In a statement, Wilson said, “Americans for Limited Government thanks the Senate for voting against the radical fringe of the Democrat party and for rejecting the idea of forcing those who pay their bills to also pay for those who won’t.”

“H.R. 1106 would have forced responsible U.S. taxpayers and homeowners to compensate delinquent borrowers and irresponsible lenders that took out and made the bad loans in the first place,” Wilson added.

The legislation had passed the House of Representatives 234-191, but failed by 15 votes in the Senate when the Democrat Senate majority bucked the Obama Administration by refusing to kill a Republican filibuster. The vote was 45-51, and effectively kills the legislation.

“The American people did not support this out-and-out robbery,” he added. “And thanks to the Senate, who stood with their constituents, the American people have finally won a small victory against the bailout barons.”

Wilson, in a letter to Congress in February, warned that the legislation would have further weakened and distorted the housing market.

“The Senate’s constituents are the ones who would have ultimately paid for these mortgage cram-downs,” Wilson said.

“It would have forced banks to eat the costs when the principal owed on the mortgage is reduced, and then the banks facing insolvency would have had to then turn to the government for more bailout funds,” Wilson explained.

“The taxpayers then would have wound up paying twice: first to bail out the borrower who couldn’t afford their house, and then the bank that was forced by government to make the bad loans in the first place,” Wilson added.

Wilson also warned in detail that the bankruptcy courts would have become overwhelmed, “There were about 2.3 million foreclosures in 2008, and fortunately most of the Senate realized that 368 bankruptcy judges could not handle that sort of caseload.”

“It would have been an unmitigated disaster,” Wilson said.

Wilson believes that most Americans do not support President Obama’s plans for mortgages.

“It’s very simple: the American people do not want to reward those who made bad decisions in the first place. It is Barack Obama who now stands for paying off those who took out loans they could not afford and wants to continue to force banks to make loans that cannot be paid back,” Wilson said.

“Fortunately, Obama’s upside-down worldview is starting to unravel,” 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.

ALG News has learned that at least one Senator is considering placing a hold on Sims’ nomination for additional questioning over Sims’ role in long-standing stadium controversy. And now more are raising questions over the controversial nomination’s qualifications.

“As King County Executive, Ron Sims’ administration first concealed information from King County voters to get Qwest Field built via a 1997 referendum,” said Wilson.

“And then, Sims’ office concealed the same information for another four years from Armen Yousoufian, who prior to the vote requested studies be made public that were damaging to the political case made by Sims to the county legislature and residents who voted to build the stadium,” Wilson added.

“And then, only because of a court order did his office ‘find’ the documents. Barack Obama promised the most open, transparent administration ever. And yet Obama’s nominee Sims acted so arrogantly that it took a court to force him to disclose basic information,” Wilson noted.

In a recent video interview with the Washington News Observer, when asked if he concealed anything and was fined $120,000, Sims denied any wrongdoing. “I didn’t conceal anything… I was not fined $120,000.”

“As a matter of fact, it’s interesting because there is nothing in the court record at all involving me personally. I never was involved in that at all. There’s nothing—nothing regarding my conduct. I didn’t conceal a thing. I did order the release of documents after they were discovered, but I never concealed anything,” Sims added.

The trial court that originally heard the case ruled King County could have complied with Yousoufian’s request within five business days following Yousoufian’s initial request. Instead it took more than four years and a handful of lawsuits.

Contradicting Sims’ denial that “there is nothing in the court record” involving him, “The office of Ron Sims, King County Executive” was listed as the respondent in the case Yousoufian v. Sims, as reported by the Washington Examiner.

“To this day, Sims cannot come to grips with the fact that the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that his office ‘repeatedly deceived and misinformed Yousoufian,’” said Wilson.

According to the majority opinion in the case, “The unchallenged findings of fact demonstrate King County repeatedly deceived and misinformed Yousoufian for years. King County told Yousoufian it produced all the requested documents, when in fact it had not. King County told Yousoufian the information was located elsewhere, when in fact it was not. After years of delay, mispresentation, and ineptitude on the part of King County, Yousoufian filed suit; nevertheless, it would still take another year for King County to completely and accurately respond to Yousoufian’s original request, well past the purpose of his request, the referendum on public financing of a sports stadium.”

“Sometimes, the truth hurts,” said Wilson.

“Ron Sims may not like it, but it is a matter of public record that his office concealed information that was politically damaging. And that is not the sort of record that ought to be brought to Washington,” 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.

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ALG Editor’s Note: Yesterday, the Washington Examiner broke news of startling contradiction by Barack Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of HUD, Ron Sims, current King County Executive, in the following featured commentary:

Court Records Contradict HUD Nominee’s Remarks to Television Crew

By: Kevin Mooney
Examiner Investigative Reporter
04/28/09 3:38 PM

President Barack Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) told Senator David Vitter (R-La.) last week during a confirmation hearing that he could not comment about his role in an on-going legal battle over a sport stadium.

“With regard to the litigation involving Qwest Field, since the matter is involved in active litigation, I am regrettably unable to comment upon that case,” said Ronald Sims, the King County Executive in Washington State.

However, when he was interviewed by a television crew the next day about a $120,000 fine Sims denied concealing any records or having any personal involvement in the case. Sims also said there were no records linking him with the case.

“I didn’t conceal anything, so you’re absolutely wrong on that,” he said. “I was not fined $120,000. As a matter of fact, it’s interesting because there is nothing in the court record at all involving me personally. I never was involved in that at all. There’s nothing—nothing regarding my conduct. I didn’t conceal a thing. I did order the release of documents after they were discovered, but I never concealed anything.”

Court records contradict these statements. “The office of Ron Sims, King County Executive” was listed as the respondent in a court ruling issued this past January. Writing for the majority in Yousoufian v. Sims, Justice Richard Sanders concluded that information was withheld from the plaintiff and that fines should be levied.

The opinion reads as follows: “The unchallenged findings of fact demonstrate King County repeatedly deceived and misinformed Yousoufian for years. King County told Yousoufian it produced all the requested documents, when in fact it had not. King County told Yousoufian the information was located elsewhere, when in fact it was not. After years of delay, mispresentation, and ineptitude on the part of King County, Yousoufian filed suit; nevertheless, it would still take another year for King County to completely and accurately respond to Yousoufian’s original request, well past the purpose of his request, the referendum on public financing of a sports stadium [emphasis added].”

In this same ruling it was also noted that, “The trial court found King County could have complied with Yousoufian’s PRA [Public Records Act] request within ‘five business days’ following Yousoufian’s initial request.”

Armen Yousoufian, the plaintiff, asked for records of government studies that examined costs connected with the proposed Seattle Seahawks stadium. This request was made when King County residents were still a few weeks away from voting on a referendum to raise taxes by $300 million, according to Americans for Limited Government (ALG), a group opposed to the Sims HUD nomination.

King County has now been ordered to pay Yousoufian $120,000, the largest fine in state history, ALG claims in a news release.

There is no question that Sims is the main defendant in this case, despite what he told the television crew, Carter Clews the communication for ALG, said. The records could have been released in a timely fashion that would help serve the public interest but instead this took years , costing millions of dollars in litigation, he added.

“He’s being Clintonesque in his words,” Richard McCarty, a researcher with ALG said. “He’s trying to say it’s his office that has been fined but not him personally, but he’s the one responsible here.”

The Washington Times has reported that Senator Feinstein offered on October 30th, 2008 to secure funds for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) just days before the agency awarded a three-year contract to CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), a company run by Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum.

The Feinstein bill provided the FDIC with an unusual direct grant to expand its mortgage modification and loan guarantee programs. Mr. Blum’s contract with the FDIC could ne him hundreds of millions of dollars in sale of foreclosed properties held by the FDIC.

“The Senate Ethics Committee needs to investigate this apparent conflict of interest of Senator Feinstein immediately,” said Wilson. “They must ensure that this government contract was not awarded in return for the Senator introducing legislation favored by FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair.”

According to the Times story, “The proposal was a pet project of FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair.” Feinstein ultimately introduced the legislation on January 6th, 2009, totaling $25 billion in an unusual direct allocation to the FDIC, which usually operates by raising money from bank-paid insurance payments.

Feinstein’s unusual move came directly on the heels of her husband receiving a highly lucrative FDIC contract. By March, the FDIC had assigned CBRE 507 foreclosed properties to be sold, worth $221.7 million. It already has under contract to be sold more than $11 million worth of properties.

“While the Senate considers legislation offered by Senator Feinstein to funnel money to the FDIC, what it should really be considering is whether she did so because her husband is doing profitable business with the FDIC,” said Wilson.

Both Feinstein and the FDIC have denied there was any pay-to-play corruption involved. “That should be for the Senate Ethics Committee to determine,” Wilson said, reminding the committee of its responsibility to investigate “even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

“The culture of corruption in Washington, epitomized by what appears to be a pay-to-play conflict of interest, will only be brought under control when the legislators involved are brought to account,” 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.

“The American people should be proud of themselves for what they did. For taking to the streets yesterday in their hometowns to protest an unjust government. For traveling miles to be in their state capitals, and elsewhere,” said Wilson.

Wilson emphatically believes that “the American people, and the American people alone, deserve credit for making their voices heard as one.”

“The beauty of this movement is that, despite some claims, nobody organized this; the American people spontaneously did this themselves,” Wilson said.

More than 250 thousand Americans are estimated to have participated in over 700 tea parties in cities, towns, and villages nationwide, protesting some $13 trillion of spending, loans and assurances by the federal government since March, 2008.

“This is just the beginning,” Wilson added. “Now Americans everywhere must become recruiters, organizers, and list-builders. Now is the time help take back liberty and defend limited government, one community at a time.”

The tea party movement was inspired by CNBC on-air editor, Rick Santelli, who in response to President Barack Obama’s $275 billion mortgage modification plan famously asked traders on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, “This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? Raise their hands.”

After a chorus of boos by traders, Mr. Santelli promised to organize a Chicago tea party, inspiring a nationwide movement.

The movement itself was organized on websites like Taxdayteaparty.com, on social networking sites like Facebook, and through word-of-mouth. Media outlets like the national Fox News Channel, talk radio, and the thousands of local newspapers, television and radio stations across the country are also credited with giving individual activists a means of getting the word out about local events.

“Politicians in Washington, in state capitals, and elsewhere had better be paying attention,” Wilson warned.

“This is not going away,” Wilson promised. “The American people will not be denied what is rightfully theirs, they will no longer be ripped off by the welfare, entitlement, and bailout spending that is saddling the nation with the largest debt in human history, and they will only take so much.”

“And to those in power that are afraid, know this: you should be,” 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.

“Barack Obama should provide a comprehensive list of what Congress actually approved in spending instead of what Obama wants us to see,” Wilson declared. “The government website is just pure political propaganda paid for by taxpayer money to divert attention from the waste and outright fraud he and Nancy Pelosi are perpetrating.”

Wilson noted that the government website, Recovery.gov “highlights spending that promotes the Obama political agenda, but conveniently not the spending that the American people would find objectionable.”

“Why are Barack Obama and his cronies trumpeting a few road projects today?” Wilson asked. “Why isn’t he showcasing the $168 billion in welfare, or the $53 billion in handouts to state governments who refuse to rein in their wasteful spending? Or, why isn’t he showcasing the $17 billion sent to foreign banks via the AIG bailout?”

The Recovery.gov website was introduced by Obama in February of this year. Wilson noted that private news media like the Wall Street Journal “were more capable at producing a comprehensive look at the spending than the bureaucracies tasked to actually spend the money.”

On February 14th, Obama promised the nation that Recovery.gov would “allow any American to watch where the money goes… this is your money, and you deserve to know where it’s going and how it’s spent.”

Wilson believes that the Administration has broken its promise. “Obama is not following the website’s own mission to show ‘how, when, and where the funds will be spent—which states and sectors of the economy are due to receive what proportion of the funds.’”

Wilson says an honest accounting of how the money is spent may never be forthcoming. “We may never know how the money is ultimately spent,” he said.

“What we do know is that the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ spending bill is one of the biggest, and most expensive thefts in human history. By the time the money flows back into Obama and his Party’s political coffers, Recovery.gov will still be updating its website,” 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.

“The Senate has voted to gut taxpayer protections in the GIVE Act that would have prohibited lobbyists, political organizations, for-profits and labor groups from taking money under the program,” Wilson warned. “And now only the House can put a stop to it by voting to reject the Senate’s amendments.”

The legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 79-19. This followed a close vote that would have put language back into the bill prohibiting the groups from participating in the program.

“The House version of the GIVE Act was amended overwhelmingly to explicitly prohibit these groups from receiving tax dollars under the program,” Wilson reminded House members in his statement.

“Now under the Senate version of the bill, the groups can receive the money, they just have to promise not to use it for the prohibited activities,” Wilson explained.

As ALG News previously reported, the House version of the bill, HR 1388, was amended in a motion to recommit by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC). It was her amendment that had inserted the prohibitions, now in danger of being completely removed. The legislation, with Foxx’s amendment included, passed the House 321-105.

Wilson warned that it will be easy for the groups prohibited under the House version to “get around toothless limits of the Senate version.”

“Because the money is fungible, or can be substituted by the organizations using accounting tricks, tax dollars will most certainly wind up being used for politics and lobbying,” Wilson explained.

“Even worse is it will be nearly impossible to enforce any prohibitions once the money starts moving. This was a bad deal for taxpayers,” Wilson said.

Wilson noted that there will not be any conference committee even though the House and Senate versions of the legislation are different.

“Because the Senate simply amended the House version of the bill, all the House now needs to do is vote to accept the Senate amendments,” said Wilson.

Wilson urged there to be a roll call on the bill. “Constituents in every single district across the nation have a right to know how their representatives vote on the Senate amendments.”

Wilson cautioned House members against overreaching. “If the House now votes to force American taxpayers to furnish money for speech with which they might not agree, we promise to remind their constituents often,” he concluded.

# #

“I introduced an amendment to change the ‘GIVE Act’ because it was allowing activities that I did not believe the American people want to have funded by the federal government,” said Foxx in the interview.

Foxx said that without her amendment, dollars going to President Obama’s national service programs would wind up in political coffers. According to the amendment, individuals and organizations that participate in national service programs would be prohibited from engaging in lobbying, and also prevented from co-locating upon the same premises as organizations that lobby.

Foxx believes that taxpayer money already is  being misappropriated to political organizations. “I do believe that the bill without my amendment did allow the left-wing groups to be funded. That has been proven to be the case in the past. And I believe that would be the case to continue if my amendment hadn’t passed.”

“We may not be able to stop every bit of funding going to these left-wing groups, but we can certainly put in measures that will force some accountability and will force people to have to think before they violate the law,” Foxx added.

“My amendment to the ‘GIVE Act’ will not in any way hinder volunteerism. What it will do will be to add some additional constraints on the way federal dollars are spent,” Foxx said.

Foxx also proposed measures to reform government accounting practices. “I believe that we should have an accounting of every penny of government money that is spent, particularly federal dollars. We don’t do that. I would go to the zero-based budgeting if I could, but we can’t get a group together to do that,” Foxx said.

The “GIVE Act” is an Obama Administration proposal to expand the national service corps from 75 thousand to 250 thousand.

Foxx in the end opposed the bill she amended, but justified her stand. “I introduced the amendment to change the ‘GIVE Act’ because it was allowing activities that I did not believe the American people want to have funded by the federal government.”

“I had overall opposition to the bill, but there are ways that we sometimes can make a bad bill a little better. And I think we should do that every chance we get,” she added.
When asked if she expected her amendment to become law, Foxx said, “When my amendment was passed so easily by the House, there were some who felt that what would happen would be that the Senate would strip my amendment or that it would be stripped in conference. That certainly is a possibility.”

The legislation, with Foxx’s amendment included, passed the House 321-105. It has been introduced in the Senate, and cloture has already been invoked, although it can still be amended.

“What I hope is that enough Republicans and maybe some conservative Democrats understand the intent of my amendment and will fight to keep it in, whether it’s in the Senate or in conference,” Foxx said.

The North Carolina Congresswoman had a call to action to the American people, “What we need is for Americans to contact their Senators and let them know that they support my amendment and urge them to keep it in the bill.”

Dr. Virginia Foxx was reelected to her third term to represent North Carolina’s Fifth District in the United States House of Representatives in November 2008. She currently serves on the powerful House Committees on Rules.

To watch Rep. Virginia Foxx’s interview speech, please follow the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzIS91iksSs

# # #

Wilson also urged members of the Senate “not to strip out provisions that protect taxpayers,” saying that “Any member of the Senate who votes against the Foxx amendment is voting for handing taxpayer funds to left-wing groups.”

The GIVE Act is an Obama Administration proposal to expand the national service corps from 75 thousand to 250 thousand.

“Virginia Foxx is a hero for taxpayers in a time when they have very few advocates,” said Wilson. “The ‘GIVE Act’ should really have been called the ‘ACORN Assistance Act’ because without Foxx’s amendment, it would pour billions of dollars into the pockets of radical political operatives.”

“Thanks to Congresswoman Foxx’s amendment, a terrible piece of legislation has become less bad: individuals and organizations that participate in national service programs would at least be prohibited from engaging in lobbying, and also prevented from co-locating upon the same premises as organizations that lobby,” Wilson explained.

“This is critical, because it will prevent the national service organizations, which are funded by taxpayers, from becoming political organizations that then go back to Congress to lobby for yet more money,” said Wilson.

The legislation, with Foxx’s amendment included, passed the House 321-105.

“The danger now is that Senate members, who are nothing more than shills for the left-wing political front group that feast upon taxpayer funds, will strip out the Foxx amendment, either in the Senate or in conference,” Wilson warned.

“A vote by any member of Congress against the Foxx amendment is a vote to allow national ‘service’ organizations to engage in lobbying on the taxpayer’s dime,” Wilson declared.

Wilson promised to release information on campaign contributions from organizations participating in the national service programs to members of Congress that vote to remove Foxx’s amendment from the bill.

“We will not let them get away with it,” Wilson promised. “We will make any member that votes to allow lobbying with tax dollars very, very famous.”

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

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