making budgets, making mistakes and learning from them forges character and the confidence that a person can overcome adversity.

“This is the fundamental quality that defines success, and Obama’s changes open the doors for transforming our college students from strivers to dependents.  This is just one reason why Congress must overturn Obama’s attempt to waive the welfare work requirement under the law.”

ALG Note:

Morna Murray, Special Counsel to Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), suggests in the Huffington Post that states may use this waiver to expand what qualifies as a “work activity” to include post-secondary education. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morna-murray/welfare-work-the-facts_b_1855286.html)  HHS’s Guidance states as much where it says the Administration would consider “[p]rojects that improve collaboration with the workforce and/or post-secondary education systems to test multi-year career pathways models for TANF recipients that combine learning and work.” (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html) This would be accomplished by—instead of waiving the mandatory work requirement section of the law (42 U.S.C. sec. 607), which is not allowed under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1115—waiving a state’s requirement to submit a written plan, under 42 U.S.C. sec 602, for how it will comply with the work requirement section.  This tenuous legal justification is merely a facade that masks the Departments attempt to disregard 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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