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.

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, June 12, 2019 by devadmin

The National Popular Vote (NPV) is another leg of the progressive movement that is rolling across the US. Simply put, it is part of the scheme to undermine our fair and balanced election process. Although the popular vote initiative sounds reasonable on its surface, the devil is in the details. The NCSL (National Conference of State Legislators) website states:

“The National Popular Vote (NPV) movement emerged in late 2006 and has slowly gain some steam since then.

“NPV seeks to ensure that the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes nationwide is elected president. When a state passes legislation to join the National Popular Vote Compact, it pledges that all of that state’s electoral votes will be given to whichever presidential candidate wins the popular vote nationwide, rather than the candidate who won the vote in just that state.”

In a perfectly wild example, imagine if every single voter in Oregon cast a Republican vote for the President. Under NPV, after the polls close and the chads are counted and recounted, if a democrat candidate had a slim majority of votes nationwide, the state’s electors would be required to cast their vote for the democrat, even though not a single soul within the state affirmed that choice.

This is a clear violation of the principle of local control and the consent of the governed. Unfortunately, this twisted logic has Oregon’s democrats feverishly working to be the 16^th “blue” state to pass an NPV bill (SB 870). It has already passed through the Senate and House, largely along party-lines and is now on its way to the Governor’s office.

The founders created a uniquely American scheme for electing office-holders at the national level. It was designed to disrupt the natural tendencies of mankind which have been witnessed in every age. To wit, regardless of national origin, religion, creed, sex or gender people exposed to power will be tempted by lust and selfish greed to amass more power.

Our nation’s founders wanted to preserve the principles of representation while building in constitutional safeguards for diluting unnecessary concentrations of power.  For example, they split the legislative body into two chambers, the House and Senate. Senators, representing the States, were elected to office by their respective State Legislatures. Unfortunately, this protection was undone in 1913 with the passage of the 17^th Amendment.

Prior to the 17^th Amendment, the Constitution specified that senators were elected by state legislatures. This construction gave state governments an equal say in the national body with regard to legislation, rules and regulations that would affect all states. Each state would have equal representation in the Senate with two Senators from each state.

The framers believed that in electing senators, state legislatures would cement their ties with the national government. The 17^th Amendment changed this process to a direct election by the people of their state, essentially making it identical to the process for the U.S. House of Representatives. The fervor for NPV at the presidential level is an exact replica of the turmoil that hammered the nation during the debates around the 17^th Amendment.

The House of Representatives was designed as the only chamber which had members directly elected by a vote of the people. Like our state’s House, this body was responsible for protecting the interests of the people and was the body that had budgetary power, being responsible for taxes and revenue.

The constitutional design had the president, or chief executive, elected by both houses of the legislature via their specific electors – the Electoral College. This arrangement created yet another filter on the proxies coming from the House and Senate and created a formidable obstacle to slow the quickened motives of ingenious men.

Additionally, the terms of office for these elected positions was purposely staggered across two-, four- and six-year spans with one-third of the Senate being elected every two years. In turn, the states generally dispersed their powers by having them exercised by municipalities, counties, and other local governments – local governance being the preferred choice.

The current NPV tomfoolery would ordain what the progressives falsely call “popular” rule but it is more akin to mob rule where everything is centrally orchestrated.

In the most recent 2016 election, the Electoral College proved to be a legitimate safety net for preserving the will of the people:

1. There are 3,141 counties in the United States. Trump won 3,084 of them. Clinton won 57.
2. There are 62 counties in New York State. Trump won 46 of them. Clinton won 16.
3. Clinton won the popular vote by approx. 1.5 million votes.
4. In the 5 counties that encompass NYC, (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Richmond & Queens) Clinton received well over 2 million more votes than Trump. (Clinton only won 4 of these counties; Trump won Richmond) Therefore these 5 counties alone, more than accounted for Clinton winning the popular vote of the entire country.
5. These 5 counties comprise 319 square miles. The United States is comprised of 3,797,000 square miles.
6. When you have a country that encompasses almost 4 million square miles of territory, it would be ludicrous to even suggest that the vote of those who inhabit a mere 319 square miles should dictate the outcome of a national election.

Large, densely-populated, group-think cities (NYC, Chicago, Seattle, LA, etc.) shouldn’t be allowed to usurp the opinions of the rest of the country. The progressive movement toward NPV is a dangerous idea and runs contrary to our founders’ remarkable blueprint for preserving the Liberty for the people while tempering the ever-present lust for capricious power.

Thos. Jefferson spoke directly to this in 1798, writing, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Finding freedom in the chains of our Constitution is what made America great in the first place … and …  it will Make America Great Again.

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 Friday, June 9, 2017 by devadmin

Oregon’s Secretary of State, Dennis Richardson, reported last week that Oregon Health Authority may have failed to validate as many as 115,000 Medicaid recipient

Richardson estimated that potentially 86,000 of these individuals are ineligible for Medicaid coverage. On average, if every individual on Medicaid costs the state and federal government $430 a month, then the total fraud and waste is a whopping $37 million a month.

These are staggering numbers. You might wonder how Oregon gets away with such waste, and the sad answer is that we’ve come to believe an economic fallacy.

This fallacy, or false belief, is the idea of free money. Free money is the sought-after prize in politics, allowing the entrenched powers to create and continue state programs with little or no critical oversight.

Oregon’s legislature will often present the public with a grand solution for problems like the cost of college or healthcare. Unfortunately, their engineered solution always entails free money, which means that someone else will pay the bill.

Free money comes with strings attached. Salesmen offer these gimmicks all the time. It is an effective sales tool because of the personal discipline and hard work required to save, budget and plan. We should all know this instinctively, but the quick gratification that comes from signing onto that “no money down” new car can’t be beat. We can each imagine cruising down the Oregon coast in our shiny new SUV. Many lawmakers use this same technique to hide the real cost from the taxpayer while pitching a story that sounds too good to be true.

In Oregon’s case, along with free money comes bundles of regulations, mandates, taxes and penalties on Oregonians, all because lawmakers couldn’t be bothered to work for sustainable solutions.

Think about this concept with affordable or free health care.

When we need health advice, care or a prescription, we visit a healthcare provider. That becomes an external cost because we are buying a product or service, just as if we were paying for an oil change for our car or a cup of coffee from a barista.

We all realize that skilled people designed, engineered, tested, manufactured and distributed the thousands of medical machines we take for granted in our hospitals and doctors’ offices. We agree that it’s unfair to ask a doctor to go to school for years and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on education and then be expected to work for free. We certainly would not expect a scientist in a lab, designing new medical devices, the pharmacist at your local drugstore, or the receptionist at your doctor’s front desk to work for free either. These are skilled Americans doing needed jobs.

So, it appears that despite rhetoric about “free health care” as a right, it is the same as our no-money-down car analogy – it’ll definitely cost us, just maybe not today.

In fact, our health care system is the most fiscally explosive entitlement ever conceived.

Its growth is a ticking time-bomb for two reasons. First, the person receiving the health care benefit is completely disconnected from the cost. You and I have no idea what our doctor’s visit costs. We don’t know what our pharmaceuticals cost or should cost because we either get them for free or make a small co-pay contribution.

Second, healthcare costs are hidden and shifted across the population. For example, all US men carry coverage for maternity, prenatal and postnatal care. This is the ultimate “hidden fee” because it applies charges to people who will never use the services.

People can only make good decisions about healthcare with good information, including details about the costs involved. The current structure destroys the consumers’ ability to make wise choices about their own healthcare. People find themselves trapped in an environment where compliance with the rules, regulations and bureaucratic red-tape is a burden that becomes more difficult as they age.

Hidden costs also sabotage corrective pressure coming from consumers. Consumers are the best agents for communicating directly with their doctors and healthcare providers. However, without valid information the consumer becomes powerless.

As consumers look for help, government responds by sending in an army of bureaucrats armed with price-controls, regulations, and reporting requirements. Unfortunately, their intervention is after they created the problem in the first place.

Obamacare, like the 1965 enactment of Medicare, did not erupt spontaneously on the American political scene. In truth, this mess has been festering and growing, like malignant cancer, since the Progressive political movement sought power through government control during the early 1900’s. Socialized medicine and centralized control over healthcare is the Progressive’s dream.

There is no good reason for bureaucrats to substitute their opinions into the relationship between the patient and his, or her, doctor. Individuals deserve control over their own healthcare and putting patients back in control is our only answer.

In closing, we have our work cut out for us. It will take enormous amounts of energy, tenacity and courage to return to free choice in our healthcare markets.

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, April 25, 2019 by devadmin

Super majorities and the poison fruit of statism can grow in orchards on both the left and right sides of the road. We know this because history informs us and dictates what we will see tomorrow. Patrick Henry told us, “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way to judge the future but by the past.”

In today’s newsletter, I am going to bypass several thousand bills that are in the Legislature. I’m going to skip-over the gross receipts sales tax, the carbon tax, the recent ban on plastic straws, as well as, the “mandatory requirement for vaccinations in exchange for education benefits” rigamarole.

Instead, I want to focus attention on the Oregon disarmament bill: SB 978. It is still alive and like a zombie is shuffling through the hallways of the marble palace. This bill continues to exist by the force of this administration’s empty rhetoric and faulty logic.

SB 978 represents a purposeful and energetic effort for disarming Oregonians and infringing on their liberties. The sheer animosity leveled against law abiding citizens is inscrutable and illustrates a complete disrespect for our 2nd Amendment rights. The magical facade of “needed reform” is all that is necessary to mask the demolition of our constitutional liberties. It appears that the real goal is total disarmament of law-abiding Oregonians.

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28