June 3, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson released the following statement on the unemployment situation in our nation:

“There should not be any remaining doubters that Obama’s big government spending and the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policies are two of the most disastrous economic policies in American history.

“Almost 14 million people who want a job can’t find one, as the number of unemployed jumped by 167,000 people in the past month. Almost 20 percent of the workforce is either unemployed or working part time when they want a full-time job. Obama’s economic plan has been tried and has failed the American people and now we have to return to fiscal sanity in order to get our economy moving.

“The only people who don’t understand that we can’t continue digging to get out of the debt hole that is killing our country’s future are the President and Capitol Hill Democrats, who continue to cling to the very fiscal policies that have buried our nation in debt and are threatening to consign a generation of Americans to second-class status in the world.

“I hope that the good that comes out of the pain of millions of unemployed is that our nation’s elected leaders finally come to the realization that significant cuts must be made in our federal budget, job-destroying regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) must be reigned in, and our highest in the world corporate tax must be lowered immediately to put America back to 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.

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June 2, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government today warned that a new regulation being issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would dictate how Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) use their profits.

ALG President Bill Wilson said the regulators “want the right to tell a private medical provider what they can and cannot do with their own money.”

“If this doesn’t show the authoritarian, socialist inclinations of the Obama Administration and its health care takeover law, nothing will,” he declared.

“CMS is shooting itself in the foot here. It is trying to get doctors to switch from a [fee-for-services] FFS system, where the providers choose how their fees are spent, to the Shared Savings Program, where a portion of that money has to be spent according to ideals set out by government bureaucrats,” ALG’s John Vinci wrote on ObamacareWatcher.org.

“Most people, given the choice, would choose not to have restraints on how they spend their money,” Vinci explained.

The proposed regulation on the Medicare Shared Savings Program for ACOs would regulate the distributions from shared savings by requiring the ACO to determine ahead of time how the funds will be used. “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) seems disappointed that it can’t control how the distributions from shared savings will be used,” Vinci wrote.

Vinci said the regulation went beyond even the intent of the law: “The purpose of the Shared Savings Program was not to direct health providers on how to spend their earnings, but to correct CMS’s distorted Medicare fee-for-services (FFS) system.”

He explained, “What makes the FFS’s financial incentives improper is not that doctors can spend the fees they earn on anything they choose. FFS creates improper financial incentives because it encourages inefficiency.”

An earlier attempt to implement ACOs from 2005 through 2010 resulted in failure of 60 percent of institutions involved in the experiment to even qualify for the shared savings, according to the Washington Post, raising questions about whether ACOs can even control the costs of Medicare as ObamaCare proponents promised.

As noted by the story, “recent studies have shown, when a medical group becomes an ACO, the financial investments it must make in record-keeping and other changes have been higher than the government has predicted, causing it to lose money for at least the first few years.”

According to the regulation, start-up costs for new ACOs would be $1.8 million in the first year, but according to the American Hospital Association, that is wildly off. The real costs, says AHA, will be anywhere from $11.6 million to $26.1 million for the first year — per ACO.

ALG President Bill Wilson said the regulation must not be implemented, “Instead of incentivizing providers to provide additional services to obtain additional fees under the FFS system, now CMS’ brilliant plan is to provide bonuses when less services are provided. That’s rationing, a scheme provided for under ObamaCare, and underscores why the entire legislation must be eliminated.”

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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June 1, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement of support of House Republicans after they emerged from their meeting at the White House on increasing the $14.294 trillion national debt ceiling:

“Barack Obama asked for a so-called ‘clean’ vote on a $2.4 trillion increase in the national debt, and he got it. It was overwhelmingly defeated 318 to 97. Now, the serious discussion must begin on how to cut trillions of dollars out the budget as House Speaker John Boehner has promised in exchange for any increase in the nation’s borrowing limit. House Republicans are to be applauded for standing up to Obama, following through on their commitment to the American people, and now they must hold firm.

“The Obama Administration will likely hold out until the eleventh hour in this high stakes game of chicken on the debt ceiling. The nation cannot afford for House Republicans to flinch. Increasing the debt ceiling without trillions of cuts would make it clear that Washington does not take the sovereign debt crisis here seriously, and does not care if it endangers the future prosperity of our children and grandchildren. Now is the time to rein in the explosion of borrowing and spending in Washington, before the $14.3 trillion debt gets so large that it cannot be refinanced, let alone repaid.”

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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May 31, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the 4.2 percent decline in home values in the first quarter as measured by the S&P/Case Shiller home price index:

“We are now officially in a double dip in housing. The Obama Administration promised that if trillions of dollars in fiscal and monetary ‘stimulus’ were injected into the economy, that it would turn the housing market around. Yet, despite the tremendous run up in government debt and money printing to prop up the economy, home values are now at their lowest point in this recession — lower than even April 2009.

“That means 3.3 million people who used the $22 billion homebuyer’s tax credit, which temporarily juiced the market, are now likely already in negative equity on their new homes. What sort of ‘recovery’ is this? It’s a failure. We should have just let prices hit the bottom in the first place. Instead of bailing out banks, it would have been better to let investors that bet poorly on housing to fail. If government had just gotten out of the way, we would already be in recovery.

Obama has prolonged the recession he swore to pull us out of, wasting over $2 trillion on a lie. Obama has been given everything he wanted — everything he said would turn the economy around. The ‘stimulus’ has failed. Now is the time for a new direction for America, and that will only come with new leadership on the economy, before we go bankrupt trying to ‘stimulate’ it.”
Attachments:

S&P/Case-Shiller housing price index chart shows double-dip, May 31st, 2011 at http://www.getliberty.org/content_images/Case-Shiller5-31-11.PNG.

“Double Dip in House Threatens Obama Recovery,” by ALG Senior Editor Robert Romano, May10th, 2011 athttp://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?display=3317.

“Double-Dip in Housing, Rising Inflation, and Soaring Debt Disprove ‘Stimulus,’ Threaten Ship of State,” by ALG Senior Editor Robert Romano, April 27th, 2011 at http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?display=3281.

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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May 27th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President (ALG) Bill Wilson today issued the following statement urging the Maine legislature to adopt a measure that would give public sector employees the option of whether or not to join a union:

“All employees, whether public or private, ought to have a choice if they wish to join a union. The Maine legislature is simply taking the same step that New Hampshire has in considering passing right-to-work legislation for public sector workers, to bring an end to the dominance that the unions have wielded in making the cost of government unsustainable at a state level.

“This is about fairness to workers, and their freedom to choose, but it is also about reining in the spiraling costs of public sector pension and health care benefits. The Maine legislature is taking the responsible step to help bring its fiscal house into order.”

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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May 26, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued a statement urging House Speaker John Boehner to use his Article I, Section 5 powers to keep Congress in session to block recess appointments by Barack Obama:

“Barack Obama has demonstrated with the recess appointments of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board and Donald Berwick to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that he is willing to do whatever it takes to get his most radical nominees into the bureaucracy, even when they fail at Senate confirmation.

“There can be no more radical recess appointments allowed. Becker is committed to compulsory unionism, and now is proving that in his actions to block Boeing from setting up shop in South Carolina, a right-to-work state. And Berwick is dedicated to a government-run health care system that rations limited care in place of a private system that innovates and creates new cures and new medicines that everyone depends on.

“Senate Republicans are now urging House Speaker John Boehner to use his constitutional authority to keep Congress in session to prevent any more radical recess appointments from being made. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the same trick in 2007 and 2008 to keep the Senate in session, effectively blocking Bush Administration recess appointments. Now it is time for Republicans to return the favor.

“The last thing the American people want are extremists like Goodwin Liu, who is dedicated to reading welfare ‘rights’ into the Constitution, put on the federal bench via recess appointment. If recess appointments are the only way Obama can get these radicals appointed, then it is up to Speaker Boehner not to allow Congress to go into recess.”

Attachments:

“Republican Senators call on GOP House to block Obama recess appointments,” By Philip Klein, The Washington Examiner, May 25, 2011 at http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/05/republican-senators-call-gop-house-block-obama-recess-appointment#ixzz1NP5NkMat

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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May 25, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued a statement praising House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Chairman Rep. Phil Roe for holding a hearing on the NLRB’s attempt to block Boeing from opening a new plant in South Carolina on May 26:

“Representative Phil Roe deserves the thanks of the people of South Carolina, and all Americans who oppose a federal agency from trying to tell a company which state it must do business in. The House Subcommittee on Labor hearing will bring the NLRB’s overreach against Boeing under much-needed scrutiny, and ascertain why the NLRB is favoring closed shop union states like Washington over right-to-work states like South Carolina. The NLRB is willing to kill new jobs unless they are union jobs. This out-of-control rogue agency needs to be brought to heel.”

Attachments:

“NLRB to Boeing: Shut up!” By ALG President Bill Wilson, The Daily Caller, May 13, 2011 at http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/13/nlrb-to-boeing-shut-up/

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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May 23rd, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued a statement urging the House to pass legislation by Rep. Jack Kingston that would balance the budget in five years:

“Representative Jack Kingston’s plan to limit spending to 18 percent of GDP spending cap would balance the budget in five years with a surplus. That would position the U.S. to begin paying off the national debt come 2016, faster than any other proposal currently being considered. Coupled with action to cut the deficit in half for 2012 and the Balanced Budget Amendment, the Republican Study Committee is offering a smart approach that will help restore order to the nation’s fiscal house now.

“Proposals like these should be attached to any increase in the $14.294 trillion national debt ceiling, which will give the American people confidence that members of Congress are addressing the debt crisis immediately. We cannot afford to wait.”

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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May 19, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today praised the U.S. Senate for blocking the confirmation of Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:

“Goodwin Liu was the most radical nominee to the federal bench in a generation, who openly wrote of the role of courts in adjudicating and distributing so-called welfare ‘rights.’ His was a philosophy, not of the text and meaning of the Constitution, but of the ever-evolving consensus of ‘how a society understands its obligations of mutual provision.’ It was an ideology that threatens the elected branches of government, whose powers of the purse would have been seized by any court on which Liu was allowed to sit.

“Senate Republicans deserve the thanks of the American people for defeating Goodwin Liu for the Ninth Circuit, and for standing up to this radical, disrespectful nomination by Barack Obama. So far outside the mainstream was he, no other nominee in recent memory has more clearly articulated a judicial philosophy that so thoroughly rejects the tenants of constitutional limited government, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.”

Attachments:

“Goodwin Liu’s Last Stand,” By ALG President Bill Wilson, May 19th, 2011.

Team Obama Spotlight, Goodwin Liu, Video, May 9th, 2011.

Goodwin Liu, Americans for Limited Government Nominee Alert, March 2010.

“Wonderland: The World According to Goodwin Liu,” Bill Wilson, March 24th, 2010.

“Why Goodwin Liu is Important,” ALG News Editorial, April 12th, 2010.

“Liu Guilty by Omission,” Robert Romano, April 8th, 2010.

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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May 18th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today urged the U.S. Senate to block the confirmation of Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:

“There is simply no excuse for any Senator who professes a belief in constitutionally limited government to consider voting in favor of the confirmation of Goodwin Liu to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Liu is the embodiment of disregarding the words of the framers and inserting his own political bias, and should be rejected.

“To be absolutely clear, a vote to allow Liu’s nomination to the Senate floor is a vote in favor of putting Liu and his radical agenda on the federal bench. There can be no political doubletalk, a vote to invoke cloture on Liu’s nomination is a vote for judicial extremism.”

Also see the video on Mr. Liu, as well as an Americans for Limited Government article detailing Liu’s writings which reveal his radical views on the Constitution. Liu is up for a cloture vote in the Senate on Thursday, May 19th.

Attachments:

Team Obama Spotlight, Goodwin Liu, Video, May 9th, 2011.

Goodwin Liu, Americans for Limited Government Nominee Alert, March 2010.

“Wonderland: The World According to Goodwin Liu,” Bill Wilson, March 24th, 2010.

“Why Goodwin Liu is Important,” ALG News Editorial, April 12th, 2010.

“Liu Guilty by Omission,” Robert Romano, April 8th, 2010.

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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