Letters, we write letters, we write stacks and stacks of letters...

Read summary of proposed bills and actual text currently being considered:
In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, legislative information from the Library of Congress
THOMAS http://thomas.loc.gov/

Find e-mail address for YOUR U.S. Representive
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Find e-mail address for YOUR U.S. Senator
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

United States Senate Committee on Finance
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/committee.htm

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,
Nancy Pelosi
http://speaker.house.gov/contact/

Vice President Joe Biden
vice_president@whitehouse.gov

Contacting the White House President Barack Obama
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Bureau of Consumer Protection
FTC Consumer Complaint Form

National Consumers League’s
Fraud Center
Online Fraud Report Form

e-mail to a Member of Congress has the greatest impact when it is:

From a constituent, with a name, full address, and zip code included;

In the constituent's own words, not copied from a form letter or Web site;

From an individual, not an intermediary organization or Web site;

Regarding a single issue, not a group of unrelated issues;

In an easy to read format, with a clear purpose stated in the first paragraph;

Not attempting to begin a dialogue, which is better conducted on the phone or
in person; and
Directed to the appropriate office: committee business to the committee, and
constituent business to the Member's personal office.

E-mail has the potential for a profound and positive impact on our democratic
system.
If effectively utilized, the public - including interest groups - could engage in a more
open and informative dialogue with their elected officials, improving communication,
and potentially reducing the cynicism and common misperceptions that currently
weaken public confidence in government. It also offers Members of Congress the
opportunity to find new ways to fulfill the Founders' dreams of a transparent,
responsive, yet deliberative, Congress. Unfortunately, grassroots activists, the
general public, and congressional offices all have misperceptions about how to
effectively use e-mail that are limiting the value of this important communications tool.

Grassroots activists' practices of encouraging and enabling citizens to send
messages to all Members of Congress are akin to flying any interested person in the
country to attend a Member's town hall meeting. The public's expectation to receive
responses from Members who do not represent them is like their showing up at the
town hall meeting and demanding to be treated like a constituent. Members'
inefficient and unresponsive e-mail practices are akin to keeping constituents
waiting in long lines for hours before letting them into the town hall meeting. Instead
of fostering democracy, these conflicting practices and expectations of all the parties
are fostering cynicism and eroding trust. This predicament requires that grassroots
activists, the public, and Congress all find new approaches to their online
communications. The Congress Online Project recommends the following.

First, grassroots activists should adopt a code of conduct to engage in electronic
lobbying practices that:

Target individuals' own Members of Congress - and only their own Members of
Congress;

Send meaningful messages, not "electronic postcards;"

Avoid sending duplicate messages from the same person;

Encourage people to speak in their own words;

Does not foster the expectation that citizens should correspond with - and
expect a response from - any Member of Congress with whom they choose to
communicate; and

Provide complete identification information, including name, address, zip code,
and e-mail address.

Second, citizens must recognize that congressional offices are not, and cannot be,
capable of responding electronically to every American and limit their e-mails to
communicating with only their elected representatives.
Due to the large and growing volumes of e-mail congressional offices are receiving,
electronic communication should be confined to Member-constituent
communications.

How to effectively communicate with
Members of Congress electronically.

Consumer Action Website
Federal Citizen Information Center
Filing a Complaint - Sample Complaint Letter

Federal Citizen Information Center
List of Federal Agencies where you can
Document a complaint against a company

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster
Consumer Protection Division.
Consumer Complaints

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan
FILING A CONSUMER COMPLAINT

Kansas Attorney General Stephen N. Six
Consumer Complaints

If you have a consumer complaint about a company
which is located within the same State in which you live,
File a complaint with your
State's Attorney General's Office.

Writing a letter to share your views with the media,
government representative, agency or private
company, can be very
empowering for the Family Caregiver.
If you have an idea about how to solve a problem, or
a consumer complaint, let your voice be heard.
Some time-saving links are listed below, to help you
e-mail some of your concerns.
Scroll down below list of representatives and find
widgets for some legislation presently debated in
the House and Senate, which you may want to e-mail
your representative.

Family Caregivers are In Good Company is a website
with links to articles and products on
hundreds of websites
on the World Wide Web.
Although the sites linked to
Family Caregivers are In Good Company
have been reviewed and selected
by family caregivers,
the presence of a link does not represent an
endorsement of the site by
Family Caregivers are In Good Company.

The IRS does not initiate taxpayer communications through e-mail.
If you receive an unsolicited e-mail communication claiming to be
from the IRS, please forward the original message to:
phishing@irs.gov

Create a new message
Drag and drop the phishing e-mail into the body of the new message. This
ensures the original message is contained as an attachment with the appropriate
Internet headers)
Address the message to phishing@irs.gov and send it.

In addition, the IRS does not request detailed personal information through e-mail
or ask taxpayers for the PIN numbers, passwords or similar secret access
information for their credit card, bank or other financial accounts.

http://www.irs.gov/privacy/article/0,,id=179820,00.html
(LINK TO ENTIRE IRS WEBPAGE)

Listen to books on your Apple iPod and Apple iPhone

Proposed Legislation:

"The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights: Balanced Reform"
http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1569&Itemid=61
http://maloney.house.gov/documents/financial/h.r.5244billtext.pdf

“THE CREDIT CARD ACCOUNTABILITY RESPONSIBILITY AND DISCLOSURE ACT”
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4401
Credit CARD Act of 2009 (Introduced in Senate)Beginning
February 11, 2009
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.414:

Keep Medicare Fair Right now, Congress has an opportunity to enact a fair solution
to Medicare and prevent older Americans from paying even higher premiums and out-of-pocket
expenses.
Information at link above.Although they provide a form letter,
please write your own e-mail letter to your Congressman.
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Other Issues:

Week of 1.2.2009
NOW on PBS:Credit Crunch

NOW on PBS: 11/21/2008: Credit and Credibility DVD icon

KnowledgePlex® Special Reports Archive

KnowledgePlex organizes and presents the most up-to-date, comprehensive collection of
publications from all of its partner organizations. By browsing or searching KnowledgePlex,
users can find highly relevant research, case studies, best practices, scholarly articles,
opinion pieces, and other material related to
the affordable housing and community development fields.

Washington Week with Gwen Ifell

Family Care Safety Registry
Missouri's Family Care Safety Registry was established by law to protect children, elderly,
and the physically or mentally disabled in this state and to promote family and community
safety by providing background information on potential caregivers.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon
http://governor.mo.gov/contact/

Missouri government offices: Home page

Find your Missouri State Legistator by zip code:
http://www.senate.mo.gov/llookup/leg_lookup.aspx

e-mail your MISSOURI STATE SENATOR

MISSOURI SENATE HOME PAGE

MISSOURI STATE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HOME PAGE
e-mail link is located on your representative's home page

The job of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board is to make sure
that Recovery.gov fulfills its mandate -- to help citizens track the spending of funds
allocated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The Board consists of Inspectors General from about ten major cabinet agencies --
including the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Commerce -- and one of its
duties will be to review the comments and questions submitted to the site
Contact Recovery.gov e-mail form