“Anything means everything, not just health care,” said Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson. “Since Scott Brown’s overwhelming election, Senate Majority Leader Reid has scheduled and won votes that may have been contested or even blocked had Brown been seated.”

Scott Brown was elected to the open Massachusetts Senate seat on January 19th. But Reid has refused to seat the Senator-elect until February 11th.

“The people of Massachusetts elected Scott Brown to be the 41st vote against any and all controversial items as necessary, not just health care, and they’re already being deprived of their due representation,” Wilson said.

“Reid lied, there’s no simpler way of putting it,” Wilson added, pointing to Reid’s pledge after the Brown election: “We’re not going to rush into anything,” as reported by Politico.

Since then, the Senate has voted to raise the debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion, confirmed Ben Bernanke to a second term as Fed Chair, invoked cloture on Patricia Smith for Solicitor of Labor, “and now is moving to get Craig Becker onto the National Labor Relations Board,” Wilson noted.

Today, the Senate HELP Committee is set to hold a hearing at 4PM on Barack Obama’s nominee for the National Labor Relations Board, Craig Becker. Source familiar with the process suggest that a vote could come as early as Thursday, and a floor vote on Saturday or Monday.

Americans for Limited Government is distributing a background on Becker at the hearing, and Wilson urged the Senate not to hold the final vote before Brown is seated.

Wilson said that “merely having Brown seated would have defeated the debt ceiling increase and Patricia Smith because no Republicans supported those two, and Senate Democrats would not have had 60 votes needed for passage. If Brown had been seated, it is highly likely Reid would not have even brought those items to the floor.”

Wilson added that “clearly indicates that the Majority Leader is attempting to rush through as much as he possibly can get away with prior to Brown’s seating, despite his vow not to. He is thumbing his nose at the American people. It’s disgusting.”

In the meantime, Reid chastised Senate Republicans for requiring cloture votes on several Obama nominees, as reported by Politico. “Republican senators refuse to let this body hold a vote on the highly capable people the President has asked to serve in those roles,” said Reid.

Wilson said Reid was “misleading the American people yet again. Reid can schedule these cloture votes any time he wants. It’s his problem if he can’t keep all his ducks in a row to vote for them. Senate Republicans are under no obligation to vote for them.

“Blocking unqualified, radical appointments is the job of the Senate. Those Senators that have delayed or blocked these nominations are heroes,” Wilson declared, adding, “No nominee is entitled to Senate consent on the mere basis of having been nominated.”

Wilson said that “Reid’s latest complaint shows once again that he is in a rush to get everything through. What more proof does anyone need?”

Wilson said Reid knows everything will change when Brown is seated, “and in the meantime is attempting to paint a misleading portrait of obstructionism, when quite the opposite is true.”

“Washington may be dumbfounded that Reid would lie about ramming important pieces of legislation and nominees through without seating Brown, but there is so little accountability in the nation’s capital it’s not at all surprising.

“These items would not have passed had Brown been seated, and there will be even more next week,” Wilson said, concluding, “which robs the people of Massachusetts their due representation on these critical issues facing the nation.”

###

“Not even 24 hours after Barack Obama called for a ‘freeze’ to bring spending under control, the Senate has voted to increase the national debt by almost $2 trillion,” Wilson said. “Is this some kind of sick joke on the American people?”

“By increasing the national debt to $14.29 trillion, the Senate has voted to set the debt ceiling to be greater than the nation’s entire Gross Domestic Product,” Wilson added. The current GDP is $14.242 trillion, based on third-quarter data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The vote in the Senate was 60-39. Not a single Senate Republican voted for it. In December, Congress voted to increase the debt ceiling by $290 billion to $12.394 trillion.

“The national debt is increasing so fast that it is going to bury the U.S. dollar and wreck the economy, leaving nothing but a trail of inflation, unemployment, and a pile of worthless paper,” Wilson said, adding, “We’re going to default.”

The national debt has grown for every year since 1958. “Eventually, the nation’s creditors are going to figure out that we’re never paying these debts back. They’re not stupid — even though they’re starting to wonder aloud if we are,” Wilson said.

On Tuesday, urging the Senate to reject the debt increase, Wilson said the “real solution is to draw down entitlement spending, balance the budget, and pay off the debt.”

According to an Americans for Limited Government analysis of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) data, annual entitlement spending has grown from $386.4 billion in 1992 (27.98 percent of budget outlays totaling $1.381 trillion) to $1.36 trillion in 2009 (38.17 percent of budget outlays totaling $3.653 trillion). (Sources: www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/hist.pdf, and http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/asset.aspx?AssetId=1702.)

According to OMB data, entitlement spending as a percent of budget outlays will continue to increase, while defense spending will decrease. In 2019, OMB projects that entitlements spending will stand at $2.482 trillion (45.93 percent of outlays totaling $5.403 trillion).

Meanwhile, interest payments on the $12.3 trillion debt are set to increase drastically. According to the New York Times, “the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically.”

“The American people are not going to be able to keep up with the interest payments on the national debt when rates go up,” Wilson noted.

Wilson recently said that the growth of the debt could be directly correlated and shown to be caused by the growth of entitlements. The national debt has grown by over 295 percent since 1992, and will have grown by over 492 percent by 2020. Entitlement spending has grown by over 351 percent since 1992, and will have grown by over 642 percent by 2020.

“Entitlement spending is the greatest contributor to the growth of the national debt because it is growing at an even faster pace than the budget as a whole. That means it is, without a doubt, the most uncontrolled, profligate, unaffordable and unsustainable portion of the budget,” Wilson explained.

Currently, the national debt stands at over $12 trillion and is projected to top the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 at over $14 trillion. By 2020, it will top $20 trillion.

“This is one of the most irresponsible votes ever in the history of the U.S. Senate,” said Wilson.

Wilson called on the House to reject the bill, and Obama to veto it. “Not a day after Obama delivered his spending ‘freeze’ proposal, the Senate voted to increase the national debt by almost $2 trillion. If it passes the House, then Obama will sign it. He ought to veto it,” Wilson concluded.

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Bernanke’s cloture vote is scheduled for Thursday morning. Wilson specifically urged members to vote “no” on cloture, saying “The best way to defeat Bernanke’s reconfirmation is to vote ‘no’ on cloture.”

Wilson said that Bernanke needed to be held accountable for his role in the financial crisis: “For his failure to acknowledge one of the principal causes for the financial meltdown, and to take any responsibility whatsoever for his role in shaping the monetary policies that accommodated the housing bubble, Ben Bernanke must be rejected by the Senate.”

Wilson cited Stanford economist John Taylor, who in writing for the Wall Street Journal stated, “the simple observation that the Fed’s target for the federal-funds interest rate was well below what the Taylor rule would call for in 2002-2005.”

Taylor continued, “By this measure the interest rate was too low for too long, reducing borrowing costs and accelerating the housing boom. The deviation from the Taylor rule, which had characterized good monetary policy during the previous two decades, was the largest since the turbulent 1970s.”

“Bernanke does not share this widely-accepted critique,” said Wilson. “He lays blame for the crisis at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for their roles in the sale of mortgage-backed securities all over the world.”

“How can the Federal Reserve be expected to fulfill its mission of price stability and prevent another dangerous bubble if it will not even acknowledge what it did to inflate the last bubble?” Wilson asked, adding, “The Senate must consider the culpability of the Fed, which helped cause the crisis under Bernanke’s watch.”

Wilson said that “While it is fair to hold Fannie and Freddie accountable for the trillions of dollars of worthless securities they sold, what Bernanke fails to acknowledge is that the Fed’s easy money policies incentivized the mortgage loans to be given in the first place through lower-than-called-for interest rates.”

In a recent column on the topic, ALG Senior News Editor Robert Romano wrote, “The Fed’s complicity in the crash of 2008 cannot be understated. The housing bubble was greatly accommodated by the Federal Reserve, which poured the necessary cash into the banking system through monetary easing and low interest rates throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s. The spigots were on—and the ‘liquid’ flowed into banks on a gargantuan level, much of it into home sales.”

The article points to the True Money Supply index from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute which found that the money supply rose from about $1.787 trillion at the end of 1990 to about $5.268 trillion by the end of 2007, representing a 295 percent increase.

Mortgage debt grew even faster than the money supply. In 1990, outstanding mortgage debt held was $3.805 trillion. By the end of 2007, total mortgage holdings rose to $14.568 trillion, a 383 percent increase. Romano wrote that without the money from the Fed initially, the bubble would have been “impossible.”

Wilson said that “In order prevent the next crisis, we need an accurate accounting from government officials as to what went wrong with the housing bubble, so that steps are taken to ensure that it never happens again. We’re not getting that from Ben Bernanke or the Federal Reserve at all under his leadership.”

Wilson concluded, “For helping to cause the crisis and for failing to take responsibility for the errant Fed policies that contributed to it, Ben Bernanke must not be reconfirmed by the Senate.”

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The call came amid an Obama Administration proposal to “freeze” spending expected to be unveiled at tomorrow’s State of the Union Address, which Wilson called “nothing more than window-dressing to disguise the unpayable debt the nation faces.”

“Barack Obama is completely disconnected from reality. He is ready to show up at the State of the Union Address promoting his ‘spending freeze’ program, which will do absolutely nothing to pay off the $12 trillion national debt,” Wilson said.

“Simultaneously he is prepared to sign legislation that will actually increase the national debt by some $1.9 trillion,” Wilson noted, adding, “The American people are simply not that stupid. This is just one more reason why Obama’s believability is in the toilet.”

According to the Washington Post, “the freeze would shave no more than $15 billion off next year’s budget — barely denting a deficit projected to exceed $1 trillion for the third year in a row.”

Wilson said “The immediate effect of the spending ‘freeze’ will be to freeze into place, and institutionalize, the record-setting $1.4 trillion deficit,” Wilson explained, adding, “which is not the sort of freeze the American people support.”

Wilson asked of Obama prior to his first State of the Union Address, “Why does Obama want to institutionalize perpetual borrowing from the Chinese, Saudis, and Japanese?”

Wilson said the “real solution is to draw down entitlement spending, balance the budget, and pay off the debt.”

According to an Americans for Limited Government analysis of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) data, annual entitlement spending has grown from $386.4 billion in 1992 (27.98 percent of budget outlays totaling $1.381 trillion) to $1.36 trillion in 2009 (38.17 percent of budget outlays totaling $3.653 trillion). (Sources: www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy10/pdf/hist.pdf, and http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/asset.aspx?AssetId=1702.)

According to OMB data, entitlement spending as a percent of budget outlays will continue to increase, while defense spending will decrease. In 2019, OMB projects that entitlements spending will stand at $2.482 trillion (45.93 percent of outlays totaling $5.403 trillion).

Meanwhile, interest payments on the $12 trillion debt are set to increase drastically. According to the New York Times, “the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically.”

In a recent column, Wilson wrote that “as interest repayments grow exponentially, the debt will not shrink. In fact, the national debt has grown every single year since 1958. And the government projects that trend will continue unabated for the next decade.”

Wilson recently said that the growth of the debt could be directly correlated and shown to be caused by the growth of entitlements. The national debt has grown by over 295 percent since 1992, and will have grown by over 492 percent by 2020. Entitlement spending has grown by over 351 percent since 1992, and will have grown by over 642 percent by 2020.

“Entitlement spending is the greatest contributor to the growth of the national debt because it is growing at an even faster pace than the budget as a whole. That means it is, without a doubt, the most uncontrolled, profligate, unaffordable and unsustainable portion of the budget,” Wilson explained.

Currently, the national debt stands at over $12 trillion and is projected to top the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 at over $14 trillion. By 2020, it will top $20 trillion.

###

Wilson said Southers never answered outstanding questions about whether he would support mandatory union bargaining for TSA employees. “Southers should have answered Senator DeMint’s very simple question. The answers he could have given would have most certainly been helpful in expediting his nomination,” Wilson said.

“Instead, Southers stonewalled DeMint, giving Senators reason to believe that Southers prioritized union kickbacks over homeland security,” Wilson added.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) had placed a legislative hold on Southers, preventing him from being confirmed via unanimous consent. It would have taken 60 votes in the Senate to break the hold.

Speaking on NBC News this morning with Matt Lauer, DeMint had said, “what I’ve asked for, Matt, is just some debate and a recorded vote. They, they want to pass Mr. Southers in, in secret, without a recorded vote. I think there’s some significant issues. I’ve asked him if he is going to change the policy of collective bargaining within the TSA and he will not give me a straight answer.

Wilson and other critics also took issue with Southers’ abusing his position to order background searches on his estranged wife’s boyfriend, and for “equating millions of Americans with domestic terrorists.”

Wilson pointed to a 2008 video interview when Southers said, “Most of the domestic groups that we have to pay attention to here are white supremacist groups, they’re anti-government, in most cases anti-abortion, they are usually survivalist types in nature, [and Christian] identity-oriented.”

Complaining about the process of confirmation, Southers issued a statement with his withdrawal: “It is apparent that this path has been obstructed by political ideology… My nomination has become a lightning rod for those who have chosen to push a political agenda at the risk of the safety and security of the American people. This partisan climate is unacceptable and I refuse to allow myself to remain part of their dialogue.”

Wilson said “All he had to do was honestly answer Senator DeMint’s question about mandatory union bargaining for TSA employees. Rather than just answering the question, which was a simple yes or no, and agreeing to be judged by his answer, Southers instead opted to flee any accountability for his views — which now one must assume was in favor union bargaining.”

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“Congressman Towns should be praised for investigating his own party’s Administration, who in this case threatened an inspector general,” said Wilson.

Towns is the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who in a statement said, “If such statements were made they were entirely improper and pose a direct threat to the independence and integrity of the Inspectors General, and an affront to clear Congressional intent as expressed in statute.”

MacFarland says he was threatened because he wanted to warn Congress that his budget was too low as proposed for his office to complete its mission, which by law he is required to do.

Wilson agreed, saying, “Especially with the inspectors general whose purpose it is to monitor wasteful spending, OMB’s threats to any inspector ought to be investigated.”

Wilson continued, “Under law, any inspectors general who believe that they are being cut either maliciously or in error has a duty to inform Congress, and neither OMB nor any other arm of the Obama Administration should be targeting those inspectors as a result.”

“Nobody should be threatened by the White House for doing their jobs as stipulated by law,” Wilson added.

According to the NY Daily News, MacFarland “alleged that his office got a ‘not so veiled threat from OMB’ that it ‘will make life miserable’ if he informs legislators of his complaint.”

In his letter, McFarland wrote, “I am alerting to you about a very serious matter that represents an attempt to thwart an authority provided to us by the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008 and that creates a risk of compromising our operational independence.”

Wilson called on the Obama White House to cooperate with Towns’ investigation, and to reprimand the budget official responsible for making the threats.

“At this juncture, it would be very appropriate for the Obama Administration to follow protocol and if necessary fire the official who abused his position to keep an inspector general quiet about a policy issue,” Wilson said, concluding, “and to immediately inform Congress of whatever action it is taking to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

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“The Roberts Court will go down as the greatest defender of the First Amendment since James Madison wrote it,” Wilson declared, calling the overturned restrictions, “censorship.”

“The twin pillars of censorship by the FEC Act: the so-called ‘influencing language’ standard whereby any speech that ‘influenced’ elections could be regulated, and the ‘appearance of corruption’ standard whereby any donations and expenditures that lead to the ‘possibility’ of corruption have now been struck down by the Roberts case,” Wilson explained.

“First, the ‘influencing language’ standard in Wisconsin Right to Life case, and now the ‘appearance of corruption’ standard in today’s Citizens United decision,” Wilson added.

According to the majority ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, “Limits on independent expenditures, such as §441b, have a chilling effect extending well beyond the Government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. The anticorruption interest is not sufficient to displace the speech here in question.”

“Under this ruling, corporate entity restrictions on political campaigning have thankfully been overturned, as they have a chilling effect on legitimate political speech protected by the First Amendment,” said Wilson.

Wilson also condemned Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for calling the decision “un-American.”

“Chuck Schumer needs to have his head examined,” Wilson said, adding, “the First Amendment was upheld in this case. It doesn’t get any more American than that.”

In Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, the court ruled against provisions that restricted Citizens United from broadcasting a movie it developed, Hillary: The Movie, that was supposed to air during the 2008 Democratic Primary. In particular, the court ruled that federal restrictions on independent political expenditures by a corporation is a violation of the First Amendment.

The court ruled 5-4 in favor of Citizens United.

According to Nathan Mehrens, Counsel for Americans for Limited Government, “the ruling set a major precedent. It’s going to be very tough to impose new campaign restrictions on corporate entities’ independent expenditures.”

The law, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as McCain-Feingold, “set up distinctions between individuals and corporate entities, treating them far different in the context of making independent expenditures constituting political speech.”

Mehrens said it was a “very good” ruling. “The McCain-Feingold restrictions were so bad, that groups could not even mention a candidate’s name during ‘black-out’ windows,” Mehrens explained, pointing to limits on when messages could be broadcast prior to primaries and elections.

“The case was filed by Citizens United as a pre-enforcement, as-applied challenge by Citizens United, meaning that they had not yet been restricted by the FEC. Citizens United, in winning the case, was able to show that restrictions did apply in this instance and that there was a reasonable likelihood that the FEC restrictions would be applied,” said Mehrens.

“In this case, the court decided that the issue was not moot despite the fact that the 2008 elections are over because they made a determination that this could happen again going forward,” Mehrens added.
Wilson said that the ruling “could set a template for groups to unhinge unconstitutional restrictions in the future through pre-enforcement challenges.”

Mehrens described the ruling as “pretty broad.”

“The only thing that really survived was the reporting requirements for the disclosure of campaign donors’ information, because Citizens United could not show the likelihood of injury,” Mehrens explained.

However, Mehrens said that “There are more cases in the pipeline that deal with campaign finance disclosures,” including Doe #1 et al v. Reed, WA Sec. of State, et al, U.S. Supreme Court Docket #09A356.

“The Supreme Court stayed an order of the 9th Circuit thereby preventing the WA Sec. of State from releasing the names of the signers of Referendum 71,” Mehrens said, adding, “While this case deals with referendum signers and not those who give financial contributions, the disclosure issue is similar.”

The Supreme Court vote was 8-1 to stay the 9th Circuit’s order.

Wilson called the ruling a “major step in overturning arcane, gargantuan censorship boards, laws and regulations that tie up our electoral processes in red tape, restrict speech, and favor incumbents.”

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“Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin has chosen to ridicule those concerned about the names of 113,000 dead people appearing on the state’s voter rolls. With so much at stake in his state and throughout the nation in today’s election, one would expect him to be more serious and less cynical. After all, it’s his job.

“The fact is, if there is anyone who deserves cynicism, it is Mr. Galvin, himself. He is the person who in 2008 was found by the United States Department of Justice to have violated the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Acting of 2002. According to the Justice Department, he violated the law by failing to report and collect the number sent and the number returned of absentee ballots from overseas Military personnel registered to vote in Massachusetts.[2]

“In short, Mr. Galvin’s track record for enforcing election laws is far from sterling. He has no room to ridicule those who ask him simply to do his job – for a change.

“Additionally, Mr. Galvin has made it clear that he has a personal stake in seeing Ms. Coakley win the senatorial election: he wants her office. According to Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker, “Galvin hints that if he is not selected for attorney general he will run for the office next year.”

“That being the case – and with his track record of election law violation — if Galvin had one ounce of integrity, he will remove himself from any oversight role in this election and ask that an independent overseer be brought in.”

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“I am calling upon you to publicly denounce this blatant attack upon the citizens of your state. They will, I am certain, be eagerly awaiting your response,” Wilson declared in his letter, calling the tax on non-union health insurance plans “contemptible.”

“This is absolutely deplorable to American workers, 92 percent of whom do not belong to unions,” wrote Wilson his letter. “In essence, non-union employers and employees will be forced to subsidize the cost of exempting union workers from the tax, which will cost families in your states and districts thousands of dollars a year in additional charges.”

According to the Associated Press, “Officials say the White House and labor leaders have reached a tentative agreement on how to tax high-value health insurance plans to help pay for a revamped medical system…The proposed tax has been a major sticking point because labor leaders fear union members, with some of the more lucrative benefit plans, would be hurt. President Barack Obama supports it as a way to hold down costs by nudging workers into less pricey coverage.”

The tax, as passed in the Senate bill, would charge insurance companies a 40 percent excise tax on coverage above $8,500 for an individual and $23,000 for a family. Within three years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax would apply to nearly 20 percent of all workers. Within six years, it would reach a fifth of all households earning as little as $50,000 annually.

“Only now,” Wilson said in a statement, “the unions are exempted in a deal hand-crafted by Barack Obama.”

According to Wilson’s letter, “Immediately, [the tax] will have three impacts: 1) Health benefits will be cut as many insurers and employers stop providing such plans that were once affordable; 2) Of those plans not cancelled, the costs will be passed on to the insured, raising premiums; and 3) This new Health Care Penalty Tax will be used in Right-to-Work states as a backdoor method to forcing workers to join unions, since union dues would be less than the tax.”

This is a tax aimed at non-union workers and non-unionized businesses, in particularly, small businesses that provide good health coverage to their employees,” Wilson wrote, adding, “Moreover, this tax will disproportionately impact Baby Boomers, women, and the infirmed — in short, anyone that pays higher premiums because of medical need — none of whom have a seat at the closed-door negotiations hastily taking place now.”

“Meanwhile, union bosses of the AFL-CIO and the SEIU have been well-represented, as is indicated by this contemptible union exemption from the 40 percent excise tax,” Wilson wrote.

Previously, Wilson has called for negotiations on what he called a “government takeover of the nation’s health system” to be opened to the public. In a statement, he said this latest exemption for unions “illustrates with clarity why transparency is so important.”

“The American people have no seat at the table right now, as Congressional leaders make deals with union bosses resulting in kickbacks that non-union workers will have to foot the bill for,” Wilson said.

“It is up to Senators and Congressmen of right-to-work states to stop this tax on non-union health benefits dead in its tracks,” Wilson said, concluding, “There is too much at stake. 92 percent of workers not in unions must not be forced to subsidize the other 8 percent who receive union health benefits.”

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