The Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
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Quote of the Day: "The Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government." -- Joseph Sobran

Subject: Should you pay autoworkers to do nothing?

If the history of the current era is ever written properly it may be called "The Age of the Government Sponsored Scam." The examples are piling up. Here's the latest… Did you know that GM and other automakers with UAW contracts have to pay many of their employees to do nothing?! It's called a Job Bank. Laid off workers at Ford, GM, and Chrysler are paid 90% of their previous wages to sit in a room at the factory doing nothing!

Think of what this will mean if the politicians pass a bill to bailout GM, Chrysler, or Ford. When you go to work you'll be laboring part of the day to pay some members of the United Auto Workers union to sit and produce nothing. Doesn't that sound like a scam to you. Wouldn't a bailout represent government sponsorship of this scam?

Do you think, perhaps, the Detroit automakers might not need a bailout if they didn't sign such stupid contracts with the UAW union? Do you think, perhaps, that no bailout should even be considered as long as such contracts are in place?

Do you think, perhaps, that the Democrats may ignore this problem unless they hear outrage about it from their constituents? If you have Democratic representatives you may want to ponder whether they represent the unions or you. Shouldn't you ask them where their loyalties lie?

Or if you have Republican representatives, do you think they might make an issue of this if you inform them of it?

And what about your friends, families, and neighbors? Shouldn't they hear about this too?

Fortunately, the UAW contracts with the Detroit automakers are up for renegotiation right now.

This is the ideal time to shout this story far and wide. Either…

• he UAW will have to give up their do-nothing Job Banks, and perhaps save the Detroit automakers without the need for a bailout or…
• the proposed bailout will fail in Congress if the Job Banks are still in place.

Please do four things…

1. Forward this message to your friends.
2. Open a Digg account and Digg this message on our blog, so more people will see it.
3. Use our "No Bailouts" campaign to tell Congress that the UAW Job Banks provision makes the idea of a tax-funded bailout completely intolerable.
4. Use your personal comments to ask Democratic representatives whether they represent you, or the unions, and ask Republican representatives to make a major issue of this.

Close the Gap Progress Report

Two major donors have promised to give Downsize DC $50,000 if we could raise another $39,000 from people on this list. As soon as we've reached the goal we'll have next year's entire operating budget covered.

We'll use most of any additional money we raise to…

• Rent lists of politically engaged people.
• Send them letters describing RTBA and OSTA.
• Make a pitch for funds so we can send more RTBA/OSTA letters to more potential recruits.

Here's our initial report…

• Top Down Pledges received: $3,000.
• Bottom Up Pledges (12 month value) received:$1,626.

That means that we've "Closed the Gap" by $4,626, leaving us with a balance, or "gap," of $34,374. Just $34,374 more in combined Top Down and Bottom Up monthly pledges funds our entire 2009 budget!

This weekend, we ALSO received $125 in one-time donations towards our November budget (which we still need to reach too).

To learn how you can help, and perhaps get an "I Am Not Afraid" t-shirt, please go here.

Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.