April 23, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson issued the following statement urging Senate adoption of S.J. Res. 36 proposed by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) that would rescind a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulemaking requiring unionization elections occur within seven to ten days of being filed:

“The Senate has an opportunity to rein in the NLRB’s abusive power grab instituting snap elections on behalf of unions, which will shorten the amount of time businesses have to make their case to employees. This has been a top priority of big labor as union membership wanes nationwide to expedite the process in as little as seven to 10 days.

“The urgency for union certification elections — and the speed with which the NLRB adopted the new rule — is curious when, by the NLRB’s own data, it only took about 38 days to wrap up a unionization election under the old rule. The old process has allowed employers the opportunity to present a case against unionization in a manner allowing for deliberation. While it may be more convenient — for union bosses — to dispense with this process as quickly as possible, it neither serves the interests of businesses nor employees who are given little time to weigh the pros and cons of the decision.

“While the Senate should certainly rescind this rulemaking, it should also be mindful that it underscores just how much power this agency really has to issue sweeping regulations affecting tens of thousands of places of business.

“That is why it is no longer enough to treat the symptoms of the agency’s overreaching quasi-judicial powers with mere stopgap measures. In the House, Rep. Austin Scott has proposed HR 2978 that will address this rogue agency in a comprehensive manner. Scott’s legislation will abolish the NLRB’s powers to serve as prosecutor, judge, and jury in favor of unions. If congressional Republicans are truly committed to reining in the abuses at the NLRB, they should carefully consider the Scott bill, which will eliminate the agency’s power to regulate in such a far-reaching manner.”

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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April 19, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson issued the following statement commenting on Barack Obama’s claim that “speculators artificially manipulate markets by buying up oil”:

“In February, the Obama Administration accounted for rising gasoline and oil prices with market forces, saying alternatively that it was because the economy was recovering and included increased demand overseas, particularly China. Now, Obama is claiming that so-called ‘speculators’ are manipulating oil prices.

“Which is it? Rising demand? Or price manipulation? These are contradictory claims, and undercut the Administration’s credibility on this issue.

“Obama is just trying to deflect attention away from his own ‘stimulus’ policies that have weakened the dollar. These are the real cause for price pressures in commodities, including food, oil, gasoline, and precious metals like gold. When you have high prices in a single asset, supply and demand issues can be cited. But when you have a broad range of commodities all with escalating prices, that is an inflationary indicator.

“Are rising food prices a part of Obama’s global conspiracy to manipulate prices, too? What about rising gold? How many are involved in this sordid plot to raise prices across the board? This is absurd.

“We don’t need Obama’s conspiracy theories to explain price shocks. Government hacks like Obama will blame anyone but themselves for the problem which they themselves created. This is inflation brought on by too much money printing and government borrowing.”

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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April 17, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson issued the following statement on a failed vote in the Senate to increase the capital gains tax to 30 percent for anyone who makes more than $1 million a year:

“Now that the Buffett rule has failed to go anywhere, it is time for Congress to enact real reform of the tax code. The irony is that it never occurred to Obama to cut the taxes of Buffett’s secretary. For all the talk of so-called ‘fairness,’ what about flattening the tax code to a lower rate for everybody? What would be fairer is for everyone to pay less. The government’s just going to waste all of our money on boondoggles and bailouts anyway.”

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

April 16, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson issued the following statement urging Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) head Edward DeMarco to reject any bailout for 11 million borrowers who are underwater on their homes:

“The only thing standing in between the White House and a bailout of 11 million borrowers underwater on their mortgages to the tune of $717 billion is the FHFA’s Edward DeMarco, who has had the temerity of suggesting that the agency merely follow the law and protect taxpayers from unnecessary losses.

“DeMarco has steadfastly rejected a widespread mortgage bailout throughout Obama’s entire term of office, and now is coming under increasing pressure from congressional Democrats who are demanding an election year payout to a favored constituency.

“But it is false hope that is being generated. Even if DeMarco relented and implemented the bailout, in a recent speech to the Brookings Institution he suggested only 691,000 of the 11 million would even be eligible. Meaning, about 10.3 million people underwater on their homes would not even qualify for the program.

“This makes Obama’s promise of a bailout nothing more than an empty, cynical, election year promise. What a fraud.”

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

April 11, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on a Senate vote next week to implement the so-called Buffett rule, raising capital gains and income taxes to 30 percent for anyone who makes more than $1 million a year:

“Any fair reporting of Obama’s Buffett rule would reveal it to be a cynical election-year maneuver that bears no resemblance to a sound policy designed to either improve the economy or raise significant revenue to pay down the debt.”

“Obama’s tax-the-rich proposal, which will only collect $4.7 billion on average every year over the next decade according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, will cover less than 1 percent of the average $588.9 billion annual net interest owed on the national debt.

“It will not create a single job. Yet the Obama Administration is maintaining that this tax will somehow ‘pay down our deficit and invest in the things that help our economy grow.’

“At a time when more than 27 million people cannot find full-time work — 4.6 million of whom have dropped out of the labor force since Obama took office because they’ve simply given up looking for work — raising taxes on capital creation is exactly the wrong prescription.

“The fact is we’re talking about billions of dollars that could be reinvested in the economy by the private sector, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Instead, Obama wants to give it to the government so it can squander and waste it on more boondoggles. Is that fair to the American people struggling to get ahead in the Obama economy?”

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

April 10, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement responding to a vote next week in the Senate to implement the so-called Buffett rule, raising taxes on the wealthy:

“The budget cannot be balanced by raising taxes on the so-called wealthy, who happen to be the nation’s job creators. It won’t even come close. A recent Joint Committee on Taxation estimate found that raising the capital gains and income taxes to 30 percent for those who make over $1 million — the so-called Buffett rule — will raise just $3 billion the first year and just $47 billion over the next 10 years.

That compares with more than $10 trillion in new debt the government will take on over the next decade, when the national debt will rise to more than $26 trillion. Of the Buffett rule, Obama has said that ‘basic principle of fairness, if applied to our tax code, could raise enough money that not only do we pay for our jobs bill, but we also stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade. And as I said when I made the announcement, this is not politics; this is math.’

“Well, the woefully inadequate revenues generated from his tax-the-rich scheme show that we cannot tax our way out of this debt crisis. Spending must be cut substantially to set us on a path to balance the budget. The problem is not that we tax too little; it’s that we spend too much. Yet, under Obama’s fiscal plan, the budget will never be balanced, and the debt will continue growing exponentially, far outpacing economic growth.

“If this taxing the hell out of job creators was the path to prosperity, Europe would be a paradise. Instead it’s a dystopian nightmare, and serves as a warning for American politicians who believe that our spending, borrowing and printing addiction can be ignored.

“We are quickly approaching a funding crisis, and we will not be able to fill the gap with gargantuan tax hikes. All that will do is make it harder for job creators to get us out of this mess at a time when already 27 million people cannot find full-time work.”

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