Category: Statism

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, January 21, 2020 by devadmin

Big problems are on the horizon with the Democrat super majority’s Short Session Swindle, otherwise known as the Cap and Trade Bill (LC19). The most troubling is the unrelenting control and absolute authority that will be handed over to non-elected bureaucrats over the 30-year life-cycle of the program.

Bureaucracies are most irksome and troubling when agency and department heads pursue agendas that vary from the goals of those elected to office. Elected officers can be held accountable whereas bureaucrats are free to reign. Administrative agencies become another branch of government. They exercise vast amounts of power and authority. They write rules, compliance obligations, sanctions, penalties and the methods for adjudicating discrepancies.

These issues will explode with exponential fury when the statewide greenhouse gas (GHG) agenda is set for the next three decades by people who will be long-since gone. The alphabet soup of agencies chartered to control Oregon’s productive economy may outlive as many as 7 future governorships. These agencies will saddle businesses with untold complex, capricious and unachievable goals while dispensing favors and wielding power. The bill’s effectiveness will not be judged by the stated emission targets but by the underlying controls handed to the bureaucracies and the dizzying tax revenues.

Cap and Trade schemes are attractive to governments because of a contemptible contrivance that generates revenue through bureaucratically set goals, taxes and penalties. These arrangements become “pay to pollute” virtue signaling efforts. Oregon will make money regardless of GHG emissions compliance. In essence, companies are free to pollute as long as they pay the state’s ransom.

LC19 states, “it is the goal of this state to achieve a reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions levels in Oregon:

(a) To at least 45 percent below 1990 emissions levels by 2035; and

(b) To at least 80 percent below 1990 emissions levels by 2050. … to prepare for the effects of [global warming] climate change.” _{[strike-out in original text]}

Global cooling went out in the 80’s. The global warming ‘hockey-stick’ was a disgrace. Now climate change is the new toxically undefined term that is being used to scare our children. Additionally, what scientific evidence proves that an 80% emission level below 1990 levels is the right target for a date 30 years into the future? Why was 1990 chosen?

The date arises from AGENDA 21, a worldview which captured the minds of the statists in Oregon leading up to United Nations Conference on Environment & Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The AGENDA 21 preamble states, “Its successful implementation is first and foremost the responsibility of Governments. National strategies, plans, policies and processes are crucial in achieving [its goals].”

Disguised under the global banner of foremost government responsibility, we can see the easily abused keywords: “plans”, “processes”, “strategies”, and “policies.” All of which combine to mean that you and I, as individuals, no longer count. It is the bureaucracies and their goals that matter.

If the term “statism” designates concentration of power in the state at the expense of individual liberty or business, then LC19 is a perfect storm of statism. It does not represent a new approach to government. It is not consensus government. It is merely a continuation of political absolutism where those with power keep their power and the rest pay their dues. It is no different than the absolute governments, monarchies, or random tyrannies that have plagued most of human history.

Our Founders, the Declaration and our constitutionally federated Republic argue for the individual, with Jefferson noting, “the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride.”

But the super majority sees things differently–they believe it is not up to you to decide whether vaping, vaccines, plastic grocery bags, straws or firearms are appropriate tools for your life and happiness–the government should make that decision for you.

Am I being over-zealous and bombastic?

Here are some recorded statements of AGENDA 21 policy promoters:

• “Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.” – Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the U.N. Earth Summit, 1992.

• “Ski runs, grazing of livestock, plowing of soil, building fences, industry, single-family homes, paved and tarred roads, logging activities, dams and reservoirs, power line construction, and economic systems that fail to set proper value on the environment are not sustainable.” – U.N. Biodiversity Assessment Report.

• “We must make this place an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects – we must reclaim the roads and plowed lands, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers, and return to wilderness millions of acres of settled land.” – Dave Foreman, Earth First.

Do you wonder why the four dams on the Klamath River have been slated for removal; why the Pelican Butte Ski Resort was never approved; why your farm and water rights are under constant attack; why your electric rates are climbing higher; or, why there are new bike-lanes instead of new auto-lanes?

The current mindset has been in the global-socialist kettle for more than 70 years and has been percolating within Oregon for the past three or four decades. Governor Goldschmidt (D) created the Oregon Task Force on Global Warming in late 1988. The task force was composed of 12 state agencies charged to review current scientific knowledge and assess how global warming could affect the state.

In 2004, an advisory group created by Governor Kulongoski (D), chose the global warming target date, 1990, based on recommendations from another United Nations organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The advisory group notes, “This target is based on limiting CO2 to double the level that existed prior to 1750.”

Doubling the colonial population would get us to a US population of 8 million. This is far below today’s population where 320M people produce nearly $20T in GDP and export food, goods and services to the world.

Despite the hype, there are no renewable technological solutions that can get Oregon’s economy to a carbon neutral, carbon free, or fossil free state. Without high net-energy fuel sources, which solar and wind sources are not, our capabilities will quickly regress toward the past, perhaps, circa 1750.

In their mad rush for money, Governor Brown (D) and the super majority appear unwilling to acknowledge the technological constraints facing top-down bureaucracies. A free-market approach, where men and women can exercise their entrepreneurial spirit and sequester innovative breakthroughs, is the best hope, along with carbon sequestration through good forest management. Good stewardship comes from private resources combined with clear and well-structured property rights. Mobs and crowds are not good stewards, individual are.

Therefore, Oregon should preserve capital accumulation for businesses and families so that our collective prosperity can lead to better stewardship for Oregon and our planet. Otherwise, you and I, our businesses, our jobs, our families and our communities will no longer be welcome in Oregon.

Stand with me and other steadfast Republicans in stopping this bill or be prepared for the “the re-wilding of our communities.”

 

If we don’t stand for rural-Oregon values and common sense…  No one will?

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, April 19, 2018 by devadmin

In my last article I shared from Whittaker Chambers’ autobiography, Witness. Today, I will pick up another observation from Whittaker that I will apply to most government institutions–federal, state, county, regional and municipal. Chambers discovered inconsistencies and discrepancies within the New Deal which puzzled him. He noted that the stated purposes of the policy initiatives did not necessarily match with the final results.

Chambers summarizes the tangled nature of the bureaucracy,

“It’s coalition of divergent interests, some of them diametrically opposed to the others, its divided counsels, its makeshift strategy, its permanently shifting executive personnel whose sole consistency seemed to be that the more it changed, the more it remained the most incongruously headed hybrid since the hydra.”

Anyone who has attended a “public meeting” knows the truth of his summary. There are always opposing views, some worth hearing, others not. How will the juggernaut be navigated? Who will guide the discussions? Which compromises will be investigated, which ignored?

The seeming contradictions and purposeful inefficiencies create tensions that would hamper any problem-solving exercise but, in a sense, it offers hope. People hope they can make a difference; they chime in to express their policy preferences. People board the bandwagon to have their voices heard or to get a seat at the table.

As Chambers mentions, the organizational dynamic of these bureaucratic shenanigans becomes quite advantageous for the state. The confusing agenda items and internal conflicts allow the   bureaucracy to shield itself from any close scrutiny while always drifting toward the collectivist panacea–socialism.

As a pluralistic society our culture extols the virtue of many pathways and the value of many interpreters with myriads of opinions.

However, if the goal of collective action is known to be compromise, then all parties must willingly accept compromise before coming to the table. By implication, it also means there is no truly correct path, no right or wrong, good or bad. All pathways may or may not get us where we need to go. Consensus decisions get accepted, however, because we have shifted our value system in favor of compromise over correct action.

Yet, how many of us compromise when doing the laundry, changing our motor oil or shaving our under-arms or faces? Do you find yourself arguing for compromise or doing the job correctly?

Do you leave a couple of quarts of dirty oil in the crankcase to avoid being dogmatic about your auto maintenance habits? Do you throw two scoops of detergent into the wash along with two scoops of dirt? Do you shave under one arm, but not the other? Why not?

Why don’t we approach science, education, math or healthcare with hearty doses of compromise?

Although this collectivist mentality has continually surfaced throughout man’s history, in the US it was perfected by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Amity Shlaes, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Forgotten Man, documents that in 1936 Pres. Roosevelt systematically figured out how to establish the modern political constituency.

This was the wedge in the door that has been so meticulously exploited in the identity politics movement. Roosevelt knew that he could promise something to small groups without creating animosity among others. He could strengthen unions in order to get union member votes. He could also appeal to artists, senior citizens or railroad workers by establishing specific offices, programs or bureaucracies to meet the needs of each constituent group.

In fact, Roosevelt’s federal spending, during the peacetime period of 1936, outpaced state and local spending for the first time in US history.  Shlaes notes that the results created, “the Roosevelt landslide of 1936 –but also the modern entitlement trap.”

However, our problem is not entirely an entitlement trap. Our real problem is that the bureaucratic machine has been engineered to live an immortal life. Government service industries live longer than presidential administrations. They live longer than governors, commissioners, supervisors or regional directors.

The leviathan doesn’t require any new ideas or agendas. It only needs more resources–men, women, money and machines. In other words, it needs continual feeding. Like Frankenstein, its agenda was laid out in statute at creation. It knows its job and knows what demands are at its doorstep. The leviathan only needs to stay warm and dry. It accomplishes this by fostering an environment that serves its survival.

The question comes down to us and our individual families. Are we willing to continue to fund and demand government services that don’t live up to their promises? Everyone should be willing to abandon those failed attempts, curtail the spending and focus our efforts in other directions. This would immediately slash the ever-consuming growth of the bureaucratic machine which needlessly absorbs more and more of our lives and resources.

Popular author and political journalist, P. J. O’Rourke, forcefully asks a similar question. He wonders,

“What is this oozing behemoth, this fibrous tumor, this monster of power and expense hatched from the simple human desire for civic order? How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?”

The progressive-left’s answer comes directly from the progenitor of Marxism, German philosopher G.W. Friedrich Hegel,

“The State is the march of God through the world… The State must be comprehended as an organism… To the complete State belongs, essentially, consciousness and thought. The State knows what it wills… The State…exists for its own sake… The State is the actually existing, realized moral life.”

As the May Primary Election approaches, remember, the future is in our hands. Make your vote count. Vote against bigger government, excessive taxation and outlandish regulations.

Fight for the right things – Vote for Liberty. Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense, No one will.

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Friday, October 20, 2017 by devadmin

I just touched down in Klamath County after a whirl-wind tour in Washington, D.C. I had two big items on my scheduled agenda. The first was appointments with Rep. Greg Walden and several other House members regarding land, forest, habitat and watershed policies that greatly impact our Western States. Rep. Walden has been deeply involved in efforts to improve how our federal forests are managed and he led several calls for forest management reform. The Congressional Western Caucus, joined in, stressing the need for Congress to fix the broken federal policy that leads to catastrophic fires in Oregon and much of the West.

Second, I was in D.C. to participate in the final sessions of the Legislative Energy Horizon Institute (LEHI) conference. I’ll circle back to this topic later.

At the capital, I met with staff members from the Department of Interior (DOI) Committee on Natural Resources. I also met with the Liaison Office of Intergovernmental Affairs dealing with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and federal policy regarding the DOI. Lastly, Chairman Bishop’s Committee on Natural Resources provided staff time with the Water, Power and Oceans Subcommittee.

Topics of discussion ranged from water rights, access and quality to fire management on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). (Fire management for US Forest Service land is under the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) not the DOI.)

Another topic was the upcoming quandary over the needless removal of four perfectly viable dams on the Klamath River. Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who represents Modoc and Siskiyou Counties, in California, will hand deliver your letters to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke regarding the destruction of our Klamath River dams. (Email your letters, this weekend, to Congressman LaMalfa’s representative Erin Ryan.)

Lastly, while in D.C., I stressed the need for the feds to clean-up the regulatory processes that get foisted on the states and private sector by federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Most of the staff members I encountered were new to their respective organizations and are bringing fresh, new and innovative ideas to the President’s administration. A fresh set of unbiased eyes should always be welcome.

I found it encouraging that there was a universal optimism about lessening the regulatory constraints stemming from federal agencies. I was also assured that an overall policy shift would give increased emphasis to the local officials and the local decision making process. This shift will certainly provide greater assurances for the public and provide better protection for life, health, and local safety concerns.

This is the most important issue.

For our benefit, a historical reference was noted by founder, Thomas Jefferson:

“the crown deprived the body of the peo­ple of this power of local rule, and vested it in a small num­ber of per­sons… In this way, the ancient free­dom of the munic­i­pal­i­ties was under­mined, and the power of the rul­ing classes was installed in its place.” (The His­toric Ori­gin of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the United States, p. 150)

Two other items that surfaced in our discussion, were specifically tied to the EPA. First was the elimination of the current “Sue and settle” process and the resulting mandates that occur outside the regulatory process. Special interest groups and their high-priced attorneys have used lawsuits to force federal agencies – especially EPA – to issue regulations that advance their own interests and priorities. Following the suit, the courts compel agencies to take steps, either through changes in a statutory duty or enhanced enforcement timelines. Essentially, agencies must acquiesce to the courts consent decree or settlement agreement, which in-turn affects the agency’s obligations.

This means that a judge’s opinion forces an agency to take action that is not a mandatory requirement under its governing statute. This clearly violates the court’s authority, the separation of powers and eliminates any need for legislative bodies. Additionally, since these changes come through the court system they are shielded from public review and carry an unwarranted legitimacy. In the end, these settlements cost the American taxpayer millions of dollars.

Second, was the rollback of the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Last Monday, the head of the EPA announced that he would sign a new rule overriding the Obama-era effort to essentially destroy America’s coal-fired electrical energy sector. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt declared, “The war on coal is over.” The current policy’s strict limitations on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants would make coal too expensive as a base load generation source.

According to the Energy Information Administration, in the past decade, coal-fired energy production has declined from 49% to 30.4% of US energy production. The Trump administration’s efforts will limit the speed at which our nation’s coal energy production declines, but the declines will continue due to gains in natural gas availability, as seen in the graphic below.

Following these meetings, I attended the LEHI conference which shed light on all aspects of our nation’s energy grid. Coal-fired power-plants, hydro-facilities, wind and solar farms, geo-thermal sources, natural-gas powered turbines and nuclear energy resources were all part of the curriculum.

LEHI is designed to educate state legislators on the North American energy infrastructure and delivery system. High turnover in state legislative bodies hampers the long-term institutional knowledge concerning complex energy issues in states and provincial legislatures. The conference was designed to fill-the-gaps for legislators who are responsible for developing state energy policy yet often lack a comprehensive understanding of how the existing energy infrastructure operates.

Experts discussed the technological pros and cons of the each of these technologies, their current markets, capital incentives, regulatory hurdles and tried to align them with projected grid requirements for North America. The bottom-line is, for local rule to be effective, prudence and wisdom must prevail in our public policy debates. Then, we can positively impact our standards of living and our business successes.

This dilemma is fast approaching Oregon’s energy horizon, but, that’s a conversation for next week. Until, then…

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will!

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, October 10, 2019 by devadmin

Today’s government enterprise often reminds me of the “Blob”, from the 1958 Steve McQueen movie. In the movie, an eerie, sticky, tar-like alien blob pursues its own ends. It slowly oozes through towns and communities absorbing everything while growing larger with every tasty morsel. Oregon’s government appears to be following the same path. It appears to be always growing, crushing and devouring rather than building, encouraging and supporting a free-market economy and the independence of the citizenry.

The unbridled administrative state and its relentless bureaucracy are slowly over-whelming the public. It is a somewhat self-regulating behemoth that grows in either lush or lean conditions and, unfortunately for Oregonians, the super-majority rather likes spritzing this blob with a legislative version of Miracle-Grow^™.

This can be seen with the sheer number and volume of rules, regulations, and laws on the books. It can also be recognized in the internal structure and layout of existing departments, agencies and commissions where administrative solutions are defined and adjudicated within the same body. Positions of concentrated power are also starting to bubble forth in broad areas, like the proposals for state czars in energy, education, equity and emissions.

When the state gets caught in a bind or has actually done harm these self-regulating agencies can simply morph and change the rules. They can do this because the rules allow them to, and of course, they are the experts.

Recently, the Oregon Court of Appeals forewent resolving a dispute over the impact of catastrophic rules that hampered agricultural businesses and water right-holders within the Klamath Basin. Irrigators in the Klamath Basin brought a lawsuit against Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) using airtight arguments – powerful testimony, reams of data, and an array of expert hydrologic and geologic witnesses.

The lawsuit originated because OWRD asserted that all agricultural wells within the Klamath Basin watershed were hydrologically connected with surface water flows. This assertion was based on the misapplication of an inappropriate model rather than real-world seismological, geological, or hydrological proof. Using this unproven claim, OWRD, could badger agricultural well owners within one-mile of a surface water flow by alleging impairment of flows that might harm senior water right holders.

This assertion created nothing but trouble for OWRD. The department got embroiled in multiple lawsuits, spent all of their legal funds and faced opposition arguments that were unbeatable because of the agency’s allegedly errant use of a ground water flow model. Faced with this possible defeat, OWRD needed a shape-shifting strategy and some rule changes.

Therefore, regulations were adopted earlier this year, which only last for two years and will expire in March 2021. Under this rule wells farther than 500 feet from surface waters in the Upper Klamath Basin would not be subject to regulation. This new 500-foot rule, like the prior 5,280-foot (one-mile) rule also appears arbitrary, and seems to lack the needed science, seismological, geological, or hydrological proof.

The recent rule modification reduced the number of impacted wells in the region from 140 down to 7 but will only last for two years. What comes next; for what time period? Will the next set of regulatory rules be set at a one-mile, five-mile or ten-mile mark?

In the meantime, the new rule was a complete success because it caused the appellate court to dismiss the lawsuit. The Capital Press reported the case was considered, “moot and unworthy of review” due to the new rules governing surface water interference.

Wow!

A new, temporary rule can clear the administrative state of possible wrong-doing and make a legal conundrum disappear, even though plaintiffs were originally harmed by an agency’s actions.

The lawsuit filed by the irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin whose wells were shut down in 2015 and 2016 by the OWRD, should have been allowed their day in court. Their data provided sound testimony that their groundwater pumping did not reduce flows in the Sprague River and did not detrimentally impact the senior water right holders.

Sarah Liljefelt, attorney for the plaintiffs, said the dismissal is disappointing because the agency’s repeated rule changes have effectively denied the irrigators a ruling on the merits of their case.

It is disappointing, indeed, but this is the nature of the ‘Blob.’ It continually morphs and changes, enhancing the bureaucracy while providing little, if any benefit to the citizen. It grows incessantly and its weight becomes burdensome and sometimes even nefarious.

Our real problem is that we, as taxpayers, fund the whole game. We fund the bureaucracy, the legal teams, the rule-makers and the courts.  We are on the hook for taxes, licensing fees, permits, and we will soon owe the Corporate Activities Tax along with numerous other new “privilege” taxes that the super-majority is conjuring up.

It is time to remove the dead-hand of government power from the forces that protect the well-heeled elites and their cronies. Join with me as I continue to fight for all Oregonians. It is time to escape the smothering Blob and live free from the regulatory over-reach that absorbs our lives, families, businesses and livelihoods

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural-Oregon values and common sense… no one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, October 5, 2017 by devadmin

This week I am in Washington, D.C. I, like yourselves have been shocked and horrified by the evil that was committed in Las Vegas a couple of days ago. However, I will not deal with the underlying issues, the control, politics, stability or religion that might shed insight into this tragedy.

Instead, I will continue my series of articles concerning government over-reach of and the seemingly unending costs associated with running the government enterprise. While writing these articles, I receive numerous letters, emails and phone calls telling me about the good things that government accomplishes. I am, in fact, fully aware of the good people who have dedicated their lives to performing some service to the rest of us. Ofttimes these services are provided under the flag of government responsibility, or jurisdiction, while at other times they are services provided by great-hearted people.

That there are hundreds of thousands of good men and women employed and doing valuable and necessary services for the rest of us is unquestionably true. For example, in one response from last week’s article about federal forest policy a friend wrote to describe the story of he and his wife. They experienced first-hand what it was like to be under evacuation orders.

He wrote:

“Our home was in the direct path of the advancing fire.  I am positive without the excellent firefighting skills of all government jurisdictions our home may not be here today.  Everyone at all levels of government were so genuinely helpful, honest and transparent.  It was clear to me that these government employees live in the area and are fully aware of the citizen’s needs.  We found that refreshing.”

This letter underscores the point with powerful clarity – Good people provide Good service. Additionally, their service furnishes warmth to the soul and provides an uplifting sense of comfort and safety to our communities.

As I write my newsletters, my issue with statism is not about necessary, and legitimate, rules and regulations. To even invoke the possibility that our extremely complex and modern society could function without any rules, regulations or governance structures is less than a straw man. It simply can’t be done. In the same way, however, it can be overdone.

This is my point – When is too much, too much? Do we even know what too much looks like?

In general, too much means monopoly. Monopolies, in turn, are too expensive, non-competitive, unresponsive and deliver poorer results with little to no recourse for the affected souls.

Adam Smith’s teacher was Adam Ferguson at the University of Edinburgh. In 1792, he wrote about the relationship between freedom and anarchy, “Liberty or freedom is not as the origin of the name may seem to imply, and exemption from all restraint, but rather a most effectual application of every just restraint to all members of a free state, whether they be magistrates or subjects.”

Best Regards,

He continued, “It is under just restraints only that every person is safe, and cannot be invaded, either in the freedom of his person, his property, or innocent action…”

To ensure that liberty remained a fundamental characteristic of our constitutionally federated Republic the notion of Separation of Powers was introduced.  First, this was specifically instituted among the three separate branches of the national government. Also, a degree of separation existed among office holders, through elections. Elections were further separated by varied lengths of terms in office

Further separation was mandated among the free and independent states which are also constitutionally required to be organized as republics. Then, within each state, among their various counties, municipalities and townships there was a further delineation of jurisdiction and authority. These separations were designed to lessen the possibility of any local despot gaining complete control over a council or municipality.

But, James Madison saw the weakness. He addressed the failings that might result from a false faith in constitutionally structured offices. In Federalist 47, he writes, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

These checks and balances were instituted because one of the major goals of the Constitution, as stated in the preamble, is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” The separation of powers with appropriate checks and balances was expressly forwarded to combat the tendency of conspiring men to seek power while neglecting their public offices and duties.

Our Nation’s founders recognized Lord Acton’s apothegm, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” They knew and had first-hand experience with the most powerful empire on the earth and they tried to protect us from tyrannical governments both large and small.

Thomas Jefferson is known to have championed a smaller, more decentralized idea of governance by independent yeomen−citizens.

However, the potential for over-reach even exists amongst local counties and townships led by their yeomen−citizenry. Alexander Hamilton termed these jurisdictions as societies and he highlights the potential for over-reach in terms of size. Today, we can add financial or economic where-with-all to Hamilton’s warnings. Hamilton notes that any acts which are “not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies,” should never become the supreme law of the land. He summarizes saying, “These [unconstitutional acts] will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.”

It is this closing that deserves our attention. Will we suffer the collapse of these separations, checks and balances? Will we allow unconstitutional acts to become the new-fangled, supreme law of the land or will we respond to them as mere acts of usurpation?

My contention is that Lord Acton’s apothegm is still relevant – “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, September 26, 2017 by devadmin

Recently, the Trump Administration reached an agreement to increase the debt ceiling. The new debt limit expires in December 2017, but using the fuzzy math of the Fed it could continue to grow endlessly.

The Washington Post tells us that Congress has raised the debt ceiling 78 times since 1960. The debt ceiling is supposed to be a backstop against runaway check-kiting but it works better in theory than in practice.

Technically, the national debt declined in absolute terms by about $100 billion during the first six months of Trump’s presidency. But it did not take long to undo those savings.

CNSNews.com reported, “After President Trump signed the legislation suspending the debt limit, the total debt immediately jumped to $20,162,177,000,000.” Meaning, on the day it officially topped $20 trillion, the debt jumped $317,645,000,000.

The status quo machinery churning in every nook and cranny of D.C.’s bureaucratic hallways is an underlying source of this debt. This debt doesn’t include any future obligations from Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. It is the result of ongoing government business and budget deficits across the board, from increased spending under Obamacare to an enormous panoply of programs that just keep growing.

For instance, the United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture which administers a system of 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands in 44 States and Puerto Rico. The National Forest System includes specially designated wilderness areas, wild and scenic rivers, national monuments, research and experimental areas, and other unique natural and cultural treasures. These lands encompass 193 million acres, an area almost twice the size of California, or 270 times larger than Rhode Island.

The USFS motto is, “Caring for the land and serving people,” and their mission is “to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.” However, I wonder if this agency’s leadership has misplaced their high calling because this is not what we have been experiencing this summer across Oregon’s federally managed lands.

USFS literature informs us, “the Forest Service is spending more than 50 percent of its budget to suppress the Nation’s wildfires.” As the costs of fighting wildfires have grown, the agency must shift staff and resources from nonfire to fire-related programs. This process, known as “fire-borrowing,” erodes its ability to serve Americans with clean air and water, protected watersheds and wildlife habitat, and opportunities for outdoor recreation. As these financial resources get whisked away, timber management backlogs occur in harvesting, fuel reduction, forest thinning and timber sales.

The USFS recognizes they have budget woes. They also acknowledge that fires have worsened and monies are being diverted from important budget line-items to fight mega-fires. Yet, the USFS allows their presuppositional preference for fires as “beneficial and natural” to persist as their go-to policy tool. The agency is even mandated to, “create an organizational climate that supports employees who implement a properly planned program to reintroduce wildland fire.“

Unfortunately, this tragic policy preference is wasting our tax dollars, destroying our natural resources, and increasing our deficit spending.

Our forest and grassland resources are now at risk due to the USFS’s acceptance of this faulty fire management policy. In fact, “Forest Service scientists predict that fire seasons could return to levels not seen since the 1940s, reaching 12 to 15 million acres annually.” This quote is quite telling.

While claims abound that Oregon’s current explosion of mega-fires stem from drought, invasive species, and severe outbreaks of insects and disease exacerbated by a changing climate, it apparently isn’t true. After all, 1940 was eighty years ago.

Where are the global warming statistics from the 1940’s or 1950’s? Is there historical evidence from the 1940’s that global warming caused significant stress and disturbances across America’s forests, grasslands, and watersheds?

The answer is NO.

However, policy changes over this time have been significant. Instead of focusing on suppression or containment, USFS policy has shifted towards fire management complete with “restoring the natural role of wildland fire as an ecological process.”

I’m beginning to think that agencies, such as USFS, BLM, NOAA, EPA, USFW, BIA, ATF, CEQ, etc., are the intestines, or the digestive tract of the federal leviathan. In the digestive process the host consumes, prospers and grows while nothing remains but the waste and byproducts on the surrounding landscape.

These agencies spawn numerous other parasitic organizations which benefit from the funding stream. In the interest of self-preservation each of these agencies promote environmental activity under the color of “saving our planet.” Environmental activist groups and other non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) mask and multiply policy decisions across the landscape. All of this is funded by taxpayer dollars.

In addition to the enormous growth in government spending, Americans also bear the costs associated with lost opportunities in the marketplace. We loose access to widely available natural resources. We suffer the destruction of our forests, land and productivity, while we bear the burdens associated with unnecessarily complex regulatory schemes.

As a former County Commissioner for Klamath County, Oregon, I continually faced federal bureaucrats who thought they knew more than the people who live, work and play in Oregon’s neighborhoods and communities.

Could it be possible that somehow Oregonians are not capable of managing their pristine and bountiful landscape? Does anyone really believe that Oregonians lack the knowledge, skill or intelligence necessary to manage their own local resources? Are the people of our state incapable of exerting the proper levels of care, precision, and rigor that might be necessary for keeping their own homes, forests and communities prosperous?

These are purely rhetorical questions that highlight the deeper issues associated with federal dominance in local issues. Remember, the federal government is $20 trillion in the hole because it will not follow a stewardship model that would allow these natural assets to pay their own way. Oregon can do better.

The members of our Joint House and Senate Wildfire Caucus will be working through details and drafting solutions. The real question is one of authority, jurisdictional power and control. Each of these issues deserves prompt, thoughtful and appropriate answers.

Fabius, the pen-name of one of our nation’s prominent founders, John Dickinson, gave us some insight. He wrote, “It will be their own faults, if the several States suffer the federal sovereignty to interfere in the things of their respective jurisdictions.”

Remember – If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common sense – No one will!

Best regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, August 23, 2017 by devadmin

The solar eclipse has come and gone but look skyward again. Why is the sky so dark? Why is the sky filled with smoke and haze? Why is air quality so poor? Why has it been so bad for the last month? We’ve all seen pictures from China where people wear masks to protect their nose and mouth from soot.

Is this what we face in the Pacific Northwest?

Should we blame industry? Is it coal-fired electric generation plants? Maybe its diesel traffic freighting up and down the I-5 corridor?  Or, could it be diesel construction and agricultural engines which we use to build our cities and produce our food? Is it manufacturing, or should we just chalk it up to mankind as a modern day scourge on planet Earth?

The environmentalists and those seeking political control and power may successfully demonize any of the above for their ultimate purposes of resource control and tax revenue.

The Map below tells a different story.

All of the large fires burning in Oregon are under the jurisdictional authority of the USFS. There are literally hundreds of fires but the large ones belong to the federal government. Why? Is it policy or is it bureaucratic malfeasance?

These questions are why I recommend that Obama’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument expansion gets withdrawn by Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke. I would suggest that the feds are not capable of managing their current resource load and that there is no point in giving them even more responsibilities.

Most of this land is already managed for forest, watershed, and sustainable resource diversity by the BLM. The existing cattle grazing allotments are extremely beneficial for curbing unhealthy fuel loads. There is no reason to burden private landowners, farmers, ranchers, cattlemen, forest service or BLM management teams with additional rules and regulations imposed by the Monument designation.

In 2000, when Clinton set aside 53,000 acres for the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, his executive order marked the first time a monument had been created with the sole intention of protecting biodiversity.

Wow, that’s quite a claim. Let’s see, 53,000 acres divided by 126,000,000,000 acres on planet earth… hmm… 0.000000420. Now does anyone believe that this infinitesimally small parcel will protect biodiversity? Surely not!

But, the crowd cheered, “It’s a start; let’s expand it!”

So, in Obama’s final weeks, he expanded the monument by almost doubling it’s size to the current 100,000 acres. Obama asserted that the additional land would “increase habitat connectivity, watershed protection and landscape-scale resilience for the area’s unique biological values.”  Now, let’s re-do our math, 100,000 acres divided by 126,000,000,000 acres… hmmm… that equals a whopping impact for “landscape-scale resilience” of 0.000000793.

The math might seem silly but, for years, through the language of Utopian solutions, environmentalists have sought more control through federal acquisition or escalating wilderness status.

Federally controlled land is predominately concentrated in the West. Nationally, the United States government has direct control over almost 650,000,000 acres of land — nearly 30% of its total territory.  In our state, Oregon, the federal government controls 54% of all of the land.

In Venezuela,  the authoritarian regimes of Chavez and Madura have used government acquisition as their methodological mantra – nationalize anything that produces profit for “the good of the people.”

In 2005, then President Chavez began implementing a law that he put through his legislature in 2001. His plan allowed the state to lawfully expropriate unproductive farms or seize land without proper titles. After gaining title to those lands, he redistributed millions of acres supposedly to boost food production and ease rural poverty. This was really nothing more than Banana-Republic cronyism at work.

Today, Venezuela’s inflation rate is 720% and economists say that the Venezuelan government’s overspending on social programs and strict regulatory business policies have created an imbalance in the country’s economy. This imbalance is now fueling rising inflation, poverty, low healthcare spending and material shortages throughout Venezuela. The result from the status quo is increased corruption, profiteering by government agencies and blossoming trade opportunities for smugglers and drug traffickers.

This can also happen in America. These efforts are always done under the color of law. There is slow and gradual eating away of our nation’s foundational principles.  Many systematic expositions have been written on this idea which holds much of the world in its sway. It is most commonly known as socialism or by the more inclusive names of collectivism, Fabianism, progressivism, or gradualism. The more virulent wing of the movement is communism.

This movement has been continually tried and has always been found failing and Venezuela is today’s perfect example.

In Oregon, this slow, step-by-step tragedy started a hundred years ago with actions by a “progressive” living in the White House – Theodore Roosevelt.

Between 1902 and 1906, President Roosevelt went mindfully at work with maps of Oregon’s pristine landscapes. He acquired enormous swaths of Oregon’s forested wilderness for exclusive federal control. Most were acquired by using Executive Orders, however, he also urged passage of the 1906 Antiquities Act.

Oregon’s U.S. Senator Charles W. Fulton was outraged by these unprecedented land grabbing actions. Fulton introduced legislation to eliminate the president’s authority to establish national forest reserves via Executive Orders in 1907.

The very night before signing this law, Roosevelt issued another Executive Order snatching an additional 16 million acres from Oregon’s control. Honest journalists of the day deridingly labeled these new forests as the “Midnight Reserves.”

Then, in 1908, after the legislation prohibiting these blatant land grabs became law, Roosevelt engineered a new scheme to pluck more land from the states. In this instance he designated land surrounding Malhuer, Mud and Harney Lakes in Eastern Oregon as an “Indian reservation.” This last swindle avoided using the phrase “forest reserve,” which was now illegal after Fulton’s legislation. Instead, these new takings were identified, “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds.”

Modern day 1906 Antiquities Act proponents, with help from environmentalists and main-stream media, have successfully steered the act away from it’s original intent as protection for “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest…”

Today, it is purely a tool for collecting booty from the several, free, sovereign and independent states.

As the founders feared, the heart of the issue is the probability that the central government will seek to, “annihilate and absorb the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the several states, and produce… an iron banded despotism.”

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon Values and common-sense – No one will!

Best regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, August 17, 2017 by devadmin

Recently, allegations of a diabolical scheme were exposed regarding Oregon Health Authority (OHA) attempted a smear campaign against one of the state’s 16 health care providers.

The allegation is that an attack was engineered against a Coordinated Care Organization (CCO) named FamilyCare Health. Apparently, OHA sought to exploit HIV patients that FamilyCare Health served to aid in the takedown of this non-profit organization.

If these allegations are true, first, it is unconscionable that OHA would systematically target HIV patients to help them with their dirty deed. Second, it is an atrocious violation of OHA’s public trust and responsibility which is to use their resources to diligently provide health and healing to Oregonians. Lastly, OHA abused taxpayer dollars to create their smear campaign against a valid, fully functional and diligent provider who focused on serving Oregon’s most vulnerable.

After the story leaked out, mass outrage ensued from both Democrats and Republicans. Surprisingly, the media erupted with anger, and Democrat Lynne Saxton, OHA’s director was removed from office. Saxton has consistently come under fire for perpetual failure and abuse while at OHA.

When asked for records requests, the Brown administration intentionally blacked out 26 entire pages of emails involving OHA’s FamilyCare takedown scheme. It was apparently, a strategic plan developed to attack the CCO health care provider for the sole purpose of growing government.

Well, I guess this tells a us a lot about transparency in this Democrat Party-filled Administration.

My friend and colleague, Senator Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) said, “It is chilling how much unchecked power exists within certain powerful agencies in our state government. When a few people in charge don’t like a person, or a business, or a non-profit, they can use the might of the 800-pound government gorilla to pound them down and ride roughshod over them.”

OHA’s malicious plan highlights the decay of Oregon’s governing fabric. Having long jettisoned its constitutional boundaries, political power is more willing to overreach. Agencies are constantly seeking more control, more growth, and more bureaucrats armed with more stringent regulations. This of course, also leads to their resounding cries for more and more tax dollars.

Oregonians deserve to know why the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) maliciously targeted this private entity and abused taxpayer dollars while seeking to grow OHA’s portion of the service industry pie.

The story is, OHA’s injurious public relations (PR) plan was designed, first, to discredit and defame the health care provider in the eyes of the public, second, to leak juicy tidbits to “mainstream” media, and third, to manipulate lawmakers into killing legislation backed by FamilyCare Health.

The legislation in question sought to clarify rate-setting transparency so that CCO’s and service providers would better understand the process for health care reimbursements.

It should be noted that these allegations come on top of nearly $200 million in wasted Medicaid funding applied unlawfully to 37,000 individuals. It appears, agency officials are more interested in wielding their power to protect their monopoly, redistribute taxpayer money, and pursue falsely perceived enemies.

This is monopoly power in full “pin-ball tilt.”

Yet, the FamilyCare matter is not the first, nor will it be the last of these vicious and unprecedented examples of government over-reach and abuses of power.

Just last April, a Linn County Circuit Court judge blocked OHA, DEQ, and Oregon OSHA from implementing a similar PR scheme. In that instance, OHA sought to discredit and defame Entek International, a Lebanon based manufacturer, because Entek – though it was following all existing environmental standards – may have been emitting at levels that could exceed DEQ proposed standards. In other words, they were exercising regulatory punishment for violations of rules that didn’t yet exist. Coincidentally, Entek was strongly opposed to Measure 97, the gross receipts tax which was aggressively pursued by Democrat legislators and unions who are the largest beneficiaries of Oregon’s runaway spending.

What can we learn…

People often make the mistake of imagining that government workers are more altruistic or better than the rest of us. This is, quite obviously, not true. Character counts and the unscrupulous will be unscrupulous whether they work for private industry or government.

In government, as in business, your home, school or office environment there are always those energetic passions and untamed desires that exceed their limits. Thus any organization or social body without checks, balances and oversight will eventually squander itself to corruption.

Rather than voluntary participation in free and open markets, the statist’s tool of choice is control through political power. Political power is monopoly power. It is the power to write the rules, enforce those rules, and demand compliance. Why would a person walk a block down the street and shop at another bakery, flower shop, or photography studio when they could use political power to force a specific business to service their every want and desire?

Oregonians deserve a state government that is efficient, effective, and accountable; not one that wastes taxpayer dollars and uses its regulatory power to punish competitors or its perceived political enemies.

Taxpayers know their pockets have been picked and they know who picked it. This knowledge will be the coming tidal wave of change which will wash the current administration’s abject wastefulness and baleful regulations overboard and out with the flowing tide.

Remember, If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common sense – No one Will

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, August 8, 2019 by devadmin

The current fiasco on the national stage, with the House Democrats threatening to impeach President Trump and all of the fanfare in Washington, DC isn’t really anything new. We’ve seen it all before and we’ve all heard the proverb, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

What I find most compelling about the sordid affair is that conservatives are being ‘woke’ in a new way. Up until now, the political left had control over what subjects needed to be ‘woken,’ but now the underhanded nature and deceit of the whole ‘investigation’ has put big government, itself, on trial and that’s what the left finds unacceptable. What… dismantle the deep-state?

Back in the early 1950’s our nation faced a similar set of hearings. The Republican House was investigating communist infiltration efforts within the State Department and federal government. They used FBI resources and federal manpower to expose the seriousness of Russia’s efforts. Similar to today’s fanfare, everyone was absorbed by the gossip and accusations that made headlines, only then, it was proven true and today it appears to be only “fake-news.”

Whitaker Chambers was one of the key witnesses. He was a former communist party member who had abandoned that part of his life’s destructive trajectory. During the trial, he said he hoped his testimony would help Americans, “recognize at last that they are at grips with a secret, sinister, and enormously powerful force whose tireless purpose is their enslavement.”

Chambers identified the many famous names who added weight to the fervor for communism. Included were well-known authors John Steinbeck and Lillian Hellman, along with poets Malcolm Cowley, Archibald MacLeish and Dorothy Parker. These were the Hollywood elites and MTV crowd of the day who weren’t afraid to be known as communist sympathizers. At the time, politicians and bureaucrats had to keep their socialist leanings under wraps, unlike today’s Democrat party presidential candidates.

In Oregon today, just as we see at the federal level, our freedoms are being squeezed by the ever-present, twin pincers of socialism. One tong is the Marxist revolutionaries, like the Antifa gang in downtown Portland, who desire power through violence. Marx, after all, wanted to achieve his goals through revolution. The other tong is gradualism. This is the slow and meticulous pressure that comes through rules, regulations, laws, commissions and agencies springing from the fertile womb of the maternal state.

During each legislative session, legislators pass more laws and the state gains more power, while families and individuals lose freedom. The bureaucracies, agencies, administrative and executive offices exercise greater control over more and more facets of our individual lives.

Both pincers have the potential to crush and destroy our existing culture and force monopolistic government power over the people of Oregon.

In his 1979 book, The World in the Grip of an Idea, scholar and economist, Clarence Carson explains why political forces focus on deriding traditional values, family, sexuality, property and Christianity:

“The engine of Marxism is hatred, hatred for everything as it is, hatred of religion, hatred of the family, hatred of the division of labor, hatred of the state, hatred of capitalists, hatred of property, hatred of the “rural idiocy” (as Marx put it) of farmers, and, yes, hatred of industrial workers. …  Above all, Marxism is a hatred of the past, everything shaped out of it, everything drawn from it, which is to say, just about everything. In short, Marxism hates man as he is and has been.”

Carson’s book examines the results of socialism across three countries, England, Sweden, and the United States and his conclusion is:

“The modus operandi of Marxism is destruction. That is the true meaning of Marxian revolution. It is no simple seizure of political power. …  All the actuality that has been accumulated through the ages must be destroyed—property relationships, religious belief, family ties, legal forms, the intellectual heritage, culture and civilization itself. How else, but by tyranny, can such a destruction be wrought?”

Therefore, we must align our Hope with Virtue, Tradition and Truth. We must avoid getting trampled by a manipulated worldview where up is down, left is right, male is female, and nothing is as it once was. Otherwise, we will find ourselves standing squarely in the quicksand of uncertainty.

There is no reason to buy into the super-majority’s demonization of businesses as the source of our state’s problems. Businesses are the source of productivity.

There is no reason to dismantle our historical and societal understanding of male and female, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and all of their various and sundry complicated relationships. They are the source of our families, our friends and our communities.

There is no reason to disrespect the fundamental right of a parent to direct the care, teaching and education of their own children. Self-government requires that families master themselves, including the management of their own affairs as individuals, families and through voluntary associations of church and community.

There is no reason to imagine that “free college” will make college tuition less expensive. Neither will “free college” solve the employability problems of our youth nor will it increase our state’s labor force participation rates. Ownership and personal responsibility are the truest source of productive freedom for the individual. A student’s motives, desires and goals must be priced into the decision-making process of choosing an education or career path.

The political crisis of our time comes from people imagining that governments, gorged with taxpayer money and immense regulatory power, can provide individuals with an endless array of efficient services, security and liberty.

Remember the proverb, “There is nothing new under the sun?” The danger we face has been seen before. Alexis De Tocqueville described it in his 1832 book, Democracy in America:

“[The power of government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power . . . does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, until each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and hard-working animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Allow Freedom to win. Vote for traditional values, fiscal responsibility and enforcing constitutional restraints on governmental authority.

Our firmness, resolution and perseverance are the tools we possess to protect our ourselves, our families and posterity from the historical tragedy of socialism. Let us not become “sheeple” following mindlessly to our own demise. Instead, let us continue to make our voices heard through the ballot box, peaceful rallies, public testimony for truth and science, and our own unwavering commitment to voluntary markets, individual liberty and personal responsibility.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense, no one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, June 26, 2019 by devadmin

Oregonians are keenly aware that there has been trouble brewing in Salem’s marbled halls. Metro-centric Democrats have achieved super-majority standing in both Legislative Chambers. While in the minority, Republicans, like myself, have sound fiscal and legitimate policy perspectives, and like all minorities, we deserve to be heard. But that has not been the case this legislative session when my colleagues and I have been run over and bullied time and time again! Our ideas are ignored, and our voices remain muted.

    The game has been rigged, especially for important bills like HB 2020, the carbon tax bill. The Democrats claim this is an emergency, and everyone needs to pitch their money into the pot. Yet, the committee hearings were slanted towards the proponent’s perspective. “Invited testimony only”–sessions were scheduled and packed with “expert panels” whose goals were to enlighten the masses and give credence to only one-side of the discussion.

    Even the typical “public-hearing” got the squeeze and this happens across all committees. For example, during testimony for a bill dealing with water rights (SB 977-1), farmers and ranchers, some of whom traveled 5 hours to testify, were given 60 seconds to explain their position. The pretense is that the only solution that can save us, our resources and our planet is the government’s solution. Of course, this necessarily means giving the government control over us, our resources and our planet.

    Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us.” Therefore, the perfect response, is to deny the Democrat super-majority a quorum for advancing their one-sided efforts. As the Republican Whip for the minority party, I think denying quorum is an effective tactic and a perfectly appropriate decision for Republicans.

    Our action has elicited claims that, “Republicans aren’t doing their jobs and should return to work.” Think about it, would the presence of a couple of Republican “NO” votes make HB2020 less onerous or costly? Would those Republican “NO” votes cause the well-connected cronies to lose their exemptions or their windfall profits?

    No, the game has been rigged and the turmoil and angst that the Democrats are displaying is due to Republican Senators successfully derailing their runaway government-growth train. Continued support for ramming HB 2020 down the line comes from those scurrying for the largess they’ve been promised. After all, $550 million during the first year can buy a freight load of support, flattery and sycophancy.

    On a more fundamental note, what makes any person believe that the law would become more legitimate if an extra 11 Senators were forced to sit in the Chamber wearing their prison garb?

    The Democrat super-majority is advocating for the round-up and capture of elected representatives by the Oregon State Police. Additionally, they are proposing to fine each of us $500 per day. Then, to drive the knife deeper into the wound, the Senate President scheduled floor sessions for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which allowed the super-majority to levy an extra three days of fines. The sheer level of avarice is stupefying.