“This a victory for taxpayers who do not wish to be forced to fund union politics,” he added.

The decision determined that a state government may prohibit its counties, cities, and towns from subsidizing union political activities via its government payroll systems.

“This is a great win. The First Amendment does not require government to devote taxpayer resources to facilitating the speech of its workers, their preferred political organizations, or anyone else,” said Wilson.

“This sets the table for states across the nation to set up similar prohibitions,” Wilson added.

Americans for Limited Government on June 6th had filed an amicus curiae brief in the case.

Ysursa v. Pocatello Education Assocation was heard this fall by the nation’s highest court, which granted certiorari to the state of Idaho’s appeal on March 31st. The case had involved an Idaho law banning the state’s counties, cities, and towns from allowing union payroll deductions to be used for the subsidization of political activities.

That law was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on October 5th, 2007 in a decision stating that the state could not constitutionally under the First Amendment prohibit its political subdivisions from making union payroll deductions because the state did not fund and directly administer those payroll systems.

It was a decision that Wilson had written in his daily column set up a “patently absurd—not to mention unobtainable—standard.”

According to ALG’s amicus curiae brief, drawn up by attorney Kevin Hall, the Ninth Circuit had erred in its “use of the First Amendment as a wedge between a state government and its political subdivisions [because it] has no basis in [the Supreme] Court’s jurisprudence.”

The Supreme Court agreed, stating in its opinion, “The First Amendment prohibits government from ‘abridging the freedom of speech’; it does not confer an affirmative right to use government payroll mechanisms for the purpose of obtaining funds for expression. Idaho’s law does not restrict political speech, but rather declines to promote that speech by allowing public employee checkoffs for political activities.

Also, ALG had argued that “The supremacy of state government control over the property of political subdivisions holds especially true in states like Idaho that structure their government according to ‘Dillon’s Rule.’ This model of government reserves lawmaking primacy to the state legislature and prohibits local governments from exercising any power not expressly or impliedly granted to them by the state constitution or state statute…”

The Supreme Court agreed again, “[Our] decision is reasonable in light of the State’s interest in avoiding the appearance that carrying out the public’s business is tainted by partisan political activity. That interest extends to government at the local as well as state level, and nothing in the First Amendment prevents a State from determining that its political subdivisions may not provide payroll deductions for political activities.”

According to Wilson, the decision is a big win both for taxpayers and the First Amendment.

“The Ninth Circuit had tried to read into the First Amendment a right for political subdivisions to decide on their own whether or not to follow state law that explicitly banned them from using payroll deductions for political purposes,” said Wilson.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling has corrected this mistake, and has protected taxpayers from having their money stolen by Big Labor,” Wilson concluded.

— 30 —

“Throughout 2008, and now into 2009, Congress, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve have otherwise committed, appropriated, borrowed, and printed some $10 trillion for the largest financial bailout ever,” said Wilson.

By Wilson’s count the bailout is “astronomical on an order not yet seen: $2 trillion in FDIC assurances, $1.75 trillion in Federal Reserve commercial paper purchases, $900 billion in term auction facility lending, $600 billion to insure money market funds, $600 billion to cover Fannie and Freddie’s worthless mortgage-backed securities, $550 billion for discount Federal Reserve loans, $500 billion to insure FDIC deposits, $300 billion for FHA mortgage relief, $250 billion for Citigroup debt, $225 billion for securities loan facility lending, $200 billion for Fannie and Freddie’s debt, $112 billion for A.I.G., $700 billion for the TARP, and finally, $787 billion for ‘stimulus.’”

“And that’s not even counting interest,” Wilson noted.

“Now, the Obama Administration wants the American taxpayer to once again take responsibility for the irresponsible by committing more than $2 trillion to keeping delinquent borrowers in homes they can’t afford and bailing out banks that were forced by government to make the bad loans in the first place,” Wilson added.

Several economists, financial analysts, and policy makers have noted that “easy money” from the Federal Reserve, coupled with excessive lending and a record expansion of credit, fueled the housing bubble.

Wilson believes that there is increasing frustration on the part of taxpayers and homeowners “who play by the rules and bear no responsibility for the errant government policies that fostered the financial meltdown.”

Wilson is urging angered citizens to take action in addition to signing the petition by contacting their Congressmen and Senators.

“Congress can put a stop to all of this nonsense, but they will only do so if their constituents keep up the pressure on members,” said Wilson.

“The ‘stimulus’ debate may be over, but the battle over the bailout will continue,” Wilson promised.

Wilson predicted that eventually the bailout would be defeated.

“The people intuitively know when they are being robbed. There is genuine anger out there on the part of taxpayers and homeowners who do not want any part in paying for somebody else’s poor decisions,” 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.

# # #

“There are serious questions concerning the interpretation of House Ethics Rules raised by Representative Solis’ activities,” said Wilson in a statement.

According to the letter to the House Ethics Committee, Congresswoman Hilda Solis served as Treasurer of the 501(c)(4) organization, Americans Rights at Work (ARG), while the organization was actively engaged in lobbying members of Congress, most recently to vote in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The letter also notes that Representative Solis failed to properly disclose this information on financial disclosure forms from 2004 to 2007 to the Clerk of the House of Representatives as she is required to do.

The letter states, “Filing a false disclosure report is a very serious matter and can result in criminal penalties pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001. Filing a false report also deprives the public of information that would enable inspection of whether a Member’s official actions are conflicted with their private activities.”

While Wilson believes his interpretation of House Ethics rules is correct, he is seeking guidance of the committee because, according to the letter, “If our reading of House Rules and Ethical Standards are incorrect, it is our intent to begin working with a number of Members of the House in a manner similar to that of Representative Solis.”

In his statement, Wilson said, “This is a simple matter of how the Ethics Committee interprets its own rules. If it’s okay for Representative Solis to behave in this manner, then it’s okay for all Representatives to do likewise and serve as active board members for 501(c)(4) organizations.”

“But, if we are correct in our interpretation, and Representative Solis indeed violated House Ethics Rules, then the committee is duty-bound to follow up,” Wilson added.

Wilson warned the committee that there would be consequences if it knowingly failed to act upon an ethics violation.

“I trust the House Ethics Committee will set aside partisan politics and take its duties as seriously as it pretends to when members of the opposing party appear to have commited violations,” Wilson concluded.

Enclosures:
FEC Form 9 filed by American Rights at Work
IRS Form 990 filed by American Rights at Work
Form A filed by Rep. Hilda Solis
Letter from Rep. Hilda Solis to House Clerk’s Office

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

#   #   #

“There is no way for Congress to justify the complete and utter waste of tax dollars on paying off key political constituencies: state governments, public employee unions, transportation and construction unions, the environmental lobby, the education lobby, and of course, delivering hundreds of billions of pork all across the nation,” said Wilson.

The bill totals $789 billion, or $1.1 trillion after interest. It includes roughly $97 billion in new spending programs, and $92 billion of expansions of existing federal programs.

It also includes $53.6 billion for states to balance their budgets, $45 billion of which boosts education spending, $50 billion in green energy subsidies and tax credits, $55 billion for transportation projects, make groups like ACORN eligible for up to $2 billion in neighborhood stabilization funds, extends food stamps and unemployment benefits, builds federal buildings, provides more for public housing, constructs climate change supercomputers, erects trade barriers overseas, creates refundable tax credits, and provisions for high-speed Internet service.

The final vote was 246 in favor and 183 against.

“This outright theft of the American people will only divert precious, critical capital away from the private sector by dramatically and permanently increasing government spending, thereby increasing the financial burden government poses to the economy and to future generations,” Wilson said.

Wilson predicts that the bill will saddle every American family with approximately $10 thousand of debt, and cited a CBO report that shows the GDP shrinking over the long term as a result of the legislation.

The current national debt nears $10.7 trillion, and the CBO-projected deficit without this legislation this year is $1.2 trillion. Both figures will have to be adjusted in light of legislation’s passage.

As an alternative, Wilson recommends a massive reduction of the federal budget, a plan to pay off the national debt, permanent tax relief for businesses and individuals, the privatization of the mortgage industry, the abolition of the dual mandate at the Federal Reserve, and the elimination of public financing of consumer, business, student, and homeowner debt.

“Congress has decided not to even address the root causes of the current economic calamity: easy money from the Fed coupled by the massive expansion of credit and mortgage lending by the GSE’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Wilson said.

“Instead of retiring the unsustainable expansion of debt that led to the financial crisis, Congress is only adding to it,” 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.

Wilson pointed to a $30 million provision for wetland restoration to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse in San Francisco as “a symbol of the complete and utter waste of tax dollars contained in a bill which proponents claim will ‘save’ the economy.”

“Instead of ‘saving’ the economy, Congress, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is concerned with saving mice,” Wilson added. “The American people now know they’ve been lied to. There was supposed to be no pork in this bill. This could be a tipping point that causes the people to demand that this bill be pulled back and redrawn.”

Wilson believes the spending in the bill comes at the wrong time with the private sector shrinking, jobs being lost, and government spending exploding.

“This trillion dollar spending bill Congress will vote on in the next few days will only divert precious, critical capital away from the private sector by dramatically and permanently increasing government spending, thereby increasing the financial burden government poses to the economy and to future generations,” Wilson said.

According to Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), the Senate version of the bill “will add $10,800 of debt to every American family…” when he cited a CBO report that predicts the legislation will cause our GDP to shrink over the long term.

The current national debt nears $10.7 trillion, and the CBO-projected deficit without this legislation this year is $1.2 trillion.

“Leaders of Congress are exploiting the economic crisis to pay off key political constituencies: state governments, public employee unions, transportation and construction unions, the environmental lobby, the education lobby, and of course, delivers hundreds of billions of pork all across the nation,” Wilson said.

Congressional Democrats met over the past two days and arrived at the conference report, with the bill now totaling $789 billion, or $1.1 trillion after interest. It includes roughly $97 billion in new spending programs, and $92 billion of expansions of existing federal programs.

It also includes $53.6 billion for states to balance their budgets, $45 billion of which boosts education spending, $50 billion in green energy subsidies and tax credits, $55 billion for transportation projects, make groups like ACORN eligible for up to $2 billion in neighborhood stabilization funds, extends food stamps and unemployment benefits, builds federal buildings, provides more for public housing, constructs climate change supercomputers, erects trade barriers overseas, creates refundable tax credits, and provisions for high-speed Internet service.

Wilson noted that even though the House passed a motion on Tuesday allowing 48 hours for the conference report to be viewed publicly before being voted, that the House could vote on the bill as early as today.

“Never before has such a large spending bill been produced so quickly and put on the fast track so rapidly,” said Wilson. “In their rush to claim they ‘did something,’ members of Congress and the President have missed a key opportunity to do the right thing.”

Wilson recommends a massive reduction of the federal budget, a plan to pay off the national debt, permanent tax relief for businesses and individuals, the privatization of the mortgage industry, the abolition of the dual mandate at the Federal Reserve, and the elimination of public financing of consumer, business, student, and homeowner debt.

“Congress has decided not to even address the root causes of the current economic calamity: easy money from the Fed coupled by the massive expansion of credit and lending,” Wilson said.

“Instead it is boosting debt, setting an unsustainable baseline for future budgets, and of course, saving mice,” 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.

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to ram the bill through before support drops to the single digits. It’s a race,” Wilson said.

Rasmussen Reports released a poll yesterday showing only 37 percent of the American people supporting the legislation, with 43 percent now opposed. This follows an increasing wave of opposition to the bill, which passed the House last week with a price tag of $819 billion, or $1.2 trillion over a decade with interest.

“This trillion dollar spending spree by Congress to claim they ‘did something’ for the economy is a rotting carcass,” said Wilson.

“The public is growing wise to what their Congress is up to, and they know it stinks,” Wilson added.

Wilson noted that even if the legislation does pass the Senate today, it will not reach the President’s desk until next week the earliest.

“The House and Senate still would need to reconcile their two bills in a conference committee,” Wilson said. “And if past experience is any indication, the bill, which already contains plenty of wasteful provisions that will not stimulate sustainable economic growth, will only get worse.”

The bill contains provisions to balance state government budgets, expand Medicaid, boost education spending, food stamps and unemployment benefits, build federal buildings, provide more for public housing, construct climate change supercomputers, erect trade barriers overseas, create refundable tax credits, and other provisions that Wilson believes are “nothing more than special interest handouts.”

Yesterday, 18 free market and limited government leaders released a joint letter critical of provisions in the legislation already passed by the House of Representatives.

“They need to know that there is still time to tell their Senators to vote ‘no’, and that even if the bill passes today, there will still be yet more time to tell both the House and the Senate to vote ‘no’ on the conference report,” Wilson added.

Wilson believes that by that time, public opposition and protest against the legislation will reach a fever pitch.

“Time is not on Congress’ side right now. And there will undoubtedly be political consequences for anyone that votes for this trillion dollar turkey,” 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 joint letter is critical of provisions in the legislation already passed by the House of Representatives, and leaders believe it will not boost the economy.

“The irresponsible expansion of the budget to bail out state governments from their own budget deficits, expand Medicaid, boost education spending, food stamps and unemployment benefits, build federal buildings, provide more for public housing, construct climate change supercomputers, erect trade barriers overseas, create refundable tax credits, and make special interest payouts will not stimulate sustainable economic growth,” according to the letter.

The letter calls for permanent tax relief for businesses and individuals. The leaders believe that “individuals and businesses only change their spending and investment habits significantly when they expect policy changes to be permanent.”

Specifically, the letter advocates “[p]reventing tax increases on individual income, capital gains and dividends, changing the tax code to allow full-cost, first-year expensing for business equipment rather than the arbitrary IRS depreciation schedule, and lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate, among the highest in the world, would yield much more bang for the buck in ensuring a rapid economic recovery than the current package of massive spending with a sliver of targeted tax cuts.

The letter portends that the U.S. “is running the serious risk that it will default on its financial obligations, as the nation’s creditors during the current economic downturn may be unable to continue sustaining the uncontrolled growth of spending, leaving the nation in financial ruin.”

The current national debt is $10.7 trillion. That includes $4.3 trillion owed for Social Security, Medicare, and other commitments, and $6.4 trillion held privately, $3 trillion of which is held overseas. 40 percent of the debt held privately comes due this year.

“The only way for the government to pay [the debt coming due] is to borrow yet more money,” the letter reads.

The organizations represented disagree with the idea that additional spending is not necessary to stimulate economic growth.

As an alternative the free market and limited government organizations call upon the Senate to deliver “a real plan for change, to finally set the nation’s fiscal house in order, to provide permanent tax relief to businesses and individuals, to free the American people from the boom-to-bust economic cycle, and to at last retire the national debt.”

Wilson believes that the legislation can be defeated in the Senate.

“The tide is clearly turning against the Obama trillion dollar debt stimulus plan,” said Wilson in a statement.

“It is now up to Senators who do not wish to engage in generational theft to stand up and make their voices heard, and vote ‘no’ on the ‘stimulus,’” 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.

“Congress is only adding to the national debt, now totaling $10.7 trillion,” said Wilson. “And they do so knowing full well that the money to pay for their extravagant spending spree needs to be borrowed from elsewhere.”

The national debt of $10.7 trillion includes $4.3 trillion owed in the form of unfunded obligations to Social Security, Medicare, and other commitments, and $6.4 trillion held privately, $3 trillion of which is held overseas.

Forty percent of the debt held privately comes due this year, and most economists agree that the only way for the government to pay it is to borrow more money.

“The problems with the economy started in large part because of government excesses: too much credit, too much borrowing, too much spending, and too much debt,” Wilson said. “Only a madman would now suggest that borrowed money on this sort of scale—which needs to be paid back—would provide any long-term economic stimulus,” Wilson added.

“Instead, because of this $819 billion boondoggle, paying down the national debt will eat up an ever-larger share of the overall economy in the years to come, diverting capital from creating new jobs and enterprises,” Wilson explained.

“And, instead of fixing the problems government created, the House has now voted to make things worse by adding another $1.2 trillion to the debt when interest and other considerations are calculated,” Wilson noted.

The House voted 244 in favor, and 188 against.

Wilson believes that extraordinary government interventions to date have discouraged savings, investment, and capital creation. According to the Congressional Budget Office, even without the $819 billion spending bill, the federal deficit will rise to $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of GDP, in 2009, an all-time high.

“Markets will not recover any time soon unless the government generates a real plan to pay off the debt and get rid of wasteful spending,” said Wilson.

“Instead, the House voted to increase the deficit, increase all of our children’s and grandchildren’s financial burden, increase future interest rates and taxes, and once again shackle the American taxpayer to a mountain of debt,” Wilson concluded.

# # #

“Congress is running the serious risk that the United States will default on the national debt, now nearly $10.7 trillion,” said Wilson. “Today’s bill will only add to it, and the nation’s creditors overseas may be unable to continue funding our unsustainable government spending.”

The national debt of $10.7 trillion includes $4.3 trillion owed in the form of unfunded obligations to Social Security, Medicare, and other commitments, and $6.4 trillion held privately, $3 trillion of which is held overseas.

40 percent of the debt held privately comes due this year, and the only way for the government to pay it is to borrow more money.

“The current economic downturn was caused in large part because of government policies: easy credit and loose dollar policy by the Fed, the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed loans on those who could not afford them, and the trillions of dollars of bailouts to date have only made it worse,” Wilson said.

“Now, government returns to the scene once again, not to fix the problems it created, but to exacerbate them by adding another $1.2 trillion to the debt when interest and other considerations are calculated,” Wilson added.

Wilson believes that extraordinary government interventions to date have completely spooked markets and discouraged savings, investment, and capital creation.

“The United States will not be able to get off the road to serfdom until the government actually constructs a plan to retire the debt and put an end to big government programs that hinder economic growth,” said Wilson.

Wilson warns of hyperinflation should creditors stop lending to the United States and the nation therefore defaults on the national debt.

“This is a catastrophe waiting to happen,” Wilson warned.

“Right now, countries overseas are trading real goods for paper. But that trend will reverse should the U.S. default, because a run on the dollar will ensue rapidly. Those dollars will come back home, and the people here will want to turn those dollars into real goods, but there will be too many dollars chasing too few goods,” Wilson explained.

“That’s the perfect recipe for hyperinflation. Prices would soar, and the economy would be wrecked,” Wilson added. “America would no longer be an economic superpower.”

“This must not come to pass. Congress must stop the madness by voting ‘no’ on the so-called ‘stimulus,’” Wilson concluded.

# # #