Bryan P. Björnson for State Representative

We Need to Break the Power of Washington, D.C. and How to Do It.

Our federal government is too damn big and that is our problem. If you don’t think it is ask yourself this question “Is there anything I do that is not taxed or regulated by our federal government?” It is too big because there isn’t anything you do that isn’t taxed or regulated by it! Think about it for a while. Our federal government’s power has been concentrated and centralized in Washington, D.C.
Here’s a list of 97 taxes that almost everyone pays. It’s a list that includes so many daily activities that no one escapes paying at least one of them, if not most of them. Is there anyone who doesn’t own a telephone? Look at your phone bill to see the taxes that are on it. Do you have a car? You pay taxes on the gasoline or diesel fuel you use. Those taxes are included in the price you pay for everything you consume.
Despite all of those “hidden” taxes our federal government and many state governments are deep in debt. To politicians a tax increase only means they have more money to spend. What do they spend it on? Creating more government bureaucracies to regulate every aspect of your life! Does it matter to the politicians that there probably already is at least one government bureaucracy doing what the “new one” will do? Hell, no! The politicians don’t care because bureaucracies increase the power of our federal government.
What is the solution? There is a solution. The solution is to make our government smaller. Can it be made smaller? Yes, it can! It must be made smaller! How can that be done? To know how to do that, one must know what caused it. What caused our government to get too big? Three laws caused this to happen. Those laws have been on the books for over 100 years. They are the; 1) XVI Amendment (1913). 2) The XVII Amendment (1913). 3) The Apportionment Act of 1911 (AKA Public Law 62-5). All three laws need to be repealed. I doubt anyone needs an explanation of why the XVI Amendment should be repealed.
The XVII Amendment changed how our Senators are chosen. With that amendment Senators are directly elected by the citizens of their state instead of being elected by the state legislatures. What that did was to remove a Senator’s accountability to their state. Instead of being accountable to their state legislature Senators are now accountable to the lobbyists in Washington. When Senators were chosen by their state legislature they were more concerned with and how bills affected their state. A Senator’s election by their state legislature was a check on the power of Washington. That check on the power of Washington is gone. The repeal of the XVII Amendment is part of the solution. The important part of the solution is the repeal of the little known one, Public Law 62-5 (PL 62-5).
It is the repeal of PL 62-5 that will do the most to solve the problem of a government that is too damn big! It will do so in a way that most people think has just the opposite effect. What PL 62-5 did was limit the number of Representatives in Congress to 435. According to our Constitution (Article I Section 2 clause 3) there should be one Representative for every thirty thousand citizens. With the number of Representatives limited to 435 the average population of a Congressional district, as adjusted for the 2010 census, will be 710,767 people. That is far too many people for one person to represent in Congress! As the population of the U.S. grows the number of people in every Congressional district will too. Government is best when it is as close as possible to the people it serves. What must be done is to decrease the number of people a member of Congress represents by increasing the number of Representatives. Most people have the idea that increasing the number of Representatives will make our government bigger.  
It won’t? Why won’t it? Because it weakens the power of Congress! What the repeal of PL 62-5 would do is dramatically increase the number of Representatives in Congress. Instead of the 435 Representatives we have now we would have over 10,300. How you might ask will that weaken the power of our government? It will do so by diluting the power of our government. Not only will the power of the Representatives be checked but it also reduces, if not eliminates, the power of the lobbyists in Washington. There isn’t a lobbying firm in the country that has the time or money to effectively lobby 10,300 Representatives spread out across the country.
When there are 10,300 Representatives meeting in Washington will not be feasible. If they cannot meet in Washington where will they meet? They can meet the same you are reading this, by meeting online. It doesn’t matter where they meet, nor do they have to meet in person. But, if they don’t, how will they do what they were elected to do? Thanks to the internet members of Congress can stay at home in their districts and still do their job.  
When our Representatives don’t meet in Washington they will have to spend more time in the districts they represent. When our Representatives spend more time in their districts they will be more accountable to the people they represent. When our Representatives actually live and work in their districts it will be easier for the people they represent to see them. When our Representatives are living in their district they will be shopping at the local supermarket, buying gas at a local gas station, eating in local restaurants, and going to local places of entertainment. When our Representatives live in their districts their staff will live there too and Congressional districts will be a lot smaller.
The work to repeal PL 62-5 will be difficult. Another possible way to remove it would be to file a lawsuit testing its Constitutionality. Its Constitutionality is questionable because it changed our Constitution but did not amend it. Members of Congress will not want to voluntarily relinquish power. It is human nature to want power and to hold on to it as long as is possible. Lobbyists will fight the repeal of them because their power and jobs depend on it. The more power they have the less freedom we have. The repeal of these laws will help restore limited Constitutional government to our country. If we really want the power of Washington to be broken these laws must be repealed! The repeal of these and other laws will begin to reduce the size of our government. It is why the A1S8 Society (Shrink The Government) exists!

Repeal the 1943 Current Tax Payment Act Now!

• Have you ever heard of this law?
• Have you ever had taxes withheld from your paycheck?
• This is the law that allows our government to withhold taxes from your paycheck.
• Because of this law our government gets paid before you do!
• What do you think will happen when people have to actually pay their taxes, like they pay all of their other bills, by writing out a check to pay them?

Since our government gets paid before we do, we don't really pay taxes at all! We just get what's left over and think we have any control over how much we pay! We don’t. But that is what our government wants us to think. That is NOT what our Founding Fathers fought and died for in our American Revolution!

Because of the 1943 CPTA our government gets paid all year long! It has an uninterrupted flow of money and has grown to its un-Constitutional size. When we repeal the 1943 CTPA it will reduce the size of our government. "Shrink the Government" will be a strong grass roots organization to educate people with the goal of returning our government to what our Founding Fathers created; a limited government!

• What would you do if you only got paid once a year?
• Do think that would change your spending habits?
• What if our government only got paid once a year?
• Do you think that would change our government’s spending habits?
• Before the 1943 CTPA was passed our government (our taxes) were paid once a year.
• If you want to do something about it join Shrink The Government.

You can join Shrink The Government by sending a donation to;

Shrink The Government
741 11th Ave S
Hopkins, MN 55343

Bryan P. Björnson
Managing Director
Shrink The Government

The Right Wing Revolution Newsletter

The Right Wing Revolution Newsletter

SPECIAL EDITION

WHY WE NEED A CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION

There is a maxim that has been attributed to Albert Einstein; “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Whether or not Einstein was the first to say this does not matter. What does matter is that the way we choose our elected officials is a form of insanity! We choose elected officials on the basis of what laws they will pass if they are elected. The problem our country has is that we have too many laws. We do not need any more laws!

What a conservative revolution would do is stop this insanity. To stop electing people who want to add more laws, rules and regulations to our lives is how the conservative revolution will be fought. What needs to be done, what must be done is to elect candidates who will repeal laws! Until we start repealing laws our government will only continue to grow.

If a conservative revolution is to be fought and more importantly to be won a simple logical three step program of action should be started. What is this three step program?

A) Repeal laws

B) Eliminate bureaucracies

C) Cut taxes.

When we start to repeal laws the bureaucracies created by them will no longer be authorized. When the bureaucracies are gone the cost of our government is reduced. When the cost of our government is reduced taxes can be cut. A + B = C.

The GOP Presidential Primary

We are now in the Presidential primary season. It is a quadrennial fiasco to determine who will be the Presidential nominee of the political party that doesn’t “control” the Presidency. The Democrats with President Obama “control” the Presidency. But he has been a disaster as our President. Do any of the four candidates to be the Republican Party's Presidential nominee; Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum have the potential to be a better President than Obama is? Yes, they all do! Why do they? Let us take a look at each one to find out why any of the four would be better than Obama.

Mitt Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts. As a former governor he has the executive experience to be our next President. Did he do a good enough job as the Governor to earn the big promotion? Yes and no. While Romney is the most liberal of the four he is still more conservative than Obama is or ever will be.

Newt Gingrich is the only one of the four GOP contenders who has done what we so desperately need done; reduce the size of our government. He has also increased the size of our government which is not good. However, Gingrich's ability to get something done is a reason why he should be the nominee. (For the record Gingrich is my choice for the nomination.) His ability at that is almost as good as LBJ's. That might sound like damnation with faint praise but our government needs to be dramatically reduced in size. Gingrich has done it before he can do it again.

Ron Paul is the only strict constructionist of our Constitution in Congress. (His son Sen. Rand Paul R-KY will be another one because he is very much like his dad.) It is a shame that Paul is a doctor instead of a lawyer. Had he been a lawyer he would have been a great Attorney General or Supreme Court Justice. It is his foreign policy ideas that are the reason why he should not be our next President. Foreign policy is one of the primary responsibilities of our President. Paul does have some good ideas on how to reduce the size of our government. He is strong on ideas but weak in getting them implemented. Maybe as our President he could reduce the size of our government.

Rick Santorum was a Senator from the state of Pennsylvania. When Santorum ran for reelection in 2006 he lost by a big margin. Was that loss due to the unpopularity of Pres. George W. Bush or Sen. Rick Santorum? That is a difficult question to answer and the answer depends on many variables. The loss does not help Santorum's Presidential prospects. His record as a Senator does not sit well with many Conservatives but it could get independents and moderates to vote for him.

As I said Gingrich is my choice to be the GOP’s nominee and our next President. To rank my choices it would be Gingrich, Paul, Santorum, and Romney. But I will support whoever is the GOP’s nominee. I will support him because that is how our imperfect system works. The people have four candidates to choose from. If my candidate doesn’t win I respect the process and will work to elect the nominee. Romney, Gingrich, Paul or Santorum despite their flaws are all better for the future of our country than another four years of an Obama administration!

Obama-Care is un-Constitutional!

Why is Obama-Care un-Constitutional? The answer to that can be found in our Declaration of Independence. While our Declaration of Independence is not law it is what created our country. It is the guiding principles of our country. In it is a list of reasons why our Founding Fathers put their live, their fortunes, and their sacred honor at risk with our American Revolution.

Those reasons for our separation from Great Britain are the list of grievances against the government of King George III in our Declaration of Independence. Here is the grievance, the principle; our Founding Fathers risked their lives for that makes Obama-Care un-Constitutional. "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance." It is the 10th grievance in our Declaration of Independence.

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

There are six of our Founding Fathers who signed both our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. They are; Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, James Wilson, George Reed, Roger Sherman, and Robert Morris. Franklin worked on the committee that helped Thomas Jefferson write our Declaration of Independence. The others were members of the Continental Congress that debated it. They would not sign our Constitution in 1787 if it negated what they had declared, at great risk to their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, in 1776, 11 years earlier.

James Madison wrote much of our Constitution. He was a political protégé of Thomas Jefferson's. Throughout Madison's career he corresponded with and asked Jefferson for advice. As Madison’s mentor Jefferson helped Madison formulate the ideas that became our Constitution. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was a big influence on Madison and all of the members of Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Does anyone think that the men who wrote and signed our Declaration of Independence thus putting their lives at risk would write a legal document that would contradict the grievances, the reasons of why they wanted to separate from Great Britain? To accept the idea that Obama-Care is Constitutional is to believe that our Constitution is not inspired by our Declaration of Independence. That our Constitution negates the reasons we fought a war to separate from Great Britain. To believe that Obama-Care is Constitutional is to say that the 4th of July is just another day and not the birthday of our country.

What is Wrong with America?

Bryan P. Björnson

“A Conservative from Middle America”

There are plenty of things wrong with America. None of them will get fixed as long we deal with the symptoms and ignore the problem. Do we really know what America's problems are? Or are we just dealing with their symptoms? Alleviating the symptoms won't fix the problems. We are the problem. The symptoms are our debt, our government, the rich, the poor, Republicans, Democrats, the politicians, and any other current complaint of why things aren’t the way they should be. If things aren’t the way they should be it is up to us, as in a well known phrase says, “We the People” to fix US.

To start fixing US we must learn who we are. America is a country that was created to govern itself, a republic. To govern ourselves our Founding Fathers wrote a binding legal document, our Constitution, to limit the power of our government. Our Constitution also, just as importantly, limits the power of the men and women we have temporarily chosen to be our government. The idea of being an elected official as someone’s career is an unintended consequence of the War Between the States. (But that is the subject for another discussion.) Career politicians are one of the biggest symptoms of our problem. As John Madison said “All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” and the men he worked with were far more trustworthy than those currently in (office) power.

America was a country where people built and planned for tomorrow, a country where the idea of saving money for a rainy day was important. America was a country where our elected officials were bound by our Constitution. The idea that it could be interpreted rather than amended was repugnant to our elected officials. They knew that their power was limited by our Constitution. When they ceased to be citizens first and politicians second that is when they ceased to be bound by our Constitution.

We are the problem and we are the solution. To start implementing the solution we must stop voting for incumbents. We must demand that our elected officials start repealing laws. We must stop believing that the solution comes from bureaucrats in Washington. D.C. The mess we are in was not created in one election cycle nor was it created by one presidential administration. It was created over the years as we slowly traded our freedom for government programs that promised to take care if us. America was a country built on self reliance and individual courage. That is the solution, a return to being a country of self reliant individuals. Do we have the courage to do that? I definitely hope that we do!