Monthly Archives: February 2006

During my trip to California in late January, one of the people I met with told me that the Read the Bills Act (RTBA) was mentioned during a FoxNews show the previous Sunday night . . .

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch . . .::::::The drumbeat for the “Read the Bills Act” is growing…::::::

:::
• We’re busy booking me onto radio talk shows (details soon):::
• The software needed to organize our MeetUp groups for the “No Legislation Without Representation Conference” is nearly ready to launch:::
• We’re about to unveil materials for an RTBA Coalition of talk show hosts, blogs, and organizations. Plus…:::
• We’re going to start using other new weapons to harass Congress to pass RTBA.:::

:::Starting now…::::::TODAY’S ACTION ITEM:::

:::
• Write a letter to your local newspaper promoting RTBA:::
• When you send your letter-to-the-editor post it as a comment on the DownsizeDC blog under the item “Your RTBA Letters-to-the-Editor”:::
• Final step, send a message to your Representative and your Senators asking them to sponsor RTBA, and paste in the text of the letter you sent to the newspaper! (You can do this by visiting http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=27.)::::::That will make them nervous! Plus, more people will hear about RTBA. Here’s an example of an excellent letter-to-the-editor written by DC Downsizer Mel Pinney of San Diego. You can use it as a model for your letter…:::
  

$2.77 Trillion

Brenton Simpson and Max Schneller made their own independent film to promote DownsizeDC.org. I think their point is, DownsizeDC.org doesn’t make empty promises. ::::::What do you think? (You’ll need QuickTime to view this vignette).:::

We’ve worked with the Marijuana Policy Project in the past. And MPP is joining in sponsoring the Downsize DC Conference Call. They have the following position available. ::::::Congressional Campaigns Manager::::::The Marijuana Policy Project is seeking a full-time coordinator to recruit candidates in targeted congressional districts to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. This is an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated and organized individual to play a key role in a groundbreaking political effort.:::

Should truth be required at tax time?

I spoke last weekend to the San Diego Libertarian Party. Sue was with me. We made new friends. We put faces to names of friends I’ve only corresponded with. We connected with old friends: Several DC Downsizers were there. ::::::I thought my speech went quite well. The questions were awesome. And I’m pleased to see this letter to the editor. ::::::This letter to the editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune is concise and on the mark!::::::February 3, 2006::::::Make legislators read their legislation::: :::Recent editorials have identified some of the many problems with Congress. While these editorials are long on rhetoric about special interests, earmarking, K Street lobbyists, etc., they all lack any workable solutions. ::: :::An innovative approach proposed by DownSizeDC.org is the “Read the Bills Act.” Under RTBA, every senator and representative would be required to attend sessions where bills would be read to them in their entirety. If RTBA were to come to a vote, it would be political suicide to vote against it because any member of Congress doing so would be taking the position that they don’t want to know what they are voting on. ::: :::Imagine how concise bills would then become. Huge omnibus bills would likely become a thing of the past (who would want to listen while 1,000-plus pages are read to them?). And if bills containing earmarks and special-interest concessions were exposed to the light of day, it’s less likely that they would be passed as well. Perhaps then we would truly no longer have “legislation without representation.” ::: :::MEL PINNEY :::San Diego::::::THANKS MEL!::::::OK DC Downsizers, now it’s your turn!

Top Ten Highlights from the President’s State of the Union Speech…

Today’s Downsizer-Dispatch ::::::This is the special and important message I “warned” you about yesterday. This is the message I said would unveil something that could be 1,000 times more effective than anything we’ve done before. ::::::To explain this plan I’m going to do something a little different. Below you will find the text of a letter we currently have in the mail. It explains the plan better than anything else I could write, and since I want to make sure everyone sees it I am distributing it through every channel available. ::::::There’s some progress report stuff at the start of the letter, and then comes the big plan. I hope it excites you as much as it excites me. :::

Frankly, I’m tired of State of the Union speeches. Just because we’ve always done something for years doesn’t mean we should keep on doing it. There were presidents who submitted their reports in writing. ::::::Ever since FDR, we’ve been getting a dog and pony show. Every State of the Union speech now showcases a basket-full of goodies designed to buy an increase in the President’s poll numbers (which by the way, rarely lasts more than a week). ::::::And the coverage of the event, with the possible exception of C-SPAN, stinks. ::::::ABC did, however, make one note worth mentioning. So interesting was this point that it was, in my opinion, more important than any of the rhetoric coming out of the president’s mouth. :::