Congressman Parker Griffith (AL-CD5) is the first House Democrat to completely break with his leadership and with Barack Obama, and stand with the American people against the so-called public “option.”

In a letter Griffith sent to a constituent (below), he writes, “I do not favor a government-sponsored health care option. I believe that a public option would result in less consumer choice and too much government involvement in health care.”

Says ALG President Bill Wilson, “Congressman Griffith deserves the support of all Alabamans in his district, and of all Americans across the nation for opposing the monstrosity now being considered that will eliminate private health options and saddle American taxpayers with an unsustainable entitlement for decades to come.”

As developments continue to come in on the critical “ObamaCare” story, ALG News will keep you posted with timely updates.

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Attached Letter:

July 21, 2009

________________
________________
_____________________

Dear __________:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me with your concerns. As your representative, I value maintaining an open dialogue with my constituents, especially on issues as important as health care.

As you know, the question of how to improve our health care system has divided lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. As a physician who spent 30 years treating patients from across North Alabama, I have a different perspective on this issue than others in Congress. I am concerned that the current health care legislation falls short of meeting its goals of reducing costs, increasing access, and protecting a patient’s right to choose. Because this piece of legislation would have such a large and lasting impact on our nation, I want to make my position on this issue clear.

Our first priority is to make sure that we do nothing to harm our current system. We have the best health care system in the world, but we must reduce costs and increase access to the system. To meet these challenges, we must encourage greater competition in the health care market. One of the best ways to do this is by allowing individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines and by requiring providers to cover pre-existing conditions. While I believe it is necessary to increase competition in the health care market, I do not favor a government-sponsored health care option. I believe that a public option would result in less consumer choice and too much government involvement in health care.

Along with increasing competition in the health care market, any effective and sustainable reform must also be carried out in a fiscally responsible manner. As a fiscally conservative member of the Blue Dog Coalition, I am committed to supporting reform that takes into account our growing deficit. Expanding access to health care is vital, but we must not do so at the expense of our children’s and grandchildren’s futures.

One of my main priorities during the health care debate is to encourage Congress to take a thoughtful and bipartisan approach to reform. Wide-sweeping reform cannot be passed overnight. All our options must be carefully considered before finally settling on a package that is in our nation’s best interest. To encourage this type of approach, I recently introduced legislation, H. Res. 643, which requires any major reform bill to be available to the public and Members of Congress at least a week prior to the final vote on the bill.

As the debate over health care reform continues, the key for Congress and the American people is to remain focused on health care reform’s primary goal: improving our current system of care while also saving families, small businesses and the government much-needed money. Again, I appreciate your input on this issue. For more information on the health care debate, I encourage you to visit my website at http://griffith.house.gov where you can view daily news updates regarding health care reform as well as read my health care principles and correspondence with other constituents on this issue.

Sincerely,

Parker Griffith
Member of Congress

July 21st, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today called upon seven House Democrats that signed a Blue Dog Democrat coalition letter against proposed government-run health care legislation to “hold their ground to stop the nationalization of the health care system by Barack Obama.”

Today, a markup session of the House Energy and Commerce committee was canceled because of opposition by Blue Dog Democrats on the committee. They are expected to meet with Barack Obama today as he lobbies them to support the legislation.

“The seven Blue Dogs on the House Energy and Commerce committee who promised to vote down any proposal that was not ‘deficit neutral’ now must make good on their promise, and not give into the thuggish threats of Barack Obama,” said Wilson.

“In fact, the proposal is not ‘deficit neutral,’ it does not pay for itself, and as the years go by, tens of millions of Americans will be added to the rolls of the so-called ‘public’ option, further sinking the nation into insurmountable debt,” said Wilson.

Last week, the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Douglas Elmendorf, delivered devastating testimony that the government-run health care proposal will not include “the fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount.”

“On the contrary,” Elmendorf said, “the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care.” Elmendorf testified that the cost curve of government spending on health care is being raised above its current levels instead of cut.

“These Blue Dogs alone can stop this legislation in committee before it is too late,” Wilson said, adding, “They know that the government will be forced to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decades to pay for this abomination.”

In the letter sent by 40 members of the Blue Dog coalition in the House of Representatives on July 9th, members demanded that any House proposal on health care be deficit-neutral, protect small businesses, and that the legislation “must be available to all Members and the public for a sufficient amount of time before we are asked to vote for it.”

A list of the 40 House members can be viewed here in full. Those seven members that signed the letter and sit on the Energy and Commerce committee are Congressmen Bart Gordon (TN-CD6), Mike Ross (AR-CD4), Jim Matheson (UT-CD2), Charlie Melancon (LA-CD3), John Barrow (GA-CD12), Baron Hill (IN-CD9), and Zack Space (OH-CD18).

“This is where the rubber meets the road for Blue Dog Democrats, and for any member of Congress that presumes to be a ‘moderate,’” said Wilson, adding, “Anyone who votes to create this gargantuan entitlement, which professes to cover ‘all Americans’ with health care, will never again be taken seriously when it comes to fiscal and entitlement reform.”

According to the group’s website, the Blue Dog Democrats claim to be a “fiscal conservative” coalition in the House of Representatives, dedicated to “balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the national debt places on them.”

According to The Hill, Congressman Ross, the Chairman of the Blue Dog Health Care Task Force, claims to have 10 House members on Energy and Commerce committee that will block the bill if his group’s draft amendments are not accepted.

“Last time I checked, it took seven Democrats to stop a bill in Energy and Commerce,” Ross said.

“The Blue Dogs are the ones making a lot of noise against this radical, government-run health care proposal, but they need to go further,” Wilson said. “This is not about passing cosmetic amendments. This is about stopping the socialization of one-sixth of the American economy and the creation of an unsustainable entitlement.”

“The Blue Dogs have set the standards by which they will be judged: Any member of the Blue Dog coalition that signed this letter and then votes for this monstrosity will be digging their own political grave,” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:

Letter from 40 Blue Dog Democrats to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, July 9th, 2009.

List of 40 Blue Dog Democrats that signed the letter.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

#  #  #

July 16th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government president, Bill Wilson, today called upon members of the House of Representatives to adopt a resolution (H. Res. 615) stating that “Members who vote in favor of the establishment of a public, Federal Government run health insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and agree to enroll under that public option.”

The measure is sponsored by Congressman John Fleming and currently has 42 cosponsors. On his website, Fleming writes, “Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way.”

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” said ALG’s Wilson. “If members of the House are expecting everyone to be a part of this government-run system, then they should be taken off the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan and put on to this so-called public ‘option’ since they like it so much.”

Currently, members of the House and Senate are covered by a health care plan offering a wide variety of options, including private coverage, according to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan website, “Federal employees, retirees and their survivors enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country.”

As participants, members of Congress can choose from “Consumer-Driven and High Deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health savings/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or Fee-for-Service (FFS) plans, and their Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), or Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) if you live (or sometimes if you work) within the area serviced by the plan.”

“It’s time for Washington to stop acting like an aristocracy, where Congress treats itself to luxuries and forces everybody else into convoluted, inefficient, and low-quality so-called ‘options,’” said Wilson.

“Members of Congress know that the system they are proposing will be much, much worse than the health options they currently have,” Wilson added. “What they need to acknowledge is that it will also be much, much worse than the options the American people currently have.”

Wilson also called upon the House Committees on Education and Labor, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce to adopt a binding measure that would require all members of Congress to enroll in the government-run health insurance option if lawmakers adopt one.

A similar provision, proposed by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), has already been adopted in the Senate version of the bill. In order for it to be included in the House version, the “three-in-one” committee currently considering the legislation needs to add it in.

The Coburn amendment passed by a vote of 12-11 in committee with Senators Chris Dodd (D-Conn) and Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) voting with Senators John McCain (R-Ariz), Orrin G Hatch (R-Utah), Richard Burr (R-NC), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn), Tom Coburn (R-Okla), Pat Roberts (R-Kan), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga), and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo) in favor.

In committee, Senator Coburn said, “Let’s demonstrate leadership—and confidence in the system—by requiring that every member of Congress go into it.” 11 Democratic members voted no, including Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who said, “I don’t know why we should require ourselves to participate in a plan that no one else needs to participate in.”

“Senator Bingaman is still sticking to the big lie that the public ‘option’ will at all be optional,” said Wilson.

“The unfortunate impact of this government-run health care proposal will be to crowd out private options, leaving Americans in the end with no other option but to use the Orwellian, abominable, government-run plan that will burden taxpayers with an insurmountable level of debt. This will be the largest government entitlement in human history, and it will break the public treasury,” Wilson concluded.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

Fairfax, VA, July 10th, 2009—Americans for Limited Government today called upon its 400,000 members nationwide to support Senator David Vitter’s (R-LA) moves to block the nomination of Robert Groves as Census Bureau Director until Barack Obama responds to the Senator’s request to confirm “in writing that ACORN will in no fashion be involved in gathering data for the 2010 census.”

Vitter’s request to the White House came in a June 25th email. The email also asked that the President confirm “in writing that he will not direct the Census Bureau to use ‘statistical adjustment,’ also called sampling, to determine the numbers for the 2010 census.” To date, Obama has not responded to Vitter’s email. Nor has Groves responded to similar requests from the Senator.

“This President has a long and tawdry track record as ‘ACORN’s Senator,’ to quote Investor’s Business Journal,” said Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government. “Now, with rumors rife that he intends to hand over census-taking to his former cronies at ACORN, Senator Vitter’s questions are not only legitimate, they are vital to the sanctity of the census process.”

“Indeed, the very legitimacy in our democracy hangs in the balance,” Wilson added.

Though the Obama Commerce Department has said it will not directly pay ACORN field operatives to conduct the census, it has maintained that it will officially “partner” with the organization, despite ACORN’s lengthy track record of voter count fraud. The Commerce Department has not commented on whether ACORN “partners” will be reimbursed for such expenses as housing, office rental, per diems, and such.

“This is worse than just having the fox guard the hen house,” Wilson said. “This is tantamount putting the fox in the hen house to deliberately lie about the number of chickens. ACORN is a past master at phony tallies. Letting them anywhere near the census is nothing short of a deliberate attempt to corrupt the entire process.”

ACORN is currently under investigation for committing electoral fraud in 12 states during the most recent election cycle alone, including Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. And it’s the same group whose malfeasance dates back at least to 1998, when its Project Vote contractor was arrested in Arkansas for falsifying 400 voter registration cards.

In King County, Washington, in 2008, elections officials were forced to remove 1,762 voter registrations submitted by ACORN. In Delaware County, Pennsylvania, nearly 1,200 fraudulent voter registrations were submitted by ACORN. In Cleveland, Ohio, ACORN registered one voter 77 times. And in Chicago, 10,000 false registrations were submitted.

In 2008, the Obama presidential campaign paid ACORN operatives more than $800,000 to register voters. During Obama’s tenure on the board of Chicago’s Woods Fund, he helped channel more than $190,000 in grants to the group. And when seeking ACORN’s endorsement for his presidential bid, Obama, a former ACORN lawyer, told the organization’s leaders, “I’ve been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work.”

“Barack Obama knows from firsthand experience that ACORN is little more than a criminal enterprise,” said Wilson. “So, he knows that if they are allowed to take the census, they will falsify head counts just as they have falsified voter registrations.”

Wilson says there is a real danger that ACORN operatives would turn in inflated figures for Democrat-dominated states and congressional districts and deflated figures for Republican-dominated areas. Should that occur, federal revenue-sharing would be skewed, and the redistricting of congressional districts would result in substantial Democratic increases in Congress at the expense of traditionally Republican districts.

“David Vitter is striking a blow for the entire democratic process,” Wilson said. “If Barack Obama is not willing to commit in writing to keeping ACORN out of the census process, the nomination of Robert Groves should be put on permanent hold. And no Census Bureau chief should be approved until the sanctity of that critical organization is protected from Obama’s ruthless, reckless politicization of the process.”

###

“While the whole world is pretending that Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a ‘coup,’ the people of Honduras and their representatives are pleading for somebody to listen to their side of the story,” said Wilson. “Instead, they have been callously castigated by Barack Obama and his Secretary of State simply for defending their own democracy.”

“These 17 Senators deserve the praise of all who believe in the rule of law, and the people of Honduras deserve the support of all Americans who value freedom and democratic, constitutional rule,” Wilson added.

Yesterday, an urgent letter was sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to meet with the current government of Honduras, stating, “While you have already met with Mr. Zelaya, we find it discouraging that you are unwilling to meet with Honduran officials that have simply followed their constitution.”

The letter was sent by Senators Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), David Vitter (R-Louisiana), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), John Ensign (R-Nevada), Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky), Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska), Kit Bond (R-Missouri), Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), James Risch (R-Idaho), Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), John Thune (R-South Dakota), and Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama).

Attached to the letter are the charges that were filed against former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya by the Attorney General of Honduras, Luis Alberto Rubi, to the Supreme Court of Honduras. Also attached is the order by the court to arrest Zelaya for “acting against the established form of government, treason against the country, abuse of authority, and usurpation of power in detriment of the public administration and of the State of Honduras.”

“The official documents of the Honduran Attorney General and Supreme Court, along with the vote of their Congress to impeach and remove Manuel Zelaya from office, prove irrefutably that Zelaya was properly removed from power in accordance with the Honduran Constitution,” said Wilson.

“That means that Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama has any business legitimizing the former president of Honduras who was impeached for attempting to extend the term of his office, a serious constitutional violation in Honduras. Under the Honduran Constitution, it is simply unconstitutional for any public servant to even propose extending that term,” Wilson noted. “And that was the Constitution Mr. Zelaya swore to uphold.”

According to Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution: “No citizen who has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President. Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.”

According to a legal background detailing the timeline of events that led to Zelaya’s removal, Zelaya was attempting to convene an unlawful constitutional convention that would have enabled him to rewrite portions of the Constitution that defined term limits for the office of President.

Zelaya was repeatedly warned by Honduran constitutional experts, the Public Prosecutor General, the Attorney General, the presiding judge of the Administrative Law Court, the Office of the State Attorney, the Administrative Law Tribunal, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the National Congress, and the National Commissioner for Human Rights that his proposed referendum was unconstitutional. But the former president proceeded against those opinions, orders, and rulings.

After Zelaya’s own Attorney General filed with the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court ordered the military of Honduras to arrest Zelaya on June 26th. The order was carried out on June 28th, and then Congress voted by a 125-3 margin to impeach and remove him from office on the same day.

According to the legal background, “Because the Vice‐president had resigned in 2007, the Constitution of the Republic states that it is the President of Congress that must assume the office of President of the Republic. Consequently Roberto Micheletti Baín, then the President of Congress, was sworn in as President of the Republic. Thereafter, and because of the vacancy of the office of President of the National Congress, José Alfredo Saavedra was also sworn in as President of Congress at the same session.”
“Based on all of the available evidence, there was no military ‘coup’ at all. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are attempting to prop up a traitor to Honduras as its legitimate leader in spite of the objections of the people of Honduras, their Congress, and their Supreme Court,” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:

Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 17 Senators with attached Charges against Zelaya, and Supreme Court Order to Arrest Zelaya, July 8th, 2009.

Legal Background, “Legal situation of the transition government in Honduras,” June 29th, 2009.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

#  #  #

“Arturo Valenzuela is soft on Hugo Chavez, soft on the Castro brothers, soft on Manuel Zelaya, and overall has an extraordinarily weak record on defending liberty in Latin America,” said Wilson.

“Valenzuela has even defended Hugo Chavez’s clamping down on press freedom in Venezuela,” Wilson noted. “The United States should not be appointing apologists for tyranny to the nation’s top diplomatic posts. Valenzuela has been wrong on issue after issue with regards to protecting basic civil liberties.”

According to a background published by Americans for Limited Government, Valenzuela has argued for “dialogue and an opening towards Cuba,” defended Venezuela’s cracking down on press freedom while serving at Freedom House, and sits on the advisory board of Americas Watch with George Soros, a group that supports reinstating Manuel Zelaya to power in Honduras.

“Arturo Valenzuela has fundamentally been on the wrong side of history with regards to Latin American policy, and has no place leading policy in this area,” said Wilson.

“He is no friend of freedom,” Wilson added.

According to a November 2008 article by Martin Edwin Andersen, a former employee of Freedom House, who resigned in protest over Valenzuela, the Obama nominee “claimed that violence wasn’t a major issue in Mexico, that there was nothing approaching a state of terror in major cities of the north in the U.S.’s southern neighbor…”

Andersen writes that he had given Mexico “low marks in its country write-up due to the violence and fear created by drug mafias and their police protectors in the northern states bordering the U.S. More than 900 people had been killed in the first nine months of that year and journalists, in particular, had fled several cities in fear. Against all evidence, Valenzuela demanded on giving Mexico a pass on the issue.”

After Valenzuela prevailed on the Mexico issue, Andersen resigned from Freedom House.

Andersen’s commentary also blasted Valenzuela for “being an apologist for Argentina’s corrupt president Carlos Menem” and because “after the Argentine’s corruption was well known, Valenzuela nonetheless sonorously declared that the ‘The Western world owes a debt of gratitude to Carlos Menem’.”

Wilson called upon Senators to “ask tough questions about Chavez, Zelaya, the Castros, and Menem, about Valenzuela’s tenure at Freedom House with regard to the Andersen account, and find out why he consistently supports tyrannical regimes.”

“The question Senators ought to be asking Valenzuela tomorrow is: ‘Does friends of liberty in Latin America have a friend in Arturo Venezuela?’” Wilson concluded.

Attachments:
Arturo Valenzuela Background, Americans for Limited Government, July 2009.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.

# # #

June 26th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today strongly condemned the House of Representatives for approving legislation “that intentionally will drive up the costs of gasoline, oil, and coal at a time when the American people are just struggling to make ends meet.”

“Today, Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives has handed over the nation’s energy policy to a radical faction that has but one agenda: to wreck the nation’s economic standing in the world by making energy unaffordable, eliminating real jobs, and sealing away American natural resources from an economy that will be unable to grow without them,” said Wilson.

“They have opened up a Pandora’s box,” Wilson added.

The legislation, HR 2454, would force carbon-emitting industries coal, oil, gasoline, and natural gas to purchase carbon permits. The bill aims to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050.

“The fact is: the United States depends upon carbon-emitting sources of energy for electricity, transportation, home heat, and much, much more. Capping carbon emissions necessarily means restricting the available supply of these resources, thereby deliberately increasing the prices of energy,” Wilson added.

Wilson noted that supporters of the legislation “want to increase the prices of oil, gasoline, coal, and natural gas across the board, and thereby ‘incentivize’ alternatives like solar, wind, and hybrid vehicles,” Wilson explained. “It won’t work, because the alternatives are inefficient, have a lower yields, and are more expensive.”

Wilson believes that there is already upwards pressure on energy prices. “Energy prices are already primed to begin soaring again purely because of inflation caused by Congress, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve’s respective spending, lending, borrowing, and printing binges.”

Wilson pointed to more than $12.8 trillion of bailouts committed by the federal government, the trillion-dollar “stimulus”, the proposed $3.6 trillion budget, and the CBO-projected $1.8 trillion deficit as being “highly inflationary, and when that happens, investors flee to the safety of commodities.”

“So, with the recession moving from bad to worse, unemployment poised to reach double-digits nationally, and that inflation primed to strike, Congress in the Waxman-Markey bill has set the stage to make energy ever more expensive for decades to come,” said Wilson.

The final vote in favor of the legislation of was 219 to 212.

“How will businesses function? Where will people work when they cannot even afford to turn on the lights? Who will be able to afford the fix-ups necessary for their homes to be up to new federal zoning codes?” Wilson asked, referring to portions of the bill that will require homes to be up to California’s energy standards.

“The American people’s only hope now is Harry Reid’s rubber-stamp Senate,” Wilson noted. “But hope is not a strategy. In truth, it is up to the American people, millions of whom made history today with phone calls and emails to stop this legislation dead on its tracks,” Wilson said.

Wilson called upon the American people to make their views against the legislation known to every member of the Senate. Wilson noted that similar legislation had failed in the Senate last year. “This bill was rejected last year, and should again be rejected this year, because it will destroy the economy. Period.”

Wilson also pointed to a study from APS Physics, “Climate Sensitivity Revisited,” as discrediting the justification for capping carbon emissions. “The Monckton study raises serious doubts as to the accuracy of the UN International Panel on Climate Change’s computer models. The whole hypothesis is not even be based on actual observable data that can be confirmed.”

Wilson says that the Congressional majority is lying to the American people about the reasons for the legislation. “Today, the House bowed to the altar of radical environmental extremism. ‘Man-made’ climate change is a myth and cult, and its lies are based upon faulty computer models that act as the movement’s oracles.”

“Now, the hour grows late, and it is up to the Senate to close this Pandora’s box before it reaches the President’s desk,” Wilson concluded.

Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.