December 3rd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Documents obtained by Americans for Limited Government (ALG) Research Foundation through a Department of Labor whistleblower show a coordinated strategy by the Solicitor of Labor, Patricia Smith, to force reluctant employers to unionize.

ALG Research Director Don Todd, whose office obtained the documents, explained, “To help the unions, the Department of Labor is going to put public-relations people in every regional office to beat the drums on EEOC, OSHA, and wage-an-hour violations of employers that refuse to organize. And they will find violations.”

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, Smith said “she didn’t know what” a plan to “deter [employers] through shaming” meant.

An ALG backgrounder Todd said the “broader plan outlines exactly what it means. Employers that refuse to unionize are going to be targeted for litigation.”

Fund commented in his column, “whatever [‘shaming’] might involve, it doesn’t sound appropriate for an agency charged with carrying out the law in an even-handed fashion.”

The Solicitor’s strategy includes plans to:

• “Identify a public affairs liaison in each Regional Office” to “send stronger, clearer messages to the regulated community about DOL’s emphasis on litigation.”
• “Focus on cases against employers in priority industries.”
• “Litigate cases that cut across regions.”
• “Engage in enterprise-wide enforcement,” e.g., send every DOL enforcement agency against a particular employer.
• “Identify and pursue test cases.” This will be done to “challenge legal principles that impede worker protections; successful challenges will advance workers’ rights, as will successful enunciation of new interpretations.”
• “Engage in greater use of injunctive relief.” The Department believes that fines are not enough.
• “Focus SOL’s amicus program: We will focus our amicus program on those cases where DOL’s participation will provide the court with a unique voice on worker protection that the parties are not likely to articulate.”

The document also details tactics for implementing the strategy as they affect the various enforcement agencies within the Department:

• “identify theories and practices that can be pursued for lowering the rate of cases in which LJFs and the Commission reduce MSHA [Mine Safety Health Administration] penalties.”
• “Pursue at least one § 108(a)(2) injunctive action in federal district court.” (Refers to injunctions against coal mines where the Secretary “believes” that the operator has a pattern of violation of safety standards.)
• “Imposing shorter deadlines for implementing remedial measures in conciliation agreements and consent decrees.”
• “Deter [employers] through shaming.”

In a recent video interview, ALG’s Todd said that the document proves that the Department of Labor has “become a tool for the labor unions to beat businesses over the head.”

Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson said in a statement, “These documents prove the Department of Labor has become nothing more than a weapon of labor unions to force employers to unionize.”

Attachments:

“How Obama’s Department of Labor Plans to ‘Enforce’ Labor Law,” Americans for Limited Government Research Foundation, December 2010.

ALG Research Director Don Todd Video Interview, December 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 or ALG Research Director Don Todd.

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December 1st, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the lame duck session of Congress’ consideration of a continuing resolution for FY 2011:

“Two months have passed since Congress was required to have completed the 2011 budget process on October 1st. It had over a year to complete the process, but they have not even begun yet. Instead, the government is operating on a continuing resolution that expires on December 3rd.

“Congress should either pass a two-month continuing resolution and let the next Congress deal with the 2011 budget, or pass a year-long continuing resolution with baseline 2007 levels across the board at $2.7 trillion. That would reduce the deficit by over $800 billion. Then, if Congress wished to increase entitlement spending to current levels, it would have to be paid for by eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars of needless federal programs, including the financial bailouts and the wasted ‘stimulus’.

“Congress should be forced to choose: Keep the entitlements, or keep the bureaucrats. But it can’t have both. The fact is, nobody wants to reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits to the elderly who paid into the system, so the bureaucracy should be leveled, and responsibility for regulation returned to the states. Corporate welfare and other subsidies should be ended once and for all. The federal government should only keep those departments and agencies that are absolutely essential to protect the homeland, meet our obligations overseas, and keep our commitments to the nation’s elderly and those who cannot help themselves. Everything else should 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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December 1st, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the lame duck session of Congress’ consideration of a continuing resolution for FY 2011:

“Two months have passed since Congress was required to have completed the 2011 budget process on October 1st. It had over a year to complete the process, but they have not even begun yet. Instead, the government is operating on a continuing resolution that expires on December 3rd.

“Congress should either pass a two-month continuing resolution and let the next Congress deal with the 2011 budget, or pass a year-long continuing resolution with baseline 2007 levels across the board at $2.7 trillion. That would reduce the deficit by over $800 billion. Then, if Congress wished to increase entitlement spending to current levels, it would have to be paid for by eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars of needless federal programs, including the financial bailouts and the wasted ‘stimulus’.

“Congress should be forced to choose: Keep the entitlements, or keep the bureaucrats. But it can’t have both. The fact is, nobody wants to reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits to the elderly who paid into the system, so the bureaucracy should be leveled, and responsibility for regulation returned to the states. Corporate welfare and other subsidies should be ended once and for all. The federal government should only keep those departments and agencies that are absolutely essential to protect the homeland, meet our obligations overseas, and keep our commitments to the nation’s elderly and those who cannot help themselves. Everything else should 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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November 30th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the lame duck session of Congress’ consideration of preventing imminent tax increases on all Americans:

“Senate Republicans should block everything that doesn’t include everything; which means they should block any piece of legislation that does not include either permanent or 2-year extensions of the income tax, estate tax, capital gains tax, and dividend tax rates. If Senate Republicans allow any of these pieces to be cut up, they will never be made permanent, nor will they be extended.

“It’s a hard line to take, but Senate Republicans must hold the line to prevent any taxes from going up, especially on job creators. The unemployment rate has been at or above 9.4 percent for 18 consecutive months, the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. We need to create jobs, not increase the tax burden for American businesses at a time when the U.S. is already globally uncompetitive.”

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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November 30th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today issued the following statement on the lame duck session of Congress’ consideration of preventing imminent tax increases on all Americans:

“Senate Republicans should block everything that doesn’t include everything; which means they should block any piece of legislation that does not include either permanent or 2-year extensions of the income tax, estate tax, capital gains tax, and dividend tax rates. If Senate Republicans allow any of these pieces to be cut up, they will never be made permanent, nor will they be extended.

“It’s a hard line to take, but Senate Republicans must hold the line to prevent any taxes from going up, especially on job creators. The unemployment rate has been at or above 9.4 percent for 18 consecutive months, the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. We need to create jobs, not increase the tax burden for American businesses at a time when the U.S. is already globally uncompetitive.”

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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November 29th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today urged Congress not to reinstate a federally-subsidized bond program for states and local governments, which he said were being used to “bail out bankrupt states like New York and California.”

“The so-called ‘Build America’ bonds purport to ease the borrowing costs of insolvent states via a federal subsidy of interest payments. These are governments that otherwise cannot finance their spending habits,” Wilson explained, adding, “It’s really a mechanism to nationalize the unsustainable spending of insolvent states and local governments.”

Wilson said the federal subsidy would be directed from taxpayers across state lines. “This is making taxpayers in more responsible states like Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas pay for the wasteful union contracts and social policy programs of California, Illinois, and New York. The states bailout program should be ended as once,” Wilson declared.

According to the Washington Post, under the program, “Treasury pays a 35 percent subsidy on the interest rate of the bonds directly to the city, state or other government entity that issues them. The arrangement dramatically lowers the borrowing cost for local governments while providing lower costs for investors, including pension funds and other major funds that do not usually dabble in the municipal market.”

The Obama Administration wants to make the program permanent. Under the final program, taxpayers would subsidize 28 percent of interest owed on the bonds and certain non-profit universities and hospitals would now be allowed to participate by borrowing money through the program, as reported by Reuters.

Wilson said, “This is a states bailout, because the government agreed to cover 35 percent of the interest costs for the last round of bond purchases. Now, to meet their budget obligations, the states need to borrow yet more money.”

Wilson continued, “Why don’t these states and local governments try to refinance these debts on their own? Because they can’t. The ‘expansion’ of this program really is so that states and localities can refinance the debt they accrued last year. That means that, minus the federal subsidy, municipal bonds are not really a good investment at this point.”

Wilson concluded, “This is just another way for states and local governments to avoid making the severe cuts that are necessary to really balance budgets. Taxpayers should not continue to be held responsible for the reckless decisions of politicians. The states bailout bonds tend to undermine states with balanced budget constitutional provisions by giving a federal mechanism to finance the unsustainable budgets of states that refuse to balance their budgets.”

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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November 24th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today asked White House Counsel Robert Bauer if he granted an exception to the Center for American Progress in its recent use of the Seal of the President of the United States in a policy publication.

The use of the seal is restricted under law (TITLE 18, PART I,CHAPTER 33, § 713 of the U.S. Code), which prohibits reproduction of the seal for “the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States”.

Exceptions have been outlined via executive order for educational and historical uses as well as limited uses by news media. Under Executive Order 11649, further exceptions can also be granted by the White House Counsel.

In his letter, Wilson wrote, “As you are well aware, the rationale for restricting the use of the Seal is to prevent any suggestion of presidential support or endorsement of third-party messages. However, as exceptions are provided for pursuant to Executive Order 11649, we would like to know if such an exception has been granted in this case.”

The Center for American Progress prominently used the seal on the cover of its November 2010 publication, “The Power of the President: Recommendations to Advance Progressive Change” at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/issues/2010/11/pdf/executive_orders.pdf .

The paper advocated the use of executive orders by the Obama Administration to advance its agenda after Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in the November elections.

Wilson explained in a statement, saying, “The Center for American Progress use of the seal appears to indicate presidential endorsement of its agenda. The question is whether the White House granted an exception in this case or not. If it did, that would appear to be a stretch beyond the intent of the law and the order, in which exceptions are supposed to be provided for educational, historical, and news purposes. If it did not, then it would appear to be a violation of the law by the Center for American Progress.”

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November 18th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government (ALG) President Bill Wilson today urged members of the House to vote in favor of a Republican motion to recommit on HR 1722, a motion which would eliminate federal funding for National Public Radio.

“National Public Radio is the first to claim that it receives less than 2 percent of its money from the federal government. So, by its own admission, NPR doesn’t need the money, so let’s cut it. The government has a $1.3 trillion budget deficit, and members of Congress have to find every bit of funding that can be cut,” Wilson said.

NPR requested $136 million for FY 2013.

In an exclusive interview with Americans for Limited Government, Representative Doug Lamborn, who authored the bill to defund NPR, blasted it over the firing of Juan Williams: “We see now with the Juan Williams fiasco that they’re not a neutral news organization. They have a left-leaning bias.”

Lamborn continued, “It could be out there in the private marketplace, and compete along with everyone else. Why should government be in the broadcasting business at all?”

Wilson agreed, saying, “NPR can finance itself via donations, or move toward a profit model if they choose, but taxpayers should not be obligated to pay for programming which does not treat all sides fairly.”

ALG launched a national petition drive recently to defund public broadcasting in the wake of National Public Radio’s firing of Juan Williams. The petition is at: www.defundpublicbroadcasting.org.

Background:

“Defund Public Broadcasting Once and For All,” by ALG President Bill Wilson, October 25th, 2010.

ALG Praises Boehner’s Call to Defund Public Broadcasting, October 22nd, 2010

“Where to cut, you ask?” Video by Frank McCaffrey on Doug Lamborn’s legislation, October 19th, 2010.

“The Bare Minimum,” by Rick Manning, ALG Communications Director, October 20th, 2010.

“Time to Stop Funding Luxuries, Like Public Broadcasting,” by Rebekah Rast, ALG News Contributing Editor, June 14th, 2010.

“Is Public Broadcasting Hurting the Arts?” by Robert Romano, ALG News Senior Editor, June 15th, 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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