September 9th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Yesterday, speaking in Cleveland, Ohio, Barack Obama said, “I believe government should be lean; government should be efficient. I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others.”
“This is like a drunken sailor calling for moderation,” Wilson said.
“This is the most bloated government in human history. It hoards 650 million acres of federal land, has nationalized housing finance, health care, and the rest of the financial industry. It has taken over GM and Chrysler. It has spent itself into a $13.4 trillion hole of debt that is weighing down the economy, and its only solution to spend even more,” Wilson explained.
Wilson continued, “Under Obama’s watch, government now has seized the power to force individuals to purchase health care. It seeks the power to restrict energy usage. It has locked up the nation’s natural resources and limited energy production, including nuclear. It continues to blackmail states into accepting federal funding, uses the tax code for social engineering, and utilizes the threat of government regulation to shake down privately-operated businesses.”
“Barack Obama has no credibility at all on this issue. The federal government is not lean. It is not efficient. His statement is nothing more than electioneering, smoke and mirrors by a very desperate administration,” Wilson added, saying that the rhetoric was intended to minimize damage to Democrats in the November elections.
Wilson also noted that Obama “has it exactly backwards when he says government should leave people free to make choices. The government does not have the rightful power to restrict choices by the people in the first place.”
Wilson called Obama’s philosophy of rights “troubling because it implies that the individual right to choose to better themselves comes from government.”
Wilson concluded, “The people do not derive their rights by the license from the government, as Obama implies. Instead, individual rights are derived by virtue of one’s existence. A former professor of constitutional law ought to know that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. It’s the government that should be on a leash, not the people.”
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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