Aug. 23, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump’s implementation of tariffs and sanctions on China:

“President Trump attempted to take his foot off the accelerator on the Chinese tariffs by delaying the 10 percent tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of goods until December to give negotiators more time to make a deal. Unfortunately, promises by Chinese President Xi to stem the illegal fentanyl trade were broken, resulting in sanctions from Trump and the U.S. Treasury Department on Aug. 21. Xi’s response was to raise tariffs on the U.S. on $75 billion of goods including U.S. agriculture and oil, which were then forcefully and rightfully met by Trump with tariff increases for their exports to the U.S.

“Chinese and U.S. negotiators are scheduled to meet next week and President Trump will be meeting with other leaders at the G7 about China. Hopefully they will find a basic common ground that accomplishes three things: ending China’s opium war against the U.S. using fentanyl, protecting intellectual property and ending competitive currency devaluations by China. In the past, Chinese and U.S. negotiators have agreed on all three of these points. Let’s hope Beijing will finally sign off so the world can begin to embrace fair and reciprocal free trade and the scourge of fentanyl can be shelved forever, saving tens of thousands American lives every year.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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Aug. 23, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for granting a partial stay of an injunction in the Qualcomm-Federal Trade Commission case:

“Sanity has been restored by the Ninth Circuit through their granting of a partial stay of an injunction by a local northern California federal judge who sought to dismantle a patent licensing model that is the basis of intellectual property protection.  The short-term ramifications are that San Diego-based Qualcomm will be able to depend upon jointly negotiated revenue streams from companies that utilize their chips and technology, as they develop the Internet of the future through their 5G chip.  It would have been disastrous for our nation if the ramifications of a local Obama judge’s ruling had been left intact before Qualcomm was able to exercise their appeal rights.  On a day when rhetoric between the Chinese and U.S. government’s have ratcheted up, it is clear for anyone to see that our nation and indeed the world cannot find itself at the mercy of an Internet that runs on manipulatable software and hardware provided by Chinese Red Army proxies like Huawei.

“Thank goodness that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put both our national and the world’s interests ahead of a local federal judge’s desire to destroy the intellectual property licensing system which provides the private research capital to develop future technologies.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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Aug. 22, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to alarmist reporting from Marketwatch and the Drudge Report implying the economy lost 500,000 jobs last year:

“The unemployment data we get every month is based on two surveys, one of households and the other of businesses, to determine who is working and where they are working. As part of those surveys, the Bureau of Labor Statistics annually revises their datasets based on more complete information that comes in later. This is a part of the normal comings and goings of the agency, and it is irresponsible for Marketwatch and Drudge to ring alarm bells when they should know better. These survey revisions do not change whether people have jobs or where they have jobs in the aggregate, it changes the assumptions that are made in the survey, and they certainly do not show job losses.

“It is normal for the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ to revise the benchmarks for the non-seasonally adjusted establishment employment survey, modifying the assumed population levels from the initial survey, which then gets finalized the following year and the data smoothed out across the dataset into its reported seasonally adjusted form. For example, for the March 2018 revision, the preliminary estimate showed the establishment survey had 43,000 more jobs than initially reported, but by the time the survey was finalized, it ended up showing 16,000 fewer jobs than initially reported.

“The worst scenario from these standard revisions, assuming the preliminary estimate holds, would be to simply bring the establishment survey more in line with the household survey, both which are really, really good, showing the Trump economy has produced about 5.2 million jobs since Jan. 2017 instead of the 5.7 million initially reported in the establishment survey. Instead of producing 223,000 jobs a month in 2018, it might have instead produced 185,000, but we’ll find out for sure in February when the final number is posted. That doesn’t mean we lost any jobs and Marketwatch and Drudge’s click-bait headlines to the contrary do their readers’ a disservice.

“In fact, 2018 produced the strongest economic growth reported since 2005, and unemployment seen during the Trump administration is the lowest it has been in the past 50 years.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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Aug. 21, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising the Trump administration for revisiting the Flores ruling:

“It is cruel to send a child into America with their adult abuser and the federal government is right in their attempt to ensure that only DNA-connected families are allowed entry into the U.S. The current Flores ruling creates the perverse incentive for catch-and-release and for human smugglers to traffic children in order to defeat U.S. immigration law. In fact, story after story has been told about children being passed back and forth across the border being forced to pose as part of a family. The Flores golden ticket promotes the worst kind of human trafficking and child abuse, and the Trump administration is right to end it. You simply cannot claim to be compassionate and still support the existing system that promotes sexual, physical and mental abuse of children.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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Aug. 21, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement responding to President Donald Trump’s tweet on negative interest rates where he wrote, “So Germany is paying Zero interest and is actually being paid to borrow money, while the U.S., a far stronger and more important credit, is paying interest and just stopped (I hope!) Quantitative Tightening. Strongest Dollar in History, very tough on exports. No Inflation!………WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?”:

“Negative interest rates signal the death of capitalism because they will mean we’re in a deflationary cycle, where it makes more sense to put money under your mattress than to invest in growing businesses, buying bonds and creating wealth. Capitalism depends on capital formation, and that only occurs when there is a profit to be made for risk-taking. If we’re projecting no inflation, that also means no growth, as Japan has learned for the past 20 years. Instead of conceding to negative rates and deflation and no growth, we need to offset what China and other countries are doing on currency to devalue the yuan and other currencies versus the dollar so that we’re not destroying incentives in our own economy. Negative rates threaten the U.S. economy, they are no panacea. Just ask Germany and Japan about their growth rates.”

Attachments:
“Why we should be worried about Alan Greenspan’s negative interest rate prediction. It might mean the end of capitalism.” By Robert Romano, Aug. 16, 2019 at http://dailytorch.com/2019/08/why-we-should-be-worried-about-alan-greenspans-negative-interest-rate-prediction-it-might-mean-the-end-of-capitalism/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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Aug. 19, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging that Department of Defense whistleblower Adam Lovinger be rehired after reports vindicate his finding that the Office of Net Assessment failed to properly audit contractors:

“Adam Lovinger did his job.  He pointed out that the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment failed to properly audit contractors and require that they actually do the work for which they were paid and a just released Inspector General report has proven Lovinger’s allegations to be true in the case of the infamous Stefan Halper, who was identified as someone who sought to infiltrate and spy on the Donald Trump campaign for president in 2016.

“Lovinger’s whistleblower claim has been born out, and it is outrageous that the same career bureaucrats who authorized what appear to be fraudulent studies, were able to punish Lovinger and fire him for standing up for the taxpayer.  The Acting Secretary of Defense should immediately reinstate Lovinger with full back pay and whatever compensation he is entitled to under the laws put into place protecting whistleblowers from reprisals.

“Mr. Lovinger is an example of what the best in our civil service should be about, and the fact that he and his family have suffered enormous financial loss simply because he had the audacity to point out that DoD contracts were not being fulfilled is unacceptable and he needs to not only be made whole.  In terms of those career bureaucrats who abused the system and Mr. Lovinger, civil service personnel actions should be taken against those who were more interested in covering up the spending scandal than protecting the public treasury.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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