Archives for January 2014

ALG praises Rep. Dave Camp for taking IRS investigation lead

January 31, 2014

Jan. 31, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today praised Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) for directing the investigation of the IRS targeting of the tea party and other 501(c)4 organizations toward a November 2013 proposed rulemaking by the Treasury Department that will severely restrict the political speech of all 501(c)4s:

“House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp’s request for all documents related to the IRS rulemaking is a step in the right direction to stop these egregious regulations from taking effect.  The regulations would effectively legitimize the very IRS activity that resulted in the tea party targeting scandal of the past couple of years.  Chairman Camp’s request will help determine if the new regulations were driven more by politics than the law.”

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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Filed Under: Press Releases

Urge Congress to Defund the EPA!

January 29, 2014

The EPA continues to be an unaccountable agency that regularly creates job killing regulations. It is time to defund the EPA’s rulemakings, and protect American businesses from radical environmentalists. Share this alert with your readers by copying this code into the full-width html portion of your blog:


Filed Under: Action Alert

Stop the IRS Assault on the Tea Party!

January 28, 2014

The Obama administration is trying to codify its IRS assault on the tea party by going around Congress! A new rule will shred the First Amendment and supress dissent. Share this alert with your readers by copying this code into the full-width html portion of your blog:


Filed Under: Action Alert

Did Geithner threaten S&P on debt downgrade in political retaliation?

January 22, 2014

Jan. 22, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement blasting the Obama administration via then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for allegedly threatening Standard and Poor’s in 2011 when it downgraded U.S. debt:

“Standard and Poor’s sworn declaration that they were threatened by Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the wake of their downgrading U.S. debt makes the New Jersey bridge closure claims look like child’s play.  The worldwide economy depends upon S&P rating bond risks appropriately and the clear attempts to intimidate those who measure those risks by Obama’s henchman shows just how out of control this Administration has been since almost its inception.

“The President must be held accountable for these actions. This was an egregious abuse of power that calls into question not only our creditworthiness, but the lengths the Obama administration will go to in order to hide the truth about our coming fiscal ruin. Our $17.3 trillion debt is not going away, and threatening those who say it is a problem will not save us when the bill finally comes due.”

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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Filed Under: Press Releases

Senate Republicans block unemployment benefits extension

January 14, 2014

Jan. 14, 2014, Faifax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement praising Senate Republicans for blocking an extension of unemployment benefits:

“It is refreshing that Senate Republicans have found the backbone to stop Harry Reid’s attempt to jam through a massive unemployment insurance extension spending increase without making the necessary cuts to pay for it.  It is time for Congress to have an honest discussion about Obama policies, including Obamacare and runaway environmental regulations, that are exasperating this long-term unemployment crisis, rather than just passing the buck on to future taxpayers.

“Currently, those who have the misfortune of being unemployed receive more than six months of benefits, and with the Obama Administration’s Labor Department reporting that the unemployment rate has shrunk to 6.7 percent, it just may be time to end the extension altogether.”

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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Filed Under: Press Releases

The moral evolution of progressives

January 13, 2014

By Marta H. Mossburg

Boy, have progressives “evolved.”

The party of saloon protesters, suffragettes and crusaders against smoking, prostitution and immigration are now the champions of government-regulated vice.

They no longer want to save souls, but use them to increase tax revenue to fund an ever expanding list of new priorities in a turnaround that would likely make Frances Willard, the famous head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the late 1800s, reach for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

The reversal is not totally consistent, however. No sooner had progressives successfully helped to ban smoking everywhere in public places had they moved on to champion legalizing marijuana.

Pot legalization is the cause du jour for Heather Mizeur, a Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, who would like to use the money generated from selling pot to fund universal pre-kindergarten. She recently told MSNBC, “When we tax, legalize and regulate marijuana, we’ll have the revenue to invest in other important priorities like making sure that every one of our children are [sic] ready to enter school able to learn at the same pace as every other kid in our state.”

Whoa, so it doesn’t matter if the kids’ parents are lighting up each night so long as the government gets to teach their offspring during the day?

Buying, selling and smoking pot is now legal in Colorado and soon will be in Washington. The war on drugs has failed, just as Prohibition did, but that never stopped progressives of yesteryear from deploring ideals that did not conform to their moral standards.

If anything, it only made them more fervent in their quest to educate America’s public school children about the horrors of alcohol, castigate Hollywood for depicting pre-marital sex and smoking in movies and indoctrinate immigrants on Ellis Island in their teetotaling ways.

Now they are champions of “sex workers” and gambling for its job-creating capabilities, which makes one wonder if they might consider legalizing child labor so long as the taxes generated from it paid for universal access to dental care for child factory workers or championing bigamy if it paved the way for higher housing density and less urban sprawl. Or what about banning rich white families from adopting black children to prevent them from becoming Republicans? Ask MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry about that one.

Maybe it should not be surprising that progressive views have changed so dramatically in 100 years. Progressives themselves believe in moving ever forward to an as yet undiscovered ideal, and if that means discarding the moral underpinnings of the movement, so be it.

For all those who care about personal freedom, it probably feels good to have a movement that helped to elect President Barack Obama twice and the new mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, on your side. But ultimately the affinity libertarians may share with progressives about gay marriage or drug and prostitution legalization is temporary because freedom and other core values are not important in and of themselves. They are a means to achieve something else.

Look at how President Obama’s administration so quickly postponed or reinterpreted key provisions in his signature health law. His executive decisions will significantly impact how many people join the health exchanges and ultimately undermine the law from working as intended, since they mean fewer younger and healthier people will balance out the older and sicker people signed up.

If even he is willing to abandon central tenets of his philosophy, what does it say about progressive beliefs? And if the rule of law, even his own law, is secondary to maintaining political power, why take the trouble to have beliefs in the first place?

If anything, progressives should make Americans celebrate the Bill of Rights as an enduring defense against those for whom rights depend on who is in power. Evolution is poisonous to human life if tyranny is its final expression.

Marta H. Mossburg writes about national affairs, culture and Maryland, where she lives. Follow her on Twitter at @mmossburg.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

ALG President Nathan Mehrens on new employment numbers

January 10, 2014

 January 10, 2014, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens issued the following statement on December’s job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“Another half a million people dropped out of the American labor force in December.  You can ignore every other statistic and spin coming out of this Administration about the job market, this is the only data point that matters.  That is a half million more dreams shattered as Americans give up on traditional, legal paths to economic success and wealth.

 “Since Obama became president, the number of people who are considered to be in the civilian job eligible population has increased by just shy of eleven million people, but the number of people who have entered the work force has only increased by about 730 thousand people.  Quite simply our nation cannot survive when fewer than sixty six out a thousand working aged people are entering the workforce.  Of those sixty six who want a job, about five of them are unemployed.

“That is Obama’s economic legacy.  Political spin and economic shills can put whatever face they want on his economy, but any rational person can see, that this is not a sustainable model.  That is the takeaway from the December employment report, and it is ugly.”

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.

Filed Under: Press Releases

ALG President Nathan Mehrens on new employment numbers

January 10, 2014

 January 10, 2014, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens issued the following statement on December’s job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“Another half a million people dropped out of the American labor force in December.  You can ignore every other statistic and spin coming out of this Administration about the job market, this is the only data point that matters.  That is a half million more dreams shattered as Americans give up on traditional, legal paths to economic success and wealth.

 “Since Obama became president, the number of people who are considered to be in the civilian job eligible population has increased by just shy of eleven million people, but the number of people who have entered the work force has only increased by about 730 thousand people.  Quite simply our nation cannot survive when fewer than sixty six out a thousand working aged people are entering the workforce.  Of those sixty six who want a job, about five of them are unemployed.

“That is Obama’s economic legacy.  Political spin and economic shills can put whatever face they want on his economy, but any rational person can see, that this is not a sustainable model.  That is the takeaway from the December employment report, and it is ugly.”

To view online: http://getliberty.org/alg-president-nathan-mehrens-on-new-budget-numbers/

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.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

ALG urges Senate Republicans to block cloture on $6.4 billion unemployment benefits extension

January 9, 2014

Jan. 9, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement urging Senate Republicans to block cloture on a $6.4 billion three-month extension of unemployment benefits:

“It has been six years now of long-term unemployment benefit extensions, up to 99 weeks, then up to 73 weeks. In some instances individuals need only work a couple quarters to qualify for benefits, receiving far more than they ever paid into the system. Is that fair? That makes these long-term unemployment benefits extensions not any sort of insurance, but a debt-creating welfare program.

“It shouldn’t be renewed at all, since it is only treating the symptoms of what ails the economy. Instead, the Senate should be working at undoing the policies that are really holding the economy back and preventing people from finding work.

“That said, if it is renewed, it better be paid for. And not with spending cuts that occur years from now, but with cuts that occur this fiscal year. If the Senate wants to increase spending on extended unemployment benefits by $6.4 billion in 2014, then members should find $6.4 billion of spending cuts in this fiscal year. Anything less will be a fiscally irresponsible failure that adds to the debt and will do nothing to help people get back to work.”

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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Filed Under: Press Releases

Senate should reject race-baiter Adegbile from Civil Rights post

January 7, 2014

Jan. 7, 2014, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens today issued the following statement urging Senate rejection of Debo Adegbile as the next Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division:

“The Senate should reject Debo Adegbile from being confirmed as the next Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division.

“Adegbile is best known as the man who headed the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s voluntary racial assault on the integrity of a dead Philadelphia police office in a quest to get his murderer off of death row.

“The attack on the character of the dead, defenseless officer was so egregious that the Fraternal Order of Police has come out against the nomination writing:

‘We are aware of the tried and true shield behind which activists of Adegbile’s ilk are wont to hide – that everyone is entitled to a defense; but surely you would agree that a defense should not be based upon falsely disparaging and savaging the good name and reputation of a lifeless police officer.  Certainly any legal scholar can see the injustice and absence of ethics in this cynical race-baiting approach to our legal system.’

“Adegbile has also supported Equal Employment Opportunity Commission efforts to prevent the usage of criminal background checks to screen potential new hires.  As the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Office, Adegbile would be in a position to bring legal action against employers who engaged in the commonsense practice of ensuring that convicted thieves weren’t hired to oversee inventory or rapists weren’t serving as parking attendants.

“The nomination of Adegbile is an affront to the concept of moving toward a non-racial society, and he should be rejected on a bi-partisan basis by the United States Senate.”

Attachments:

Nominee Alert for Debo Adegbile, Americans for Limited Government, Jan. 7, 2014 at http://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Debo-Adegbile-NomineeAlert-January-2014.pdf

Letter of Opposition to Debo Adegbile, National Fraternal Order of Police, Jan. 6, 2014 at http://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/FOP-Opposition-to-Adegbile-Nomination.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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Filed Under: Press Releases
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