Archives for September 2010

Fairfax, VA – Americans for Limited Government (ALG) expressed extreme disappointment that the U.S. Senate failed to allow a vote that would have eliminated a provision in the recently passed Obamacare law which requires businesses to report expenditures with another business that exceeds $600, but praised Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns for introducing the amendment to repeal of the measure.

Bill Wilson, ALG president praised Johanns for offering the amendment saying, “Senator Johanns is to be commended for trying to fix this problem. It is simply outrageous that this Congress continues to ignore the damage that they are doing to our nation’s job producers through massively expensive paperwork burdens, it’s almost as if they don’t want people to get jobs.”

Johanns’ amendment would have repealed a portion of the new health care law that requires businesses to file paperwork (known as 1099 forms) with both the IRS and the business that provided services or sold products to them that exceeded $600 over the course of a year. Additionally, the company that received the services or purchased the products with a purchase price in excess of $600 would have to file 1099 forms with the IRS and their business customer.

“The failure of this Congress to fix this single, obviously destructive provision, shows just how out of touch the current leadership is,” Wilson concluded.

The blizzard of paperwork is scheduled to begin in January 2012.

Interview Availability: Please contact Richard Manning at (703) 383-0880 or at rmanning@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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Fairfax, VA – Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government released the following statement in response to report in The Hill newspaper that Senator George Voinovich of Ohio is strongly considering supporting a massive increase in taxes for a majority of Americans.

“Supporting the single greatest tax increase in our nation’s history would be disastrous for all Americans, killing job creation, putting family farms on the auction block, and plunging America back into recession, Senator George Voinovich is completely out of touch with the economic realities Ohio and our nation as a whole face.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Richard Manning at (703) 383-0880 or atrmanning@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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September 10th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement demanding that Barack Obama identify and fire 41 White House political appointees that have not paid their taxes and owe over $831,000:

“Barack Obama should give these 41 appointees thirty days to pay their taxes or be dismissed. It’s outrageous that people who vociferously argue for big government refuse to pay for it. First it was Tom Daschle and Timothy Geithner. And then Charlie Rangel. Clearly, there is an endemic problem amongst government officials who think they are above the people.

“They are not above the law. Obama needs to identify all officials and aides who are delinquent in paying their taxes, and if they refuse to pay up, to fire them. This is a very poor example to be setting.”

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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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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September 8th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Another proposal by the White House to spend $50 billion for so-called infrastructure projects today drew sharp criticism from Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson.

“This is just the gang that couldn’t shoot straight,” Wilson said. “Of the original $814 billion ‘stimulus,’ $55 billion was dedicated to transportation.  About $36.5 billion in infrastructure spending remains unspent, and its impact on the economy has been negligible with growth slowing and unemployment rising. Now Obama wants to add another $50 billion to the national debt for one more dose of the same ineffective medicine.”

Speaking in Ohio today, Obama outlined his plans for $30 billion temporary tax credits to businesses and $50 billion for infrastructure spending Wilson said would be diverted to construction unions.

“At the top of their lungs, the American people are shouting, ‘stop spending,’ and yet that’s the only prescription Obama has for our ailing economy,” Wilson noted. “This is a misallocation of resources away from other productive areas of the economy into yet more public debt. The people are saying enough is enough.”

“This goes beyond tone-deafness or a casual disregard of the best wishes of the American people. He is knowingly proposing to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t even urgently need,” Wilson added, saying, “If it were urgent, the Administration would have already spent the last ‘stimulus’ that didn’t work.”

The original “stimulus” included $53.6 billion that went to states to balance their ailing budgets, $45 billion of which boosted education spending, $50 billion in green energy subsidies and tax credits, $87 billion for Medicaid, and $55 billion for transportation projects.

Since then, Congress has passed another $16.1 billion for state Medicaid spending and $10 billion for state education spending.

Wilson said all of the money was “nothing more than a pay out to public sector unions, who in the case of the infrastructure spending are once again being subsidized with funds we just don’t have.”

“With the 2010 midterm elections less than two months away, congressional Democrats are increasingly growing desperate to put a positive spin on an ailing economy. This new $50 billion ‘stimulus’ is just yet another handout for public sector unions who they expect to vote for them,” Wilson concluded.

Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview withALG President Bill Wilson.

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September 7th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—A new bill proposed by Senators Jeff Bingaman and John Kerry would force enrollment in “automatic Investment Retirement Accounts”, prompting Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson to urge the Congress to reject it.

“This legislation will force Americans into a government-mandated, ‘one size fits all’ retirement account,” Wilson said, adding that it would “disproportionately impact younger and lower-income workers, who will now have less ability to save for new home purchases or pay off college expenses and debt, all of which occurs earlier in a worker’s career.”

“This is another attempt by government to tell individuals what they have to do with their own money, stripping them of the right to make their own personal investment and life decisions,” Wilson added.

Wilson noted that the “investment ‘options’ that are offered will be defined arbitrarily by the Department of Labor in regulation.”

Those options may include government bonds, writes Jerome Corsi for World Net Daily: “The U.S. Department of Labor releasedyesterday an agenda for an upcoming joint hearing with the Department of the Treasury scheduled for Sept. 14 and 15 on whether government life-time annuity options funded by U.S. Treasury debt should be required for private retirement accounts, including IRAs [Investment Retirement Accounts] and 401(k) plans.”

The Corsi report describes the potential that the “government-mandated workplace retirement account would require by law employers and employees to contribute into a retirement account for every employee and demand that a portion of that contribution go into a federal-government created annuity that would be funded by purchasing Treasury debt.”

“Under the law, the Department of Labor could indeed force individuals to buy treasuries, if that’s what the bureaucracy wants,” Wilson said, pointing to the broad options defined in a newly proposed Section 439 of the Internal Revenue Code:

“(c) INVESTMENT OPTIONS.—
“(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of Labor and the Secretary, in consultation with the Chair
man of the Securities and Exchange Commission, shall, not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this section, prescribe regulations which set forth the requirements for each of the classes of investments described in paragraph (2) and procedures for determining which assets meet the requirements for each of such classes.
“(2) INVESTMENT CLASSES.—The regulations under paragraph (1) shall provide that an automatic IRA shall allow the individual on whose behalf the individual retirement plan is established to invest contributions to, and earnings of, the plan only in the following investment options:
“(A) PRINCIPAL PRESERVATION.—A class of assets or fund that is designed to protect the principal of the individual on an ongoing basis, including passbook savings, certificates of deposit, insurance contracts, mutual funds, United States savings bonds (which may be indexed for inflation), or similar classes of assets.
“(B) BLENDED INVESTMENT OPTION.—A broadly diversified class of assets or fund, as specified in such regulations, that is substantially similar to target date, life cycle, balanced or similar funds, as so specified.
“(C) THIRD OPTION.—A broadly diversified class of assets or fund providing a somewhat higher investment in equities than the investment options under subparagraph (B), as specified in such regulations.”

“These ‘options’ are so broadly defined that the Department of Labor can force investment into almost anything, leaving the future solvency of the retirement savings of millions of Americans to the wisdom of faceless government bureaucrats,” Wilson said.

Such legislation could create some 60 million potential new IRAs, according Mark Gutrich, president of Denver -based ePlan Services. Wilson said that if accurate, and if the average income investing in the IRA’s was $50,000, “if just 1 percent of income for these new IRAs was devoted to government bonds, that would expand government’s ability to borrow by $30 billion annually, or by $300 billion over ten years.”

Wilson said “that’s no small chunk of change.” He predicted that after the legislation was enacted, the number of new plans would grow beyond the 60 million, and warned that the investment in treasuries would also grow “should the sovereign debt crisis worsen in the U.S.”

“If Americans are forced to buy government bonds as retirement savings, the nation could be forced into a situation where it will become impossible to reduce or retire the national debt without liquidating the retirement savings of millions of Americans. That may be what the government has in mind to protect its bloated budget,” Wilson said.

“By increasing the American people’s stake in the government debt, the incentive will always be to expand the national debt to finance retirement benefits,” 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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September 3rd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following status on the worsening unemployment situation in the U.S., with the rate rising to 9.6 percent and underemployment rising to 16.7 percent:

“When the $862 billion ‘stimulus’ passed, Barack Obama falsely promised that unemployment would not rise above 8 percent. It’s been 20 months since Obama took office, and unfortunately, it’s been 16 straight months where unemployment has been at or above 9.4 percent. All of this is evidence that Obama’s big government economic solution has failed.

“After over $2 trillion in fiscal and monetary ‘stimulus’ the economy is stuck in a web. Unemployment is once again rising, growth is anemic at only 1.6 percent, and after three years housing still cannot find its bottom thanks to government propping up the market.

“The American people don’t want excuses, they want jobs. Now they want nothing more than government to get out of the way of the private sector. All the White House has to offer, with the statement of outgoing economic advisor Christina Romer, is ‘more spending’. More debt is not the answer. Expansive government is not producing more jobs, it is misallocating resources away from the private sector, and into government debt.

“Now is the time for enduring tax relief, including reducing the corporate tax rate, now the second highest in the world, and making the Bush tax cuts permanent. Now is the time to begin to reduce and retire the debt, bring an end to the useless paper trade that is costing Americans their livelihood, and get the government out of the housing, health care, and financial sectors of the economy. Government has had its chance. Now it’s time to let the people have theirs.”

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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Download at http://washingtonalert.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Justic-for-Whom-II-Feingold-ALG1410.wmv

September 3rd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today announced that his organization would be running a 60-second commercial in Wisconsin urging Senator Russ Feingold to reconsider his support of the nomination of Judge Robert Chatigny to 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’, and yet, Russ Feingold voted for him out of committee,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the ad was to alert Wisconsinites of Chatigny’s controversial actions defending convicted rapist and serial murderer, Michael Ross, and to advise they tell Feingold to urge Obama not to renominate him. The ad is set to begin broadcasting on Monday.

Senate Republicans blocked consideration of Chatigny, sending the nomination back to Obama. Speculation in the nation’s capital is that Obama intends to renominate Chatigny.

Chatigny’s contentious remarks were made at a last-minute hearing in 2005 he had convened wherein he granted a stay of execution for 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, “Senator Russ Feingold may have voted for Chatigny, but now is the time for him to reconsider his support. He should urge Obama not to renominate this judge, who is nothing more than an apologist for sex offenders. It’s his claim to fame, and is why Obama has attempted to promote him. Chatigny’s conduct is so deeply disturbing to the American people that Feingold has an obligation to defeat this offensive nomination.”

Attachments:

ALG Ad Urging Reid to Oppose Chatigny, September 3rd, 2010.

Video: Oppose Confirmation of Serial Killer Apologist for Court of Appeals, June 22nd, 2010.

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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September 2nd, 2010—The tremendous amount of power & influence that officials of organized labor have over this administration & congress is adding to the growth of government and makes no sense given that only 7% of the private sector workforce and 12% of the overall workforce are members of a labor union. Last year, for the first time in history, the majority of union members in the country were working for the government—not the private sector. The Obama administration & Congress’ decision making disregards the 93% of the private sector workforce in order to payback Big Labor bosses for previous campaign support—much coming from the dues money collected from workers who are subject to compulsory unionism.

“We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama–$60.7 million to be exact and we’re proud of it.”
Andrew Stern, former President, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

ISSUE-IN-BRIEF: As Americans prepare to observe Labor Day, the nation’s unemployment rate continues to remain at record high levels and the federal deficit continues to grow and place a long term burden on every American taxpayer. The Obama administration and Congress have handed out one favor after another in special interest favors to union officials without regard to the public policy ramifications. For example:

• Ten days after being sworn in President Obama issued 3 Executive Orders that curtail federal contractor’s free speech during union organizing drives, provide job security for employees of federal service contractors, and require federal contractors to notify employees of their right to join a union.
• One week later President Obama signed another Executive Order announcing a government preference for Project Labor Agreements (PLA’s) on all federally funded large-scale construction projects. As a result of this, many projects financed by the so-called “economic stimulus bill” are subject to PLA’s and performed by unionized workers.
• The Obama Department of Labor rolled back several rules issued during the Bush administration to increase union transparency on forms required to be filed with the government as required under the Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act.
• The Obama Treasury Department forced financially troubled General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy and swinging adeal granting the United Auto Workers respectively 17.5% and 55% stakes in GM and Chrysler.

Gallup found for the first time since it began asking the question in 1997 that a majority of Americans now think “unions mostly hurt the economy.”

• According to official records, the person who most often visited the White House in 2009 was Andy Stern, then President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—a union that had given more than $4 million since 2006 to scandal ridden ACORN and its affiliates
• An overwhelming majority of congressional democrats co-sponsored “card-check” legislation designed to deny workers a secret ballot election to determine if a union would represent them.
• The Obama administration and Congress reduced funding to the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS)—which is the only agency in the entire federal government assigned the responsibility for oversight of organized labor.
• President Obama circumvented the Senate—that had objections to NLRB nominee Craig Becker—and recess appointed him as chairman. Becker had previously worked for both the AFL-CIO and the SEIU.
• Some in Congress are now proposing a $165 billion union pension bailout. As FOX Business Network reported, these pensions are in bad shape; as of 2006, well before the stock market dropped and recession began, only 6% of these union pension funds were doing well.

Gallup recently found for the first time in more than 80 years of asking the question that only a minority of Americans now “approve of labor unions.”

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION & CONGRESS PLEASE VISIT THESE WEBSITES:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/122744/Labor-Unions-Sharp-Slide-Public-Support.aspx
http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6290/obamaafl-cio_lovefest_once_again_labor_hopes_president_will_prove_loya/ 
http://union-yes.blogspot.com/2008/05/barack-obama-in-organized-labors-pocket.html 
http://www.unionfacts.com/ 
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB124227027965718333.html 
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/congress-pushing-165-billion-union-pension-bailout-94828874.html 
http://www.faegre.com/showarticle.aspx?Show=8938 
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/1/30/143556/925 
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090130_obama_gives_labor_unions_a_boost/ 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/31/obama-supports-union-organizing/ 
http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2010/01/13/top-ten-union-corruption-stories-year 
http://biggovernment.com/rmanning/2010/01/20/transforming-the-u-s-department-of-labor-to-the-department-of-organized-labor/ 
http://www.nlpc.org/stories/2009/04/30/labor-department-rescinds-revised-lm-2-and-lm-30-rules-invites-potential-corrupti 
http://www.dwt.com/LearningCenter/Advisories?find=65354 
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052702303491304575188263180553530.html 
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244369/cops-and-robbers-daniel-foster

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government
Virginia Thomas, President, Liberty Central
Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
Tom Schatz, President, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste
Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform
Duane Parde, President, National Taxpayers Union
Wendy Wright, President, Concerned Women for America
Edwin Meese, former Attorney General
David N. Bossie, President, Citizens United
Ken Boehm, Chairman, National Legal & Policy Center
Tom Winter, Editor-in-Chief, Human Events
Karen Kerrigan, President, Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
Ron Robinson, President, Young America’s Foundation
Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director, Traditional Values Coalition
Mario H. Lopez, President, Hispanic Leadership Fund
Dr. Herbert London, President, Hudson Institute
David McIntosh, former Member of Congress, Indiana
Donna Hearne, Executive Director, Constitutional Coalition
Gary Bauer, President, American Values
Herman Cain, President, The NEW Voice, Inc.
Susan Carleson, Chairman & CEO, American Civil Rights Union
J. Kenneth Blackwell, former Treasurer, State of Ohio
Becky Norton Dunlop, President, Council for National Policy
James Martin, Chairman, 60 Plus Association
Myron Ebell, President, Freedom Action
Mathew D. Staver, Founder & Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Michelle Easton, President, Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute
Phil Burress, President, Citizens for Community Values
Alfred Regnery, Publisher, American Spectator
David Y. Denholm, President, Public Service Research Foundation
Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
Jordan Marks, Executive Director, Young Americans for Freedom
Bob McEwen, former Member of Congress, Ohio
Rev. Lou Sheldon, Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition
Marion Edwyn Harrison, Past President, Free Congress Foundation
(All organizations listed are for identification purposes only)

September 2nd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government filed an official of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the U.S. Department of Education today related to Secretary Arne Duncan’s well publicized efforts to encourage attendance at a rally by Al Sharpton on August 28, 2010.

The FOIA asks that the Department provide copies of any records that exist in any of the following categories and that were created on or after January 1, 2010:

1. All records of communications and the communications themselves between any Department of Education official and personnel from the organization National Action Network;
2. All records of communications and the communications themselves between any Department of Education official and Rev. Al Sharpton; and
3. All records of communications and the communications themselves between any Department of Education official and any person representing Rev. Al Sharpton.

Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson said, “it is important that political appointees not use the federal career employees as their personal minions to engage in the political process on their behalf. Even the hint of politicizing the civil servant workforce should not be tolerated.”

It is a violation of federal law for political appointees to encourage career government personnel to participate in political activities. This provision has been interpreted so tightly in the past as to not allow Republican political appointees to wear neckties with elephants on them, in order to not cause career government workers to feel undue political pressure.

The FOIA asks for a response from the Department of Education within twenty days.

Attachments:

ALG FOIA Request to Department of Education, September 2nd, 2010 at http://www.getliberty.org/files/FOIA request to Dept of Ed Sharpton communications_09_02_10.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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