June 27, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting the Supreme Court ruling blocking a citizenship question on the Census:

“In light of the Roberts decision to inject the Supreme Court into any changes to questions on Census forms, which are routine, it is incumbent upon the Department of Commerce to delay printing of those forms. In the meantime, let Roberts spends July vacation determining what a proper rationale for an additional question on citizenship is, which has been used in 12 out of 15 Censuses since 1870. Perhaps Roberts would consider this fact: Federal spending to the states is largely based on population, and federal law prohibits people who are not in the U.S. legally from obtaining welfare. We were also assured by President Obama that Obamacare would not apply to those here illegally. The federal government knows how many people are in the U.S. legally through the normal immigration naturalization process.

“Should the federal government know how many citizens are in a state, it is simple math to restrict funding in those areas that like welfare and health care Congress has determined are for citizens and legal residents only. This is just one compelling interest for having a citizenship question, so that the executive branch can enforce the laws that Congress has passed on eligibility for federal benefits. It is not John Roberts’ role to write Census questions, and his precedent equating each Census question to a regulatory change under the Administrative Procedures Act is disastrous across the federal government, as any changes to any form no matter how innocuous may now be subject to judicial review.

“If John Roberts wanted to be an administrative law judge, that’s the job he should have applied for, but injecting the Supreme Court as the judge of any changes made to any form in the federal government is an absurd abuse of power.”

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

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June 26, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Reddit for quarantining The_Donald subreddit that has more than 750,000 followers:

“The social media platform Reddit has quarantined a pro-Trump group, which is one of the largest subreddits with over 750,000 followers, and the Federal Trade Commission needs to open an investigation into anticompetitive actions by social media platforms. Given the appearance that the activities of various social media platforms are colluding against Republicans, conservatives and Trump supporters for political purposes along with the threat of deplatforming, this significantly harms conservative groups’ ability to monetize their organizations and to communicate with their voluntary followers. These platforms set themselves up as neutral arbiters designed to allow organizations to access to their followings they invested resources to develop. The arbitrary denial of service is a violation of the rights and underlying contract when users chose to invest resources into developing followers on these platforms.”

Attachments:

“Big Tech’s bid for one-party rule could result in it getting regulated to death,” By Robert Romano, June 26, 2019 at http://dailytorch.com/2019/06/big-techs-bid-for-one-party-rule-could-result-in-it-getting-regulated-to-death/

“John Stuart Mill warned of the coming ‘social tyranny’ that is taking root on social media,” By Robert Romano, June 26, 2019 at http://dailytorch.com/2019/05/john-stuart-mill-warned-of-the-coming-social-tyranny-that-is-taking-root-on-social-media/

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

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June 26, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the federal government to address the threat of Big Tech media consolidation:

“Project Veritas’ Google video which shows that the Internet monopoly is engaged in a concerted effort to use their market dominance to influence the 2020 presidential election against President Trump is just one more example of the danger presented by media consolidation and big tech as a whole.  While it is uncertain whether Google could in fact sway an election simply by manipulating people’s opinions based upon search results and other machine learning algorithms, the fact that they are actively seeking to do so using AI-driven predictive learning is a breach of the public trust.

“The Wall Street Journal reports that there is momentum building for the U.S. government to subject Google to full scrutiny to determine if they are a monopoly which should be broken up using our nation’s anti-trust laws.  Given the Silicon Valley giant’s stated work to politically weaponize their purportedly neutral search algorithms to fight for social justice, the U.S. government cannot move too quickly to provide that scrutiny.

“Additionally, with the exception of the Sprint-T-Mobile merger which is strictly about increasing spectrum to create a viable third 5G competitor, all proposals that would allow greater consolidation of media under consideration by DOJ, FCC and FTC should be put on hold to ensure that the bigger, more powerful media empires that emerge are in the nation’s interest in this new era of information consolidation and manipulation.”

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

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June 20, 2019, Fairfax, Va.–Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to Mexico’s overwhelming adoption of the USMCA trade agreement:

“Mexico’s approval of the USMCA trade deal is further evidence that President Trump’s get-tough tariff policy has gotten the attention of the Mexican government. 80 percent of Mexico’s trade is with the United States, and USMCA ends NAFTA and starts a new relationship with our southern neighbor, which benefits American workers as well as their Mexican counterparts. Now it’s time for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to get to work on behalf of American workers and pass the USMCA through the House of Representatives.”

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

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June 19, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the EPA ending the Clean Power Plan:

“The EPA action is a step in the right direction but by leaving the carbon endangerment finding in place, the knife is still at the throats of the coal industry. Although the new standards some states will adopt should be technically feasible for coal power plants to still exist, it will remain a risky endeavor to invest when the carbon allowed standard is one national or state election away from becoming technologically impossible again.”

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

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June 14, 2019, Fairfax, Va.–Americans for Limited Government President issued the following statement in opposition to H.R. 107 that lifts the existing Medicaid rebate cap for outpatient drugs:

“Americans for Limited Government joins Americans for Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Taxpayers Union in opposing H.R. 107. The government should not make a profit from compelling drug manufacturers to pay the government more than average cost to supply their medicine through Medicaid. This is a clear case where the profit the government would make would be offset by higher prices by non-Medicaid consumers of the drug who will have their costs increase.  Drugs are one of the few places where the pricing market is so distorted that taxes do directly get passed through to the consumer.”

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

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June 12, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the latest inflation numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“It is time for the old mantra that ‘tariffs cause higher prices to the American consumer’ be put to bed.  May’s 1.8 percent year over year inflation rate should end the ‘tariffs are a tax on the American people’ for at least another month.  Why?  Because they are wrong.

“Pricing at the consumer level is dictated by multiple factors, but most importantly it is controlled by what consumers are willing to pay.  U.S. major retailers cannot just raise prices by five percent because their costs might have gone up, because they will lose a certain number of purchases at a higher price point.  Instead what retailers do is to seek out alternative suppliers (or in the case of tariffs – countries) where products can be produced at a cost that the consumer is willing to pay.  This is basic business practice, and not only do businesses follow it, but virtually every household does as well.  While tariffs do have the effect of changing business calculations, when they are applied in a targeted way, the market shifts away from that tariff induced higher priced provider in favor of goods manufactured in other countries.

“China understands this, which is why in response to tariffs, they have devalued the Yuan to shift the tariff costs to their populace through inflation and manipulate pricing to offset the tariffs.  The bottom line is that China knows that they cannot afford for Amazon, Walmart or other U.S. retailers to turn away from their manufacturers and wholesalers and purchase products elsewhere around the world, because it is harder to get a customer back than to retain one.

“When you hear that old saw that tariffs are passed along to the consumer, just smile and know that you know more about economics than the talking head who is parroting a line without thinking.”

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

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June 12, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issue the following statement in opposition to H.R. 2740 minibus appropriations:

“The President is right to threaten to veto the minibus spending bill that dramatically exceeds the spending request presented to the House. Not only does the House bill spend too much money, but it misspends that money as well. One example is the failure of the House to properly fund basic border security and humanitarian needs, while prohibiting the Defense Department from allocating necessary funds to build the wall. It also shortchanges workers by limiting access to apprenticeship programs to the benefit of organized labor, which not providing adequate funding to the Office of Labor Management Standards that protects union rank and file from corruption by union leadership. And it fully funds the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an organization whose own documents show would raise more money if not for federal funding. Congress should reject H.R. 2740.”

Attachments:

Make the Department of Labor Work Again: Congress Must Increase Funding for OLMS and Allow Recess Appointments, By Richard McCarty, Nov. 8, 2018 at http://algresearch.org/2018/11/make-department-labor-work-congress-must-increase-funding-olms-allow-recess-appointments/

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

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