Archives for December 2013

Dec. 19, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government today launched studentfirstnews.com, a website dedicated to raising awareness of alternative education options across the country. The group’s president, Nathan Mehrens, issued the following statement about the new project:

“Studentfirstnews.com is dedicated to promoting alternatives to the current failed education system, whether its private school choice, charter schools, or magnet schools within the public system. We’re going to let the American people know who is fighting for students first. We’re going to name names and pull no punches against those who are desperate to keep the current disaster in our schools in place just to service a few narrow interests, leaving our children as pawns in a high stakes game competing for tax dollars.

“We need more alternatives in our schools, not an inquisition into those fighting the good fight against a corrupt, failing system. It’s time we put students first and put an end to the nonsense that prevails in the education establishment that clings to the status quo that is failing our children.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 19, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government Foundation released a paper today by Dr. Bradley Gitz, Arkansas’ Bates College’s William Jefferson Clinton Professor of Political Science, which found that Obamacare nullification actions pending in the South Carolina state legislature are unconstitutional and will do harm both to the people of the state of South Carolina and to those who oppose the President’s signature health care legislation.

Dr. Gitz makes this last point writing, “… at present there is no better way to raise Obamacare from its deathbed than to do what the South Carolina Senate is contemplating doing (and the South Carolina House has already done). Rather than having let Obamacare die from its many self-inflicted wounds, they will have unintentionally aided and abetted its recovery and entrenchment in our national life. The struggle against Obamacare is both important and necessary, and South Carolina appears poised to only make it more difficult.”

Americans for Limited Government Foundation president Nathan Mehrens affirmed Gitz’s findings saying, “We wanted an independent scholar to review the nullification effort in South Carolina, and Dr. Gitz’s findings should be a sobering wake up call to anyone seriously considering pursuing state nullification of the disastrous Obamacare law.”

The full report is available on the Americans for Limited Government website.

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 17, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government today issued the following statement blasting a 67 to 33 Senate vote to advance the Ryan-Murray budget deal:

“When anything is deemed better than a government shutdown, everything is on the table. This bad deal that will increase spending in violation of sequester by $63 billion over the next two years, includes more than $32 billion of revenues and fees in the next decade, and will make it easier for the Senate to break spending limits in the future by lowering certain voting thresholds from 60 to 51 votes.

“The only question now is what future extortions the anything-but-a-shutdown caucus on the Republican side will accept. When you have no capacity to say no, you’ll agree to anything no matter how awful. This is a lump of coal for taxpayers.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 16, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement urging Senate Republicans to block the Ryan-Murray budget deal:

“If Senate Republican leaders are sincere in their opposition to the Ryan-Murray budget deal then they would block cloture on it. It will breach sequester spending limits by $63 billion in its first two years, it raises fees and revenues on the American people by more than $32 billion. It destroys a 60-vote point of order for Senators to block further spending increases beyond sequester. It’s a bad deal. Taxpayers would be better off with a basic continuing resolution that changed nothing.”

Attachments:

“Budget deal is even worse after you read it,” by ALG senior editor Robert Romano, Dec. 12, 2013, at http://netrightdaily.com/2013/12/ryan-budget-fraud-even-worse-read/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 12, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement criticizing the speed with which the budget deal is being rushed through the House of Representatives:

“In order to prevent anybody from even having an opportunity to analyze and comment on this budget deal, it is being rushed through the House in a day. This is how Nancy Pelosi ran the House, and Republicans swore up and down they would be different. How good does that promise look now?

“The Republican Pledge to America has again been broken. You get 72 hours to read a bill before it’s voted on? No. They’re going to cut $100 billion? Since 2010, outlays are only down by $3 billion, and that is only thanks to the sequester. Now, this budget deal will increase spending by $57 billion over the next two years, canceling roughly a third of the sequester in 2014 and 2015. It allows funding for Obamacare to continue. These are the types of policies Republicans opposed while in the minority. This continued breach of faith with those who entrusted them with power is wrong.

“At least going into the 2014 elections, the American people should not be deluded into believing that anyone who votes for this bill truly is seeking to cut the size and scope of government. Without this central promise, it is hard to imagine what incumbent Republicans have to offer in November besides a vague warning that it could have been worse.

“There will be those who point to the fact that government spending in real terms has been reduced since 2010 by about $3 billion. This good news is now being negated by a compromise enthusiastically embraced by Senate Democrats and President Obama, which now sets the stage for more of the sequester to be rolled back down the road.

“Is it any wonder why a president determined to grow government would herald the Ryan compromise that reverses a three year trend of cutting the size of government? Taxpayers would have been better off with a basic continuing resolution that changed nothing.”

Attachments:

“The Ryan budget fraud is even worse after you read it,” by ALG senior editor Robert Romano, Dec. 12, 2013, at http://netrightdaily.com/2013/12/ryan-budget-fraud-even-worse-read/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 10, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement blasting the budget deal that will cancel the $65 billion sequestration over the next two years:

“It is disappointing that House Republican Budget Chairman Paul Ryan would bust the $65 billion sequestration and raise government fees and other assessments, in return for other supposed cuts in the out years that likely will just be rolled back later. The sequester needed restructuring as it disproportionately hurt our national defense capabilities, but Ryan’s plan to raise taxes is unacceptable, and the supposed out year cuts are simply a cynical insult to taxpayers who now know that when push comes to shove, the cuts will not be kept.

“This is just one more example of how out of touch our national leaders are to the real priorities of the American public. It must be defeated by those who believe in keeping the size and scope of government under control.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 6, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government vice president of public policy and communications Rick Manning, a former Public Affairs Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Labor, today issued the following statement praising House leaders including committee chairmen Rep. John Kline and Rep. Dave Camp for investigating allegations that the unemployment numbers are being manipulated at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau:

“The House Education and Workforce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee have taken a vital first step in getting answers from Labor Secretary Thomas Perez on news reports that monthly jobs data has been manipulated.

“The December 3 letter from Chairmen John Kline, Dave Camp, along with the three relevant subcommittee chairmen charged with overseeing the Labor and Commerce Departments demanded that Perez provide the Committees, ‘a description of all instances in which the Census Bureau reported to BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) its data were found to be inaccurate.’

“In the context of ongoing legitimate concerns that the unemployment numbers have been willfully and deliberately manipulated, the Labor Department’s report that the unemployment rate has dramatically declined to 7 percent is evidence that it is now time for Congress to end extended unemployment benefits and restore the normal 27 week eligibility period that existed prior to 2008.

“It is also clear that the Federal Reserve should immediately begin tapering the $85 billion a month in mortgage backed securities purchases as this data, and that previously reported, demonstrate that it is unnecessary.  In fact it would be the height of irresponsibility for the Fed to continue on the reckless course of continuing the Quantitative Easing program at all.”

Attachments:

House letter to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, Dec. 3, 2013 at http://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/12-03-13-dol-bls_statistics.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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Dec. 4, 2013, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement condemning a new IRS regulation that will severely restrict the constitutionally protected speech of 501(c)4 tax-exempt organizations:

“The Obama Administration is acting as if Citizens United never happened. Now, instead of targeting the tea party and other 501(c)4s for selective discrimination, the IRS wants to codify the practice in regulation. This is nothing more than an effort to defy the Supreme Court and implement rules that violate the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of speech by drawing up rules dramatically redefining the criteria to be a (c)4 — all without any vote in Congress.

“Citizens United lifted restrictions on electioneering communications by groups. Now, very similar limitations are once again being proposed for groups, including blackout windows 60 days prior to a general election and 30 days prior to a primary. The IRS even proposes expanding the restrictions to include anything that even mentions a public official who happens to be candidate, even if such communications does not contain express advocacy, if they constitute a majority of the group’s activity.

“This tightens the ability of non-profits to engage in public discussions on areas of interest if a candidate for political office happens to be involved in that area; it will make voter registration drives more difficult; and it will generally make it harder for organizations to comment on issues of public concern, especially during certain parts of the year.

“Also, of note, the proposed regulation does not apply to labor organizations, although the proposal states that the Administration is considering a regulation in this area.  Thus, a likely result is that a final rule will be promulgated further restricting non-profit speech and activities long before any comparable regulation is promulgated on the activities of labor organizations.  The net result will be more restrictions on the rights of conservative leaning organizations while the same restrictions on left leaning labor organizations remain unfinished.”

Attachments:

“Obama expands war on political speech,” By ALG senior editor Robert Romano, Dec. 2, 2013 at http://netrightdaily.com/2013/12/obama-expands-war-political-speech/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at (703)383-0880 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts including ALG President Nathan Mehrens.

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