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The Senate will vote on the Frank-Dodd financial (non)reform bill (H.R. 4173) this week and possibly as soon as today. Although it has the votes to pass, it doesn't yet have the 60 votes needed to break a filuster.

This bill will only strangle our already-ailing economy, and will do nothing to prevent future financial collapses or bailouts. Please tell your Senators to support the filibuster and oppose Frank-Dodd through our Reduce Regulations campaign.

You may borrow or copy from this letter . . .

Reducing regulations would actually be the best reform of the financial system. The fraudulent Dodd-Frank bill will only create powerful new armies of regulators who won't actually reform anything.

As David C. John and James L. Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation point out . . . http://www.kentucky.com/2010/07/09/1342459/reinforcing-too-big-to-fail.html

* At 2,300 pages, none of you will have read the bill or know what, exactly, is in it
* The bill empowers regulators to seize private property and "wind down" firms they, and they alone, judge to be "failing."
* A Committee to guard against "systemic risk" won't possibly possess all the knowledge to do their job, and will only discourage and stifle innovation
* The Consumer Protection bureau will reduce the number of options and choices of informed, responsible customers
* The new bureau will also issue supposedly "consumer-friendly" regulations that will conflict with the goal of other regulators of protecting the safety and soundness of financial firms
* By abolishing retail debit card fees (a practice that had nothing to do with the crisis), banks will be forced to raise revenue other ways such as eliminating free checking (and some banks have already begun to do this)
* The bill does nothing to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two firms that played a huge role in causing the financial crises - which makes future bailouts probable

It gets worse . . .

* A provision to audit the Federal Reserve was gutted in the final bill
* Section 342 seems to require quotas for women and minorities for government agencies and contractors, as if current laws and current departmental civil rights enforcers weren't enough http://tinyurl.com/3997jfu

I don't see how this bill provides ANY benefit to me or to the nation. Instead of reforming our financial system, it just empowers politicians and bureaucrats to reward your friends and punish your enenemies.

A REAL reform bill would . . .

* require greater accountability in the market by forcing even large firms to face the threat of bankruptcy
* abolish "government sponsored enterprises" like Fannie and Freddie
* provide a real and thorough audit of the Fed, whose decisions did so much to cause the crisis

Please introduce real reform that would unleash our over-regulated economy. And I DEMAND you oppose Dodd-Frank!

END LETTER

You can send your letter through DownsizeDC.org's Educate the Powerful System.

If you live in one of the following states, it would also be particularly helpful to call your Senator:

Iowa: Chuck Grassley (Republican)
Maine: BOTH Susan Collins (Republican) AND Olympia Snowe (Republican)
Massachusetts: Scott Brown (Republican)
Washington: Maria Cantwell (Democrat)
Wisonsin: Russ Feingold (Democrat)

You will see your Senator's phone number when you are logged into the system.

And we encourge all of you to tell your friends to take action! Forward this to your friends and share it on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/downsizedc

Thanks for doing your part to Downsize DC!

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org

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