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Twin Pincers

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

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Finch and Fires

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, August 8, 2018 by devadmin

In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mocking Bird, a rabid dog growls his way onto the street where Atticus Finch and his family live. The entire neighborhood is watching, waiting and afraid to act. They see the threat, yet because of their own weakness in the face of danger, they are unwilling to respond. Most of the townsfolk in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, simply bolt their doors and wait for someone else to do the dirty work. Atticus, was the one man who was willing to exercise his own courage and prudence by stepping up and shooting the dog.

In the story, Lee uses the rapid dog as a symbol for a “madness” that must be slain. What is the madness? – unconscionable community consensus.

In the novel, community consensus had rallied against Atticus because he was a lawyer, willing to defend a man that the town believed was guilty. Public consensus said, “Tom Robinson was guilty,” simply because he was a black man. In this way, the book, shows us that overwhelming consensus means nothing if it is based on unfounded bias and prejudice.

This same type of dangerous consensus is what litters the field of discussion for most environmental fads. The tragedy happening in our public forests today follows this same vein. These vast resources are burning-up as we watch. The paradox of forest management is that forests are healthier when well-rounded policies regarding harvest, thinning, and re-planting are used. Unfortunately, the current one-size-fits-all policy implies that humans should remove themselves from the forest because Mother Nature knows best.

The Wilderness initiatives that we see destroying our forests were created with good intentions and sound principles. At the time, environmental ecology was not well understood, and most regulatory attempts were aimed at egregious mistakes. However, in an attempt to understand how the world works and how humanity fits in, a faulty assumption arose – “man is the problem.” This mindset implies that man’s technological achievements are unwelcome. This is why motorized vehicles are not allowed in Wilderness Areas and why there is a concerted effort to remove the four dams along the Klamath River.

David Attenborough reinforced this faulty worldview with his claim that humans are, “a plague on the Earth.” His faulty model dovetails with Richard Dawkins evolutionary maxim that suggests the purpose of life is only reproduction. In humans, this means our “selfish genes” are bound to mindless reproductive tendencies bursting forth like maggots on roadside carrion.

However, a more appropriate stewardship model would recognize that humans are the only free, moral agents on the planet. This means only people can use insight, judgement, wisdom and discernment to engineer a better world for ourselves, our posterity, animals and environment. In a word, people care.

People also have the technical expertise to control their environment by creating, converting and utilizing the planet’s natural resources for energy, cell phones, and tomatoes. Quite frankly, neither the Ocelot, Octopus, or Opossum give a rip about the plight of the Blue Whale or Bandicoot.

Environmentalism has generated a robust record of direct observations about the circumstances in our natural world. However, the physical data collection efforts don’t lead to, or create policy direction, guidelines or programs. Those are set by non-scientific and politically motivated actors seeking to maximize their own power.

The modern environmental movement has mainly been effective by using small, politically correct groups to commandeer the political power stored within the walls of the over-burdening regulatory state. When tax-payer funded bureaucracies are used to force compliance with the latest fad then protected markets are created and regulated, with profits for the chosen few. Their Malthusian reasoning was simple and straight-forward; controls were needed because too many people are consuming too many resources

Legislators assumed that a one-size fits all, top-down policy would be the best solution, but these regulatory efforts are typically mired in unintended consequences and bureaucratic failure. Single-focus strategies are problematic because they force large swaths of the landscape to fall under one set of rules. Yet, all landscapes are not the same. Additionally, the rules, regulations and regimentation force millions of people to behave like herded animals. This, in turn, strains both the market and the environment.

Economist Barry Brownstein notes, “Politicians who trust their seat-of-the-pants good intentions inevitably become authoritarians. They are relying on the limits of their error-prone minds and not on proven principles that promote human flourishing.”

Every summer it is easy to see how many trees are being saved through the misguided policy effort of curtailing forest production – just look outside. You can see the saved trees going up in smoke. Surrendering our forest policy to Nature’s whims creates dangerous conditions where homes, forests, watersheds and resources are squandered.

Additionally, the unhealthy air quality conditions impact millions of people and entirely negates the possibility for greenhouse gas absorption. The landscape will need at least another 30-40 years to develop the same capacity for greenhouse gas absorption as exists today.

Today’s wildfires are the most relevant contributor to fine particulate pollution (PM2.5.) Since the mid-1980s, the total US area burned by wildfires has been increasing, with fires in the Northwest United States accounting for 50–60 percent of that increase, according to a recent report.

In essence, the environmental policies that were designed in an effort to protect forests are actually responsible for destroying them.

As part of the Oregon Legislature’s Fire Caucus, I will continue to work towards correcting our stewardship model for proper forest management on our public lands.

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

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Our Dam Problem…

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Monday, July 23, 2018 by devadmin

Below are comments which I submitted to Oregon Department of Environmental Quality with regard to their initial public review of a section 401 water quality certificate for the proposed removal of the J. C. Boyle dam on the Lower Klamath River. (PDF of actual letter is available here.)

TO: ODEQ Hydroelectric Specialist,

Current and future Oregonians are, and should continue to be, beneficiaries of the monumental achievements in water infrastructure that has created Oregon’s exemplary agricultural economy. The proposed removal of the four PacifiCorp dams, including the J. C. Boyle dam in Oregon, will destroy that very infrastructure.

Therefore, I stand alongside the majority of tax-payers and citizens in firm opposition to ODEQ’s approval of a water quality certification request for the J. C. Boyle Dam removal project.

The dam removal effort has too many uncertainties which bear negatively on long-term water quality, river habitat and fish spawning grounds due to the river dynamics and existing sedimentary buildup behind the dams.

These dams serve several environmentally beneficial functions by first, creating a series of reservoirs which diminish turbidity and improve water quality as water moves through the system. These reservoirs are essentially giant settling ponds for particulate matter, including erosional debris, dead algae, cobble-sized sediment, pebbles, and valley-fill alluvium.

Particulate organic matter, that originates from Upper Klamath Lake, basin agricultural return flows, municipal and industrial sources in the Klamath Falls area, is largely trapped by the J. C. Boyle reservoir.  The overall nutrient loads, including naturally occurring phosphorous rich material, settles behind the dam and never reaches the slower moving and shallower gradient portions of the river system. In turn, Copco 1, Copco 2 and Iron Gate Dam reservoirs also serve to keep sedimentary debris from flowing further downstream.

Although, all four reservoirs are known to have elevated organic loads, they still serve as excellent sedimentary traps. Current estimates range from 15 million to 30 million cubic yards of sediment behind all four dams. The J. C. Boyle dam, had an estimate that was originally 1.5 million cubic yards. Today the estimate has been forced into a range that is deemed politically acceptable, at 600,000 cubic yards. This number is still a ridiculously large volume of sedimentary debris to consider flushing into the California river system. Flushing this debris would be unconscionable and would cause catastrophic harm to the overall river environment, downstream fish populations, spawning grounds and riparian habitats.

Additionally, the toxicity of these enormous volumes of muck and sedimentary composites have not been sufficiently studied. Mining operations have long surrounded the river system throughout So. Oregon and No. California. A U.S. Geological Survey review of mine data (2005), highlights that these past operations released elevated amounts of toxic substances into the watershed, including arsenic, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, tungsten, uranium, and zinc.

Oregon has been tightening rules, initiating moratoriums and legislating outright bans on various small-volume run-of-river dredge mining operations for years. Therefore, ODEQ should have serious reservations about the complexities involved in this potential toxic stockpile and be less insistent on approving this certification. Otherwise, the citizens will recognize this current 401-certification process is a politically motivated, agenda-driven water quality charade reeking with double-standards.

The existing dams provide beneficial cleansing structures which allow the massive fresh-flow tributaries, and downstream volumes of low phosphoric, clean water from the western-slope to actually improve water quality as it travels the 250 miles to the Pacific Ocean.

ODEQ should never consider allowing this potential toxic debris into the river system. First, it will never make it to the Pacific Ocean because deep boulder pockets, gravel and cobble bars and the subsequent multiple confluence embankments and ridges that occur along the lower elevations will trap the overwhelming tonnage of debris.

Additionally, the downstream gradient is too shallow, and the river flows will never be sufficient to mobilize the debris field. ODEQ’s permit approval pretends to only be concerned about water quality in Oregon. This is indefensible because all of these toxins, muck and sedimentary debris will devastate the lower river.

The downstream impacts cannot be ignored. From River Mile 160 to the Pacific Ocean the gradient approaches a mere two percent (.1893) grade (Figure-1). The drop to sea level is only a 1600-foot change in elevation, which is only 10 feet per mile. ODEQ certainly knows the typical waste-water or home septic system would require a slope of 110 feet per mile to drain efficiently

While dam critics often complain that dam construction has altered the natural sediment transport processes reducing gravel bar and pocket gravel deposits and thereby reducing salmonid and lamprey spawning and rearing habitats, dam removal is not the solution

The purposeful disbursement of Oregon’s debris field into California’s portion of the Klamath River system would be an immoral act.

In fact, the debris flow today, with the dams in place, is too heavy for the current channelized flows to successfully push into the Pacific. Even with the benefit of increase flows used for dissolution and flushing programs, which are regulated by the dam structures, there is insufficient flow to clear the mouth of the river (Figure-2).

The J. C. Boyle dam:

•       Provides cool water for the continued operations of Iron Gate Fish Hatchery which releases 7 million anadromous fingerlings annually

•       Provides clean, renewable, low-cost hydroelectric power for 70,000 households

•       Reduces peak flood flows by 25 percent

•       Reduces algae blooms in the Lower Klamath River

•       Reduces river temperatures in the Lower Klamath River

•       Reduces river sedimentation and debris buildup in the Lower Klamath River

•       Provides for lakeside camping, hiking, fishing, boating and recreational opportunities

•       Provides river rafting and business opportunities

•       Provides reservoirs for bio-remediation, while trapping toxins and sediment

•       Allows for flow control and remediation techniques, such as flushing flows

These positive attributes provide enormous public benefit and sufficient reason for ODEQ’s denial of this step in the dam removal certification process.

In closing, there is another item that ODEQ must consider – Cost. Original cost estimates ranged from $1.4 billion and upwards. After 2010, when the US Congress first balked at funding the destruction of the Klamath Dams, there was an enormous effort to “find cost reductions.” The results offered nothing more than cost shifting and slight-of-hand congressional Gerry-rigging of payments from various agency-level accounts. Never-the-less, the public was told of a new cost estimate of $800 million, a reduction of $400 million. Today, the Klamath River Renewal Corp. estimates total cost at $400 – $450 million dollars, an estimated reduction of nearly $1 billion. It appears that if we wait a couple of more years the cost would be halved again!

I suggest, that a neat and tidy, $1 billion cost reduction from the original estimates with an overall price-tag of only $400 million cannot be legitimate, at least not using the same project scope and equivalent efforts. This begs the question, what items will be added to complete the dam removal project and who will fund future restoration and remediation efforts?

No doubt, tax-payers will end up paying the full-price. They will be burdened with millions of dollars of cost-overruns, future water quality issues, higher rates for base-load electricity, devastated habitat and riparian areas, and the destruction of private property, all because of an over-whelming, unfathomable mindset intent on destroying western civilization’s technological advances.

Oregonians should be the beneficiaries of the monumental investments, hard work and successful achievements made possible by our state’s water infrastructure. Oregon’s status as a modern agricultural and technological engine has been made possible by inexpensive base-load electricity and abundant, well-managed water resources.

Please ensure our heritage by denying approval for the 401 Water Quality Certificate for the removal of the J.C. Boyle dam.

Sincerely…

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

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Reckless Abandon

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, July 19, 2017 by devadmin

Hello Friends,

A well-balanced, realistic policy-making approach could pave the way toward long term fiscal solvency and achieve investment goals for Oregon’s future. As I entered my first legislative session, I anticipated Democrats and Republicans would work together to achieve those goals by supporting both spending and revenue reforms. It only makes sense that balancing both sides of the ledger would increase stability for our state’s budget.

It seems, I was wrong.

In early July, we adjourned the 2017 legislative session without any meaningful action to address Oregon’s runaway spending. Nor did we put the state on the path to a stable financial future. In the Senate, my Republican colleagues and I consistently advocated for a balanced, three-phased approach: 1) cost-containment, 2) PERS reform and 3) revenue restructuring, if needed.

However, there was never any interest in our conservative, common sense solutions for slowing, diminishing or containing the costs of our runaway government. The Democratic majority had no interest in our cost reduction ideas. Apparently, their typical method for solving problems is accomplished by raiding our wallets , but this won’t last forever. I might be naive, but I thought everyone knew that even millionaires can run out of money.

According to the National Endowment for Financial Education, nearly 70 percent of all people who win a big lottery prize end up completely broke within a couple of years. Steve Lewit, CEO of Wealth Financial Group in Chicago, has analyzed the statistics and says, “People who were little, ordinary people all of a sudden become extraordinary, they’re euphoric. They lose all sense of reality. They think they’re invincible and powerful. They think they’re Superman.”

Several finance advisers agree, the biggest problem, is that lottery winners give away too much money to family and friends. Lewit continues, “Once family and friends learn of the windfall, they have expectations of what they should be entitled to, and many of these expectations are not rational, it can be very difficult to say no.”

Fortune Magazine reports,

“Everyone—parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, coworkers, charities, and strangers—will want some of your money. Many will ask for it and some will demand it, arguing that they need it more than you. The guilt trips and manipulation start quickly. Expect also to get plenty of investment pitches: Open a restaurant! Buy a hotel on Main Street… the list goes on…. Requests and demands for money is the start of your path to ruin.”

Oregon is in the same boat. Our state is swimming in revenue, and our Governor believes she is invincible.  The Democrats in the legislature are the modern-day equivalent of Mister Super-Lotto Winner. First, they don’t know how to say ‘No.’ Second, they can’t separate truth from fiction so they are always ripe for the picking.

Certainly, there are wise funding choices to be made in education, human services, public safety, transportation, et. al., but, the “friends and neighbors” who knock on the doors of the legislature come from every nook and cranny in Oregon. Steven Malanga identifies the modern tendencies of progressives in his book, Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer. He documents that many requests come from self-interested coalitions of public-sector unions and government-financed community activists (like the young Barack Obama.) This is the new political power; the legislature is just the machinery.

Mr. Malanga shows how the single-minded goal is always bigger government and more public spending. The bill for this extravagant spending is now coming due because of the relentless rise of this new political powerhouse. Malanga chronicles how public-sector unions and the corrupt political hacks beholden to them have all but bankrupted once-rich states like California and New Jersey.

Is Oregon next? Will our state use wisdom and prudence, or, will we end up like most lotto winners – spending money with reckless abandon on our way to the poor house?

Currently, our state’s revenue exceeds all expectations. Oregon gathered billions more into the state’s coffers than ever expected. Personal income tax revenue is up, corporate revenue is up, property tax contributions are up, even marijuana sales tax cash flows are now pumping into the revenue stream.

The Legislative Fiscal Office released these budget numbers last week:

Not only does this represent a 3.7% increase in total funds from the 2015-17 budget but it represents nearly $18,500 per person in services. If your household has four family members they should each be receiving just under $10,000 in annual services.

Let’s figure you have kids in school. Some would argue the $10,000 was justifiable. Yet, we also know that Oregon’s education tab per student, per year, approaches $13,400.  Yet, only 21.2% of the population is 18 years-of-age or younger.

That leaves a bunch of bootie for annual services that most of us never see. Where does that money go? Also note, these numbers represent a 10.3% increase in General Fund/Lottery Funds from the 2015-17 biennium.

Oregon needs to learn to live within its means and taxpayers deserve a break. All it takes is a clear strategy for maintaining economic growth over the next decade.

This strategy would include allowing businesses to thrive and prosper rather than seeing businesses as a never-ending source of booty. Sustained economic growth dynamically contributes to increased opportunities along with good-paying jobs that contribute mightily to the public coffers. So then, let’s allow people to thrive, allow their businesses to grow and give them the liberty they so desperately desire.

Today’s existing taxation and revenue structures bring in tremendous resources and there is no need for any gross receipts/sales tax, which occurs nightly in the dreams of Oregon’s progressives.

Every small business owner I know is already working long hours, with little pay, hoping their business can succeed. I hear from many hardworking families who in desperation ask me how to stop the relentless assault on their earnings.  They have hopes and dreams for their businesses and they are sincerely afraid that more taxes, fees and regulations will be their undoing.

Across the nation, we face a seeming ideological civil-war regarding self-governance.

Should government provide everything? Can it? At what cost? How many other states, county and municipal governments have promised more than they can provide? Will Oregon follow Illinois’ perilous journey?

I say, “Enough is enough!”

Regular people must balance their checkbooks, live within their means and save to plan for their futures. Oregon’s citizens must continue to demand the same diligence from our State Government.

Our nation’s Founders struggled to avoid this problem on the national front, yet, we face the same turmoil today at the federal, state and local levels.  As the witty economist, Thomas Sowell, penned not too long ago, “There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else.”

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

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Penny and Dime Affair?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, July 18, 2019 by devadmin

The 2019 Regular Legislative Session finally came to a rumbling halt on the constitutional day of adjournment, Sunday, June 30. It reminded me of a run-away, “tax and spend” freight train finally hitting a concrete barrier. What a wreck!

The total state budget for the 2019-21 biennium rose by 9.9% over the 2017-19 budget and 24.4% over the 2015-17 budget. What does a careening budget look like?

The budget grew to $85,799,479,438 to provide services to a mere 4.1 million people for two years.

The supermajority’s revenue raising tactic was no penny and dime affair. They scheduled monstrous tax increases, like the Corporate Activities Tax (gross sales tax – HB 3427) and the Carbon Tax (HB 2020) but needed to lessen political resistance.

The chosen tactic was to raise money from vastly different groups of people, across different periods in the year. This type of money-grab greatly increased fees and citizen participation costs (i.e., Fishing Licenses, Drivers Licenses, Vehicle Registrations, Permits, etc.), while dissipating blowback and squelching any revolt. The total take from this seemingly penny-ante game was enormous and increased the Other Funds category by 19.6% or $6.2 billion.

As you are aware, I was among the eleven Republican Senators who left the state to deny the administrative quorum required for the legislative body to conduct business. The impact of this effort was a success and brought reasonable Democrat supermajority members back to the negotiating table. They willingly helped kill several bad pieces of legislation.

Earlier in the session we aimed at protecting constitutional issues, such as SB 978, an extensive gun-control bill that would have saddled all gun owners with rigid ownership requirements. These included, locked-while-not-in-use regulations, burdensome insurance requirements, criminal responsibility for actions of other parties and extraordinary financial obligations.

Another bill that tore at the constitutional rights of constituents and their children was HB 3063. It would have removed religious, philosophical and specific medical condition exemptions from Oregon’s vaccination requirements. This bill would have placed Oregon Health Authority (OHA) bureaucrats between the patient and their physician and I considered this a violation of an individual’s right to volitional consent for medicine and medical procedures.

During the close of the session we specifically focused on the crippling Cap and Trade Bill, HB 2020. The thrust of my opposition to HB 2020 was it cost too much while doing too little – it just wasn’t worth it.

The bill’s arbitrary regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) producers in Oregon could never successfully impact world-wide GHGs. Oregon is too small to impact global pollution stemming from giants like, China and India. China produces 28 percent of the world’s carbon emissions while India has thirteen of the world’s twenty most-polluted cities.

In other words, stifling Oregon’s 2 million taxpayers with restrictive laws and punitively higher taxes will not impact the issues seen on the horizon. The only solution can, and should, come through the creative genius, technological advances and innovation that blossoms from our productive use of capital resources within our own free economy.

The 2019 Legislative session has ended but the political battle is not over. I remain convinced that these legislative concepts will return during the 2020 short session.

The central planners in state government have an insatiable appetite and are always looking for higher taxes, green energy subsidies, carbon taxes, free college tuition, single-payer government-run health care and the list goes on and on. At the same time, they burden taxpayers by out-lawing non-existent problems like fracking in Oregon, plastic straws, single-use plastic bags and making “legal” immigration simply unnecessary.

Yet, people are smart and the elite planners can never predict how individuals might change their habits due to taxes and regulations. What would the state do if people quit playing the Lottery, buying cigarettes, hunting or boating? Remember, part of the reason the state promotes and regulates these areas is for the revenue stream.

This misguided course of raising taxes, increasing regulations and removing spending restraints will result in the inevitable. It will destroy private sector jobs, productive assets, economic output and viability while disrupting the landscape in a vain search for Utopia.

Each of us realizes the inherent danger that stems from political power. It has the potential to corrupt all it touches including the public, politicians, businesses, schools, industries, associations, non-profits and even news outlets.

For people to be free, they must seek to live by the highest standards of personal virtue, justice and honesty. Lawrence W. Reed, President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, penned this encouragement for personal character. He writes:

“In America’s first century, we possessed it in abundance and even though there were no think tanks, very little economic education, and even less policy research, it kept our liberties substantially intact. People generally opposed the expansion of government power not because they read policy studies or earned degrees in economics, but because they placed a high priority on character. Using government to get something at somebody else’s expense, or mortgaging the future for near-term gain, seemed dishonest and cynical to them, if not downright sinful and immoral.”

TruthJustice1

In closing, I’ll hearken back to 1942 when the fans of the innovative radio series, “Adventures of Superman”, were thrilled to hear of Superman’s battle for “truth, justice and the American way.”

This motto is simple and straight-forward; we know it by heart; all political affiliations can recognize these values and our American experiment in self-government requires that we live by it.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – who will?

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Siren’s Song

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, July 10, 2018 by devadmin

Radical progressives in Oregon are hoping for a blue wave in November. The American Spectator expects Trump’s national achievements and momentum will bring a red wave. Which will it be?

The Spectator admits, “There are those polls saying that millennials are as interested in communism as in capitalism, and there is the more anecdotal evidence within the Democrat Party that Bernie Sanders-style socialism is ascendant. The Democrat primary victory by avowed socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over New York congressman Joe Crowley is being lauded as an example of the country’s lurch leftward; the party’s chairman Tom Perez even called Ocasio-Cortez its ‘future’ last week.”

Is this trend happening in Oregon? Are we trending left, or right? Are young collegiates hearkening toward the Siren’s song of socialism? Are they smitten with attractive promises for unlimited equality and high paying jobs? According to the rhetoric, aside from gaining equality, there will also be plenty of battery operated gadgets – smart phones and $100k Teslas, – all powered by “clean” energy with restored global ice-caps and endless wildlife living happily ever-after on a pristine planet.

Or, maybe there is a different draw.

Maybe they have watched our last several generations slowly succumb to a socialist-oriented bureaucracy. Many in Oregon mistakenly believe that our municipalities, counties, state and federal governments will manage our affairs better than ourselves. Maybe this latter tendency has led the young to wonder if ‘real’ socialism might work?

Our lives have witnessed government intervention and regulations growing at a relentless pace. This enlargement of government is straining budgets because of the health, wage and pension benefits dedicated to the elites and public servant classes. Budgetary stress, in turn, creates the need for more revenue, meaning taxes will increase by leaps and bounds as baby-boomers retire.

The estimate is that 10,000 boomers will retire daily for the next 20 years! This is the wave we should be wary of. It is not a blue wave or a red wave but is a budgetary tsunami that will overturn and capsize government budgets around the nation. It is the taxpayer’s worst nightmare.

First, each retiree will no longer be at the office, yet the taxpayer is obligated to pay benefits for the next 30 years or more. Yet, the current retirement plan structure doesn’t generate the cashflow required to meet the promised payout.

Second, the original position is now empty. However, it’s part of the budget; it has been a justified position for the past umpteen years and it is on the state’s org-chart. The assumption is that it must be filled.

No one asks whether it is a service that anyone needs or wants. No one even contemplates whether it is a service that government should provide. The slot is open; we’ve always done it this way; it must be filled. Today’s new-hire will come at an inflated salary level compared to when the original position was dreamed up decades ago.

Although Oregon’s economic forecasters say the outlook is rosy, our local school districts, library districts, municipalities and county governments are facing enormous hurdles. While the state is enjoying economic expansion and private-sector incomes are rising, so are tax burdens and public-sector salaries. This will slow the needed private-sector economy which is, ultimately, the sole source for funding the state.

The private-sector can only grow if the government shows fiscal restraint which is something Gov. Brown doesn’t appear willing to do. Remember, Brown signed SB 1528 which increased taxes on small businesses by an additional $1 billion over the next several bienniums. The Democrat majority did not have to raise taxes in order to balance Oregon’s current budget. Instead, out-of-touch, tax and spend progressives sponsored SB 1528 as a needless poke at President Trump’s tax reform efforts and, in turn, directly burdened Oregon’s small and family-owned businesses.

Throughout history, many have wondered about the forces, or waves of sentiment, that shape the destiny of states and their cultures. Henning W. Prentis, Jr. spoke to students during a 1943 address at the University of Pennsylvania’s Mid-Year Convocation. He said:

“Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately genrates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent; the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security.”

It sounds like he is speaking directly to us even though last week we celebrated our nation’s most sublime historical achievement, the 242nd anniversary of “the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States.” Our founders set the standard, they were willing to sacrifice their lives to choose Liberty over security.

Thomas Jefferson who penned the Declaration of Independence using only a goose quill, parchment and some India ink noted, “The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen, in his person and property, and in their management.”

This freedom, allowing the individual to manage his own life, business and property is part of the fabric of our American traditions. These traditions were universally woven into beliefs which spawned the very enterprises which became foundational to our own self-governance.

This brings several questions to mind:

  • Is this old school thinking?
  • Doesn’t this universally apply to all people?
  • Will young Oregonians fall for the deceptive trap offered by socialism?
  • Would the re-election of Gov. Brown afford every citizen control of their own lives, property and destiny?
  • Would a Democrat super-majority provide citizens with more freedoms and opportunity or burden them with needless meddling and taxes?

The liberal progressives of the Antifa, Occupy-ICE, and Dump-Trumpster movements will be rallying to bring Oregon’s Democrat party further left by claiming to love freedom, fairness and equality. Yet, they promote endless discord through their totalitarian tendencies. They may have sincere motives, but their actions expose their own opulence while loosening the bands of public virtue, expanding intolerance and sowing the seeds of future faction and discord.

This is the paradox of our freedom. Our liberty tends towards license, our initiative and enterprise beggars envy, and our own prosperity becomes burdensome and debauched as government meddling grows.

But, thankfully, this is not the end of the story. In every election cycle, we the people have the ability to elect officeholders who will promote Liberty. This November, we can turn Oregon back to its prosperous roots by advancing more freedom, less government and lower taxes!

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

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

Fraught With Danger

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, July 4, 2017 by devadmin

Independence Day Guest Commentary
Colonel David Crockett

 Crockett was first elected to the US House of Representatives in 1825.

One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support.

The speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

 “Mr. Speaker — I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.

 “We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him.

 “Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost. Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation: “Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire.

We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on.

 “The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

 “The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but as I thought, rather coldly.

 “I began: ‘Well friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates and –’

 “‘Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again.’

 “This was a sockdologer… I begged him tell me what was the matter.

 “‘Well Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting you or wounding you.

 “‘I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.’

 “‘But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is dangerous.’

The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is dangerous. “‘I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’

 “‘Well my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just the same as I did.’

 “‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.

 “‘What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

“‘If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give at all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.

“‘Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.

 “‘The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from necessity of giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

 “‘So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.’

 “I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

“‘Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.’ “He laughingly replied; ‘Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition.

‘You are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.’

 “If I don’t, said I, ‘I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.’

 “‘No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. This Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.’

 “‘Well I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name.’

 “‘My name is Bunce.’

 “‘Not Horatio Bunce?’

 “‘Yes.’

 “‘Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.’

 “It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence, and for a heart brim-full and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts.

He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him, before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

 “At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

 “Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before.

 “I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him — no, that is not the word — I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm

If every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

 “But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted — at least, they all knew me.

 “In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

 “‘Fellow-citizens — I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only.’

 “I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

 “‘And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

 “‘It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.’

 “He came up to the stand and said:

 “‘Fellow-citizens — it affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.’

 “He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.

 “I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.

 “Now, sir,” concluded Crockett, “you know why I made that speech yesterday. There is one thing which I will call your attention, you remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men — men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased — a debt which could not be paid by money — and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $20,000 when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”

Regards,

Col. David Crockett

U.S. Representative from Tennessee

*  Originally published in The Life of Colonel David Crockett by Edward Sylvester Ellis

As you’ve heard before…  “there is nothing new under the sun…”

Celebrate the Liberty of our Independence with courage, wisdom and strength,

because if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense –

No One Will

My Best,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

Here’s a Fun Challenge…

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, July 3, 2018 by devadmin

Overall, Americans only spend 17 minutes per day in reading activities. As The Washington Post explains, this number has dropped six minutes since 2004. Broken down by age range, those in the millennial generation read the least, averaging seven minutes a day. Those in the 75 and older age range average 51 minutes per day.

The stats get slightly better when we come to the relaxing/thinking category. On average, Americans spend 22 minutes engaged in such an activity.

Here’s your challenge…  Since today marks the celebration our Nation’s Independence, try giving our Founders’ unanimous declaration a good read. Try reading it to your family…

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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Wasn’t that fun and inspiring?

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

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

Scheming for Revenue

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, June 28, 2017 by devadmin

State law proved to be no match for Senate Democrats’ desire to illegally pass a $22.8 million-dollar tax hike in the House last week. Senate Bill 28 was passed in the House and will spike taxes at least $22.8 million in the two upcoming budget cycles. Our Republican legislators universally voted against the tax increase and made the claim that SB 28 should have originated in the House because it is a revenue raising bill.

Additionally, the bill allows taxes to be raised with a simple majority vote versus the three-fifths or 60/40 margin required by the Oregon constitution.

In 1996, Oregonians approved Ballot Measure 95, now Article IV, Section 25, of Oregon’s Constitution, which mandates that tax increases receive a three-fifths vote of all members in the Legislature. Article IV, Section 18 of the Oregon Constitution requires tax hike bills to start in the House of Representatives. Therefore, SB 28 is illegal on two fronts, 1) it passed without the legally required three-fifths vote, and 2) it inappropriately originated in the Senate.

Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli stated, “Disregard for the Constitution prevails yet again, with the House passing an illegal tax hike. This outrage will be countered with litigation. Democrats want to ignite fury within the hearts of Oregonians by trampling on the Constitution.”

Oregonians are being exploited by House and Senate Democrats who are violating Oregon’s Constitution to dramatically spike taxes.

This tax hike is a demonstration of their willingness to approve “lawlessness.” Small Oregon businesses will see a dramatic hike as the legislature schemes for revenue. For some businesses, it will be a brand-new tax. Senate Republicans decried the passage of SB 28 saying it thwarts the will of voters. Republicans also point out that it should have first been introduced in the House of Representatives. Senate Bill 28 modifies how Oregon corporate income taxes are apportioned for intangible property and services. It changes the apportionment method from a cost-of-performance method to a market-based method.

The cost-of-performance method attributes all corporate income tax revenues to the state where the greatest proportion of the activity is performed. For example, if most of the effort for manufacturing and creating your product is done out of state then your product would be taxed based on the appropriate proportion of in-state verses out-of-state work.

The market-based method attributes corporate income tax revenue to the state where the customer is located. In other words, even if all your work, offices and effort are in another state, Oregon will tax your business based on total sales if any of those sales occur in Oregon.

However, the Democrat raiding party is not finished picking your pocket. House Bill 2060A is another direct tax increase on small businesses. It too, passed out of the House by a simple majority.

HB 2060A imposes a tax increase, up to 40%, for small businesses with fewer than ten employees while preserving lower rates for larger S-corps, LLCs and LLPs.  It is a $196 million-dollar tax increase on Oregon’s smallest businesses.

The 2013 Grand Bargain between Democrats and Republicans provided tax relief to small Oregon businesses. House Bill 2060A would remove the protection provided to small businesses by Republican legislators in 2013.

Also, the tax-grabbers decided to go after the smallest-of-small businesses. They changed the language to expand the size of companies that could quality. Formerly, the Grand Bargain allowed an individual business owner to qualify for a lower tax rates. This House Bill increases the size of the company receiving the benefit by ten-fold. This means a small individually-owned business, or the Mom and Pop operation, are eliminated from the possibility of a reduced tax liability. These small businesses will be forced into paying more of their hard-earned income into this Democrat sponsored revenue collection scheme.

Not only are more employees required to qualify, but the Democrats jimmied the numbers by adding even more requirements for qualifying businesses. These added conditions reduce the overall number of businesses that will be able to qualify for the lower tax rates.

See… Money is easier to find than gumballs in the sofa cushions

This financial tyranny runs contrary to our state and nation’s most sacred principles. George Washington said, “I think the Government hath no more Right to put their hands into my Pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into your’s, for money…”

Washington’s thoughts flow directly from our Declaration of Independence, immediately following Life, Liberty and your happiness through just pursuits. It states, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

However, today the folks in Salem are following the rule that Ronald Reagan criticized so poignantly. He claimed that big government policy wonks believe in the motto – “if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

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

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Posted on

Fatal Conceit

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.

NEW TAXES, FEES AND BURDENS

To illustrate, let’s roll through the new taxes, fees and burdens placed on businesses and people. The Democrat super-majority initiated state-wide rent control, which dampens the supply of affordable housing and chases away real estate investors. This is quite ironic because their goal is to increase affordable housing within Oregon.

    Then, they banned plastic straws, followed by a state-wide ban on single-use plastic bags like those used at the grocery store. Remember, there was a time when paper bags were outlawed. Back then, the chant was, “Save the Planet, ban paper bags.” Today, we hear the same chant, “Save the Planet, ban plastic bags.” Which will it be, paper or plastic? Why is it so distasteful, to the super-majority, to allow the consumer to choose?

    Additionally, the progressives passed a gigantic tax and spend initiative, which instituted a Gross Sales Tax without a single Republican vote. House Bill 3427 was disguised as an education funding bill, but without a constitutional amendment, the funds can be spent anywhere. Officially called a Corporate Activities Tax, the effect of this Gross Sales gimmick will be felt across all business and trickle down to the paying customer.

    Not content with just tearing up real estate opportunities and “funding” education, the progressive Democrats pretend they can curb rising health care costs by raising $380 million in taxes from hospitals and health insurers. The idea that inflicting $380 million in additional taxes will lower the cost of healthcare is patently absurd.

    The cache of taxes raised by the Democrat super-majority in this legislative session will extract $750 per man, woman and child, or $3000 for a family of four, per year.

    When will it end? Now!

SOCIALISM ALWAYS FAILS

    First, it is time the Democrat super-majority returned freedom back to the people of Oregon. Second, the authoritarians ought to take a page from the Original Star Wars trilogy and realize that the more they tighten their grip, the more people will slip through their fingers.

    As F. A. Hayek argued, socialism has always failed due to internal errors in its assessment of factual evidence, logical assumptions and historical understanding. We have observed its gross failures many times during this past century. These failures have occurred across many nations, cultures and ethnicities and all point to the errors in the starting assumptions. Hayek notes this is the “fatal conceit” of the political class – the idea that rule-makers are able to shape the world around themselves, according to their legislative wishes and desires.

    The legislative mandates inside of HB 2020, the gas and emissions tax, are nothing but a blunt force, trauma inducing tool to force tax-payers into compliance while extracting their hard-won earnings into the pockets of the well-connected. This legislation is not about “climate change.” It is about money. Oregon has one of the lowest carbon emissions rates in America. This is just another way to grab billions of dollars out of the pockets of Oregonians.

   At America’s founding, John Dickinson writes about Spain, where money, for a single emergency, was needed. “The request was violently opposed by the best and wisest men in the assembly.” But they caved and, “this single concession was a PRECEDENT for other concessions of the like kind… until the people ceased to be free.” (emphasis in the original)

    Unlike those in Dickinson’s account, I will never cave.

    Thank you, for supporting the “Oregon 11,” as we stand for Liberty, freedom, sound policy, and fiscal responsibility!

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

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28