-By Vince Johnson
Vince Johnson, Vet WWII and Korea has appointed himself to the position of Pro Bono Amateur Lobbyist for over 867,000 Oregonians under the age of 18. He made this decision after noting that thousands of special interest groups from all segments of our culture and every industry in America invest large sums of money to influence Congressional activity through professional lobbyists. It therefore seems appropriate that Oregonians under 18 have someone that will show serious concern for their interests.
Johnson’s first project is to introduce the public to the idea of initiating a class action lawsuit against the U.S. Congress filed in behalf of all Oregonians under the age of 18. He stated that this action would be based upon the following realities:
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There are 74 million American Citizens under the age of 18 who are denied the right to vote. (Over 867,000 of these citizens reside in Oregon.)
- The National Debt is at $12.8 trillion and has been increasing at a rate exceeding $2.7 billion a day since September 28, 2007.
- When every child in Oregon reaches the age of 18 they will be suddenly faced with the highest tax burden in the history of our nation.
- This overwhelming tax burden was created without the knowledge or consent of those who will be forced to make payments on this debt as long as they live.
- The enormity of this debt is unprecedented in our history and was created by Congress in order to provide their constituents with non-emergency projects, services and entitlements the adult population could not afford.
- The growth of this debt continued unabated at a time when Congress was fully aware that most schools, public and private, were reducing budgets resulting in smaller teaching staffs and fewer services. This has made it more difficult for our kids to get the education required for entry level employment or acceptance at many colleges and universities.
- The growth of this debt continued unabated at a time when Congress was fully aware that most colleges were increasing tuitions during an extended period when the availability of campus area jobs was minimal. This has created financial hardships for millions of citizens endeavoring to get the advanced education required by higher paying professions.
- These decisions were deceptive in nature because Congress avoided any purposeful effort to advise oncoming generations they would have great difficulty in achieving the same high standard of living enjoyed by their elders who benefited abundantly from the trillions of dollars Congress borrowed from American citizens under the age of 18.
- Congress made no effort to inform our children that the excessive borrowing was used to fund stimulus programs of questionable success, bailouts that included multi-million dollar bonuses paid to wealthy executives, and billions in “earmarks” used to influence the vote of various members of Congress.
Mr. Johnson emphasized that the purpose of this lawsuit would not be to collect funds for the financial hardships Congressional acts have forced upon oncoming generations. The basic purpose of this lawsuit would be, through judicial finding, to force Congress to rectify its failure to govern in a fiscally responsible manner. In other words, through a judicial process, require Congress to cease and desist from their practice of borrowing unreasonably huge sums of money from future generations in order to pay for projects and entitlements adult citizens cannot afford.
He concluded his announcement by stating, “The overriding purpose of this lawsuit would be to make the entire nation acutely aware that forcing oncoming generations to make payments on several trillion dollars Congress borrowed from their future is the ultimate form of betrayal and the only certain remedy is to elect politicians that care as much for our children as their predecessors have cared for themselves.”
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Vince Johnson welcomes comments. Please send them to,Vince Johnson(vjadtrak@wvi.com)
See Vince in the new book Americans on Politics. Policy, and Pop-Culture.
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