November 19, 2008 10:27 AM (EST)
Quotes of the Day:
"You can't walk around unless you've got flak jackets, helmets on all the time, no matter where you are. It's always struck me it's almost like a Fellini movie, kind of unreal. The American people are told things are stable and secure, and violence is down. No American would walk outside there without a convoy!" -- Chuck Hagel, upon returning from Baghdad
"At long last, the fragile state of Somalia seems to be slowly resurfacing from a searing bout of violence and humanitarian crisis. Interestingly, the light at the end of this decades-long tunnel is not burning at the behest of the United States or the United Nations; rather, it burns because Somali leaders, both within the government and without, have banded together. Frustrated by failed foreign interventions, they are now seeking sustainable Somali-based solutions. The key to success, going forward, is to keep it Somali-led. Further intervention from neighboring Ethiopia or the United States will be ruinous." -- Michael Shank, Communications Director, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Senior Analyst at Foreign Policy In Focus
Subject: Real "Change" in Iraq
Many people think the U.S. occupation of Iraq has become a non-issue, for two reasons . . .
1. Violence is down
2. The U.S. government signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to continue the occupation
We feel differently. We think the occupation is still an issue, because . . .
James Leroy Wilson Posted November 19, 2008 10:27 AM (EST)
November 18, 2008 10:25 AM (EST)
OSTA would prevent monstrosities like the Big Bailout bill
Quote of the Day: "The practice of combining into one Bill Subjects diverse in their nature and having no necessary connection, thereby to secure the passage of several measures, no one of which could succeed on its own merits, both corrupts Congress and endangers the American constitutional republic." -- One Subject At A Time Act, Section 2(f)
Subject: OSTA would prevent monstrosities like the Big Bailout bill
Last week we described how the bailout bill (H.R. 1424) empowered the IRS to do undercover entrapments and reveal your tax information.
What does that have to do with "rescuing the economy?" Nothing.
The bailout bill was stuffed with unrelated provisions to win the votes of pork-minded Congresspeople, and passed quickly before anyone could read it. This made it easy to add provisions that couldn't have passed by themselves in the full light of day.
The original bailout bill was bad. The final bill was worse. This wouldn't have happened had the "One Subject At A Time Act" (OSTA) been in force. Here are three examples of how OSTA would have stopped the Big Bailout bill . . .
James Leroy Wilson Posted November 18, 2008 10:25 AM (EST)
November 17, 2008 12:12 PM (EST)
Should You Pay Autoworkers to Do Nothing?
Quote of the Day: "The Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government." -- Joseph Sobran
Subject: Should you pay autoworkers to do nothing?
If the history of the current era is ever written properly it may be called "The Age of the Government Sponsored Scam." The examples are piling up. Here's the latest . . .
Did you know that GM and other automakers with UAW contracts have to pay many of their employees to do nothing! It's called a Job Bank. Laid-off workers at Ford, GM, and Chrysler are paid 90% of their previous wages to sit in a room at the factory doing nothing!
Think of what this will mean if the politicians pass a bill to bailout GM, or Chrysler, or Ford. When you go to work you'll be laboring part of the day to pay some members of the United Auto Workers union to sit and produce nothing.
Doesn't that sound like a scam to you, and wouldn't a bailout represent government sponsorship of this scam?
Do you think, perhaps, the Detroit automakers might not need a bailout if they didn't sign such stupid contracts with the UAW union?
Do you think, perhaps, that no bailout should even be considered as long as such contracts are in place?
Do you think,
Jim Babka Posted November 17, 2008 12:12 PM (EST)
November 15, 2008 09:59 AM (EST)
How to Cure Political Loneliness
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
Jim Babka Posted November 15, 2008 09:59 AM (EST)
November 13, 2008 11:02 AM (EST)
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.
James Leroy Wilson Posted November 13, 2008 11:02 AM (EST)
November 12, 2008 10:08 AM (EST)
Quote of the Day: "If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control." -- William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) Source: "The Forgotten Man and Other Essays," 1919
Subject: Will seven years of damage to civil liberties be reversed?
We heard it repeatedly: "Change we can believe in." That's what the President-elect promised. Do you expect it?
Well, we're going to demand it.
Our civil liberties were trashed during the last seven years.
Habeas Corpus. Torture. Warrantless spying. And more. Where do we begin? For one thing . . .
Jim Babka Posted November 12, 2008 10:08 AM (EST)
November 11, 2008 11:53 AM (EST)
We favor the strongest business regulation
Quote of the Day: "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."
-- James Bovard, Source: Lost Rights. The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin's Press: New York, 1994), p. 333
Subject: We favor the strongest possible form of business regulation
Free market advocates must speak in favor of business regulation. This may sound strange, but that's only because the politicians have conditioned us to think about things in the wrong way.
The politicians are busy blaming DE-regulation for the current financial crisis. This is partly self-serving, but it's also due to a defect in the way politicians think.
The politicians think government regulations are the ONLY regulations that exist. Therefore, in their mind, to repeal a government regulation is to DE-regulate.
They are very wrong.
Often, the repeal of a government regulation will result in the restoration of free market regulations that are far stronger.
Free market regulation comes in several forms...
Jim Babka Posted November 11, 2008 11:53 AM (EST)
November 10, 2008 10:36 AM (EST)
Guess what else is in the bailout bill
Quote of the Day: "Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds." -- John Perry Barlow
Subject: Bailout bill contains buried provisions to invade your privacy
Do you think the IRS should set up undercover operations to entrap unsuspecting taxpayers?
Do you think the IRS should release your confidential tax returns to law enforcement and intelligence agencies upon request?
If you answered "No!" to either question, you're out of luck. Before its October recess, Congress passed a bill giving the IRS these powers.
You may ask, "Why didn't Downsize DC oppose this bill?"
As a matter of fact, we wrote against it virtually non-stop for two weeks!
Don't remember?
James Leroy Wilson Posted November 10, 2008 10:36 AM (EST)
November 07, 2008 10:53 AM (EST)
$61 billion stimulus package failed in the Senate
Media Alert: Jim Babka will be on the radio today and Sunday. See the P.S. below the signature.
Quote of the Day: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power." -- Benjamin Franklin
Subject: $61 billion stimulus package failed in the Senate
Lost in the noise of the election was the good news that the Senate rejected a $61 billion stimulus package that the House had passed earlier.
But House Democrats are still pushing for another stimulus package that they will try to pass in a lame duck session. The details are constantly shifting, but this proposal would add another $150 billion to $165 billion to a national debt that has grown by nearly a trillion dollars in the space of about a month.
The good news on this front is that a new stimulus package will once again meet resistance in the Senate, and the Bush White House has signaled that it will not support the package.
James Leroy Wilson Posted November 07, 2008 10:53 AM (EST)
November 07, 2008 09:20 AM (EST)
Jim Babka on March of Liberty Radio
Downsize DC President Jim Babka will be appearing on the March of Liberty internet radio show this Sunday, November 9. The show airs at 7:00 pm Eastern, and Jim is expected to appear around 7:30. If you miss the live broadcast, archives are available on the March of Liberty site.
James Leroy Wilson Posted November 07, 2008 09:20 AM (EST)
