Bring John Shadegg's 'Enumerated Powers Act' to a Vote

"The Enumerated Powers Act" would "require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws."

DC Downsizer Michael Mitchell of Alaska compiled this list from Article I of the U.S. Constitution. These are all the powers that the Congress has.

1. Borrow money
2. Regulate commerce among the states
3. Regulate naturalization
4. Regulate bankruptcies
5. Coin money
6. Fix weights and standards
7. Punish counterfeiters
8. Establish post offices
9. Establish post roads
10. Record patents
11. Protect copyrights
12. Create federal courts
13. Punish pirates
14. Declare war
15. Raise an army
16. Provide a navy
17. Call up the militia
18. Organize the militia
19. Makes laws for Washington, DC
20. Make rules for the Army and Navy

And that's it! Mitchell continues, "According to the 10th Amendment, all else is controlled by the states or the people."

To learn more, go to the DownsizeDC campaign here: http://www.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/87

In other news, Ron Paul is supporting Adam Kokesh for Congress. Honestly, he sounds a little nuts, but still inspiring. His wish to run for congress in encouraging, as it shows that dispite all his anger and passion, he still believes a peaceful revolution to be possible. Here's a link to his exploratory committee website: http://www.kokeshforcongress.com/

In Liberty,

Christopher D. Osborn
Ski, Akershus, Norge

P.S.:

The Family Plege, point 8:
Our family, the owner of Cheon-Il-Guk, pledges, having entered the Completed Testament Age, to achieve the ideal of God and human beings united in love through absolute faith, absolute love and absolute obedience, and to perfect the realm of liberation and complete freedom in the Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven, by centering on true love.

Heritage Chart of the previous stimulus.

Here's a neat chart done by the Heritage Foundation showing how stimulus checks last year hardly did anything. They echo what DownSizeDC has said. One time boosts to income don't make people feel comfortable about spending more. It's only a permanent increase in income that makes people feel more like spending. That's why permanent tax cuts for all people paying income taxes is the best way to encourage spending and investment.

Below is their chart showing statistics about the 2003 tax cuts.


As a related side note, I just want to reiterate that the results of the Revanue Act of 1932 shows that higher taxes hurt the economy. Click here for a history of the Great Depression, which shows that while there was slow sustained growth up until 1937, the economy had another recession and only picked up more perminantly when the conservatives got rid of most of the "New Deal" and finally got rid of all of it accept Social Security by 1947.

Also interesting: click here for a relatively short history on how the United States income tax came to be.

In Love and Liberty,
from Bergen, Hordaland, Norge,

Christopher D. Osborn

Are we turning Japanese?

A recent Downsizer Dispatch mentioned a New York Times article about how a 1980's housing bubbler burst in Japan cuase economic turmoil that lead to huge domestic government spending - just as is happen in the United States today. So what happened in Japan? It seems that the spending gave Japan a HUGE debt. The economy was lifted too, but not by all the spending on construction projects and the like. It was instead lifted by an expensive cleanup of their debt-ridden banking system and increased export to to the U.S. and China which did the trick.

So if we are to learn from the Japaniese example, we should not pass these infrastructure spending bills - they will do nothing but create debt, and increased taxes for the next generation, which is myself and my kids and grandkids. We should instead stop barrowing money, pay off all our debts, and pass laws that make in much easier and cheaper for Americans to make things and export them to other countries.

In Liberty from Bergen, Hordaland, Norge,

Christopher D. Osborn

Sourse:

Are We Turning Japanese? - DownsizeDC
Can We Learn from Japan? - Cafe Hayek
Japan's Big-Works Stimulus Lesson - NY Times

"The Politician Who Loves the Crisis" from D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

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Quote of the Day: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama's Chief of Staff

Subject: The politician who loves the crisis

Rahm Emmanuel loves the financial crisis. He sees it as an opportunity. His admission of this fact, which we've used as our quote of the day, is breathtaking. 

Mr. Emmanuel tried to moderate his enthusiasm for exploiting the crisis by claiming that his desire wasn't for big government, but for good government. But has Mr. Emmanuel ever acted as if good government was consistent with smaller government? We doubt it. 

Mr. Emmanuel isn't alone in seeing crisis as an opportunity to make government "gooder" by making it bigger. Donald Rumsfeld famously wanted to exploit the 9-11 attack by "roping in everything," including Iraq. And that is what they did.

One "crisis" event was used to create another crisis. Now it's happening again.

Consider what this means: What do the politicians think of you? They think you aren't wise enough to accept their grand plans for remaking the world, so you have to be scared into doing the right thing. Their grand plans require crisis to be implemented. This way of thinking also implies that only the politicians know what the right thing is.

Your plans and my plans, and all the individual plans of 300 million Americans, must be superseded by the plans of the politicians and their court intellectuals. But what's the likelihood that such a small group of people really knows how 300 million individuals should live -- how their affairs should be regulated and their money spent?

And what happens when they're wrong? If you and I make mistakes in our small plans for our own lives, the consequences effect only ourselves and maybe a few people around us. But when the politicians' grand plans go wrong, millions, perhaps everyone, is harmed in a grand way.

But isn't this very nearly the definition of a crisis -- something that harms everyone?

If politicians have the power to help everyone, then they also have the power to harm everyone. But what they can never have is enough knowledge to predict the full consequences of their grand, universal "do-gooder" plans.

Knowledge is decentralized. All of us have pieces of the puzzle. This is why small, decentralized plans tend to work, creating massive progress from the bottom-up. It's also why grand plans, from the top-down, blow-up.

Here at DownsizeDC.org we think we need to have a few, bottom-up plans of our own. We need to figure out how to stop the politicians from creating and exploiting crises. But, unlike the politicians, our plans must not be grand and universal. They should be humble and flexible, capable of being implemented in small increments.

We can't pretend to know, in advance, all the steps needed to curtail the politicians' power to create and exploit crises. No one one bill, by itself, will stop political opportunism and meddling. But we can know the rough dimensions of what our plan must achieve. Above all, we can be fairly certain of the need to make our ideas heard at the same volume as the grand claims of the crisis exploiters.

Some would attempt to accomplish this from the top-down, by finding a few large donors, and then buying lots of advertising with their donations. But large donors can change their minds or even pass on, and any plan based on them risks a large collapse at almost any moment -- kind of like the plans the politicians prefer. We take the opposite approach . . .

* We want to fund our plan from the bottom-up, with lots of small and average donations, especially monthly pledges.
* We'll then use our success in building this base of monthly pledgers to attract larger donors who will be the icing on the cake, rather than the cake itself.

It's working.

Our ability to attract a stable base of monthly pledgers is what earned us the support of the major donors who gave us the financial lever we needed to pre-fund all of our basic operations for all of 2009.

We're now in a position to spend nearly all the additional money we raise in 2009 to do outreach and recruitment. No other organization I'm aware of is in such a position. Think of what this means to you . . .

Nearly every additional dollar we raise will fund outreach that will recruit new people who will exert more pressure on Congress and fund still more outreach to recruit still more people. We're now at the point where we can create an ever growing spiral of outreach, education, recruitment, and direct pressure on Congress.

Already this month, we've added a couple of new pledgers and raised more than $1,200. This money is accumulating, and will soon amount to something that can accomplish something. Here's what we need to move forward EACH MONTH this year: 

* Just $6,000 a month (beyond reoccurring pledges)
* Just 20 new monthly pledgers each month -- less than one a day

This message is going out to more than 24,000 people. These targets seem quite doable.

We'll be presenting the first phase of our outreach plan to you in just a few weeks. We anticipate investing $50-60,000 throughout this year -- eight to ten times what we've spent on direct outreach in our four year history. Could you help make this happen by making . . . 

a) a generous one-time contribution or,
b) becoming a monthly pledger

The size and impact DC Downsizers can have is a matter of funds. The growth of the army depends on you.

Thank you,

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.        

P.S. This afternoon (Friday) Jim Babka is scheduled to be on Straight Talk w/ Jerry Hughes on the Accent Radio Network. Details are available in this October DownsizeDC.org blog post.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

CONTRIBUTE to the Electronic Lobbyist project

http://www.DownsizeDC.org is sponsored by DownsizeDC.org, Inc. -- a non-profit educational organization promoting the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and small government.

You are encouraged to forward this message to friends and business associates, and permission is hereby granted to reproduce any items herein as long as attribution is provided for articles and the subscription instructions above are included.

I.O.U.S.A. on CNN; Downsize D.C. Has a Plan.

Hello there everybody!  Have I told you about I.O.U.S.A. yet?  Well, if I haven't, it's a fantastic documentary showing that the U.S. is way more in debt than most think it it, how we got there, and why we MUST fix it ASAP.  Below is a trailor for it, but you can also see the 30 minut version on the I.O.U.S.A. Website.

In addition, the full movie will be airing on CNN on the following dates and times:

Saturday the 10th of January 2009, 2 PM Eastern Standard Time

Sunday the 11th of January 2009, 3 PM Eastern Standard Time

I encurage every single American to watch this movie, and act on it NOW.  But what should you do, becides save money, pay off your debt, and stop spending money you don't have?  Well, I beleive I.O.U.S.A has a Take Action page.  other than that, here's Downsize D.C.'s take on what we should do.

How to Stimulate the Economy

Categories: Wealth & Poverty, Downsizer-Dispatch

Quote of the Day: "The permanent income hypothesis (PIH) is a theory of consumption that was developed by the American economist Milton Friedman. In its simplest form, PIH states that the choices made by consumers regarding their consumption patterns are determined not by current income but by their longer-term income expectations." -- from Wikipedia

Subject: How to stimulate the economy

The President-elect wants the proposed stimulus bill to be 40% tax cuts. That's good. But he wants those cuts to be one-time reductions. That's bad.

The politicians want to prop up businesses by stimulating consumer spending. One-time tax cuts will not accomplish this.

Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for showing that consumers don't spend based on short terms gains, but only on expectations of what their long-term income will be. This fact was validated yet again by the fate of the recent "stimulus" checks the government mailed to everyone. Most people did not spend this money, they saved it or used it to pay down debt.

If the politicians really want to stimulate spending they should passpermanent tax reductions.

The politicians claim this would add too much to the deficit. They could solve this problem by cutting spending -- by Downsizing DC. But the politicians claim we need increased government spending to substitute for reduced consumer spending. Several recent studies indicate that there's little evidence to support this theory.

The politicians promise that this stimulus program will be different. They're going to focus on building productive new infrastructure that will aid economic growth. But how do politicians know what will be productive and what will not? And why should we believe that this massive spending won't be junked up with pork and corporate welfare?

Daniel J Mitchell of Cato Institute makes the following points . . .

* The jobs the stimulus package is supposed to create will cost about $280,000 each, assuming the jobs materialize (this is according to the calculations of Greg Mankiw at Harvard)
* The true cost of these jobs will be even higher because we must also include the "opportunity costs" of what could have been done with the money instead
* To the extent the new jobs are government jobs the cost could be even higher. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates that federal employees earn nearly twice as much as private sector workers.

In addition, the money for the stimulus package must be borrowed, which will add long-term interest costs. 

All of these concerns disappear if the government doesn't spend the money, and instead leaves it in the private sector.

The politicians could stimulate businesses to use this money to create new goods and services, and consumers to feel confident about being able to afford these goods and services, by cutting regressive forms of taxation permanently. The politicians should immediately eliminate the . . .

* Capital gains tax (which discourages investment), 
* Corporate tax (which is merely passed on to consumers), 
* And reduce the regressive payroll tax, which does not need to be so high in order to pay for current entitlement expenses

Permanent tax reductions would . . .

* Make new investments and businesses profitable
* Convince consumers that their incomes will be higher for the long run
* Increase investment, job creation, and consumer confidence

Please send Congress the following messages . . .

Ask them to oppose so-called stimulus spending. Use your personal comments to point out the lack of evidence that government spending stimulates the economy.

Then, please also ask for permanent tax reductions. Use your personal comments to point out Milton Friedman's findings that only permanent changes in income stimulate consumer spending. Ask Congress to repeal the capital gains tax and the corporate tax in order to boost employment, and to reduce the payroll tax so as to increase consumer confidence.

After you've sent these messages please think of at least two people who would really like and agree with this message. Forward it to them, one at a time (instead of to your entire address book), with a personal note telling them why you thought of them when you read this message. Encourage each of them to join you in sending a message to their representatives in Congress. If everyone reading this list did that, we could wake up to find our Downsize DC army doubled in size!

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

P.S.  Not all new office holders have Internet contact pages yet. We are updating our system as the new contact pages come on line. Your message will go through to any of your representatives that remain the same, or for which we've received new information. Don't let this transition slow you down. Your message will get through to someone. It will make a difference. Take action!

From Bergen, Hordaland, Norge,

Christopher D. Osborn

P.S.

As a side note, I'd like you guys to check these things out and see what you think.  It's about supposed plans by the U.S. Government to slowly turn our country into a Millitary state, ignoring Posse Comitatus and other Federal, State, Local, and Constitutional laws which protect our freedoms.  It seems to me that Miss. Wolf and her collueges may be overreacting, especially after reading the Posse Comitatus wikipedia article above, but just in case I want to share this stuff with you anyway.

http://bbvm.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/domestic-militarization-comes-to-san-bernardino-county/

http://bbvm.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/washington-post-20000-more-us-troops-to-be-deployed-for-“domestic-security”/

http://naomiwolf.org/

History Rymes

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Downsizer Dispatch <downsizer-dispatch@downsizedc.org>
Date: Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 6:57 PM
Subject: Mark Twain was right
To: mvfipher@gmail.com

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

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Quote of the Day: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." -- Mark Twain

Subject: Educate the Powerful!

Mark Twain was right. History doesn't repeat itself, exactly, but often the present does rhyme with the past.

Sadly, the evidence for this is now all around us.

Too much of what the politicians are currently doing rhymes too well with what the politicians did during the Great Depression.

Then, as now, the politicians blamed the economic downturn on the free market. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

The government caused the Great Depression. Even Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, agrees. Here's what he said at the celebration of Milton Friedman's 90th birthday in 2002 . ."I would like to say to Milton (Friedman) and Anna (Schwarz): Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it."

Predictably, government schools don't teach this view. Instead, they teach that . . .

The depression became Great because President Hoover was an advocate of laissez-faire economics who did nothing to intervene. In fact, Hoover was the first president to ever make major interventions in the economy.

The economist Bryan Caplan lists 21 Hoover interventions.

Another economist, Murray Rothbard, has described how President Hoover was the true creator of the "New Deal" approach for which FDR later claimed dubious credit.

Caplan and Rothbard are not alone in this. Roosevelt aid Rexford Guy Tugwell was to say years later . . .

"We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." (Source: Paul Johnson, A History of the American People -- New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997, p. 741)

Even FDR himself agreed that Hoover had intervened, he just disagreed with the interventions. During the 1932 presidential campaign Roosevelt repudiated Hoover's meddling, saying . . ."The doctrine of regulation and legislation by 'masterminds' ... has been too glaringly apparent at Washington during the ."

And during the 1932 presdiential campaign Roosevelt constantly criticized Hoover for his huge deficits, promising instead . . .

* "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures"
* "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating bureaus and eliminating extravagances"
* "reductions in bureaucracy"
* Implied tax cuts
* And a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards."

We aren't taught that Roosevelt promised these things. Instead, we're taught that FDR's heroic interventions saved the free market from itself.

But what did his interventions actually achieve?

* The depression became Great under FDR's guidance.
* It lasted more than a decade.
* Prosperity never returned while he was President.
* The economy only recovered after Roosevelt was dead and buried

Even FDR's own economic team knew that his New Deal interventions had been a complete failure. Here's what FDR's Treasury Secretary, Henry Morganthau, admitted to Congress in May, 1939 . . .

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"

It's significant that Hoover and Roosevelt were the first to intervene in the economy. Previous downturns had always been allowed to run their course, lasting from a few months to a couple of years. But the first one the politicians tried to stop is the one that lasted more than a decade, and that really hit hard.

If government intervention worked, then why did the 1929 depression become Great, when none had before?

It ought to make you angry. The injustice is so clear. The politicians caused the problem, blamed it on the free market, and then benefited from the disaster they had created by grabbing vast amounts of power and money.

And now it's happening again. History, sadly, is rhyming.

We're being told that the economic downturn resulting from the housing bubble is a market failure, and that massive government intervention is needed in all directions. But the truth is this . . .

* Government housing policies and easy credit from the Federal Reserve caused the housing bubble.
* Companies and individuals who made bad decisions based on these policies should pay the full price for their mistakes
* None of them should be rescued
* The politicians should not intervene

In short, the politicians should stop pursuing policies that rhyme with those pursued during the Great Depression.

In addition, the advocates of Big Government should be asked . . .

* Why, precisely, was the first economic downturn in which the government intervened the only one that became so bad that it earned the name of the Great Depression?
* And why is it, precisely, that the major areas of American life where the government has intervened to make things more affordable -- such as health care, higher education, and housing -- are exactly those areas where costs have risen the most?

Government intervention does not work. It does not make things more affordable, it makes them more expensive. It does not prevent economic downturns, it causes them, and deepens them.

Please use our Educate the Powerful System to tell your elected representatives to stop the bailouts, NOW.

And then do something to make them smarter . . .

Paste this Dispatch into the section for your personal comments and send it to them. Maybe there are a few Congressional staffers who will learn something.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

CONTRIBUTE to the Electronic Lobbyist project

http://www.DownsizeDC.org is sponsored by DownsizeDC.org, Inc. -- a non-profit educational organization promoting the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and small government.

You are encouraged to forward this message to friends and business associates, and permission is hereby granted to reproduce any items herein as long as attribution is provided for articles and the subscription instructions above are included.

Fwd: How to Cure Political Loneliness

Latest DownsizeDC.org project: the cure for political loneliness amongst liberty minded individuals (Libertarians, Constitutionalists, True Conservative Republicans, etc.) I really think it might work. Too bad it costs money and I have none to give.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Downsizer Dispatch <downsizer-dispatch@downsizedc.org>
Date: Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 6:02 PM
Subject: How to Cure Political Loneliness

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

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Quote of the Day: "In the long run men hit only what they aim at." -- Henry David Thoreau

Subject: How to cure political loneliness

* How many Americans want smaller government?
* How many Americans would support the "Read the Bills Act" and the "One Subject at a Time Act," if they were introduced to them?

In today's Dispatch we'll answer the first question, and explain how we can use $50,000 in pledges made by two generous donors to answer the second question. We'll also tell you how you can see and receive our new "I Am Not Afraid" t-shirt.

We start by tipping our hat to David Boaz at the Cato Institute for constantly calling attention to the kind of data we're going to share below, and to Ramesh Ponnuru for providing a good recent summary of this information.

CBS pollsters have been asking the following question for decades, "Would you say you favor smaller government with fewer services, or larger government with many services?"

From 1996 through Jan. 2001 the smaller-government side had an average lead of a whopping 20 points. This lead has slipped in the current decade, but as of March-April of this year the sides were tied.

For most of the past three decades a majority of Americans (often a vast majority) have favored smaller government. And even now, when the propaganda drumbeat for more government in areas such as health care and the financial system has been extremely loud, the support for smaller government is close to a majority, according to this poll.

But there are other polls . . .

A similar Washington Post/ABC poll tells the same story. Public opinion swung strongly toward smaller government in the 1990s, and then back the other way in this decade. "But smaller-government has maintained a consistent advantage!"

According to this poll, as of June 2008, the public still favors smaller government 50% to 45%. But there's more . . .

For many years Gallup, ABC and the Washington Post have asked Americans, "is government trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses" or "should government do more to solve our country's problems?" The answers have usually been in favor of smaller government . . .

* By 8-points in September 1992
* By 12-points in October 1998
* By 7-points in September 2002
* And by a whopping 12-points this September, during the height of the financial hysteria!

But it gets even better, because these poll questions are actually rigged in favor of the big government position, and we still win anyway! As David Boaz points out, these poll questions offer a benefit of larger government (more services) without mentioning the cost (higher taxes).

A fair poll question would mention both the cost and the benefit for each side. Has any polling operation asked the question this way? The answer is yes. When Rasmussen asked the balanced version of the question the results were . . .

* A whopping 64% in favor of smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes,
* 14% undecided
* And only a tiny minority of 22% in favor of more government and higher taxes

But these results are even more inspiring than they seem. What's truly amazing is that the vast majority of Americans favor smaller government in spite of the fact that . . .

* They all learned in government schools that government is the font of all things good
* The drama-mongering media constantly promotes the idea that the latest "crisis" is a cataclysmic danger that only government can solve
* Tax-funded "intellectuals" in our universities are constantly at work, pimping for the State
* Politicians spend billions every election telling us that they are the answer to every problem

The case for small government is hardly ever heard by anyone, and yet it still wins in the minds of the American people!

Can you imagine what could happen if our message was heard to the same extent as the propaganda for big government?

How can we make this happen? We think it would only take the organized assistance of a small portion of the 50-60% who already favor smaller government. How could these people be recruited and organized? We have a simple idea -- JUST ASK THEM!

We want to . . .

* Rent lists of politically engaged people
* Send them a letter describing RTBA and OSTA
* Ask them to join Downsize DC for free, by subscribing to the Downsizer Dispatch
* Make a pitch for funds so we can send more RTBA/OSTA letters to more potential recruits

We think this simple plan could make the Downsize DC Army grow very rapidly. Two major donors agree and have pledged a total of $50,000 to help ignite this fire. Their $50,000 is the final piece necessary to raise our entire 2009 budget of $186,000.

At present, we raise $97,000, annually, through monthly pledges (and the rest through one-time donations, with little to spare for advertising outreach).

To get the $50,000 in major donor pledges, and to achieve the goal all we need is the help of our supporters to "Close the Gap" of $39,000.

There are two ways you could help . . .

Close the $39,000 Gap from the top down by making a large pledge in concert with the two supporters who have pledged $50,000. Could you join them by pledging something on the order of $1,000, $2,500, $5,000, $10,000, or $20,000?

If you choose this route, with a minimum $500 donation, you won't have to fulfill your pledge until we have all the money raised. That way there's no risk of your contributing a large amount and then wondering if the goal will really be met. When the goal is met we'll tell you, and only then cash your check or process your credit card.

Better yet, we'll use your pledge, along with the $50,000, as a matching fund to encourage smaller donations to help Close the Gap from the bottom up. If you want to join our top donors by making a larger pledge please go to our secure contribution forms and choose the page for top down pledges.

On the other hand, if the above amounts don't fit your budget, could you help Close the Gap from the bottom up by making a smaller cash donation, or by starting a monthly credit card pledge? You can do this using the special secure contribution form we've created for this fundraising drive. Pick the bottom up page.

Please note, smaller bottom up contributions and monthly pledges are immediate donations, not pledges to be fulfilled later. It's a cash or credit card contribution now. In return, we'll send you a special gift as our way of saying, "Thanks."

Everyone who makes . . .

* A one-time donation of $76 or more, or . . .
* A new monthly pledge of $12 or more, or . . .
* A $5 or more increase to an EXISTING monthly pledge . . .

We'll send you our new "I Am Not Afraid" t-shirt (you can see a picture of the t-shirt on the contribution page).

Thanks to the help of our two enthusiastic donors we're suddenly $50,000 closer to being able . . .

* Tap intro the vast majority that favors smaller government
* Benefit from the wide appeal of RTBA and OSTA
* Grow at a very rapid rate

All we need to get that final $50,000 is raise another $39,000. We hope you can help.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

P.S. There is also a Downsize DC lapel pin available for higher levels of support. And, IF YOU'RE CURRENTLY PLEDGING MORE THAN $50 PER MONTH, just tell us your T-shirt size, and we'll send you one as our way of saying thanks for all that support. See the special Close the Gap contribution form for details.

P.P.S. If tax-deductibility is important to you, or you wish to donate securities, you can make your contribution to the "Downsize DC Foundation."

P.P.P.S. Also, in terms of closing the gap, a monthly credit card pledge is worth the amount of the pledge times 12 months, so this is a particularly powerful way to help Close the Gap.

P.P.P.P.S. If you're going to send a check please print out one of the forms for this in our secure contribution pages. Our mailing address is located on both the Top Down and Bottom Up form.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

CONTRIBUTE to the Electronic Lobbyist project

http://www.DownsizeDC.org is sponsored by DownsizeDC.org, Inc. -- a non-profit educational organization promoting the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and small government.

You are encouraged to forward this message to friends and business associates, and permission is hereby granted to reproduce any items herein as long as attribution is provided for articles and the subscription instructions above are included.

Post Election Reactions, Part 1

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h November 4th, 2008

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Quote of the Day: "Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right." Source: "Minority Report" (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 [1956]), p. 222

Subject: A state of permanent preparedness for impeachment

It's Election Day. What should we say about it? We're tempted to declare it a day of mourning, but instead, we're going to argue that today is the day to adopt a state of permanent preparedness for impeachment.

As of yet, neither a Democrat nor a Republican has been elected President. That outcome will be revealed later today. But before that happens, we should commit ourselves to closely monitor the actions of the new President, and to be ready to call for his impeachment, should that become warranted.

We should be prepared to do this regardless of partisan loyalties.

What warrants impeachment? Different people will have different standards. We plan to maintain a running "bill of impeachment," listing broken laws, Constitutional violations, and abuses of power. It will be up to you to agree or disagree with the items we choose to list, and to decide whether or not any one item or group of items justifies impeachment.

It's possible, given your level of sensitivity, that the new President could do something on his first day that would immediately warrant impeachment in your eyes, or that he will never do enough bad things to justify such an action.

The call will be yours.

Some people reasonably object that impeachment is too vulnerable to partisan ax grinding. There are also many things for which a president could be impeached of which the impeachers themselves will be guilty. It is precisely these concerns that prevented us from advocating the impeachment of President Bush. But . . .

We have come to believe, after long consideration, that this was a mistake on our part. President Bush should have been impeached. In our view, he richly deserved it, as have many previous presidents, both Democrat and Republican.

The Founders provided impeachment as one of many checks on government power. In doing so they were painfully aware of the dangers of faction, or what we call partisanship. They must also have known that no president would ever be impeached by a saintly Congress. But they provided for the impeachment power anyway. We think we know why . . .

Unchecked government power is so toxic that it must be limited by every means available. Impeachment is one tool for doing so, even when it is tainted by partisanship and hypocrisy.

Which is better, to allow a president to run wild, or to check his criminality through impeachment, even if the impeachers are hypocrites with partisan motives? We would choose the latter outcome.

But there is one other factor to consider. The mere threat of impeachment could itself regulate presidential actions, long before formal impeachment proceedings became necessary. This is especially true if the President and Congress begin hearing a growing cry for impeachment from a large number of citizens.

Calling for impeachment, when each of us feels it is justified, could serve as a powerful warning to both the President and Congress.

As of today, there is no "bill of indictment" for an impeachment proceeding. No such list can even be compiled for the new president until after January 20, 2009. But what we can do today is warn Congress that we intend to be vigilant this time. Toward that end . . .

We've created a permanent impeachment campaign, where we will list, if necessary, any potentially impeachable offenses by the incoming president. In the meantime, the message-to-Congress for this campaign reads as follows . . .

"I'm serving notice that I'll be watching the actions of the incoming president very closely. Should he break laws, violate the Constitution, or abuse his power, I'll be urging you, early and often, to start impeachment proceedings."

If you like the idea of maintaining a "permanent state of impeachment preparedness" then use our Educate the Powerful System to send this message to Congress.

If you feel that President Bush should have been impeached, then you could, if you wish, use your personal comments to state this opinion, and any supporting justifications you care to mention.

This is the most appropriate action we can suggest on Election Day.

Thank you for being a member of the growing Downsize DC army.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

My comments: Sounds like a good idea, but I don't think we'll be needing this provision in the next 4 years. I really hope I'm right.

The Heritage Foundation November 5th 2008

Dear Christopher,

We conservatives have our work cut out for us to hold back the liberal tide, and The Heritage Foundation is prepared to fight back.

Liberals have expanded their control of the Congress, and they have won control of the White House too.

The Left is sure to claim a mandate to impose its radical agenda on America—from the economy to energy to the war on terror, from the Supreme Court to taxes, health care and education.

If we are to fight back against the liberal onslaught, we need your support today. Our goal is to raise $80,000 towards this effort by November 15.

Help Heritage fight to defend conservative principles and advance conservative ideas with your gift today.

Triumphant liberals have already spelled out their plans:

• On the campaign trail, liberals called for tax increases, massive new government health care programs, drastic new environmental controls and more.
  
• Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts said, “we'll have to raise taxes ultimately” as a result of liberal spending increases. He also wants to cut defense spending by a quarter.
  
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she supports re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine—an onerous regulation that could silence conservatives on talk radio.
  
• Liberals of all stripes have pledged to enact the Employee Free Choice Act, a handout to big labor that eliminates the secret ballot in unionization elections.

The Heritage Foundation is ready to stand up to this challenge. We will not stray from our mission to fight for the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

We are ready to fight back against the liberals and advance our conservative principles. We will build on our 35-year record of success—from welfare reform to missile defense to tax cuts—and help get America back on track.

But we need your help if we are to raise $80,000 by November 15 to make this possible. Will you stand with us?

Make a contribution to help Heritage counter the liberal threat.

In Washington, there are no permanent victories and no permanent defeats. We must remain firmly committed to our principles in both good times and in bad. That’s why your help is so important.

Now more than ever, we are grateful for your support for our conservative principles and ideals. Without the support of conservatives like you, none of what we do would be possible.

Sincerely,

Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.
President

My comments: Honestly, I won't be donating, and not even for lack of money. If I donate any money to a political cause in the next 4 years, it'll probably be to DownsizeDC.

MoveOn.Org November 5th, 2008

Dear Christopher,

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Last night, together, we made history.

In the sun and the rain, from Virginia to Nevada, from New York to New Mexico, you knocked on doors, made phone calls and registered people who'd never voted in their lives. And you helped elect President Barack Obama.

So once again—thank you. Thank you for bringing our country back.

Tomorrow, we'll start on the next phase of this journey. But today, let's celebrate this moment. We've created a "Hope Wall"—a place where you can see what this victory means to other MoveOn members, and share your own thoughts and photos. Take a second right now to share your joy with the rest of us!

Here's one comment that pretty much sums it up:

I am so proud to be an American.—Edna B., Boynton Beach, Florida

Remember back in 2001 and 2002, when so many of you joined MoveOn? When President Bush had an 80% approval rating, when you held candles to stop a war the media was cheering on, when there were few politicians with the courage to stand up for the truth? Back then, a victory like this seemed impossible.

But yesterday you proved that nothing is impossible. If we stand up together and if we fight together and if we believe together, we can change the course of history.

Today, a new day has dawned in America.

Thank you for making it happen.

–Eli, Aaron, Adam G., Adam R., Aisling, Andrea, Anna, Ben, Carrie, Daniel, Dave, Erik, Ilyse, Joan, Justin, Karin, Laura, Lenore, Marika, Matt, Michael, Neil, Nick, Nita, Noah, Patrick, Patrick S., Perrin, Peter, Randall, Ray, Sam, Stephen, Tanya, and Wes

P.S. MoveOn members did a truly heroic amount of work on this campaign. Check out what you accomplished at www.moveon.org. It's amazing.

P.P.S. If the links above don't come through, click here for the Hope Wall:

http://pol.moveon.org/obama/hopeforum/?id=15059-10294791-IesoOXx&t=7

Want to support our work? We're entirely funded by our 4.2 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

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PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent to Christopher D. Osborn on November 5, 2008.

My comments: Uhh... you're welcome! ... ? Again, I actually voted for Bob Barr and would probably NEVER donate or volunteer for MoveOn.org. That said, I am glad of their victory in helping to elect Barack H. Obama.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h November 6th, 2008

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Quote of the Day: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -- William Shakespeare

Subject: Not your usual post-election commentary

The media describes every election as historic, the most important in a generation, etc. When the voting is done they tell us a new era has dawned, that things will change, that nothing will ever be the same, blah, blah, blah.

One aspect of these claims is true, this time. It is both historic and meaningful that the United States has elected its first African-American president. We applaud and celebrate this. We think the significance of this event transcends mere symbolism. Otherwise, the election was what all other elections have been . . .

" . . . a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Can we support this harsh assessment? Consider . . .

The election thoroughly repudiated the Republican Party. They lost the White House in a landslide, and got clobbered in Congressional races. We might assume from this, if elections really produced change, that many Republican policies of the last eight years will be reversed. We predict that almost none of them will be.

The Republicans were responsible for . . .

* Enacting the largest new entitlement in decades -- the prescription drug program
* Passing social engineering schemes like "No Child Left Behind"
* Starting an un-provoked war
* Gutting constitutional liberties
* Running-up vast deficits

Will the Democrats reverse any of these actions? Sadly, we think the answer is "No." What, then, was the point of the election?

Was it merely to punish the Republicans while leaving their sins uncorrected? Was the purpose to give the Democrats permission to pursue all of their own pet projects for social engineering, and to spend, spend, spend to their hearts content?

Undoubtedly this last item is the message Democratic politicians will claim they heard. After all, they received a mandate, and if the mandate was not to pursue their dreams then the word has no meaning.

Of course, some voters can say, "Don't blame me, I voted Libertarian . . . or for the Constitution Party . . . or the Greens." Didn't these voters, at least, send a clear message about what they want?

We think not.

What does the average person assume when he or she sees third party candidates listed in his newspaper with tiny vote percentages next to their names? We think he or she assumes that . . .

"Those are fringe candidates with fringe ideas that no one supports. Therefore, I need not consider what they have to say."

The system is rigged against third parties. This guarantees low vote totals for those parties. It also guarantees that the ideas those parties represent will always be viewed as marginal.

Third parties don't promote ideas, they marginalize them!

Oh yes, we know all about the exceptions, like the Socialists and the Progressives, both of whom had ideas adopted by the major parties. But please notice, those ideas made the politicians, and even tax-funded intellectuals in the school system, MORE POWERFUL. That's the real reason those ideas were adopted; it wasn't because the Socialists and the Progressives managed to score a few points on Election Day.

So what does voting for partisan candidates actually accomplish? What does it communicate? As far as we can tell the answer is nothing, except that . . .

It gives the victims of the con game -- the American people -- an illusion of control. But we have no control -- no say so.

Voting in the partisan electoral contest merely gives sanction to the con-artists who constantly victimize us. That's the role of the voter, to sanction what the politicians do. That's it. It's like Emma Goldman said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."

Is this the way you want things to be?

The ways of the future do not lie in the ways of the past. The ways of the past involved hoping the new boss would be different than the old boss. But many decades have come and gone, and the new boss has always been the same as the old boss. We should abandon the old ways and adopt new ways.

The way to a better future lies in withdrawing our consent and issuing direct orders to our supposed public servants. Votes send confusing signals. But plain talk is rarely misunderstood.

The new way involves building a new social force with the power to make public servants miserable. Withdraw consent. Issue orders. Make the public servant submit.

The politicians are busy right now convincing themselves that the public wants top-down, centralized, Democratic social engineering. Who can disabuse them of this notion? After all, the votes have been cast. The people have spoken.

Only YOU can disabuse the politicians of their self-serving interpretations of inarticulate votes. The Republicans were repudiated. Therefore, the things the Republicans did must also be repudiated. This should be the mandate for the new Congress. Fortunately, we have a vehicle for doing just that . . .

Ron Paul's "American Freedom Agenda Act" would repeal a good chunk of the bad things the Republicans did. Use our Educate the Powerful system to ask your elected representatives to pass this bill.

Use your personal comments to tell your elected representatives that the Republicans were repudiated, therefore the things the Republicans did must also be repudiated.

And stay tuned for new steps in a new direction, starting next week.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

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My comments: I don't like their cinicism on voting, but I still like their strategy. It doesn't matter who's in charge, asl long as they know whatWe The People want and that their position in power will be jeapordised if they don't do what We say. Some day I'll have money and be able to support them financially.

September 17th was Constitution Day

I had planned to post something here yesterday, but being in Norge trying to get settled got in the way. I really I wish I had fit this in though, I feel terrible that I ignored the 2nd most important American Holiday just like most of the rest of my country does. To try to make up for it, I'd like to share with you what Downsize D.C. posted on their website.

I hope it is inspires you.

Quote of the Day:

"Americans just want us to... not be concerned if they can be constitutionally justified... Why, if we had to do that we could not pass most of the laws we enact around here."
-- Sen. John Glenn

Subject: The Unknown Holiday

Today is Constitution Day. Few Americans know this. Neither banks nor government offices will be closed. And most of us will go to work today, spending nearly half our time laboring to pay taxes to the various levels of government. In this sense today is no holiday at all. It's merely a designated spot on the calendar during which Americans are to . . .

Do what?

The politicians won't take notice of the day, though we've joined with the Liberty Coalition to encourage McCain and Obama to discuss Constitutional issues on the campaign trail. We won't be holding our breath in expectation that they will do so.

It remains to us, as individuals, to do something meaningful with the day.

We should be mindful of the role the Constitution has played in the success of our own lives. We live the freest and most affluent lives of any people on the planet, or in history. Our Constitution, which is now the oldest governing document in continuous use anywhere, has been crucial to this outcome.

The Constitution gave us a system of government with divided, competing, and explicitly defined powers. It gave us a Bill of Rights with strong limits on government action. The politicians have waged a continuous and largely successful assault on these attributes of our Constitution, but even so, the Constitution has continued to protect us often enough to make it one of the most important, if unappreciated, contributors to our daily lives and personal well-being.

It's easy to forget, overlook, or disparage, the number of times the Supreme Court has declared some act of Congress or the President as un-constitutional. But it has happened often, and has served to preserve our freedom and prosperity. In this we see not only the genius of the separation of powers, but also the continuing efficacy of the Bill of Rights. Without these attributes of our Constitution we would be not only less free, but also more poor.

Likewise, it's easy to under-appreciate the number of times Presidents have vetoed some over-reaching act of Congress, or times when Congress has acted to curtail the power of the Executive. Likewise, the Senate has often blocked actions of the House, and vice versa. And we have also been served when there have been partisan divisions between the Congress and the White House.

The separation of powers works. The Bill of Rights works. The Constitution works.

Look around the world. Wherever governments have less power, and the people more freedom, affluence, security, and peace reign. And wherever governments have more power, and the people less freedom, misery flourishes. And for as long as we have been the most free people in the world, we have also been the most prosperous and secure.

In America, even our poorest citizens live as kings compared to much of the rest of the world, and few of us need fear a policeman's knock on the door in the dead of the night, or that we will disappear into some camp or torture dungeon.

All of this, and more, is primarily a gift of our Constitution, for without it the people would long ago have voted their freedom away, and/or the politicians would have quickly assumed absolute power. A strong case can be made that only the Constitution has prevented these outcomes. So, today . . .

Ask not what the Constitution can do for you, for its gifts have already been conferred upon you in great abundance. Instead, ask what you can do for the Constitution. We would submit that you can, and should, speak up strongly on behalf of the Constitution's preservation. Please remind Congress that . . .

* Today is Constitution Day
* That they swore an oath to serve, protect, and defend the Constitution
* And that you would like to see them take concrete action to honor that oath, on today of all days

You can use your personal comments on two important campaigns to make these points to your elected representatives. First, ask them to pass the "Enumerated Powers Act," which would force Congress to specify their Constitutional authority for every act of legislation. You can send that message here.

Second, ask Congress to repeal previous egregious violations of the Constitution. You can do so by asking your representatives to co-sponsor Congressman Ron Paul's "American Freedom Agenda Act." This bill would . . .

* Repeal the “Military Commissions Act of 2006” and thereby restore the ancient right of habeas corpus and end legally sanctioned torture by U.S. government agents
* Restore the ”Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act” (FISA) and thereby outlaw warrantless spying on American citizens by the President of the United States
* Give Congress standing in court to challenge the President's use of "signing statements" as a means to avoid executing the nation's laws
* Make it illegal for government agents to kidnap people and send them abroad to be tortured by foreign governments
* Provide legal protection to journalists who expose wrong-doing by the Federal government
* Prohibit the use of secret evidence to label groups or individuals as terrorists for the purpose of criminal or civil sanctions

You can send that message here.

Please also support out work to defend the Constitution by making a contribution or starting a monthly pledge. You can do that here.

NOTE: You can remove this funding section if you forward this message to others, or post it on your blog. You can also comment on this message or "Digg it" at our blog.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Another thing I did to commemorate yesterday's holiday is start the process of getting an absentee ballot. There are loads of partisan websites trying to help, while at the same time trying to get you to vote the way they want you to. Here's a great nonpartisan absentee voters website, The Overseas Vote Foundation.

It's very good technologically too. The first page you get to is very simple, simply having links to four different websites. First there is the main page for all absentee voters, then the Youth Vote page for overseas voters between 18 and 28 years old, then the Military Voter Services page for voters either in the military and their eligible spouses and dependents, and finally theirs the low bandwidth version with reduced graphics and a higher speed for all overseas voters who have a slow internet connection. Basically, that last one is a speedier lighter version of the first one.

For all of you not voting because they don't think it'll matter. Remember, you are not alone. If everyone who isn't voting because they don't think their vote will really matter decided to vote, we would have a very different election.

Happy Constitution Day!

In liberty,
from Bergen, Norge,

Christopher D. Osborn

Latest DownsizeDC Quote

From the Washington Post's annual Mensa Invitational, in which readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here's one of the winners:

"Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with."

This came as the header for the latest Downsizer Dishpatch, DownsizeDC's newsletter. This letter was a nice short was, just talking about the new servers they would be getting and letting us all now that their July Buget decreased substantially because of the great deal they found on the new servers. It's the last day of the month, but they stil need just $563 USD more to pay for what they spent this month.

If you want to help out, you can contribute here.

It also talked about the other great progress they're making, with 50,000 messeges to Congress and 571 new DC Downsizers (DownsizeDC members) this moonth. Both are record breakers for the nonprofit political movement.

Mostly I just wanted to share that first quote though. Hope you enjoyed!

Sincerely, in Liberty and True Brotherly Love,

Christopher D. Osborn - Edgartown, MA.

DownsizeDC.org's “One Subject at a Time Act”

My latest political activism has been involved with DownsizeDC.org. Here's an email I received from them after participating in a letter writing campaign with them.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Downsizer Dispatch
Date: Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 5:53 AM
Subject: Thanks for participating!
To: mvfipher (mvbcdosborn)


Thanks for participating!

Thank you for participating in DownsizeDC.org's letter-writing campaign today. For your convenience, this e-mail contains a copy of the letter we sent on your behalf.

Don't forget to tell your friends about this campaign!

Make Congress pass DownsizeDC.org's "One Subject at a Time Act"

http://secure.downsizedc.org/etp/campaigns/83

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The Honorable Bill Delahunt
Rayburn House Office Building Suite 2454
Washington DC 20515-2110
william.delahunt@mail.house.gov


The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
Russell Senate Office Building Suite 317
Washington DC 20510-2101
http://kennedy.senate.gov/senator/contact.cfm


The Honorable John F. Kerry
Russell Senate Office Building Suite 304
Washington DC 20510-2102
http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm


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Please introduce DownsizeDC.org's "One Subject at a Time Act" (OSTA). You can find the text of the legislation here: http://www.downsizedc.org/osta-legislation.shtml It's not right that our legislatures so often have to choose between voting yes for a piece of legislation which also contains something they very much disagree with, or voting no and not being able to pass a very important piece of legislation because some other junk has gotten thrown in there.

It's time to give you, our legislature, the power to only pass legislation on one topic at a time. It's ridiculous that some legislators try, and succeed at, forcing their unpopular bills to get passed by stuffing them in with something very important which they know will pass.

If OSTA gets passed it will put an end to foolishness like the "REAL ID Act", something wich was apposed by the majority of Congress and we the people, getting passed only because it was attached to a more popular bill, the "Emergency, Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief." (May, 2005).

I want you to be able to vote on only what you truly believe to be good legislation rather than being forced to approve bills that you would rather not see pass in order to get something important done.

Sincerely in Liberty,

Christopher D. Osborn
fipher.blogspot.com

(My name, U.S. Street address, and email were here in the letter my congressmen received)

That's all for tonight. I hope someone out there is reading and agreeing. God bless from Vineyard Haven, MA.

-Christopher D. Osborn


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