Quote of the Day: “How do you draw a blank?” — Unknown
* We win a victory in the House
* New and improved versions of our Downsize DC Agenda bills
* The legal brief against tax funded political campaigns
* Take a look at the new navigation banner on our website
* “Your Downsize DC Toolbox” has been installed on our testing site
Congratulations! You’ve had another victory! The House passed one of the bills in our Downsize DC Agenda, the Enumerated Powers Act. Every House bill must now cite its Constitutional authority. Because of this . . .
We’re re-crafting our Downsize DC Agenda bills to comply with the new law.
The new versions of the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, will all name the Constitutional source of their authority. In addition . . .
We’re also re-doing these bills to comply with some of our own requirements. For instance . . .
We want legislation to quote the full text of any portion of existing law that will be changed, along with the full text as it will appear after the change. This requirement is designed to aid reading and understanding, but our own bills don’t comply with it! So . . .
We’re fixing them. Thanks to all those who contributed recently. Your support is helping to pay for these legal revisions. Speaking of which . . .
Kudos! DC Downsizers have just helped to make another good impression on the Supreme Court. The brief I told you about, in my capacity as President of the Downsize DC Foundation, arguing AGAINST tax-funded political campaigns, has been filed with the Supreme Court. We’ll be posting that brief at our NEW DownsizeDCFoundation.org blog soon.
Is that enough good news for one week? Well, here’s more . . .
Before the holidays we told you we would be dividing our campaigns into three categories, to be displayed on three separate pages on our website . . .
* The Downsize DC Agenda — RTBA, OSTA, WTLA, etc.
* Tell Congress What To Do — current issues and non-controversial campaigns
* Our Heresies — campaigns that are consistent with the Constitution, but that are controversial, or lack wide support
Stay tuned. All three of the pages will be completely operational in a matter of days. I bet most of you are very curious to learn what issues we’ll be dealing with through the Our Heresies page. The only way to find out is to keep reading the Dispatch.
That’s also how you’ll find out when we make “Your Downsize DC Toolbox” available to you.
We’re pleased to announce that the “Your Downsize DC Toolbox” software has already been installed on our staging site.
It’s being tested and completed, and you’ll see it very soon. Remember . . .
The “Toolbox” will contain an ever expanding set of software tools that you can use to make yourself more powerful. It will also allow you to control your own Downsize DC account. Perhaps most importantly . . .
It will tell you how many DC Downsizers there are in your Congressional district.
Thank you to all the DC Downsizers who have contributed to make this progress possible. More is coming. So . . .
Now we turn to you, the people with the vision.
The task of meeting monthly obligations can be “sisyphean.” But at Downsize DC, we have found an ingenious way to solve this problem. We call it “The Short Uphill Roll.”
The key to this strategy is to never let the boulder of expenses roll down our budgetary hill and rest at zero. It’s brutally hard to start from the bottom. It’s much easier to push the rock up from the middle of the financial incline, and even better to start from three-quarters of the way up.
Monthly pledges dimish fundraising exertion. They “shorten the uphill roll.” They permit DownsizeDC.org to plan, and to execute. And so, if you like our plans, THE BEST THING YOU CAN DO is start a monthly PLEDGE.
Amazingly, if we could AVERAGE just $1 per month, per subscriber, we could change the world! Virtually everyone reading this can afford a dollar per month. And on behalf of those who cannot we’re still blessed because the majority of our pledgers give much more than that. We hope YOU will join our monthly pledge team with the best monthly pledge you can enjoy giving.
But a monthly pledge isn’t right for everyone. That’s OK, because we still need to shove the bolder up the mountain THIS MONTH. To do that, we’ll NEED one-time donations as well.
* Please start a monthly pledge
* If a monthly pledges doesn’t work for you, one-time donations are also very powerful
Thank you for making our progress possible. More good news is coming soon.Don’t forget to check out our new navigation ribbon with the new campaign pages.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.