Archives for June 2010

June 22nd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—States and county, city, and local governments could have an additional $100 billion in federal spending to balance budgets this year under legislation proposed last week by Senators Sherrod Brown, Al Franken and Mark Begich (S. 3500).

The $100 billion would bail out broken state and local government budgets, including $23 billion in education spending for the states, $1.2 billion for police, $500 million for firefighters, and $75 billion for city, town and county municipal employees.

“This is nothing more than a handout to prop up public employees unions who refuse to accept any cuts to spending even though the revenue simply is not there,” said Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson. “While taxpayers are demanding that cuts be made and budgets balanced at the state and local level, the unions are begging Congress to bail them out.”

“These ‘stimulus’ pieces of legislation threaten to change the dynamic of state budgeting. They will permanently remove any balanced budget requirements, in essence creating a new line on the federal budget for the states,” Wilson said.

“The states are already beginning to formulate their budgets in coordination with promises from Washington,” noting a Washington Times article published today that reported “30 states have adopted budgets that depend on Congress approving at least $24 billion in extended funding for Medicaid.”

“If Congress does not act to cut off federal funding, the states will continue to push off the burden of balancing budgets,” Wilson explained.

The Brown, Franken, and Begich June 16th proposal followed a June 12th letter from Barack Obama to Congress requesting federal money to prop up state and local governments. Obama blamed the slumping economy that has “left a mounting employment crisis at the state and local level”.

Obama wrote that “if additional action is not taken hundreds of thousands of additional jobs could be lost.”

Wilson countered, “The only responsible action that should be taken is cutting bloated state and local budgets. The budget crises faced by state and local governments are primarily because of the run-up in spending during the economic boom years, which resulted in a dramatic expansion of public employee rolls, salaries, and health and pension benefits.”

Wilson noted that since 2000, Pew Research reports that state pension funds have been underfunded by $500 billion, and overall face a $1 trillion deficit. States also face a $587 billion long-term liability for promised health care benefits, but have only $32 billion on-hand to finance that obligation.

General spending has been rising, too, said Wilson. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), state spending grew from $945.3 billion in 2000 to more than $1.5 trillion 2008, almost a 58.7 percent increased during the 2000’s, where revenues were generally rising because of inflated property values.

Wilson again noted that states knew a downturn was coming as early as 2007, but spending still grew by about $100 billion in 2008. “These were huge, unsustainable expansions that need to come back to earth, but Congress wants to keep them in the stratosphere. The public unions desperately want to avoid being cut. They want the same funding levels as the boom years, and that’s simply not going to happen.”

“So public employee unions’ solution is to beg Congress for another $100 billion in handouts. Now is the time for spending restraint, but the only way the necessary cuts will be made is when Congress quits distorting state and local budgeting with annual bailouts,” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:

“Driving Right Off the Cliff,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, June 16th, 2010.

ALG Letter to Congress Against States Bailout, May 27th, 2010.

“A Bottomless Pit,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, February 22nd, 2010.

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June 21st, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today urged members of the United States Senate to “reject without reservation an avowed rapist, serial killer apologist for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.”

“Robert Chatigny is a man who thought that a confessed rapist, serial killer of eight young women aged 14 to 25, Michael Ross, ‘never should have been convicted,’” Wilson said.

Chatigny’s controversial remarks were made at a last-minute hearing in 2005 he had convened wherein he granted a stay of execution for convicted rapist, serial killer, Michael Ross. In that hearing, Chatigny chastised Ross’ attorney, T.R. Paulding, and threatened to have his law license pulled for not more vigorously pursuing Ross’ defense.

Although the hearing was supposed to be examining Ross’ competence to waive his right to appeal, Chatigny opined, “looking at the record in a light most favorable to Mr. Ross, he never should have been convicted. Or if convicted, he never should have been sentenced to death because his sexual sadism, which was found by every single person who looked at him, is clearly a mitigating factor.”

In a letter to the U.S. Senate, Wilson wrote, “Ross had confessed to all eight rape-murders. Of course he should have been convicted. There was no question of his malice and cruelty, either, and yet for Chatigny, this was a mitigating factor that should have blocked the death penalty sentence. That is outrageous enough.”

Wilson’s letter continued, “But if there was any doubt as to Chatigny’s bias and personal interest in this case, the hearing Chatigny was presiding over had nothing to do with sentencing. It had to do with forcing Ross’ attorney to pursue a claim that Ross was not competent to waive his right to appeal the sentence.”

The letter closed, “Chatigny clearly wanted to keep Ross in the system. His bias exhibited in this case calls into question his temperament and impartiality as a judge, and should disqualify him. This nomination should be withdrawn.”

Wilson also cited that Chatigny’s “long history of acting sympathetically toward sex offenders.” As reported by the Washington Times, “[i]n 12 child-pornography cases, Judge Chatigny imposed a sentence either at or more lenient than the recommended minimum – with most downward departures involving sentences less than half as long.”

“In 2000, Chatigny even overturned Connecticut’s sex offender registry law,” Wilson noted.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to report Judge Chatigny to floor on June 10th for a full Senate vote.

Wilson concluded, “No right-thinking Senator should want to be associated with Robert Chatigny, let alone promote him to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Chatigny has made his career acting as an apologist for sex offenders. His conduct is so deeply offensive and disturbing to the American people that this nomination must be defeated.”

Attachments:

ALG Letter to U.S. Senate Against Judge Chatigny, June 21st, 2010.

“Editorial: Democrat Senate to Promote Rapist, Serial Killer Apologist to 2nd Circuit Court,” ALG News, June 21st, 2010.

ALG Nominee Alert, Robert Chatigny, March 2010.

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“It’s time for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stand on its own two feet without taxpayer backing,” said Wilson. “In these troubled economic times, with such pressure on taxpayers with a $13 trillion national debt spiraling out of control, it’s time for Congress to consider cutting non-essential programs like public broadcasting.”

“With over 500 channels available on cable and satellite television, and thousands of radio stations nationwide, the rationale for funding television and radio programs with taxes is no longer even valid,” Wilson added, noting that the CPB’s original mission was to make “telecommunications services available to all citizens of the United States”.

Currently, for FY 2010, the CPB has $420 million appropriated, and has requested some $608 million for its next funding cycle beginning in FY 2013. The CPB is the parent company for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the National Public Radio (NPR) networks.

In an exclusive interview with ALG News, Congressman Lamborn stated, “If we don’t take the low-hanging fruit then where else will we save the money?”

Wilson agreed, saying, “Congressman Lamborn has a point. Congress refuses to cut spending anywhere ever — it has not been able to reduce the debt for over fifty years. If Congress can’t cut public broadcasting, which is absolutely non-essential, it won’t be able to cut anything ever.”

Lamborn indicated that it may not be easy: “There is a constituency for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, especially the people who would rather get the money on a silver platter than have to go out and work to sell advertising and bring it in the way everyone else has to perhaps. We have to make hard choices.”

Lamborn added, “If we don’t do that, we are going to go the way of Greece and we are going to lose our greatness here in America.”

Wilson concluded, “Giving the CPB the benefit of the doubt that there is demand for its programming, it should be able to get by without taxpayer assistance since it only gets 13 percent of its funding from federal tax dollars. But if the CPB cannot survive in the real world like everyone else, because there is not a market for its programming, it is not the responsibility of taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for a luxury.”

Attachments:

“Video: Congressman Doug Lamborn Introduce Legislation Defunding Public Broadcasting,” Americans for Limited Government, June 16th, 2010 (download).

“Time to Stop Funding Luxuries, Like Public Broadcasting,” by Rebekah Rast, ALG News Contributing Editor, June 14th, 2010.

“Is Public Broadcasting Hurting the Arts?” by Robert Romano, ALG News Senior Editor, June 15th, 2010.

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June 16th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today urged Congress to reject the newly proposed so-called DISCLOSE Act as “campaign speech restrictions that seek to chill political discourse by corporations and not-for-profit organizations against incumbent politicians, while leaving in place a special carve-out for media organizations to endorse candidates without any regulation.”

“Under the archaic 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act, newspapers, broadcasting stations, magazines, and other periodicals that publish endorsements are given a blanket exemption against being regulated by the Federal Election Commission. They don’t have to disclose donors. They have no limits on what they can say, or when they can say it,” Wilson noted.

“That’s the way it is supposed to be for everybody,” Wilson declared. “There should be equal protection of the First Amendment, where anyone can talk or write about elections without regulation. Congress has no power to determine which political speech is protected ‘free speech’ and which may be regulated. Yet with the DISCLOSE Act, Congress is still pretending that it does have the power to determine who is free.”

According to 2 USC 431 (9) (B) (i): “The term ‘expenditure’ does not include any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication”. This media exemption to campaign regulation is reinforced in the DISCLOSE Act’s language on page 22.

“Why is the Washington Post ‘more free’ than WalMart?” Wilson asked.

Wilson noted that although corporations would be allowed to make “expenditures” under the bill calling for the election or defeat of candidates for office, “Corporations and not-for-profits would have to comply with labyrinthine, burdensome disclosure requirements in order to do so; meanwhile, other companies by virtue of publishing ‘news’ would still enjoy complete immunity from any regulation.”

The Act’s disclosure requirements include any expenditures in excess of $10,000 of express advocacy for or against a candidate, which must be reported to the FEC within 24 hours. The disclosure requirements extend to 120 days prior to the first presidential primary or caucus, and 90 days before the first Congressional primary or caucus, and extend through general election day. Anyone who invests or donates $1,000 or more to the company or organization that engages in express advocacy of a candidate, except for media organizations, would have to have their names submitted to the FEC.

“This would require a company or organization to disclose shareholder information, which would have a chilling effect on speech. If the company were publicly-traded, they conceivably would have to submit shareholder information every single trading day to the FEC during the campaign. Meanwhile, ‘news’ organizations would get a pass,” Wilson said.

“That’s just wrong. The First Amendment’s freedom of speech and of the press is supposed to protect the publication of all political opinions, not just state-licensed media outlets,” Wilson concluded.

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June 14th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today renewed his call for Congress to reject “another bailout of insolvent state governments like New York and California, this time with a $50 billion payout to public sector employee unions in an election year.”

“To ask for another $50 billion from taxpayers in these stressful economic times to balance state government budgets — money taxpayers don’t even have and will instead have to borrow from overseas and the Federal Reserve — is an insult to the American people who are tightening their belts as they watch in horror as government grows,” Wilson said.

In a letter to Congressional leadership over the weekend, Barack Obama attempted to persuade members concerned about the burgeoning $13 trillion national debt to include $50 billion for public education spending to troubled states, as reported by the Washington Post. The current national debt equals almost 90 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

Wilson said the Obama Administration was “politically desperate to get this done before June 30th before the fiscal year begins for most states.” The $50 billion in funding would come atop $53.6 billion that was included for states in the 2009 “stimulus”, and Wilson said “would represent the third attempt by Congressional Democrats this year to pass a states bailout.”

Wilson said the first attempt came in HR 2847, which passed the House 217-212 on December 16th, 2009 as part of a wider $154 billion bill intended to spend paid-back Trouble Asset Relief Program monies to balance state budgets. That attempt floundered in the Senate, as the provisions were stripped out of the final bill.

The second attempt came as a proposed $23 billion bailout that would have been attached to a defense appropriations bill was taken off the table, first in the Senate by Senator Tom Harkin, who could not find the votes, and then in the House by Rep. David Obey, as reported by the Associated Press.

According to a CNN report, “States are looking at a total budget gap of $180 billion for fiscal 2011, which for most of them begins July 1.” Compared with prior years, according to Sunshinereview.org, state budget shortfalls totaled $113.2 billion for FY 2009, and then rose to $142.6 billion in FY 2010.

California currently faces a $20 billion shortfall. On the east coast, New York faces a more than $8 billion deficit, and New Jersey too faces a $11 billion deficit for 2011.

According to the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), state spending grew from $945.3 billion in 2000 to more than $1.5 trillion 2008, almost a 58.7 percent increased during the 2000’s, where revenues were generally rising because of inflated property values and what Wilson termed “a bubble economy.”

Wilson pointed out that states knew a downturn was coming as early as 2007, but spending still grew by about $100 billion in 2008. “Everybody else is tightening their budgets, and so too must state governments,” Wilson said.

A recent letter from Wilson to Congress described Obama’s plan as a “failed approach” that will “create an incentive for states to continue to follow the failed, insolvent policies of New York and California. Making matters worse, this bill will disincentivize the prudent path that New Jersey has taken under Governor Chris Christie’s leadership in recent months, which because of the spending freeze undertaken, New Jersey will not have to raise taxes this year to balance the budget.”

The letter concluded, “We urge you to reject the New York and California plan to perpetual bailouts and deficit-spending, and instead, for the sake of taxpayers, to adopt the New Jersey plan of fiscal solvency by making the tough decisions to slash spending.”

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June 10th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement condemning the Senate’s 53-47 vote today upholding an EPA finding classifying carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant:

“The Senate has just voted to affirm that the EPA should be able to arbitrarily set the nation’s energy policy by imposing unilateral restrictions on carbon emissions without any vote at all in Congress. This is a vote that will assuredly lead to higher energy prices, lost jobs, lost business, and the tyrannical imposition of a radical, environmentalist agenda upon the American people.”

Attachments:

“Earth Not on Fire: The Threat Posed by the EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding on the Individual and the Economy,” Americans for Limited Government, June, 2010.

ALG Letter to U.S. Senate, June 8th, 2010.

“Apocalyptic EPA Should Not Be Setting Energy Policy,” Editorial by ALG News, June 9th, 2010.

“The EPA’s Reckless Endangerment,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, June 8th, 2010.

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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June 8th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today urged the Senate to vote in favor of Senator Lisa Murkowski’s resolution that would repeal an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finding classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

In Wilson’s letter to the Senate, he wrote, “If you do not act to repeal the EPA’s endangerment finding against carbon dioxide, as in S.J. Res. 26, it will be utilized by the agency as the foundation for the EPA to regulate, restrict, and eventually prohibit emissions of carbon dioxide by motor vehicles, industry, and even the air people exhale.”

The letter continued, “The EPA’s finding is based on shoddy science that disregards the downward trend in global temperatures despite increases in carbon emissions, ignores the failed projections of increased temperatures by the International Panel on Climate Change and other proponents of the man-made global warming hypothesis, and overlooks the impact of the Climategate scandal where it was revealed that global temperature data was manipulated and exaggerated by climatologists and utilizes data that has now been discredited.”

ALG today published a summary of the implications of the EPA’s finding. It cites research from Christopher Monckton of Brenchley documenting lower actual global temperatures than had been projected by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency often cited as justification for draconian restrictions on carbon emissions.

Wilson said in a statement, “All of the predictions made by the IPCC have been discredited. They said that temperatures are supposed to be going up, but they’re not. Since the EPA’s carbon endangerment finding depends so heavily upon the IPCC for its finding that carbon dioxide is a harmful pollutant, the only responsible action for the Senate is to repeal it.”

“It’s not as if the EPA did not have an opportunity to get up to speed on recent revelations in climate science. EPA analyst Dr. Alan Carlin submitted comments warning against the finding citing data that disproves the man-made global warming hypothesis, and they consciously disregarded it. They suppressed it,” Wilson noted in a statement.

The summary also notes that the EPA did not take into consideration the Climategate scandal in producing its finding, which revealed widespread manipulation of temperature data by what Wilson called “alarmist climate scientists driven by ideology rather an impartial pursuit of the truth.”

Wilson said the IPCC’s poor track record calls into question further predictions made by the EPA citing IPCC research. In its finding, the EPA claimed that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere “threaten[s] the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

The regulation predicts increased heat waves, more-intense hurricanes, floods, storm surges, rising sea levels, erosion, wildfires, drought, and even allergens and pathogens. The EPA also predicts the displacement of indigenous populations, the eventual decrease of food production and agriculture, and the reduction of forest productivity.

The Senate is expected to vote on Murkowski’s resolution on Thursday.

“The true danger to the American people is tyrannical restrictions on carbon emissions and energy usage that harm population sustainability and economic growth. The Senate has a golden opportunity to stop the EPA dead in its tracks before it imposes a carbon rationing regime upon the American people,” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:

“Earth Not on Fire: The Threat Posed by the EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding on the Individual and the Economy,” Americans for Limited Government, June, 2010.

ALG Letter to U.S. Senate, June 8th, 2010.

“The EPA’s Reckless Endangerment,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, June 8th, 2010.

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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June 4th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on this morning’s unemployment numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“This Administration’s war on private business is costing millions of Americans the ability to take care of their families by having meaningful jobs. Today’s disastrous unemployment report shows that private sector employment is dead in the water, with temporary U.S. census hiring creating virtually all of the job growth. The Obama, Reid, Pelosi spend, tax and regulate plan for our nation’s economy is a historic failure. Congress needs to return to stop trying to spend us out of what appears to be a coming double dip recession, and face the reality that it is our national debt that is the greatest threat to our nation’s future. ”

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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June 4th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today blasted Obama Administration policies that he said are “crushing the marketplace of jobs that once made the American economy a robust engine of opportunity.”

“The whole premise of deficit-spending ‘stimulus’ being used to address the recession has been turned on its head by the sovereign debt crisis that threatens the solvency of nations throughout the world,” Wilson said.

“Debt and overspending are the problem. The economy is clearly being weakened by government excess, and it is hurting the American people, who are looking for jobs and instead are finding stagnation,” Wilson added, pointing to what he termed to be a “weak jobs report.”

Wilson pointed to a recent USA Today report that documented private wages sinking as a share of personal income while government benefits are increasing as “evidence that government is crowding out, and indeed crushing the private sector. Today’s job numbers show an increase of 411,000 government Census jobs but only an anemic 41,000 private sector jobs created.”

Wilson also noted that unemployment was disproportionately affecting young people. Youth unemployment rose to 26.4 percent last month, compared with an overall 9.7 percent unemployment rate.

“Not only is government burdening future generations with an insurmountable debt that will rise to over $20 trillion by 2020, which cannot possibly be paid, its policies are making it harder for young people to enter the workforce and gather experience,” Wilson said.

Wilson highlighted a piece published today by John Stossel about the Department of Labor eliminating unpaid internships as “a small example of Obama regulations that are eliminating opportunities for young people to gain experience and become more marketable employees.”

“Only the Obama Administration would push for billions in increased public education spending to ‘train’ future workers with outdated curricula while simultaneously eliminating unpaid government internships — where students and young professionals gain real-world work experience — whose cost is minimal,” Wilson lamented.

“Never before have the American people been faced with an Administration so hostile to the private sector, and so ideologically-driven as to restrict opportunity in ways that threaten the future prosperity of the nation,” Wilson concluded.

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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