“The simple reality is that the money to pay for extending unemployment benefits by $10 billion indefinitely does not exist on budget. Senator Bunning deserves credit for offering a proposal that does pay for it without steeping the nation further into debt,” Wilson said.

Yesterday, on the floor of the Senate, Bunning explained his stand, “If we can’t find $10 billion to pay for it, we’re not going to pay for anything. We will not pay for anything fully on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Now, [Senator Dick Durbin] said I only offered one way to pay for this. That’s untrue. I offered more than one way. I negotiated with the Leader — the Leader’s staff, rather, and we had worked out two-week extension to $5 billion with a different pay-for.”

Bunning continued, attempting to proceed on the bill, H.R. 4961, with his amendment attached, “So I’m going to make one more shot, and as long as we continue to have the extenders being brought forth and paid for, I’m going to make it. I ask Unanimous Consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691, that the amendment at the desk which offers a full offset be agreed to, the bill be amended — as amended be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.”

Senator Dick Durbin, however, objected, leaving the Senate at an impasse.

“Senate Democrats could simply invoke cloture on the unemployment benefits extension. They do not need unanimous consent at all,” Wilson said.

If a Senator does not agree to unanimous consent, cloture can be filed, requiring 60 votes, which Wilson noted “the Democrats would easily get. Perhaps they do not want to go on the record for expanding the debt by another $10 billion. Cloture votes get recorded so that constituents can hold their senators accountable for how they vote.”

Bunning noted on the Senate floor that Senate Democrats had not filed for a motion of cloture on the issue: “Everybody knows that a member of this body that anybody, 100 of us, can object to anything that is brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate, whether it be a nominee, whether it be a judge, whether it be somebody that is appointed to the Treasury. Anybody can object. And there is a procedure that takes place that you can overcome that objection. Why doesn’t the Democratic majority use that procedure?”

Wilson said, “The reason is because Senate Democrats do not want to pay for the unemployment benefits extension, and they’d rather pretend that Senator Bunning is against extending said benefits. He’s not. He merely wants the Senate to pay for it and not borrow the money from Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and others.”

The U.S., according to the Office of Management and Budget, faces a $1.556 trillion budget deficit for 2010, money that will have to be borrowed.

“Bunning’s point is that if the Senate cannot bring itself to cut even $10 billion out of the budget to pay for additional unemployment insurance, that will not bring itself to make the even tougher decisions required to balance a budget that is $1.556 trillion in deficit,” Wilson explained.

On Friday, on the floor of the Senate, Bunning said, “There are going to be other bills brought to this floor that are not going to be paid for, and I’m going to object every time they do it.”

Wilson concluded, “Senator Bunning’s courageous stand, against the Senate majority, and against even members of his own party, is the sort of principled leadership that it will take to balance the budget and pay off the gargantuan $12.4 trillion national debt. It’s time to start making tough decisions.”

###

“Yesterday, Barack Obama flat out lied to the American people, claiming that his plan would, according to CBO, lower the cost of insurance premiums,” Wilson said.

Wilson pointed to the relevant Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, which stated, “CBO and JCT estimate that the average premium per person covered (including dependents) for new nongroup policies would be about 10 percent to 13 percent higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law… Average premiums per policy in the nongroup market in 2016 would be roughly $5,800 for single policies and $15,200 for family policies under the proposal, compared with roughly $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for family policies under current law.”

The CBO also reported, “About half of those enrollees would receive government subsidies that would reduce their costs well below the premiums that would be charged for such policies under current law,” which formed the basis of Obama’s claim, responding to Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), stating, “Lamar, when you mentioned earlier that you said premiums go up, that’s just not the case, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”

Wilson said Obama was “misleading the American people. This is not a case where Obama and Alexander were ‘both right.’ Obama was wrong.”

Wilson explained, “Subsidizing premiums does not lower the cost of health care, it shifts the burden of the price of health coverage increasingly to taxpayers. At the same time, ObamaCare increases the minimum requirements for insurance coverage, which forces premiums up, as noted by the CBO.”

The CBO report also stated, “the average insurance policy in this market would cover a substantially larger share of enrollees’ costs for health care (on average) and a slightly wider range of benefits. Those expansions would reflect both the minimum level of coverage (and related requirements) specified in the proposal and people’s decisions to purchase more extensive coverage in response to the structure of subsidies.”

“Because of the subsidy, Obama wants to claim that individuals would be paying less for premiums, and that therefore the cost of health coverage is somehow being reduced,” Wilson said, adding, “This is like claiming that subsidized housing and mortgage loans are causing the price of housing to go down, or that subsidized student loans are causing the price of education to go down, which of course is absurd.”

“In fact, subsidies across the economic spectrum have been directly linked to housing inflation, education inflation, and other asset bubbles, because the subsidies inflate demand artificially, which directly causes prices to increase,” Wilson explained.

“These sorts of blatant lies explain exactly why the American people are completely opposed to this bill. For example, Harry Reid claimed yesterday that ‘no one’ was considering the use of reconciliation when he himself was speaking of it publicly. Or, Obama claiming in his address to the joint-session of Congress that his bill would reduce the deficit when the entire entitlement will be operating in the red within less than 20 years, costing over $2.5 trillion from 2014 to 2023,” Wilson added.

“It just goes on and on. The American people have had enough of Barack Obama and Congress’ lies. It’s time to scrap this bill once and for all,” Wilson concluded.

###

The committee is set to begin mark-up on the nominee today at 10AM.

ALG filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Justice Department’s (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attempting to confirm allegations that Dawn Johnsen, Barack Obama’s nominee for Assistant Attorney General to the Office of Legal Counsel, has been performing duties pursuant to that office without being confirmed by the Senate, including making hiring decisions.

“Because the Justice Dept has refused to comply with the [Freedom of Information] law and the real possibility exists that Ms. Johnson has violated the law in acting prior to confirmation, I call upon you to delay or defeat this nomination,” Wilson wrote.

According to National Review Online, Johnsen may have been “involving herself in OLC’s decisions on hiring junior lawyers. If those reports are accurate, Johnsen’s actions would seem a serious violation of the Senate’s understanding of pre-confirmation etiquette—an etiquette that is especially punctilious for nominees who have generated controversy—and would give senators additional reason to oppose her nomination.”

The ALG FOIA request, filed on October 26th, 2009, has gone unheeded in spite of a 20-day statutory requirement.

“That was over 120 days ago, and flies in the face of the Freedom of Information Act,” Wilson wrote in his letter.

According to the law, “Each agency, upon any request for records… shall… determine within 20 days (excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and legal public holidays) after the receipt of any such request whether to comply with such request and shall immediately notify the person making such request of such determination and the reasons therefor, and of the right of such person to appeal to the head of the agency any adverse determination.”

According to a letter to the Justice Department from ALG Counsel Nathan Mehrens, the organization has made repeated attempts to contact the Freedom of Information office within the Office of Legal Counsel, and received no response until the morning of Feb. 12th.

“After numerous failed attempts to obtain a response, i.e., unreturned voicemails, etc., from your office regarding the FOIA request referenced above I finally was able to get you on the phone on Friday, February 12, 2009. As you will recall in that call you stated that the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has not even started to work on the FOIA request. You also declined to provide an estimated date of completion for the FOIA request,” wrote Mehrens.

Wilson said in a statement the committee was “duty-bound” not to act until the Justice Department completed the FOIA request, and in his letter wrote, “The information we have requested is critical to your committee’s decision on whether or not to confirm Ms. Johnsen.”

Attachments:

Freedom of Information Act Request, October 26th, 2009.

Letter to Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, February 24th, 2010.

Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee, February 25th, 2010.

ALG Backgrounder on Dawn Johnson, December 10th, 2009.

###

According to the poll, as reported by HotAir.com, “Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions’ purpose and power. Currently, 41% say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion. In January 2007, a clear majority (58%) had a favorable view of unions while just 31% had an unfavorable impression.”

“The American people are sick and tired of the class warfare engaged through public policy by government unions and their willing accomplices in federal and state legislatures,” said Wilson.

“Public opinion of these government unions in particular is souring as they demonstrate no willingness whatsoever to embrace common-sense solutions like moving to defined-contribution pension systems that would help the solvency of states. Instead, the public sector unions have been so greedy in states like California, New York, and New Jersey with benefits packages that the states are in fiscal deficits as far as the eye can see,” Wilson explained.

Last week, the Pew Center on the States reported that “at the end of fiscal year 2008, there was a $1 trillion gap between the $2.35 trillion states and participating localities had set aside to pay for employees’ retirement benefits and the $3.35 trillion price tag of those promises.”

Wilson blamed the problem on defined-benefit pension plans that 90 percent of public employees are currently enrolled in, as reported by the Huffington Post. Those plans promise to pay a certain amount of benefits for every year of retirement based on factors like salary and duration of employment.

In an op-ed published this week by ALG News, Wilson outlined his proposal for states to switch to defined-contribution plans: “If today states just stopped adding new employees to their defined-benefit plans, as has been done in Alaska and Michigan, and switched to portable, IRA-like defined-contribution plans (as corporate America has already done with much success) while simultaneously offering younger workers an option to switch into the IRA, they could immediately takes steps to address the inherent cause of the crisis by limiting the universe of unfunded liabilities.”

Today, state public pensions’ unfunded liabilities stands at $1 trillion, and Wilson wrote that “If this proposal were adopted in every state, the unfunded liabilities would not grow that much more, and the states over time could bring the pension funds to fully-funded levels from their general funds.”

According to Pew, public sector unions are “vigorously opposed” to this reform: “Because unions and other employee representatives often have vigorously opposed defined contribution plans, it is unclear whether any state will find such a switch viable, or if such plans are primarily being proposed as a starting point for hybrid plans or other compromises.”

The public relations pitfalls for unions do not stop there, according to Wilson. “Unions have compounded their public image problems through aggressive lobbying on the federal stage for more ObamaCare handouts,” he said.

“For example, the special, sweetheart union exemption deal to the so-called Cadillac tax on health benefits that was worked out behind closed doors probably cost Democrats the Massachusetts Senate seat,” Wilson explained. “After that deal was reached, many rank-and-file union members went against the grain in Massachusetts, apparently not favoring the special treatment Congress sought to bribe them with.”

Wilson also cited a recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2007 which found that public sector pay was outpacing the private sector, as ALG News has previously reported.

In California, which still faces annual deficits totaling tens of billions of dollars, average annual income for state employees was $56,777 versus $49,935 for the private sector, a 12.1 percent gap. In Illinois, the numbers are similar: $53,925 for state workers, and $48,006 for the private sector, an 11 percent split. New Jersey: $57,845 average state salary, $53,590 for private sector workers, at a 7.4 percent difference.

Nationally, the same pattern holds: Federal workers in 2007 made on average $64,871, with private sector workers making $44,362, representing a 31.6 percent gap in between.

Wilson said “the favors to unions do not stop there,” citing how Department of Labor prosecutions of union corruption and financial disclosure requirements have been halted by Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, as previously reported by ALG News, and by BigGovernment.com.

Wilson also noted that “One of Barack Obama’s first acts in office was to enact several pro-union executive orders.”

“To top it all off, despite overwhelming opposition, the unions are still pushing for card-check, which would remove the right of workers to have a secret ballot when unions are organized,” Wilson added, citing the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” that Congress has proposed once again in its 111th session.

Wilson concluded, “Politically, all of these union kickbacks have backfired, and are fueling public dissent against government unions being treated as a favored political class over taxpayers. The American people favor a system where everybody is treated equally, and the more union bosses demand special treatment, the worse their public image will become.”

###

February 23rd, 2010, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today defended Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams’ decision earlier this month to receive heart surgery in America rather than in Canada, saying “Canada’s socialized, government-run system is of such low quality not even the Premier of one of Canada’s provinces wants to risk his own health there.”

Williams yesterday said that “I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics,” describing the decision as “my heart, my choice and my health.”

Wilson said the episode was proof that “America’s system has generated a quality of medical treatment that is unparalleled in the entire world.”

“Now, Barack Obama wants us to suffer the same type of low-quality care Premier Danny Williams was able to avoid by coming to the U.S.,” Wilson added, renewing his call for members of Congress to reject the Administration’s latest proposal.

“Premier Williams has a right to the best quality of health care in the world, and so do the American people, who are being force-fed a government-run system that will ration care, reduce quality, and increase costs,” Wilson said.

Yesterday, Wilson condemned Obama’s proposal as “more of the same: a government takeover of the nation’s entire health system,” calling it a “mishmash” of the House and Senate versions “with the same $2.5 trillion price tag.”

“This is pretty much the same government-run health care proposal that the American people have already rejected. It’s just like the House and Senate versions that have already passed that will cost some $2.5 trillion over ten years once fully implemented,” Wilson said.

As reported by the New York Times, the Obama proposal “sticks largely to the version passed by the Senate in December.”

According to Rasmussen Reports, 61 percent of voters say they want Congress to start over on any health care legislation. 58 percent oppose the bill in its current form, which only 39 percent support.

###

As reported by the New York Times, the Obama proposal “sticks largely to the version passed by the Senate in December.”

“This is pretty much the same government-run health care proposal that the American people have already rejected. It’s just like the House and Senate versions that have already passed that will cost some $2.5 trillion over ten years once fully implemented,” Wilson said.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 61 percent of voters say they want Congress to start over on any health care legislation. 58 percent oppose the bill in its current form, which only 39 percent support.

“Obama’s plan will still ration care away from seniors, drive Americans off of their private health options and onto a government-run system, reduce quality, increase premiums, and saddle taxpayers with runaway costs, more spending, confiscatory taxes, and a debt that can never be paid,” Wilson explained.

Wilson added that the Administration plan “proves that Barack Obama has no intention of negotiating with Congressional Republicans in good faith, since his proposal does not address the continued, legitimate concerns of the American people.”

Today, the White House released its latest proposal on WhiteHouse.gov. According to the website, “Millions of families will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to help them pay for insurance in the new exchanges… The Act also provides financial assistance to reduce out-of-pocket costs for moderate and low-income eligible Americans.”

“In other words,” Wilson said, “Barack Obama’s program will directly subsidize health coverage to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending — which is exactly what the House and Senate versions do. It says it right there on the White House website.”

“The American people are not stupid,” Wilson added. “They know that the nation’s unsustainable entitlement programs are already risking a sovereign debt default, and they know adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt by expanding the health care entitlement will only increase those risks to taxpayers.”

Wilson noted that the mandate for the American people to obtain insurance is still included. According to the White House, “all Americans who can afford insurance will have the responsibility to purchase it.” Wilson said it was unconstitutional.

“Congress has no constitutional authority to pass a law to force individuals to purchase anything, let alone health insurance coverage,” Wilson explained.

Wilson described the upcoming meeting February 25th meeting as “nothing more than pure political theater to create the illusion of bipartisan approval of his proposal, which is just more of the same: a government takeover of the nation’s entire health system.”

Wilson pointed to comments by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s legislative director Wendell Primus stating that the reconciliation process was “the only way” for Congressional Democrats to pass their bill as evidence “Pelosi and Reid are not starting over; they already have a plan to pass the legislation in its current form.

In a recent oped published by ALG News, Wilson wrote the parliamentary maneuver would eliminate the Senatorial filibuster and weaken the nation’s two-party system. Wilson warned that if Congressional leaders were successful in implementing the legislation via reconciliation, that the process could be used to enact other controversial bills that cannot garner 60 votes in the Senate.

Speaking at the Academy Health National Health Policy Conference, Primus said, “The House would have to take up [the reconciliation bill] first because it would involve revenue changes and then the Senate would pass it and then I think hopefully with the passing of that legislation, the House, only then would take up the Senate bill and pass it… The trick in all of this is that the President would have to sign the Senate bill first and then the reconciliation bill would be signed second and the parts of the reconciliation bill that trump the relevant portions of the first signed bill.”

Instead, Wilson called for the process to end, concluding, “The debate on ObamaCare is over. The American people have spoken. They have repeatedly rejected the government takeover of the nation’s health system, and they are growing weary of Barack Obama’s insistence that he knows better than they about what is good for the health of their families.”

###

“These allegations, if true, amount to bribery,” Wilson charged, adding, “Using a federal appointment as the means to affect the outcome of a primary challenge against an embattled incumbent Senator is a gross misuse of the Office of the President.”

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“The disclosure came during an afternoon taping of Larry Kane: Voice of Reason, a Sunday news-analysis show on the Comcast Network. Sestak would not elaborate on the circumstances and seemed chagrined after blurting out ‘yes’ to veteran news anchor Kane’s direct question.

“’Was it secretary of the Navy?’ Kane asked.

“‘No comment,’ Sestak said.

“‘Was it [the job] high-ranking?’ Kane asked. Sestak said yes, but added that he would ‘never leave’ the Senate race for a deal.”

Wilson praised Sestak for “not taking the bribe, and for being honest about what happened. Congressman Joe Sestak has the integrity to admit that the offer was made.”

Thus far, the White House has denied the charges.

Wilson called upon both chambers of Congress to immediate launch investigations into the matter, saying, “If true, heads should roll for this perversion and inherent corruption of our representative form of government.”

Wilson said the investigations were necessary, since the White House was overtly denying the accusations.

According to the Inquirer, interviewing Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political science professor specializing in Congress, “Clearly, the offers are made. When a White House wants to preempt a [primary] challenge, they’ll dangle something. But it is almost never uttered.”

The report continues, “In addition, Baker said, conversations in such cases are nuanced, and savvy operators know not to use explicit quid pro quo language.”

Wilson said, “In this case, the language must have been pretty darn explicit, since he answered ‘yes’ to a direct question about a quid pro quo.”

Baker told the Inquirer that he could not think of another instance in which a candidate had ever divulged such an offer from White House officials.

Wilson said that “Congressional inquiries, and barring that, an Independent Counsel, are necessary and appropriate to get to the bottom of this cesspool, and Congressman Sestak should be called to testify under oath.”

Wilson concluded, “Offices of the public trust are not chips on a table to be bartered by elected officials who want to favor incumbents in Congress.”

###

 

The Mt. Vernon statement—intended in its timing to influence the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference—comes almost fifty years after the 1960 Sharon Statement by William F. Buckley, Jr. that many consider to be one of the founding documents of the modern conservative movement.

Wilson said that today’s statement is relevant to the current political climate: “The rise of the tea party movement and increasing citizen opposition to government-run health care, runaway spending and debt creation, are all evidence that Americans still believe in constitutional principles of limited government and the rule of law.”

Wilson said, “This statement is for the American people, who have shown throughout our history they will defend their constitutional rights. Today, we stand with them in affirming those rights.”

According to the Mount Vernon Statement, “The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.”

The statement continues, “The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”

Wilson praised former Attorney General Edwin Meese for putting together the coalition of national, grassroots leaders to pen the document. “We owe Attorney General Meese a debt of gratitude for bringing us together and crafting a broad, united message that joins the ongoing discussion of the proper, limited role of government.”

Wilson said the “need for that discussion is urgent,” pointing to what he termed “the perversion of the Constitution through the unbridled, unlimited, and dangerous expansion of the powers of the federal government throughout the 20th Century.”

Wilson concluded by saying, “The Mount Vernon Statement seeks to chart a new course for the 21st century by . History has shown that out of control growth in the federal government has established entitlements that threaten to bankrupt the nation, increasingly taken on new powers to tax and regulate practically every human activity imaginable, and weakened the nation’s economic standing in the world by debasing our currency, bailing out politically-favored institutions, revoking property rights, and placing primacy into the hands of government over the people.”

Wilson urged citizens to sign the statement themselves at www.themountvernonstatement.com.

 

 

###

The Mount Vernon Statement

Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.

Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.

A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.

A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

• It applies the principle of limited government based on the
rule of law to every proposal.
• It honors the central place of individual liberty in American
politics and life.
• It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and
economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
• It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom
and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that
end.
• It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood,
community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

February 17, 2010

Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America
Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation
Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council
Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy
Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center
Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator
David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union
David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society
T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform
William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government
Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness
Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority
Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

###

“The House so-called ‘jobs’ bill is really a bailout for insolvent states and, specifically, kickbacks to the public sector unions. The Senate should have nothing to do with it,” Wilson said.

The $154 billion House “stimulus” contains $48.3 billion for infrastructure and transportation spending, and some $23 billion for an “education jobs fund” that Wilson called “bailouts for state and local construction and public teachers unions, totaling more than $71 billion for states that refuse to make necessary cuts to spending.”

The $787 billion “stimulus” bill also contained $53.6 billion to bail out state and local governments. Wilson said “despite all of the deficit-spending, unemployment remains close to 10 percent, and underemployment near 17 percent.”

Currently, the Senate is considering a $15 billion bill that does not include the state bailout funds. Wilson urged the Senate to keep the states bailout “off the table.”

Some states are already clamoring for more federal funds, as reported by CNNMoney.com: “States are looking to the federal government for more help balancing their budgets, but the Senate is not heeding their call… Experts and state officials say they need to know now whether they’ll get more funds. Governors are currently crafting their budgets and, for many, it will be their third year of contending with massive deficits due to declining tax revenues.”

According to the CNN report, “States are looking at a total budget gap of $180 billion for fiscal 2011, which for most of them begins July 1.” Compared with prior years, according to Sunshinereview.org, state budget shortfalls totaled $113.2 billion for FY 2009, and then rose to $142.6 billion in FY 2010.

“With shortfalls this large, and with no end in sight for the economic downturn, Congress is now running the risk of creating a permanent line on the budget to bail out profligate states,” Wilson said, adding, “Instead, the solution is tough medicine: states like California and New York need to scale back their budgets to be in line with revenue.”

California currently faces a $20 billion shortfall. On the east coast, New York faces a more than $8 billion deficit, and New Jersey too faces a $11 billion deficit more 2011.

Wilson called for “permanent tax relief and bringing state spending to be in accords with revenue, not the old way of simply tax, borrow, and spend, which fuels the insolvency crisis.”

According to the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), state spending grew from $945.3 billion in 2000 to more than $1.5 trillion 2008, almost a 58.7 percent increased during the 2000’s, where revenues were generally rising because of inflated property values and what Wilson termed “a bubble economy.”

Wilson pointed out that states knew a downturn was coming as early as 2007, “but spending still grew by about $100 billion in 2008.”

“Instead,” Wilson urged, “the solution is to stop taking capital away from what would be productive sectors of the economy that could create new jobs, and redirecting it to areas that really do need to be cut. The solution is to let the true job-creators keep their money and invest it.”

An editorial published yesterday by ALG News warned that a states bailout would send the wrong message to markets and creditors: “With the federal national debt rapidly approaching $14 trillion, and the nation’s Triple-A rating already threatened, now is not the time to be sending the message that Washington exists simply to finance unsustainable operations.”

Wilson concluded, “Enough is enough with these public sector union kickbacks. It is not up to American taxpayers to go deeper into debt to put off the painful, necessary decisions that must occur at the state level.”

###

“On one hand, Barack Obama is approaching Congressional Republicans to sit down and negotiate anew on the enacting legislation related to health care, but on the other, Congressional Democrats are threatening to ram the legislation in its current form down the throats of the American people via ‘reconciliation,’ a process usually reserved for minor budget fixes,” Wilson explained.

“Reconciliation was never intended to be used to avert the Senatorial filibuster in order to enact sweeping changes to the laws of the land,” Wilson added.

Wilson pointed to comments by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s legislative director Wendell Primus stating that the reconciliation process was “the only way” for Congressional Democrats to pass what Wilson termed “a takeover of the nation’s entire health care industry.”

Speaking at the Academy Health National Health Policy Conference, Primus said, “The House would have to take up [the reconciliation bill] first because it would involve revenue changes and then the Senate would pass it and then I think hopefully with the passing of that legislation, the House, only then would take up the Senate bill and pass it… The trick in all of this is that the President would have to sign the Senate bill first and then the reconciliation bill would be signed second and the parts of the reconciliation bill that trump the relevant portions of the first signed bill.”

Wilson said that “The net effect would be to eliminate the filibuster to enact ‘ObamaCare,’ guaranteeing one-party rule in Washington, and forcing the American people to accept a plan that will ration care away from seniors, bankrupt the treasury with over $2.5 trillion in costs over ten years once fully implemented, lower the quality of care, raise premiums, and force Americans off of their private insurance options.”

Wilson added that “no negotiations should take place while the threat of reconciliation on current legislation is on the table. Republicans should not be sitting down with a gun pointed at their heads.”

Thus far, Barack Obama has refused to take reconciliation off of the table, as reported by the Huffington Post, despite calls from House Republican leaders to do so prior to the highly anticipated February 25th meeting.

Wilson said that “Instead, Congressional leaders and Barack Obama should start over, especially since the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose the bill in its current form.”

According to Rasmussen Reports, 61 percent of voters say they want Congress to start over on any health care legislation. 58 percent oppose the bill in its current form, which only 39 percent support.

In an oped published this morning, Wilson described the parliamentary maneuver as “a significant threat to the liberty of the American people and the institutions of limited government.”

Wilson warned that if Congressional leaders were successful in implementing the legislation via reconciliation, that the process could be used to enact other controversial bills that cannot garner 60 votes in the Senate.

Wilson explained in his oped, “If reconciliation can be invoked to avert the filibuster on this issue, it surely would be used to enact other radical proposes such as caps on carbon emissions, the takeover of the energy industry, and the nationalization of the banks.”

Wilson also cautioned that the $2.5 trillion bill “like the rest of the nation’s entitlement spending, is unsustainable, and as ALG News has previously reported, will hasten the nation’s descent into financial Armageddon, as the U.S. would eventually lose its Triple-A credit rating.”

Wilson concluded, “Members of Congress should consider carefully what they do next. If they refuse to take the threat of ‘reconciliation’ off the table, the American people will know that the fix is in and that the televised negotiations are fraudulent; nothing more than a distraction from the true danger.”

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