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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May 17th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued a statement on the Treasury’s suspension of investments to and taking loans from federal employee pension funds:

“When it came to avoiding the hitting the debt ceiling, the Obama-Geithner Treasury Department’s first choice was to tap federal employee pensions — their very first choice. This should serve as a warning against Obama Administration plans to eliminate 401(k) tax deferred savings accounts, and replace them with government-managed retirement annuities.

“A decade or so from now, when the national debt becomes so large that it cannot be refinanced, let alone be repaid, the Treasury has tipped its hand on whose moneys will be taken first: the American people’s retirement savings. If our spending is not brought under control now, the first victims of the sovereign debt crisis will be Baby Boomer’s retirements.

“As the Treasury tries to avoid hitting the debt ceiling, the American people will learn more about the choices the Treasury will make when the nation really does default down the road. Everyone should be guarding their retirement savings closely against government seizure, and demanding that government cut spending, balance the budget, and restore order to the nation’s fiscal house.”

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 16, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today urged members of the U.S. Senate to block Susan Carney for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Carney’s dishonorable willful disregard for the truth and promotion of a falsehood disqualifies her from consideration to a lifetime appointment to the second highest court in the land,” Wilson wrote in his letter to Senate Republicans.

He cited an ongoing scandal between Yale University and Korean-based Dongguk University that Carney played a role in as Yale’s Deputy General Counsel. Wilson wrote, “In 2007, when it was revealed that a Dongguk University professor, Shin Jeong-ah, had not received a doctorate degree from Yale, Carney allegedly engaged in a cover-up to prevent information from surfacing showing that Yale had indeed confirmed to Dongguk that Shin was a Yale graduate, as revealed by court documents filed by Dongguk.”

The scandal was dubbed “Shin-gate” by the Korean media, and was a public relations disaster for Dongguk University, who is suing Yale for $50 million for damages. Because Yale had told Dongguk the degree was authentic, but then denied it publicly, it initially appeared that Dongguk was at fault. The University wrote to Carney, “if Yale University had revealed the fact in your first reply of July 10, 2007, Dongguk University would not have received a lot of harsh criticism from the public.”

Wilson explained, “At the time, Carney said the confirmation fax verifying Shin’s doctorate sent by Yale was ‘not authentic,’ even though it turned out that it was. She did not even apparently fully investigate Dongguk’s claim until the U.S. Justice Department issued a subpoena in the matter, and failed to even attempt to verify the authenticity of the fax, according to the plaintiffs.”

Carney has been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but, Wilson said, “The questions surrounding “Shin-gate” and Carney’s conduct were apparently never raised in the Judiciary Committee and warrant further investigation before Carney receives a lifetime appointment.”

“It would be reasonable for Senators to question Carney about why it took a U.S. Attorney enforcing a U.S.-Korean treaty on cooperation in criminal matters to discover that, indeed, Yale University had confirmed that Shin had received the degree,” Wilson noted.

He added, “It would be equally reasonable to question whether Yale University knew all along that it had sent the fax to Dongguk confirming the degree, and whether it was, with Carney’s knowledge, covering this fact up to salvage its own reputation.”

The lawsuit between Dongguk and Yale is ongoing.

Wilson concluded in a statement, “We urge members not to hide behind procedure or niceties, but to block Susan Carney for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals based on her merits. As John Adams once said, ‘pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency… are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.’ ”

The Senate will consider the nomination Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET and vote on the nomination at noon, according to The Hill.

Attachments:

ALG Letter Urging Senate Republicans to Block Susan Carney, May 11th, 2011 at www.getliberty.org/files/LetterCarney5-11-11.pdf.

Susan Carney Nominee Alert, Americans for Limited Government Research Foundation, March 2011 atwww.getliberty.org/files/SusanCarneyNomineeAlert.pdf.

Chronology of Events at http://washingtonalert.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/files-dongguk-university.pdf.

Dongguk v. Yale, Plaintiff’s Docket Complaint, March 24th, 2008 at http://washingtonalert.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/DonggukvYaleDocketcomplaint1.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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May 16, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson issued the following statement today responding to the U.S. debt ceiling:

“Today marks a turning point in the national debate over U.S. government spending. Our nation’s debt now surpasses the $14.3 trillion debt limit set by Congress. The President and Congress can no longer avoid dealing with the economic consequences of the runaway spending that has resulted in accumulating more than $4 trillion in debt over the past three years alone. It is time for President Obama to get serious about real spending cuts now, as the clock has run out on economy-wrecking fiscal irresponsibility.”

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 12th, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) is appealing the Department of Labor’s refusal to turn over all documents related to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on enforcement of 185 laws the Department is required to follow.

The request covered the Department’s implementation of an online enforcement database, which should have included prosecutions of corruption in labor unions, ALG maintains, but was not.

“The FOIA is being stonewalled by the Labor Department,” said ALG President Bill Wilson. “That data should be in the database, and the question is why not.”

Wilson said “it’s possible they don’t want that information to be public because it makes union officials look bad. It may be embarrassing, but we want those documents; the public has a right to know.”

ALG filed the FOIA request in August 2010, the first to the Office of the Secretary (OSEC), which produced no initial response. This compelled the organization to file two follow-ups to the FOIA requests: one to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management in Feb. 2011 and the other to the Department’s Office of the Solicitor (SOL) in Mar. 2011.

“We initially requested information from the Department in order to better understand how the Department is communicating its enforcement statistics through its online enforcement database,” said ALG Counsel Nathan Mehrens. “This database is mysteriously missing certain critical information such as the number of union officials who were prosecuted by the Department for stealing from union members.”

The follow-up to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management again hit a stone wall. On April 18, they finally replied that “A search was conducted within the Office of the Secretary. No records were found responsive to your request.”

But then the Solicitor’s office did find responsive documents — through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy (OASP). According to the appeal, “Based on the evidence received from OASP it is clear that senior personnel from OSEC have in their possession federal records that are responsive to Appellant’s FOIA request. As such, the assertion from OSEC that they found ‘no documents responsive’ to Appellant’s request is either incorrect or the OSEC did not perform an adequate search for responsive records to Appellant’s request.”

Mehrens said the Department was not living up to Barack Obama’s vow for transparency in his Administration, who said Jan. 21, 2009, “Let me say it as clearly as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

Mehrens explained, “This was followed up by further guidance from both the President and the Attorney General on how the government was to handle releasing information to the public in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.”

In that guidance the federal government was instructed to quickly turn around information requests and that it should have a bias toward disclosure and not attempt to redact information merely because of technicalities.

Wilson said the Administration was “two-faced on transparency,” concluding, “This is not the kind of transparency we were promised by Obama. Based on our two years of work requesting records from the Obama Administration it appears that not everyone has received the message. It’s time for the Administration to stop stonewalling legitimate requests.”

Attachments:

Americans for Limited Government FOIA Appeal, May 10th, 2011 at http://washingtonalert.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/05-10-11-OASAM-Appeal-online-enforc-database-Binder1.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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May 10, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement praising House Speaker John Boehner for attaching firm preconditions for spending cuts to offset any increase in the $14.294 trillion national debt ceiling:

“House Speaker John Boehner has taken the necessary step of attaching firm preconditions for spending cuts to more than offset any increase in the debt ceiling. This is precisely what the American people have been demanding, and we are pleased to see that Speaker Boehner is listening to the will of the majority that put him into power. This is very encouraging.

“Boehner correctly diagnoses the debt crisis that the nation faces, and is right that the budget cannot be balanced without tremendous spending cuts coupled with economic growth. He is also correct that growth will not be found if taxes are raised into the teeth of this recession and if real drivers of the debt remain unaddressed.

“Now is the time to act. The American people require that any increase in the debt ceiling be coupled with both big spending cuts and serious reforms that will prevent the debt from growing faster than our economy, and be balanced in a reasonable period of time so that the debt can begin to be retired. We urge the House to consider proposals that will balance the budget sometime this decade to give the American people assurance that Congress is serious about addressing the debt crisis now and not later.

“We thank Speaker Boehner for laying out the broad parameters of this debate, and for drawing a principled line in the sand. The American people are saying no more debt, and now they can have the confidence that their leaders in Washington — at least some of them — are listening.”

Attachments:

“ALG to Reid, Obama: How Much Do You Want to Raise the Debt?” May 5th, 2011 at http://getliberty.org/content.asp?pl=10&sl=5&contentid=681.

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 10, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement thanking Senate Republicans for helping to defeat the nomination of Paul Tiao for Inspector General of the Department of Labor:

“Because of overwhelming opposition in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has been forced to withdraw his nomination of Paul Tiao for Labor Solicitor General. Tiao was a political hack whose sole ‘qualification’ appeared to have been taking tens of thousands of dollars in donations from union bosses during the 2008 election cycle. This called into question his impartiality when it would have come to fulfilling the critical Inspector General role of investigating union corruption.

“With its important mission of impartially applying the law, the Inspector General’s office was no place for Paul Tiao. Senate Republicans are to be credited with objecting to and defeating this nominee, whose was totally lacking in integrity for the post.”

Attachments:

Paul Tiao Nominee Alert, Americans for Limited Government, December 2010 at www.getliberty.org/files/Paul Tiao NomineeAlert.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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May 9, 2011, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the Zillow, Inc. report of a 22 percent increase in negative equity, a measure of homeowners owing more than their properties are worth and an increase in foreclosures for the first quarter of 2011:

“Zillow’s data confirms what Case Shiller reported two weeks ago, with home values plummeting to their April 2009 lows and foreclosures once again rising in the first quarter of 2011. We are in a double-dip housing recession. Zillow does not foresee any bottom in housing until 2012, at the earliest. The irony is that we would have already hit the bottom if government had just got out of the way, even if it meant that institutions that bet poorly on housing failed.

“Instead, we wasted more than $2 trillion on the faulty premise that the government could somehow stop the housing bubble from deflating. All of the ‘stimulus’, bailouts, foreclosure ‘prevention’ programs, and homebuyer incentives have failed at their stated objectives. We should have done nothing and let the chips fall where they may, and we’d already be in an economic recovery. Instead, we just have prolonged the recession, created slow-growth stagflation, and added trillions of dollars to the national debt unnecessarily.

“Once and for all, government must get out of the way, and allow this market correction to work itself out. No more ‘stimulus’. No more bailouts. No more foreclosure moratoria. Just get out of the way.”

Attachments:

Crashing Home Prices: The Obama “Stimulus” has Failed, Americans for Limited Government, April 26, 2011 athttp://getliberty.org/content.asp?pl=10&sl=5&contentid=676.

S&P/Case-Shiller housing price index chart shows double-dip, April 26, 2011 at www.getliberty.org/files/Case-ShillerHomePriceIndex4-26-11.PNG.

“Is it Jimmy Carter All Over Again?” By ALG President Bill Wilson, May 9, 2011 at http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?display=3313.

“Double-Dip in Housing, Rising Inflation, and Soaring Debt Disprove ‘Stimulus,’ Threaten Ship of State,” By ALG Senior Editor Robert Romano 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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