May 15, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Trump administration to enforce the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by bringing an end to Mexico’s illegal dumping of sugar on U.S. markets:

“Before there can be any discussion about how best to fix or nix NAFTA, America must enforce NAFTA. Mexico has been found in violation of antidumping rules by the U.S. International Trade Commission in 2015 for dumping sugar on U.S. markets illegally since 2008. President Trump has been clear that he is going to enforce NAFTA while pursuing a new and better deal for the U.S. economy and American workers. There can be no better time for the President to make this clear to the Mexican government than right now while the Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo is in D.C. that the dumping must stop either through a negotiated settlement or through antidumping and countervailing duties.

“That is why Americans for Limited Government has been joined by the Hispanic Leadership Fund, the Institute for Policy Innovation, the 60 Plus Association, the Institute for Liberty, Citizen Outreach, Consumers Alliance for a Strong Economy, Less Government and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Public Policy in submitting a letter to President Trump urging the administration, with its new U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, to keep the President’s promise to enforce NAFTA.”

Attachments:

Letter to President Donald Trump urging either negotiated settlement or countervailing duties on Mexican sugar, May 15, 2017 at https://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/StopMexicoDumpingNAFTATrumpLetter-5-10-17.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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May 4, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President today in the following statement reacting to the House passage of legislation that replaces Obamacare:

“The health care replacement, while far from perfect, is substantially better than it would have been thanks to the hard work of the Freedom Caucus, the White House and House negotiators, achieving a result that respects the states through the state opt-out provision of Obamacare’s insurance regulations and ending the tyranny of the individual and employer mandates.

“We urge the Senate to continue this step in the right direction by defunding law and rules that prevent individuals from purchasing insurance across state lines, removing the continuing coverage penalty and eliminating the tax subsidies for insurance and federal subsidies for Medicaid expansion that make no sense once you have a national marketplace for insurance.

“Nobody will think they need subsidies if in a competitive marketplace insurance premiums are dropping — for that is how this legislation will ultimately be judged: Does it reduce premiums?”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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May 2, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump’s tweet on the budget deal where he stated “Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix [the] mess”:

“President Donald Trump got it exactly right when he tweeted that we need a shutdown in September to clean up the mess in Washington, D.C., as well as noting the archaic Senate process as one of the primary tools the swamp uses to keep power. Congressional Republicans must no longer be allowed to use Senate process as the excuse for funding Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s agenda. The funding bill that is about to pass are Exhibits A through Z of the abuse of the system by Schumer and his willing GOP accomplices who pretend to be limited government conservatives.

“President Trump understands that any deal that funds Planned Parenthood, Obamacare and the left’s priorities but doesn’t even fund the wall is a bad deal. Hopefully, the next six months will result in changes to Senate rules that take away Chuck Schumer’s shutdown gun held to the head of the government, and a shift in the posture taken by Republican leaders in Congress. President Trump’s willingness to shut down the government to achieve his policy objectives is a step in the right direction toward disarming Schumer. But he cannot do it alone. Let us hope that House Speaker Paul Ryan reads his past campaign brochures in preparation of winning this fight.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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April 28, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement on the latest GDP numbers showing just 0.7 percent growth for the first quarter of 2017:

“Today’s disappointing GDP number highlights the need for Congress to get its act together and implement the Trump agenda on tax cuts, regulatory reform and repealing Obamacare. At just 0.7 percent annualized growth in the first quarter, to hit the Trump administration’s goal of 3 percent growth, will now require almost 4 percent grow annualized each of the remaining three quarters.

“The U.S. economy is already coming off its worst decade ever from a growth perspective, averaging just 1.3329 percent inflation-adjusted growth a year from 2007 to 2016, worst than even the Great Depression’s 1.3334 percent average annual growth from 1931 to 1939.

“This is a bigger problem than anyone is willing to admit. That is why Congress must act on the necessary economic reforms in front of them, not hide behind the limits of Senate rules. Trump has outlined an ambitious tax cutting plan that help the economy to grow. Lifting the burdens imposed by Obamacare will help the economy grow. Legislatively prohibiting the use of funds to carry out economy-killing regulations enacted beyond the Congressional Review Act’s 60-day legislative window will help the economy to grow. These obstacles to growth were enacted by Congress and via the regulatory administrative state long before Trump took office, and it is Congress that must act in order to remove these impediments to growth. President Trump can only accomplish so much on his own. It is Congress’ Article I responsibility to take the lead on needed legislation.”

“If Republicans want to be a majority in Congress, then they must now govern like a majority and keep their promises. If the economy fails to grow, not much else will matter in 2018 and beyond.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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April 26, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump’s outline for cutting the taxes of the American people:

“President Trump’s outline for cutting taxes for individuals makes sense and will lead to most Americans enjoying more take home pay than they do today.  Lowering the number of tax brackets and the associated top and lowest rates, along with increasing the standard deductions, keeping the home mortgage and philanthropy deductions while changing the maximum deductibility of state and local income taxes makes sense.

“While residents of high income tax states like California will not like this last change, it is absurd for the rest of the nation to be subsidizing California’s bloated state government through a carte blanche deduction.  If the residents of high tax states choose to keep their tax and spend legislatures, the rest of America should not be forced to subsidize it.

“The Trump outline sets up a good starting point for the larger tax cut discussion that our nation needs to have.  It is time to restructure everything to ensure that our tax code reflects the best interests of our economy as we attempt to recover from the worst ten year period of GDP growth in our nation’s history, including the Great Depression.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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April 24, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress to include the $3 billion border supplemental requested by the Trump administration in the April 28 continuing resolution:

“Elections have consequences. In 2016, President Donald Trump and Republicans won majorities in the Electoral College, the House and the Senate, and as a result, it is they, not Democrats, who get to decide what the nation’s priorities are.

“One of the fundamental promises Trump made was to secure the border by expanding the nation’s border wall infrastructure, which already consists of about 600 miles of walls, fencing and other barriers. This is not a binary choice of wall or no wall. We already have walls. It’s about whether the Republican Congress can keep the basic promise the President made to secure the border that was one of the major issues that united Trump’s electoral coalition and propelled Republicans to majorities in both houses of Congress, and not cave into the temper tantrum of the left still trying to figure out how it lost everything in 2016.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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April 20, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement demanding that FBI Director James Comey either step down or be fired in light of reports that the FBI relied in part on the now-discredited Christopher Steele dossier to justify getting a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant against one-time Trump campaign advisor Carter Page:

“The FBI’s incredible incompetence and outright complicity with the politicization of government spying removes the last shred of credibility that Director James Comey has and he needs to either resign or be fired.

“The failure to even secure and independently examine the DNC server while relying on the self-serving innuendo by the DNC’s computer consultant CrowdStrike for verification is unbelievable. But their reliance on an easily disprovable political hit piece dossier to get a FISA warrant against Carter Page, paid for by Democrat supporters of Hillary Clinton and produced by the private firm Fusion GPS, to attempt to undermine the Trump campaign in 2016 effort is inexcusable. And then the FBI wanted to pay the dossier’s author to continue what began as political campaign work?

“Comey is either a rube or a political tool, either way he has to go. This gives the appearance that the nation’s top law enforcement and intelligence agencies have become completely politicized.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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April 19, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today in the following statement announced the video and action page BuildWallNow.org to urge Congress to adopt President Donald Trump’s proposed border supplemental in the April 28 continuing resolution:

“In January, House Speaker Paul Ryan indicated that if Mick Mulvaney was confirmed at OMB and the Trump White House formally put in the supplemental funding request for the border wall, that it would be done in the first quarter, presumably as a part of the April 28 continuing resolution. Well, Mulvaney was confirmed on Feb. 16 and the supplemental request was formally put to Ryan on March 16 by President Trump. Trump kept up his part of the bargain. But by March 30, Ryan had changed his tune, telling CBS News ‘the big chunk of money for the wall really is… next fiscal year’s appropriations…’

“If Congressional Republicans fail to deliver the wall via a funding vehicle this year, it will portend badly for the 2018 midterms and endanger members’ reelection hopes.  Voters need to see that Republicans are keeping their promises. Members’ fates are tied to the wall. Congress must vote to build the wall.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 106 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.

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