March 6, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned the House of Representatives for rushing a vote on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through September 30, 2013 that funds Obamacare, the National Labor Relations Board, and the EPA. It had also promised the American people in 2010 that “We will give all Representatives and citizens at least three days to read the bill before a vote”:

“It is incredible that the House of Representatives in its zeal to avoid any conflict is throwing away its only constitutional leverage to stop the Obama Administration’s out of control power grab on labor, environment and health care.

“The House majority was elected due to their promise to stop Obamacare and rein in Obama’s big government schemes, and today’s decision to continue funding the very programs Republicans have ‘campaigned’ against can be seen as nothing less than a retreat from the limited government agenda.

“It is my hope that this is merely a retreat and not a wholesale abandonment of the fight against Obama’s government expansion by this Congress.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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March 4, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement urging the House to pass H.R. 807, the Full Faith and Credit Act, that would prioritize interest payments to our creditors in the event the debt ceiling is reached, and to tie it to the upcoming continuing resolution due by March 27:

“We are pleased the Republican Study Committee has offered up the Full Faith and Credit Act that will ensure that never again is a vote on the debt ceiling treated as a vote on default. No president or Secretary of the Treasury should ever have the option of whether or not to service the debt. It is shocking that skipping payments is even allowable under the law.

“The House should tie passage of the Full Faith and Credit Act to the must-pass continuing resolution due March 27. It is critical that this occur prior to the next round of votes set to occur on the debt ceiling, which has been suspended until May 19, in order to take Obama’s threat of default off the table in debt ceiling negotiations.

“If this reform is not passed by then, Obama will be able to run the table on Congress by again threatening default. Except this time, he could demand that the debt ceiling be indefinitely suspended or eliminated altogether, removing any legal constraint on the unbridled expansion of the debt, now nearly $16.7 trillion, a sinkhole which threatens to swallow not neighborhoods, but the entire economy and global financial system.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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March 4, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government urged the U.S. Senate to reject Obama nominee, Gina McCarthy, for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

McCarthy has been embroiled in scandal after scandal which can only indicate either pure managerial incompetence or a complicity in the failure to perform her most basic duties.

One example that reportedly has held up McCarthy’s nomination at the White House was the failure of the EPA’s radiation monitoring system in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

McCarthy, who currently heads the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, has come under withering criticism after the EPA’s own Inspector General issued a report revealing that at the time of the Fukushima disaster many of the Agency’s radiation monitors were out of service or so poorly maintained that they failed to work with 20 percent completely out of service.  The report goes on to report, “In addition, six of the RadNet monitors we sampled (50 percent) had gone over eight weeks without a filter change.”  EPA policy calls on operators to change the filters twice per week.”

Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government, called on the Senate to reject McCarthy as, “unfit to run a Burger King, let alone a Cabinet level agency that threatens our nation’s economy through its series of strange and bizarre regulatory rulings.”

McCarthy has also been on the cutting edge of a budding controversy over her approval of the use of DuPont’s R1234yf air conditioning refrigerant in U.S. vehicles, ignoring a massive European recall by Daimler Benz when the product caught fire in crash testing scenarios.

Wilson expressed outrage over the McCarthy R1234yf decision stating, “This is an example where a German car company has discovered that a product that is being foisted upon them by environmental agency’s is actually dangerous, and environmentally toxic, yet McCarthy has turned a blind eye to the health and safety hazards that she is creating through EPA incentives for car company’s to use this deadly refrigerant.

“At a time when Obama’s own State of the Union threat to continue to pursue unilateral executive actions through the EPA in lieu of climate change legislation, no nominee to the EPA should be confirmed, and it particularly foolish to allow a nominee who has twice put the public safety and environment at risk while in her current position. Gina McCarthy should be fired, not promoted based upon her record in office.”

Attachments:

ALG Nominee Alert, Gina McCarthy, March 2013 at http://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Regina-McCarthy-NomineeAlert-2013.pdf

“Obama and his rogue EPA,” By ALG President Bill Wilson, Feb. 14, 2013 at http://netrightdaily.com/2013/02/obama-and-his-rogue-epa/

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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February 25, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today condemned Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonnell and General Assembly Republicans for their budget that implements a 3.5 percent gasoline tax indexed to rise with inflation, paves the way for a local 1 percent sales tax, expands Medicaid, and implements Obamacare:

“In 2011, when Virginia voters gave Republicans a solid majority in the House of Delegates and picked up two seats in the Senate, they were probably expecting lower taxes and scaled back spending. Instead, they got a $3.1 billion tax hike to fund a dramatic increase in transportation spending, and to get the Democrat votes needed to pass their tax increase, they agreed to expand Medicaid rolls by 372,000 by 2019.

“The budget appropriates the money for Medicaid expansion and then, adding insult to injury, unconstitutionally leaves the final decision to a 10-member legislative panel. This is a sellout of the first order and something Republicans swore they would never do. They’re implementing Obamacare.

“Billions of dollars taken from the private economy and an expansion of the welfare state; these are the legacies of Bob McDonnell’s time in office. It is a stain on the both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Republican Party.”

Attachments:

“Republicans raise taxes in Virginia in return for… expanding Medicaid?” By Robert Romano, Feb. 25, 2013 at http://netrightdaily.com/2013/02/republicans-raise-taxes-in-virginia-in-return-for-expanding-medicaid/

Interview Availability: Please contact Robert Romano at (703) 383-0880 ext. 106 or at robert@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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Feb. 19, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today urged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to veto legislation that would require Hurricane Sandy reconstruction projects costing $5 million or more to utilize project labor agreements (PLAs).

Wilson’s letter cited two studies that found PLAs cost taxpayers considerably more than non-PLA projects that had been highlighted in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

A Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University study found comparing the period when PLAs were prohibited under federal law to when they were not that “PLAs increase the cost of construction by 12% to 18%.”

“That will mean less bang for the buck — anywhere from 10.7% to 15.2% less reconstruction would occur in New Jersey as a result,” Wilson wrote in his letter.

Another study from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development found that public school construction utilizing PLAs in New Jersey cost 30.5% more than non-PLA construction projects.

“If accurate, that would mean an even worse 23.3% less reconstruction would occur if PLAs are utilized, hardly a responsible use of limited resources,” Wilson noted.

S2425 has passed the New Jersey legislature and awaits Gov. Christie’s signature to become law.  Wilson said “this simple math shows that PLAs are not in the public interest, nor that of taxpayers’. They are solely in the interest of labor organizations that will make more money if they are utilized.”

“This leaves you with the choice of favoring spending more money to achieve less as a result in terms of reconstruction, or to veto this legislation, achieving more for the taxpayers at a lower cost,” Wilson concluded.

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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Feb. 12, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement in anticipation of tonight’s State of the Union Address:

“Obama is arguing that slashing budget authority by $85 billion — just 2.4 percent of the overall $3.5 trillion budget — will somehow ‘do unnecessary damage to our economy.’ Government statistics agencies reflect this Keynesian bias in their estimates of the Gross Domestic Product, which includes government spending as a component.  But even when government spending is excluded from the measure, the private sector only grew by a real rate of 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter, in spite of borrowing an extra $1 trillion a year and the Federal Reserve’s expanded quantitative easing programs.

“This failure of the private sector to grow is a direct result of our massive $16.5 trillion national debt which several independent studies have shown is creating a real drag on our economy. Contrary to Keynesian assumptions, excess government spending and borrowing is robbing the private sector of resources necessary to create the conditions for robust growth.

 “Of course, when one measures prosperity by how much money the government spends, the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that spending must always increase — even if we cannot afford it. The national debt is increasing at an annual rate of $1 trillion such that by 2022, it will total at least $24 trillion. By then, the budget will total $5.7 trillion. There is no question we have a spending problem. Tax revenues cannot increase fast enough to keep up with the level of spending and borrowing that is anticipated over the next ten years.

“Yet Obama wants to replace the modest cuts that will occur under sequestration with tax hikes. Despite getting what he wanted — the so-called ‘balanced approach’ that includes tax increases on those making more than $400,000, and cuts to national defense set to occur on March 1 — Obama is not yet satisfied. He is single mindedly focused on his class warfare agenda of even higher taxes, which he knows full well will have next to zero impact on moving our nation toward a balanced budget.

 “Obama and the left have revealed, now that he doesn’t have to pretend to voters anymore, that the deficit doesn’t matter to him at all, and that he believes that the government has a right to each of our earnings in order to award them to other politically favored constituencies. This is nothing more than vintage Marxist economics: ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.’ Except as Margaret Thatcher famously noted, ‘socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess, they always run out of other people’s money.’

“Now that Congress knows that Obama is not an honest broker who wants the debt crisis to be tamed, those who care about our nation’s economic future need to act by taking whatever steps are necessary to force Obama to accept real and meaningful cuts, which is the only way to put us on a path to a balanced budget before it is too late.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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Feb. 7, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement praising both houses of the Virginia General Assembly for passing legislation that would place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones in the Commonwealth except in emergency circumstances:

“There is no reason that Virginia law enforcement or that of any other state should be spying on the American people with drones. We call on the House and Senate to resolve minor differences between their two bills and get the legislation on Governor McDonnell’s desk as soon as possible so that he can sign it into law.

“There is no justification for handing the government the broad power to presume guilt over the entire populace, which is what regular drone surveillance flying over people’s houses for no reason constitutes.

“We thank Delegate Cline and Senator McEachin for their work on getting these drones out of our skies, and we applaud the bipartisan, overwhelming majorities with which these bills were passed. Now let’s get it across the finish line. A police state must never be allowed in Mr. Jefferson’s Commonwealth.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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Feb. 6, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement urging the House of Representatives not to reduce what remains of the $85 billion of sequestration cuts to budgeting authority for Fiscal Year 2013 due to take effect March 1 in light of the White House’s calls to repeal it:

“To secure the votes needed to suspend the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling until May 19, House leaders had to promise members they would stick to the $85 billion sequestration due to take effect on March 1. In fact, the $1 trillion sequester over ten years was the price for increasing the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion in August 2011. These are cuts that have been promised the American people.

“Sequester was originally supposed to be for $109 billion, but since then these cuts to budget authority have already been reduced to $85 billion during the fiscal cliff negotiations.

“Now some members of the House appear to be accepting Obama’s false premise that these cuts will be ‘economically damaging,’ and others still who would rather raise taxes on millions of Americans instead of nipping defense spending for a single year. House Republicans need to stand strong on the sequester. This is no to time go all wobbly.

“If the House caves on sequester, members’ promises of cuts down the road will forever ring hollow and empty to the American people. If the Republican Party does not stand for getting our fiscal house in order and keeping the tax burden low, what does it stand for?”

Interview Availability: Please contact Adam Bitely at (703) 383-0880 ext. 126 or at media@algnews.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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Feb. 6, 2013, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement praising Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett for pledging to block Medicaid expansion under the new federal health care law:

“Thanks to Governor Corbett, Pennsylvania taxpayers will save $1 billion from 2014 through 2019, and federal taxpayers another $17 billion over the same period, according to a Kaiser estimate. He is protecting taxpayers across the country from what will ultimately prove to be an unsustainable expansion of the entitlement state. While some governors have caved on this issue, Tom Corbett has stood on principle, and for that, he deserves the thanks of every taxpayer in the nation.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Robert Romano at (703) 383-0880 ext. 106 or at robert@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

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