TowneForCongress.com | Jake Towne for US Congress, PA-15 » Platform & Issues

Your Personal Liberties

Jake Towne — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 02:09:57 +0000

As your federal representative, I will make no pretensions to usurp your right to self-ownership and tell you how to run your life. Those decisions are not mine to make – nor should they be. One does not step into a voting booth in November and magically cede away their individual sovereignty.

Likewise, one cannot step into the voting booth and justly vote to strip away the individual sovereignty of others to their life, their liberty, and their property. My job function is to defend the Constitution, and protect the people from the tyranny of the federal government.

The United States of America was founded under the concept of sovereign states. Beyond the powers or prohibitions expressly listed in the Constitution, all other powers were left to the states or to the people per the 10^th Amendment.

I fully recognize the divide-and-conquer tactics used by the two-headed, one-party establishment on the controversial social issues listed below. Please understand that I will always respect your opinion and always defend your ability to voice your opinion and petition YOUR government for redress of grievances with the novel-yet-simple “Our Open Office” concept.

State sovereignty will result in legislation that is more customized to the desires of Pennsylvanians. The more local each sensitive issue becomes, the more control the people have over their representatives, and the more freedom we will all have from one-size-fits-all federal control.

Abortion

There is no issue that is quite as sensitive as abortion. As a male, this issue will never directly affect me, and therefore I have been especially attentive to listening to perspectives of fellow residents in the district.

“Pro-life” advocates take the position that a fetus is a living person and therefore killing a fetus prior to birth is a criminal act. If seen as a criminal act, then under the US Constitution the federal government has no role or power to play, as this matter of criminal law is reserved to the individual states. This moral stance is all too often lightly dismissed by the “pro-choice” camp. Per Roe v. Wade, states cannot prohibit abortions until the fetus becomes “viable,” or can potentially live outside the mother’s womb at approximately 24 to 28 weeks of gestation. As federal Congressman:

I will not support the use of federal tax dollars to fund abortions. Everyone must realize that forcing taxpayers to contribute towards acts they find as morally reprehensible criminal acts is utterly immoral. I wish to be clear here and state that even spending a single dollar on abortions in an otherwise 99% beneficial and constitutional bill still creates the grounds to vote against the entire bill. This stance is wholly compatible and consistent with the campaign’s health care plank.
Women have the unquestionable right to choose to birth a child. Childbirth should be a proud and happy event in a woman’s life. However, it is also a decision that requires love, maturity, and considerable financial resources. Those who are most adamant about preventing abortions should also be the most generous in providing charity, financial aid, and adoption resources for mothers who choose to carry pregnancies to term.
I have previously made a campaign promise to only accept the median household income for the district for my salary and will donate the remainder to local non-profit hospitals. Since my salary is taxpayer-funded, I will specify these donations cannot be used for abortions.

The “pro-choice” camp believes a woman has a right to the self-ownership of her own body and can decide whether to carry a fetus to birth. The “pro-life” camp all too often rejects this argument without examining the reasoning behind it.

If a pregnancy ever threatens a mother’s life, shouldn’t the mother have the ability to choose to abort the child to save her own life? It should be plain and apparent that as the life-giver she should.

Is it not abhorrent that in cases of violent rape or incest a woman could be forced to bear a child and also provide nurturing and her time and financial resources for many years? In the case of an unwanted pregnancy – or a pregnancy that becomes unwanted – the true choice for a woman is NOT simply abortion versus no abortion. The choice is either abortion or compulsory childbearing. The decision between abortion or motherhood is an enormous responsibility, and women only choose abortions when the alternative is impossible to bear.

We should also consider the consequences of past times when abortions were banned by the state. Even when the state outlawed abortions, this did NOT stop abortions from occurring. In past times, women were forced to pay enormous amounts of money on the black market, falsely claim they were violently raped, endure the indignities of backstreet abortions with their increased risks of infection, death, genital damage, and permanent mutilation. I do not support regressing to these oppressive times.

As your federal Congressman, I will defend a woman’s right to choose under the current federal law. Women cannot legitimately be forced into carrying and having a baby against their will.

Second Amendment – Right to Bear Arms

The Second Amendment is NOT about hunting or even self-defense. The Second Amendment protects your natural right to freedom from tyranny by the use of force. As the colonists learned from the British in 1776, it matters not if the tyrants come from our own government.

At no point would I vote for limits of any sort on the right to bear arms as a federal congressman, which is a clear difference from my Republocrat opponents. There is simply no authorization in the Constitution that delegates this power from the people and the states to United States Congress. States and localities can decide details for themselves based on state constitutions and local preferences. This critical right is described in more detail here.

Gay Marriage or Civil Unions

One of my principles is that individuals have the right to live their lives however they wish, as long as they do not interfere with the equal rights of others. Therefore, individuals can mutually associate as they wish – whether they are a man and a woman, two women, or two men makes no difference to me.

Certainly society should not erect barriers between two individuals that love each other. I have no issues with gay or lesbian couples associating. Conversely, as individuals are free to NOT associate with others as well. By the same logic, I have no issues with religious groups banning gay or lesbian marriages as these are groups that individuals freely choose to associate themselves with. Gay or lesbian couples are free to associate themselves into their own groups as well.

As a federal Congressman, there is no power granted to Congress to decide upon this matter, so per the 10th Amendment I would defer the issue to the states. I would vote against any federal legislation to ban same-sex marriages as the Republocrat incumbent, Charlie Dent, attempted to do in HJ RES 88.

The federal government currently discriminates in favor of married couples or those in civil unions by offering them tax breaks. While I am against the entire Marxian concept of taxing individuals’ incomes as immoral and unnecessary, if a state deems a gay or lesbian couple to be married or in a civil union, these couples should have claim to the same tax breaks. The purpose of government is to protect the liberty of the individual – NOT to grant special privileges to special groups.

The “War” on Drugs

In my position as a federal Congressman, I would act to phase out federal involvement in the “war” on drugs. While I would not specifically act to legalize illegal drugs, I would ask to move this issue to the States per the Constitution. Just like the banning of alcohol required a constitutional amendment in 1919, so does any banning of other drugs. We should keep in mind that – just like the “War” on Drugs – Prohibition was an abject failure. Prohibition resulted in mobsters like Al Capone, high levels of violence from organized criminal groups, and rampant corruption in local police forces. Sound familiar?

On an international level, Presidents of Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia all plead that the “war” on drugs has been a total disaster for their countries. In Afghanistan, the US occupation has created unprecedented record levels of opium production, especially as the Taliban had banned opium prior to the invasion.

I take the position that the entire federal sections of the Controlled Substances Act should be transitioned back to state control. This could be accomplished by simply copying the act onto the state books and thereafter let the States alter them if they wish. Obviously, decisions on the state level would be closer to the people, allowing each area to customize their laws and increasing overall satisfaction.

A limited and decentralized government with inherent checks and balances results in more self-rule by local communities, and hence providing local diversity and overall greater satisfaction for individuals. Individuals can always vote with their feet, and move to areas not affected by laws they strongly disagree with.

In particular, the federal banning of industrial hemp, which is not a drug that can be smoked, is ridiculous. Hemp is a cash crop that could be used as a source as food, fiber, biofuel, fabric, or building material. Currently, America imports hemp from Canada, France, and China. Allowing farmers to grow this crop would be the first big step back towards maturity on this topic – plus industrial hemp’s cross-pollination would decrease the potency of all the illegally-grown marijuana.

However, I also want to stress that this by no means should be taken to mean that I personally endorse the use of any drugs, simply that it is not a proper constitutional responsibility of the federal government. Personally I have made a campaign pledge to not drink alcohol, smoke, or use drugs and will continue this policy when elected. I believe constituents should never have to worry about their representative’s mind being altered by drugs of any type, regardless as to whether they are socially-acceptable drugs like alcohol or not.

Illegal Immigration

There are no indications that the government will act to secure the borders. It failed to secure the borders after the 9/11 attacks, and to believe it will do so now is naive.

It is a constitutional duty of the federal government to defend the borders. This is best done by using the military to protect the borders with customs officials at land, sea, or air access points. I believe that it is the duty of the Department of Defense to protect our borders, not the Department of Homeland Security. I support state sovereignty and the right of the states to defend their own borders when they so choose.

Legal immigration should be moderated at the discretion of the States per the Constitution. Illegal immigration is, of course, illegal.

From Article 1, Section 8, Congress is given the power “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization…” I believe the most effective containment actions to take are to remove the congressional subsidies for illegal immigrants. For example, “anchor babies” create an incentive for foreign nationals to deliver their babies on American soil, as they currently become American citizens. I disagree with this policy. Congress allows tax dollars to be spent on benefits for illegal immigrants. This is a slap in the face of both taxpayers and those who immigrated legally.

Closing Remarks

Regardless of whether or not I agree or disagree with your personal views, I assure you I very much respect your freedom to say and believe them. It is citizens waking up to evils of the centralized government in Washington that gives me hope as I continue to spread the message of liberty, peace, and prosperity.

Remember – regardless of whatever charades Republocrat career politicians play to fritter away your personal freedoms, this much will always hold true. YOU OWN YOUR SELF. Just as true is that you do not own others.

In liberty, Jake Towne

Jobs

Aaron Emery — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:48:05 +0000

Common Sense Fixes the Job Market

“Economics consists of looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups… The economic goal of any nation, as of any individual, is to get the greatest results with the least effort.” - economist Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

Not only has the government and the Federal Reserve caused the financial crisis with excessive money-printing, reckless spending, bailouts and corporatism, but the government is fully responsible for the rampant unemployment we see in our country today. While the newspaper headlines of 10% use the Bureau of Labor and Statistics U-3 figure, the government’s broadest indicator of unemployment, the U-6 figure, which includes ‘discouraged’ and ‘marginally attached’ workers plus part-time workers who desire a full-time job is currently over 17%. However, the U-6 does not account for long-term discouraged workers who have not been able to find a job, and economist John Williams estimates true employment to be 22% as seen below.

Before listing some of the governments’ economic interventions and listing solutions to them, let’s pause for a second and ask a couple important questions:

Why does a firm or entrepreneur create a job at all? The ultimate reason is to realize a profit, an overall economic gain, or to “make money.” Firms do not create jobs for pleasure, all businesses entail risk while seeking to create profits.

Why does someone accept a job? Sure, to meet the basic necessities of life – food, shelter, clothing, and health care when sick – but the individual chooses to work ultimately for the same reason – an overall economic gain, to make a profit and “make money.” In the economic sense, by the very act of working each individual demonstrates a preference to their current employment over employment with all other firms, or to leisure time.

Therefore both the employer and employee enter into a contract because they expect a mutual benefit. Employment is just like any other economic transaction – when you purchase a loaf of bread, you demonstrate your preference of the bread over the currency, and likewise the supermarket prefers your currency over the bread. When one works for a firm, the firm obviously prefers to have the work completed versus not having hired anyone at all. Likewise, the employee prefers the benefits gained from working rather than not working for the firm. Mutually beneficial transactions are the heart of any market economy.

The importance of sound money to the job market cannot be understated. Both firms and individuals need a sound method of economic calculation to gauge their profit or loss. I previously remarked that merely increasing the number of dollars certainly does not guarantee a profit since the dollar’s purchasing power is dropping courtesy the printing presses of the Federal Reserve over the long term. Regardless, the entrepreneur must still attempt to calculate if spending say $10 per hour for a new hire will create the desired profit margin, say just $1 per hour. However, it is not a simple case of the worker deciding between $10 per hour for this firm, working another job, or not working at all. Consider:

The firm has significant graduated corporate profit taxes to pay. The federal rate for this progressive tax is roughly 35%, and Pennsylvania has the second highest corporate profit tax of just under 10%. Pennsylvania has the world’s second-highest overall corporate tax rate at 41.5%. (1)
To pay the mandatory Social Security payroll tax, the worker has 6.2% removed from paychecks. The employer must pay a matching 6.2% that the employee never receives, resulting in a 12.4% flat tax. (2)
To pay the mandatory Medicare payroll tax, the worker has 1.45% removed from paychecks. The employer must pay a matching 1.45% that the employee never receives, resulting in a 2.9% flat tax. (2)
The worker pays approximately 1-2% in local payroll taxes, depending on the locality.
To pay Pennsylvania state income taxes, a flat tax of 3.07% is removed from workers’ paychecks. (3)
For federal and state unemployment “insurance” mandates, the firm pays anywhere from 2-8% of pay. (4)
Employers pay mandated workman’s compensation tax, and the national average is around 1.5% of pay. (5)
These taxes all precede the most dreaded tax of them all, the graduated federal income tax. Let’s be generous and assume that just 15% net of the employee’s pay is withheld, although 20-30% is by no means uncommon. (6)
Lastly, to pay for the wild money-printing of the state, everyone pays the insidious hidden tax of inflation. In 2009, the inflation tax on savings in banks was estimated at roughly negative 8%. (7)

I will not factor in significant property taxes, the 6% Pennsylvania sales tax on goods and services, the 32-cent per gallon PA tax on gasoline, the $1.35 per pack PA tax on cigarettes, the $6.65 per gallon PA tax on spirits, capital gains and taxes on interest, state registration and licensing, etc., etc. (8) Plus, note I have not listed the skyrocketing cost of health care – my solutions are in my plank here and outlined in “Health Care Solutions.” Obviously, the firm also has many other financial obligations as well – property, capital expenditures, overhead.

So, when one works it all out, the firm-worker contract calculation is much more complicated than just $10 per hour and $1 profit to the firm. Since the inflation tax (~8%) and the corporate profit tax (41.5%) adds up to about 50%, the firm really needs the employee to generate $2 per hour in profit for the firm. Meanwhile, the firm must pay roughly $11-$12 to employ the worker. So, the worker needs to generate around $14 per hour to be worth the paycheck and make the firm profitable, but yet the worker only receives about $7 in take-home pay.

To compound the matter, the government forbids firms to pay rates lower than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, which prices people out of jobs they might otherwise be able to fulfill. (9)

So the common sense solutions I propose to quickly fix the job market, in no particular order, are: (see also 10)

Remove laws that threaten firms with frivolous lawsuits when firing workers. Not only would firms would be more apt to hire new workers, but common sense solutions, such as prearranged separation compensation for sudden termination in the contract could instead become the norm.
Remove laws that prevent firms from hiring workers by mandating criteria outside of the only question that really matters – can they do the job? Firms should be able to hire whom they please, which includes legitimate concerns such as whether they will stay with the firm long enough to warrant the investment in their training.
Remove the mandate for the employer to withhold income for all payroll taxes. The individual can then decide how best to use the funds, even if it is just to earn interest before having to pay the taxes. This reduces transaction costs for the employer, and gives households more flexibility in economic planning.
Permanently reduce (and preferably abolish) the 9.99% Pennsylvania state corporate tax so more firms will prefer our state to the rest of the nation. While reducing the corporate profit tax on the federal level will also make American firms more competitive, Pennsylvanians have more control over state legislators than the remainder of federal Congress, so this would be the most effective first step.
Remove the mandate for the employer to offer workman’s compensation. Or, just leave it up to the worker to decide if the 1.5% would be better off left in their paycheck. Likely this would create a competitive private market for workman’s compensation insurance that is independent of the employer.
Make enrollment in the Social Security and Medicaid programs voluntary instead of mandatory. These schemes are woefully underwater with $14 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and a whopping $85 trillion for Medicaid. Put in place a gradual phase-out plan so retirees can still receive the funds they contributed, while younger generations can escape the plundering since the programs likely will not exist by the time they are ready to retire. I would also like to point out the Social Security payments, for instance, should be almost DOUBLE the current levels since the government has been fudging the inflation numbers for many years.
Abolish the federal income tax since it is not only immoral, but unnecessary. Details here. If this step is too radical for Congress – it’s not, for most of our history there was either no income tax or a negligible one – surely a tax holiday could be announced to stimulate people to work, and make permanent cuts to wasteful federal spending as I outlined here.
Remove the unfair labor union laws that forbid employers to hire new workers who would do the same jobs for less. There is nothing wrong with voluntary unions that work for safer working conditions by negotiating with employers, but the use of force and coercion to hijack control of a workplace from the firm that risks its owners’ capital to provide the employment in the first place is immoral.
Restore sound money to remove the problems that inflation causes for entrepreneurs and individuals alike. For full details, read my Sound Money and Jobs plank as well as the Federal Reserve plank.
Repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley Acts’ regulations which are projected to cost firms over $100 billion per year since 2002. (11) Following the Enron and WorldCom frauds, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which has failed to prevent rampant fraud in the financial system. The former NASDAQ Chairman, Madoff, is one such example, while the Wall Street Journal exposed Scott Rothstein’s billion-dollar ponzi scheme as well. SarbOx legislation has placed American firms at a needless disadvantage to the rest of the world. The question is not which additional regulations were needed – those committing fraud will always seek to cover their tracks – but rather how many other frauds exist.
Slash the $1.1 trillion per year costs of federal regulatory compliance. (12) These regulations and paperwork costs are especially harsh for small businesses, and serve as barriers to new startups.
Abolish federal minimum wage laws, or at least move them much lower so workers are not priced out of jobs. The most common rebuttal in support of minimum wage laws is that if you make less than minimum wage, you can’t sustain yourself. However, you must disperse the bad logic around minimum wage laws – the law really says its better for someone to be unemployed and paid nothing rather than be “exploited” and paid less than $7.25 an hour. Likewise, if raising minimum wage secures better jobs, why not raise it to $12 or $20 an hour? Obviously, minimum wage laws can only increase unemployment.

This labor exploitation theory came from Karl Marx, the founder of communism, and completely overlooks the fact that there is no coercion in a market-based contract – an individual can just as easily decide not to accept less then $7.25 an hour by their own choice. Again, it is a question of mutual benefit for both the firm and the worker.

An individual can decide if they are willing to mow lawns or wash dishes for $5 an hour, tutor adults in the evenings or home school a friend’s child for a token $2 an hour, or sell a firm’s goods just for commission. A CEO should be able to decide to work for $1 a year if he believes he will turn around the firm and receive compensation later. A student or aspiring actor should be able to work a dream internship or prospective theater role for free – or even pay the firm to provide the opportunity – since they believe it will lead to greater opportunities later on.

Supporters of the minimum wage should also note the dramatic 41% rise in the minimum wage from July 2007 to July 2009 coincides with the rapid loss of American jobs.

Well, those are the solutions! Even if just some of them are implemented, they will all stimulate new jobs and are guaranteed to work very quickly and put an end to all this unemployment nonsense… or you can listen to the drab, dime-a-dozen Republocrat schemes that NEVER WORK and got our country in this whole mess in the first place. These primarily consist of resorting to the printing press or market interventions such as the failed economics of any government-sponsored stimulus plan. See “Why the Stimulus Plan Will Fail… and a Better Alternative” where I debunk stimulus plan economics in January 2009.

For instance, even recent actions of Congress like HR 4508‘s granting of additional loans to the Small Business Administration are counterproductive. Please understand I do not challenge the fact that small businesses receiving subsidies will benefit. However, the danger lies in having federal bureaucrats decide which firms are to be gifted with special unfair advantages over all other competing firms. As Hazlitt wrote in his first chapter, the damage to ALL groups must be assessed as well as the handouts given to the privileged groups.

Any rational person will also note that cronyism and corruption will exist, and firms may counter-productively elect to dedicate more resources to lobby for government handouts rather than focusing on providing the goods and services that consumers desire. Plus, always remember that GOVERNMENT HAS NOTHING – it must first tax or create money out of thin air to be able to distribute funds in the first place!

So, the truth is that the mass unemployment we have today is purely a creation of government interventions in modern market economies. In today’s world, I assure you there is no shortage of work to be done, it is only a question of how best to generate the goods and services we all want and how best to increase our standard of living. As seen by the USSR’s example, economic central planning never works, planning by individuals unlimited by the constraints of government will result in prosperity. Government’s only role is to preserve individual liberties by enforcing punishments for fraud, contract violations, theft, and acts of aggression against the sovereign individual.

In conclusion, the only barrier preventing our society from succeeding in fixing the unemployment problem is the separation of the state’s interventions from the economy.

Jake Towne

February 2, 2010 Also highly suggested reading is “The Government’s ‘War’ on Main Street“

Article Archives

________________________

Source List

(1) Hodge, Scott. 2008. “U.S. States Lead the World in High Corporate Taxes.” http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/ff119.pdf

(2) Social Security Online. 2010. http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10003.html

(3) Tax Foundation. 2009 Facts and Figures. p. 17/50. http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/f&f_booklet_midyear-20090723.pdf

(4) The federal (FUTA) and state (SUTA) unemployment taxes are fairly complicated, but worthwhile since it is a fairly furtive way for the government to tax firms, and even assist in their destruction.

The firm pays up to 6.2% on the first $7,000 in wages for each employee under FUTA. Many Pennsylvania firms receive a 5.4% state unemployment discount resulting in the .08% tax that some people recognize. It is usually $56 per person, front loaded to hit in the beginning of the year because it is on the first $7,000 in wages. These funds are moved into respective federal FUTA accounts.

If Pennsylvania borrows from FUTA and does not pay back the unemployment loan, the discounted rate is then less than 5.4% and the firm pays the difference. If PA doesn’t pay back the feds, then EVERY firm in PA will add an additional payroll tax paid by the employee, say 1%, and will pay 1.08% for each person still employed on the first $7,000 in wages or $75.60 each. This tax is a tricky method of raising taxes since the increase happens automatically. Last year the PA tax went from 0.06% to 0.08%.

Now, there is also a SEPARATE state unemployment tax rate (SUTA) that is paid by the firm on the first $8,000 in wages for PA. The rate is based on a firm’s ‘experience rate’ meaning the more turnover a company has the higher the rate. For example, in 2009 a firm might be at 6% tax on the first $8,000 in wages for EVERY current employee. Since many firms had layoffs in 2009, the 2010 rates can rise fairly dramatically – 1-5% increases are likely fairly common. Again, the tax increase is built right in, but is invisible to the employee. This tax is paid directly from the firm’s cash reserves. As more employees are laid off, the company’s reserves are depleted at a faster rate which increases the tax rate for the following year. Then the firm gets nailed with an unexpected increase in taxes, lays off more employees, and the downward spiral continues. S0, when Congress extends unemployment, this may appear to assist the unemployed, but it is leeching the firms of capital and accelerating their destruction and ability to provide new jobs.

Remember, since the tax is on the first $7,000-$8,000 in salary, firms are also increasing reluctant to hire new employees. Thanks to Raeann Hofkin, CPP for explaining this in detail. This source explains in far less detail.

(5) National Academy of Social Insurance. 2007. “Workers’ Compensation Highlights.” http://www.nasi.org/sites/default/files/research/Workers_Comp_Highlights_2007.pdf

(6) Towne, Jake. 2009. Income Tax Plank. http://towneforcongress.com/platform-issues/income-tax

(7) Towne, Jake. 2010. Sound Money and Jobs Plank. http://towneforcongress.com/platform-issues/sound-money-and-jobs

(8) Tax Foundation. 2009 Facts and Figures. pp. 23, 26-28 of 50. http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/f&f_booklet_midyear-20090723.pdf

(9) Department of Labor. January 1, 2010. “Minimum Wage Laws in the States.” http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm

(10) Rockwell, Llewellyn H. 2010. “How to Fix the Jobs Problem.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/fix-jobs-problem140.html

(11) Zhang, Ivy. 2005. “Economic Consequences of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.” pp. 22-23/68. Zhang also notes that the equity market loss may have been as high as $1.4 trillion. http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/accounting/docs/speaker_papers/spring2005/Zhang_Ivy_Economic_Consequences_of_S_O.pdf

(12) Crain, W. Mark. 2005. “The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms.” p. 8/95. http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs264tot.pdf

(13) Hazlitt, Henry. 1946. “Economics in One Lesson.” http://fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/

Jake Towne – Jobs Plank Handout 3 Page via Scribd

Backup download

Sound Money and Jobs

Aaron Emery — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:57:24 +0000

Sound money is the hallmark of a prosperous society. Fraudulent money impoverishes and enslaves societies, and history teaches it commonly rips them apart in blood-soaked wars. Sound money not only imposes fiscal discipline upon government, impeding reckless federal spending and imprudent warfare, but it also provides a stable unit of account, store of value, and medium of exchange for entrepreneurs, businesses, and individuals.

When the Federal Reserve inflates or deflates the money supply, there is no net benefit to society whatsoever. Obviously, the key to prosperity does not lie in running a printing press endlessly, like Zimbabwe, and it defies logic that America’s prosperity would increase if every American helped deflate the money supply by burning a $100 bill.

Inflation and deflation are simply methods to redistribute wealth. It is easy to see that inflation benefits debtors and hurts savers on fixed incomes, like many retirees. Conversely, deflation benefits savers and hurts debtors. However, there is no net gain. In large part due to the burden of the $12 trillion dollar debt, the American government chooses inflation to avoid insolvency.

The inflation of newly-created money redistributes more purchasing power from the American people to government bureaucrats, the military-industrial complex, recipients of foreign aid, and bailouts to corporations like AIG, GM, and Goldman Sachs. These select groups then have the advantage of using it first – paying higher wages, creating jobs that have either less (or no) economic benefit to society, investing (or leveraging) money at different times and places, et cetera. Sound money not only disciplines government from committing reckless spending but prevents these gross economic imbalances from ever occurring.

The United States does not have sound money, despite the fact that the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, mandates this. The founders well knew about the failures of paper currency after the Revolutionary War where the curse “worth less than a Continental” referred to the worthless script currency used to pay the army.

For money to be sound, it must be durable and not easily destroyed. It must be portable for convenience. Sound money must be easily divisible into smaller units, recognizable and uniform. Sound money must be reproducible. Above all, sound money must be scarce, and it must also have a relatively stable purchasing power.

Fiat currencies – like the dollar and all other national currencies – can never truly fulfill the scarcity and purchasing power requirements. For example, let’s use our own currency. In 1964, all dimes, quarters and halves were 90% silver by mass. Four silver dimes in 1964 would buy a good loaf of bread. In 2010, the dimes would certainly not be enough at a bakery, but exchanging at a jeweler or coin shop for its worth in silver would yield about $5 today – quite sufficient to make the exchange.

Today the dollar is a bill of credit not backed by gold or anything else – even though the Constitution still forbids the power to emit bills of credit for use as money. The government’s monetary role is to mint money and maintain the integrity of the monetary unit, not to commit fraud by debasement or to substitute paper counterfeits for the constitutionally-specified forms of lawful money, gold and silver coins. Individuals should be free to trade and exchange as money any mutually agreeable commodity or item as they wish.

As of January 1st, 2010, the dollar has devalued against gold by 98.3% since the Federal Reserve was begun in 1913. Since 1933 when the country left the gold standard, the dollar has lost >94% of its purchasing power versus goods. The central bank’s function is to slowly devalue the currency in a way that few can detect except by viewing long periods of time. Your current Congressman is a willing accomplice in this theft.

To further disguise the dollar’s debasement, central banks collude in secret to suppress the gold price, just as the Federal Reserve’s very own documentation proves occurred during the collapse of the ill-fated London Gold Pool in the 1960s. Unknown to most Americans, the gold currency market exchanges well over $20 trillion dollars annually, a sum comparable to the market capitalization of global equity and bond markets, and higher than the $15 trillion figure bandied about as US GDP. To learn more, please read “The Summers Gold Price Suppression Scheme.”

To see the dollar’s devaluation over a long period of time, please see the below graph entitled “The Real Interest Rate.” Simply speaking, the real interest rate is an approximation of the difference between the interest rate earned on a savings account and the inflation rate. When it is positive, the dollar’s purchasing power is increasing. When it is negative, the dollar’s purchasing power is decreasing. When the real rate of interest is negative, the purchasing power of currency saved in a bank account is dropping, as the total supply of dollars is rising at a faster rate and now purchases less goods or services. As can be seen, since 1990 the purchasing power of the dollar has been negative and continues to drop in ever-increasing amounts. As of December 2009, the real rate of interest is about minus 8%.

Over the long term, a negative real interest rate signifies America’s savings and capital is being destroyed. This graph explains why our jobs, factories, and equipment have been driven overseas – and why most consumer goods are from China. To a large extent, this explains the rampant American consumerism of the past decade – why present-day goods are preferred to future goods! The government is responsible for the capital destruction of our society.

This is why we are living in a Depression and unemployment is at 22% - you didn’t really believe the government unemployment figures of 10%… right??

This explains why the American consumer “saved” in the stock market and “saved” in the real estate market; we all instinctively recognized that leaving dollars in the bank would not generate enough purchasing power in our child-raising and retirement years, so as a society we invested and speculated in these markets.

This explains why Social Security recipients find it hard to get by – the inflation adjustments to their monthly checks should be almost twice as large to make up for the purchasing power they were promised by the government.

This explains why families now need two wage-earners instead of one, why our children spend more and more time in day care while Mom and Dad struggle to make ends meet.

In short, the simple graph of the “real interest rate” demonstrates quite a bit. But where has this wealth, this purchasing power, gone? Has it just disappeared into thin air?

No! Our lost purchasing power has been stolen, confiscated, and spent by the Republocrat Establishment – central bankers, large multinational corporations, bureaucrats and the military-industrial complex are key recipients. This theft has only been made possible since the “money power” belongs to the state, not to the people – where it belongs. Besides the obvious remedy of slashing government spending and ending government-sponsored corporatism, I have outlined my ideas for a transition plan back to sound money here.

I will never betray my constituents to the immoral money creation schemes of the government’s bankers and always strive to protect their right to possess and exchange sound money.

Jake Towne

January 16, 2010

Scribd PDF here, backup PDF here.

Other suggested reading:

Chasing “Gelten” Shadows

Is the Dollar a Ponzi Scheme?

What Makes Money Money?

Federal Reserve Plank

Bailouts and Corporatism Plank

_______________________________

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

As always, unlike the NFL, the author grants full permission to allow any accounts of, rebroadcasts, retransmissions, repostings of this article to your blog or anywhere else in order to promote the Restoration of our Republic.

Veritas numquam perit. Veritas odit moras. Veritas vincit. Truth never perishes. Truth hates delay. Truth conquers.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.

_______________________________

In November 2009, a speech in front of the Federal Reserve Bank and a talk “End the FED… Then What? – The Transition to Sound Money“

In December 2009: The Government’s “War” on Main Street

Jake Towne – Sound Money and Jobs Plank (Jan 2010)

http://towneforcongress.com/platform-issues/sound-money-and-jobs

Health Care Solutions

Aaron Emery — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:00:18 +0000

“Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your convictions.” – Dag Hammarskjöld

Today the Morning Call ran a half-page advertisement promoting the campaign and upcoming events like the Allentown “Towne” Hall this Thursday evening. However, yesterday in the letter to the editor section, the newspaper devoted the majority of its print space to publishing three consecutive letters (first, second, and third) attacking an earlier letter written, entitled “Health Care is NOT a Right” which can be viewed here in its 200-word version or its full article version.

I welcome dissent, and I am truly thrilled that the Morning Call published these letters. While the Republican incumbent does not favor the bills, he views them as constitutional and has his own socialized plan which I challenged him on over the summer. The Democrat challenger has not decided if he would vote for or against either the House or Senate versions of the bill. I have challenged both of them to a public debate in November, with no response received from either campaign.

The below essay was condensed into 700 words and submitted yesterday to the Morning Call’s Town Square section. While I have no control over what they choose to publish, I hope they are indeed interested after publishing the three letters yesterday. This was condensed from a recent letter “The Next Defense – Nullification of Health Care” and for an in-depth look at my views, please read and visit the links in my Health Care plank.

____________________________________________

Last month both the House and Senate passed two very dissimilar bills with the same purpose – to tax the American people around $900 billion more, and intervene government bureaucrats into the private lives of each man, woman, and child. Congress is currently reconciling the differences, and my prediction is that the bill will resemble the Frankenstein bailout bill after all the pork is added.

This bill’s unintended consequences will worsen the quality of care and make health care less affordable. I believe the TRUE issue at stake is COST - if an MRI cost $200 instead of $3,000, it would be a lot less imperative to suggest drastic changes like socialized medicine. The TRUE root cause is the government-sponsored insurance cartels and quality-depleting, cost-increasing legislation such as the HMO Act of 1973. After all, President Nixon was told “all the incentives [of HMOs] are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make and all the incentives run the right way.” We should not be surprised that the HMO structure did exactly this.

I have the practical solutions for lower costs, higher quality, and more features that will WORK:

I would introduce tax relief legislation to allow individuals and families to reduce their federal income tax nearly dollar-for-dollar by the amounts they spend out-of-pocket on private health care premiums.
I would seek to remove the insurance state portability barriers that Congress has erected to protect the insurance cartels and raise costs.
I would seek to provide a sound currency to halt rampant price inflation, so health care costs take up a smaller percentage of household income.
I call for the state legislatures to remove state mandates that add 15-40% to Pennsylvania’s health care premiums, and to pursuit tort reform to reduce the costs of defensive medicine.
I would introduce a bill to suspend the obligation of individuals suffering from terminal illness or cancer to continue paying the Social Security tax on their income.
I would introduce a bill to reduce federal income taxes dollar-for-dollar by amounts spent out-of-pocket by parents for their children with terminal illnesses, major disabilities or cancer.
I have pointed out the dangers of state restrictions - via licensing and restricted seats in the medical school system – artificially restricting the supply of doctors just when the baby boomer explosion will need them the most.
Supporters of mine have also sent in great ideas such as Health Care Sharing Ministries that voluntarily pool risk.

I have laid out the moral and constitutional position that health care is NOT a legal right. I have pointed out that the health care bill’s proposed changes in labor laws will DEVASTATE the poor, the very people the bill is supposed to assist.

I have promised to only accept the median household income for my salary, and will donate the remainder to local non-profit hospitals. I have pledged I will not enroll in the elite congressional health care plan, as who can trust someone who legislates on another’s health care but is not subject to the legislation themselves?

I have presented the American people with the choices they SHOULD have – guns or health care? – as most people do not understand the insane cost of a military that costs more than the rest of the planet COMBINED.

The next action I recommend pursuing once the health care tax is signed is nullification. We must keep in mind at all times that the states created the federal government, and not vice versa, and the states have the unquestionable right and power to strike down legislation that is unconstitutional. When the Constitution was passed to replace the Articles of Confederation, it was contested that the Constitution would lead to a vast expansion of federal powers and usurping of the peoples’ and states’ rights. A public debate was held for years in newspapers, taverns, and town halls before the Constitution was ratified. Today, the American people are given little ability to debate with their so-called representatives, my novel-yet-simple “Our Open Office” plan will solve this.

Jake Towne

January 11, 2010

In September 2009, I covered Health Care Economics with Michael McKay of Radio Free Market. Here is the summary.

The Health Care Plank is available below or from the website.

Jake Towne – Health Care Plank (Full)

http://towneforcongress.com/economy/health-care-solutions

Afghanistan War

Aaron Emery — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:42:51 +0000

Afghanistan and Pakistan Wars Plank

“All Warfare is Deception… There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” – Sun Tzu, circa 250 BC

Summary: I will not approve spending to extend this unconstitutional war of aggression against Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Congressman, I will drive for a rapid immediate and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan and redeployment to protect America’s sieve-like borders. I support increasing the reward for the capture of Osama Bin Laden forty times from $27 million to over $1 billion. I support issuing constitutional letters of marque to bring indicted terrorists to justice in a court of law.

To support this stance, I offer the following four key points: First, elected officials must begin behaving like the United States is a nation of laws, not a collection of rogues who delegate their gravest responsibility and immaturely fail to follow the supreme law of the land and declare war. Second, America’s historical foreign policy actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan must be understood, which contain the true reasons why terrorists attacked the United States in 2001. Third, a sober look at the eco-politics of the area, such as opiates and oil pipelines, must be taken. Lastly, we should contain the problem by securing our borders, and with all of the economic unrest, now is no time to be nation-building and quartering troops in foreign lands.

The Problem of Osama Bin Laden

“The Congress shall have Power… to declare War [and] grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” – The Constitution of the United States, 1787-present. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11.

When America began bombing Afghanistan in November 2001 and expanded the “War of Terror” by commencing daily bombing of Pakistani villages in September 2008, both assaults were committed against sovereign states without a declaration of war, which is a constitutional requirement. The key justification related to the public for both wars was the tragic 9/11 attacks. The key goal related to the public for both wars was simply to capture Osama Bin Laden.

After having read the July 2004 9/11 Commission Report, there should be enough evidence to bring Bin Laden to trial for the 9/11 attacks. (1) Even though I believe Bin Laden was behind the attacks, a dispassionate observer would question why the following facts are not generally known by the American public:

Per the CIA’s FBIS, Bin Laden said in a public interview on September 18, 2001 that “I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States… Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks…” While he could certainly be lying, why would he deny responsibility? The entire point of terrorism is to advance a political cause through violence and fear. (2)
On their “Most Wanted” poster, the FBI does not specify that Bin Laden is wanted for trial in connection to the 9/11 attack which may mean that there is not enough hard or admissible evidence to try him in a court of law. (3)

However, the question of 9/11 responsibility is somewhat moot in the case of Bin Laden. Although he was a CIA “asset” in the proxy war fought against the Soviets in the 1980s, Bin Laden has been America’s enemy since 1998 when, on the anniversary of American troops to Bin Laden’s native Saudi Arabia, simultaneous bombings at US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 12 American citizens. (4A) (4B) The USS Cole suicide bombing which killed 17 American sailors while harbored in Yemen, and the 1993 World Trade Center garage explosion which killed 6 civilians are also tied to Bin Laden. (4A) (5) (6)

However, hurling armies of tens of thousands after Bin Laden is not cost effective, nor is it constitutional – nor has it succeeded after the past 8 years. Therefore I would support the raising the reward for the capture of Bin Laden from $27 million to over $1 billion, and the issuing of a constitutional letter of marque to bring him – and other responsible Al-Qaeda – to justice. Letters of marque and reprisal are warrants issued by Congress to specified parties giving them permission to commit what would otherwise be illegal acts as they capture “marked” enemies or seek retribution, as was done against the Barbary pirates in 1812. (7) The higher reward would incentivize groups to pursue Bin Laden, and could conceivably include US special forces.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are Unjust Wars

“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” – former President and Supreme Allied Commander in WWII Dwight D. Eisenhower

Besides a formal declaration of war, the “just war” doctrine specifies that wars cannot be preemptive; that there must be a just cause and innocent life must be in immediate jeopardy; that war must be a last resort after all diplomatic initiatives have failed; and it must be proportional in regards to the damage caused by the aggressor. (8)

Neither the Taliban nor Pakistan attacked the United States, and America was not in dire danger of an attack from either the Taliban or Pakistani military.

While the Taliban did shelter Bin Laden, the American government did not exhaust diplomacy – as a matter of fact, the government blindly ignored any efforts by the Taliban. On October 4, 2001, a Taliban plan to extradite Bin Laden to Pakistan for trial failed. (9) On October 7, as the bombing began, the Taliban stated they would place Bin Laden on trial in Afghanistan. (10) On October 14, the Taliban stated they would extradite Bin Laden to a third country for trial if America presented evidence of his involvement. (11)

Proportional? In 2001, 2,976 died during the 9/11 tragedy with 4 planes destroyed, 3 collapsed buildings in New York City, and a damaged Pentagon. In return, we have annihilated many tens of thousands of innocent civilians, many insurgents, and laid waste to countless cities and villages in a country that had no air force. If one includes the 19-year long Iraq War, several million civilian dead is a reasonable total. If this were somehow not enough, 5,278 American soldiers have died abroad. (12)

Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires: History on Brutal Rerun

“Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.” – George Santayana

The Russians, British, even Alexander the Great have all met with defeat in Afghanistan, where the allegiances of a motley collection of tribes and clans still shift like the wind. America’s present-day involvement did not start in 2001, but instead began in 1979. The Muslim rebels, including Bin Laden, were funded via a proxy war to bled the Soviet Empire dry a few years before its’ failed central economic planning would have accomplished the same feat. President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski – who later was an advisor for President Obama – related in a 1998 interview that America fomented unrest in Afghanistan by secretly funding the Mujahadeen well before the Soviets invaded. When Brzezinski was asked if he regretted funding Islamic fundamentalists and future terrorists, he replied, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” (13)

Brzezinski’s attitude was typical as America wiped its hands clean and left Afghanistan to tribal warfare which resulted in the Taliban consolidating power in the late 1990s. After fleeing Sudan, Osama Bin Laden found shelter with old contacts in the Northern Alliance and also the Taliban. As is related in the 9/11 Commission Report in chapters titled “The Attack Looms” and “The System Was Blinking Red,” America took very few actions to capture or kill Bin Laden until after 9/11 occurred. (14) However, even after 9/11 America was very hesitant to spend our soldiers’ lives. Consider:

On October 7, 2001 American and British air forces began the bombardment of Afghanistan, which had no air force. Air strikes directed by small British and American special forces units working alongside the Northern Alliance were the key reason the Taliban was defeated very quickly.

On November 13, Kabul was captured by Northern Alliance ground forces.

On November 26, Kunduz was captured by Northern Alliance ground forces.

In December the last major city of Kandahar was captured, also by Northern Alliance ground forces. (15)

During December 12-17 the infamous Battle of Tora Bora was fought in the mountains on the Afghanistan border. It is widely believed that this is when Bin Laden escaped to Pakistan. (16) (Photo)

So President Bush, despite any rhetoric to the contrary, did NOT allow American land forces to pursue him on land. In other words, we launched 150,000 troops over the Iraqi border in 2003 to capture Saddam Hussein, who was completely uninvolved with 9/11, but had only aerial bombardment and a few scant special op/CIA forces in Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden. Bush was content to let the Northern Alliance, a group of tribal warlords, fight a proxy war on our behalf. (17)

It wasn’t until March 2002 that a major ground campaign was launched by the US to attack Al-Qaeda, and this can be seen by just looking at the casualty list’s details – most of those who died up to March were non-hostile airplane crashes or special ops related deaths. The first US combat death was a CIA operative on November 25. (18)

Will America join the dead phalanxes of Alexander and the rusted tanks of the Soviets in the graveyard of empires? I do not think we should stay long enough to find out. We are spending $400 to deliver each gallon of gasoline to patrol foreign borders, and currently maintaining an expensive army of 68,000 troops in the field. (19) The current National Security Advisor James Jones claimed in October 2009 that there are “less than 100 [al Qaeda] operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.“ (20)

A Tale of Opiates and Oil

“The first casualty when war comes is the truth.” - Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917

These are two fairly taboo subjects when the Afghanistan War is covered by the mainstream press. How much each factor truly played in foreign policy decision-making is left to the reader to decide.

Per the most recent, highly detailed United Nations report, the opium crop is over twice the pre-invasion levels. In fact, up until the invasion in November 2001, the Taliban’s mission to eradicate the crop was well underway due to their religious beliefs as seen by the dramatic drop in this chart. (21) The claim that the invasion has slowed down the drug trade is false; the war has accomplished the exact opposite. This is a major cash market, with Afghanistan supplying over 90% of the world’s opiates.

The second topic is the geopolitics of oil. While Afghanistan itself does not have fossil fuels, the vast and fairly-untapped reservoirs of oil and natural gas lie in the former Soviet satellite nations on the Afghan northern border. The Caspian Sea region is landlocked and there are plans to pipe the resources out via a Turkish or an Afghani-Pakistani pipeline, but political instability makes this difficult. A modern “Great Game” of geopolitical power struggles with the Russian, Chinese, Indian and Iranian governments is well underway. (22)

Border Security and the Economy

For those who do not heed the Constitutional limits on government, the brutal lessons taught by history, the immorality of unjust war, here are another two attempts to reason – border security and the economic turmoil.

As a chemical engineer, in industry when attacking customer problems, the first step is always containment of the problem, followed by root cause analysis, then preventative actions. In the case of 9/11, the Bush II administration made a foolhardy leap directly to preventative action, and has still not contained the threat of terrorism. In fact, even the “root cause analysis” from the 9/11 Commission did not begin until 14 months AFTER 9/11 instead of on 9/12/2001. (23) Despite all the wasted bureaucracy in creating the monstrous $44-billion-a-year Department of Homeland Security, the American border is still a sieve with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese as evidenced by rampant illegal immigration. (24) Returning the overseas Defense Department troops back to actually defending our borders with civilian border patrol staffing access points is extremely crucial for two reasons – our border security and our budget.

We must extricate our country from the overseas military empire of well over 700 bases in 150 of the planet’s 194 countries costing well over $1 trillion before it is too late. (25) With unemployment raging at over 20% and the dollar currency in crisis, imperial overstretch will result in the further stripping from the false Keynesian economy of our capital equipment, businesses, and jobs. If we and our children are to have peace in our lifetimes, we must drop the silly notion of America serving as the “world’s policeman” and JUST BRING OUR TROOPS HOME.

What kind of “policeman” patrols city streets with tanks, assault rifles, automated Predator drones and calls in aerial bombing and strafing runs to “peacekeep” the neighborhood? Washington DC is full of warmongers, armchair generals and chicken hawks who have no idea what the horrors of war entail. If our country were truly in danger of being invaded, I would be among the first to protect my family and friends. (Photo courtesy Leon Kuhn. Used with permission.)

The enemies I have chosen to peacefully rise up against instead walk the halls of government. Errant foreign policies are to blame for 9/11 and any future acts of terrorism on our soil. In return for military and CIA meddling during the past century, America was hit on 9/11 by “blowback,” a CIA term coined to describe what goes around comes around. (26) Without our troops stationed on Saudi, Bahraini, Qatari, Kuwaiti, et cetera soil, continuous supply of arms to both Israeli and Arab factions, and continuous bombing of Iraq, and harsh sanctions on Iraq and Iran, we would not have been attacked on 9/11.

We must be far more wary of the reckless spenders who support the Warfare-Welfare state, the FED and corporatist bailouts than of desperate bands starving in caves on the opposite side of the world. The American republic was conceived in liberty and is dead in its grave until We the People decide to fight for our freedoms. While I draw breath I intend to see that liberty shall not perish under the heavy fist of this unconstitutional and illegal collection of rogues in government.

For freedom, justice, peace and prosperity,

Jake Towne

November 14, 2009

[Note: If you would like to find out what General McChrystal, commander of our forces suggests we do instead, here is his leaked and declassified report. While I had been hoping to find a logical, detailed alternative, unfortunately it reads like a poor high school book report that was turned in 8 years too late. The key takeaway is that “many indicators suggest the overall situation is deteriorating.” (page 5/66) Also recommended reading is the resignation letter of Iraq War veteran Matthew Hoh, who resigned rather then continue serving in Afghanistan, and Imperial Hubris, a book written by the CIA's Bin Laden unit's former head, Michael Scheuer.]

Source List

(1) The 9/11 Commission Report. 2004. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/index.htm

(2) FBIS Report. 2004. “Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004.” p. 191/289. http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ubl-fbis.pdf

(3) FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitive: Usama Bin Laden. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

(4A) The 9/11 Commission Report. 2004. Embassy attacks p. 132-8/585. USS Cole p. 207-14/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf

(4B) “1998 United States Embassy Bombings.“ Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings

(5) “USS Cole Bombing.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing

(6) “1993 World Trade Center Bombing.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombing

(7) Liberty Bell Center of Constitutional Studies. “What Are Letters of Marque and Reprisal?” http://www.lbccs.org/2009/11/what-are-letters-of-marque-and-reprisal.html

(8) “Just War.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War

(9) UK Telegraph. 4 October 2001. “Pakistan Blocks Bin Laden Trial.“ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/1358464/Pakistan-blocks-bin-Laden-trial.html

(10) CNN. 7 October 2001. “U.S. Rejects Taliban Offer to Try Bin Laden.“ http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.us.taliban/

(11) UK Guardian. 14 October 2001. “Bush Rejects Taliban Offer to Hand Bin Laden Over.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

(12) Antiwar.com. U.S. Military Casualty Count. http://antiwar.com/casualties/

(13) Le Nouvel Observateur. 1998. “Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

(14) The 9/11 Commission Report. 2004. p. 232-94/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf

(15) “Operation Enduring Freedom.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Enduring_Freedom

(16) “Battle of Tora Bora.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tora_Bora

(17) Bugliosi, Vincent. 2008. “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.” p. 214-219.

(18) iCasualties.org. “Operation Enduring Freedom Fatalities.” http://icasualties.org/OEF/Fatalities.aspx

(19) The Hill. October 2009. “$400 per Gallon Gas to Drive Debate over Cost of War in Afghanistan.” http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan-

(20) Washington Times. October 2009. “Obama Aide Downplays Extra Troops in Afghanistan.” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/05/afghan-attacks-add-to-call-for-more-troops//print/

(21) United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2009. “Afghanistan Opium Survey 2009 – Summary Findings.” p. 26/42. http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_opium_survey_2009_summary.pdf

(22) Johnson, Chalmers. 2004. “The Sorrows of Empire.”

(23) “9/11 Commission.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Commission

(24) White House. FY 2009 Budget. p. 83/342. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf

(25) Towne, Jake. 2009. “America’s Military Empire.“ http://towneforcongress.com/economy/americas-military-empire

(26) Johnson, Chalmers. 2001. “Blowback.”

A 4-page handout in PDF for printing out is below, backup download site is here.

Jake Towne for Congress – Afghanistan War Plank

http://towneforcongress.com/platform-issues/afghanistan-war

Our Open Office Plank

Aaron Emery — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:14:51 +0000

“When citizens speak, their Representative must listen completely. Across our land, the so-called “Representatives” have not troubled to listen to We the People, and this is a key reason our country is in such dire straits today.” – Jake Towne

September 9, 2009

Ever call or write your representative or senator? Ever wonder exactly how much effect it really had? Were you the only person who called, or were there hundreds more? Sure, the staffer might have tallied your call, but was your call really considered by your politician? The truth is stark. First, most of the time you truly have no real idea. Second, like it or not, your Democratic and Republican politician likes it this way.

When Establishment politicians talk “accountability” and “transparency,” these are often just empty buzzwords. As a servant of the people, I’ve come up with this simple yet novel concept, which I’ve nicknamed “Our Open Office.”

The key benefits of my proposal are:

Citizen Empowerment
- Each resident has a real public voice – to comment, vote, debate, and criticize
- Each constituent will have a way to publicly demand I address their ideas and concerns by submitting bills online
- Citizens can summon me to an “On Demand” town hall by reaching a threshold level on topics they feel I am not addressing timely enough or to their satisfaction
- By incorporating the feedback of specialists in different fields and interests, particularly with the bill submission ability, our office will be far more efficient with better ideas than other districts because our work force will be larger and more specialized. Those “working” outside of my office will be working voluntarily on issues that have the highest priority for them, empowering the individual citizen.
Accountability and Transparency
- All residents can receive a monthly report from my office detailing each house floor vote taken, each bill introduced, and each bill co-sponsored. Feedback from the forum will be summarized into this report. Most importantly, I, the representative, will be forced to outline WHY I voted each way.
- My office’s budget report will be publicized and readily available on the website so citizens can see how their tax dollars were spent.
- Empowering citizens to public discourse and enabling open, visible criticism and dissent of my actions makes me more accountable to the people.

Our Open Office consists of four simple parts. Here is how it works:

The first part is the Online Public Feedback & Debate Forum. Each resident of our district can create a login if they choose. A public moniker is chosen, which can be their real name or nickname by their choice. Comments from registered voters are flagged with an icon to denote their importance. Residents can sign up for email notifications on all issues, or just the issues they care most about.

Each House bill that is coming up for vote will have a webpage denoted for it. Residents can vote for or against bills, and leave comments or debate in the space below. Phone calls received at the office are tallied along with letters on the same page so everyone can see at a glance what the current opinion is.

Residents can also join topic-oriented forums and create debates on subjects they wish to discuss.

Those without internet access may visit the local office to use a terminal, request the current status or dictate comments manually when they call in by phone. Written letters and emails will be shared in the forum if the resident gives permission to share it.

The second part of Our Open Office is monthly reports. Each month a written monthly report will be issued by my office. It will include my position on each House floor vote, each bill co-sponsored, and each bill introduced. Most importantly, it will also include my reasoning so if residents disagree they can understand why. I will refer to the Forum’s public feedback as well, especially if cases occur where I voted in one direction and the Forum’s opinion was in the opposite direction. The office’s financial budget reports will also be included in these monthly reports.

The next part of Our Open Office is the online bill submission service. Each resident can exercise their right to petition the government and can suggest new legislation. The only requirements are that the drafter must provide justification for the bill and must either cite one of the powers of Congress in the Constitution or, if revoking a current law or act, its unconstitutionality. Once the resident’s bill proposal is submitted publicly, I am forced to publicly reply. I may either agree to introduce the bill, contact the drafter for more information or modification, submit the bill to the Forum for feedback, or reject the proposal. If rejected, I must disclose why.

I am very excited about the bill submission idea as it could allow us to multiply our office’s output many times. We may even need to organize ourselves to sell our ideas to citizens in other districts and organizations to get these bills passed, instead of relying on corrupt lobbyists and partisan deal-making.

The last part of Our Open Office is on-demand town hall discussions. Town halls will be offered in either teleconference format while Congress is in session and in local meeting areas when Congress is not in session. There are two formats – open Q&A sessions or a specific issued discussed followed by Q&A afterwards. However, residents will also have the ability to summon me, their servant, to a town hall on an issue that I fail to address quickly enough by reaching a certain threshold limit in the forum. These town halls will be in addition to frequent video and written updates from the office.

I would like to conclude with resident feedback which has been resoundingly positive. Many have even told me, “That’s exactly what I would do if I were elected.” The vast majority of people in our district are fed up with economic ruin the Establishment has caused with their havoc on economic and civil liberties. Almost everyone believes their representatives are no longer accountable to them, and they are correct. This concept will cure this ill!!!

FYI, I go into more detail on my motivation for this idea here, “The Concept of Our Open Office.”

Jake Towne for US Congress PA-15 – Our Open Office ONLY (Aug 2009)

From 02:00 to the end of this video clip, I discuss the Open Office concept with Clyde Cleveland, author of Common Sense Revisited.

http://towneforcongress.com/economy/our-open-office-plank-1

Iraq War

Aaron Emery — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:54:43 +0000

“The Congress shall have Power… to declare War.” – The Constitution of the United States, 1787-present. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” – James Madison, 1795

Summary: As Congressman, I will drive for a rapid immediate and orderly withdrawal from Iraq. Under no circumstances will I approve spending to extend this unconstitutional, preemptive war of aggression.

Besides creating new dollars to debase the currency and spending taxpayer funds to fund war during adverse economic times, here is my justification for this position:

First and foremost, without a declaration of war, the Iraq War is an unconstitutional and illegal war as it conflicts with the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. In dereliction of their duty and oaths of office, the House voted down by unanimous vote a motion in committee to follow the Constitution and declare war in H.R.J. 114, the bill that authorized Bush II to invade in March 2003. (1) (2)

Second, we must realize that the Iraq War is a grinding, continuous, 19-year long war. While I condemn Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, one must remember that as recently as 1984 the United States backed the regime and funded both Iraq and Iran (the infamous Iran-Contra Affair) during the blood-soaked Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988, which saw wide use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas and the nerve agent tabun. In 1994, Senator Riegle’s report revealed that America armed Iraq with anthrax, botulinum and many other chemical weapons that were “not attenuated or weakened” and “capable of reproduction.” (3) (4) (5) (6A) (6B) (7)

The Iraq War can be divided into three parts. (8) (photo)

Phase 1: The attack to remove the Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait took place with broad international support and United Nations approval from 1990-1991. Osama bin Laden, our former-ally-turned-terrorist who disapproved of Hussein’s secular (non-religious) rule, even offered to invade with his mujahideen. (9)

Phase 2: From 1992-2002, the Iraqi people suffered under isolating economic sanctions, loss of its airspace to a militarized “no-fly” zone (which never had UN approval and was called “illegal” by the head of the UN), and was repeatedly bombed by the US Air Force. Under Clinton, these instances include the launch of 23 Tomahawk missiles to demolish Intelligence Headquarters in Baghdad in 1993 and a major bombing mission in 1998. Under Bush II and before H.R.J. 114 was even passed, a joint US-UK airstrike involving 100 warplanes was carried out in September 2002 with next-to-no media coverage. Britain’s Ministry of Defense alone reported dropping well over 300,000 pounds of ordnance during 2002. (10) (11) (12) (13) (14)

While the bombs dropped, the harsh economic sanctions led by the United States led to starving among the Iraqi people, as the US State Department demonstrated in their 2002 report. (15)

Phase 3: In March 2003, America and a coalition of nations invaded Iraq in violation of their UN charters and the US Constitution without an acts of aggression committed by Iraq. As of October 2009, 4,348 American servicemen and women have died so far in the occupation. The minimal number of Iraqi civilian deaths lies between 93,000 to 102,000 per Iraq Body Count. Extrapolations from the study by the medical journal Lancet give estimates of 1.2 to 1.3 million civilian deaths from a 2003 population of roughly 25 million. On a percentage basis, this is the rough equivalent of 13 million deaths if the war had took place in America. (16) (17) (18) (19) (20)

The Bush II regime gave the following two excuses for invading Iraq and occupying it from 2003 to present. First, they said that Iraq supported Al-Qaeda. Second, they said Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” These claims were not only false, but were lies.

“We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks.”

- President George Bush to US Congress, September 2003 (21)

“I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true.”

- former Vice President, Halliburton CEO and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, June 2009 (22)

In 2008, a study concluded that the Bush II regime publicly made 935 false claims concerning Al-Qaeda’s ties to Iraq and weapons of mass destruction with Bush II uttering 260 falsehoods, Secretary Colin Powell 254, and Vice President Dick Cheney 48. Furthermore, while Bush II was terrifying the American people of being attacked by Hussein and Bin Laden on a daily basis throughout 2002, in September of 2002 the CIA sheepishly reported that they had not updated the National Intelligence Estimate since 2000 with an assessment of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacities. (23) (24)

This lack of intelligence did not stop Colin Powell from lying to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 stating he had “solid sources” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that his testimony was “not assertions” but instead “facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” Powell terrorized the UN, falsely claiming that Hussein was still armed with anthrax (which, remember, America exported to Iraq in the 1980s) and was intent on committing acts of terrorism. His chief of staff later testified Powell was not speaking the truth. [Powell also 'whitewashed' the truth about infamous My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.] (25) (26)

We should not have the temerity to fool ourselves into believing that garrisons and “police actions” in Iraq are helpful in any way. Think about how many Americans would revolt if a foreign nation were to have garrisons in our country! Iraq belongs to the Iraqis, not to us. Instead of more bombs, bullets, and sanctions, America should offer Iraq peace, honest friendship, and peaceful trade. These can best be obtained by a rapid, immediate, and orderly withdrawal from Iraq.

American troops should JUST COME HOME. Even if the annual $1+ trillion military empire was economically sustainable, there is no rational reason to continue America’s style of gunboat diplomacy. WWII and the Korean War ended 60 years ago. Leave Germany to the Germans. Leave Japan to the Japanese. Leave Italy to the Italians. Congress should immediately bring home the 113,242 troops stationed in these three countries along with all others. (27) (28)

Concerning foreign policy, we must face facts. There has been no real change since President Obama took office except for an escalation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan War. Obama will shortly sign in existence the largest war budget in the history of the world, $680 billion dollars. This bill will increase the size of active-duty combat troops by 40,200 next year, inline with Obama’s campaign promise to add 92,000 troops in his first term. (29) (30)

America today faces a time of maximum danger where continued warring will bleed us dry and bankrupt our treasury. The freedoms our founding fathers died protecting are heavily eroded. But the dire threat to liberty comes not from cowards living in caves in Pakistan. The dinosaur career politicians in office today represent the true threat. They are dragging We the People along a path not unlike that of the USSR during the 1980s. The Soviet Union collapsed for two basic reasons – an unsustainable economy ruled by central planners and imperial overstretch.

Conceived in liberty, America is yet a wealthy nation in comparison to the rest of the world, but time runs thin. We must restore the constitutional Republic before it is too late. Wars rarely result in more freedoms, and the Revolution of 1776 was one of these few. The time has arrived for another revolution at the ballot box.

For the Republic!

Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution

October 14, 2009

Note: Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War, was CEO of Halliburton from 1995-2000. While bombs were still dropping on Iraq, Halliburton assisted with putting out the oil fires. The Washington Post reported “Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer.”(31)

Note: Even if a claim that a nation possesses “weapons of mass destruction” is true, this is not grounds enough to invade it. Likewise, by no means is preemptive war excusable on the pretext of a mere possibility of aggression. The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights — life, liberty, and justly acquired property — against aggression. Many nation-states seek to arm themselves because they wish to defend themselves. Obviously, the United States and most developed nations themselves possess “weapons of mass destruction.”

Source List

The Constitution of the United States. 1787-present. http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
House Joint Resolution 114, Authorization of Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj107-114
Iran-Iraq War. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
Iran-Contra Affair. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
Senator Riegle’s Report. 1994. “FORWARD DEPLOYMENT OF IRAQI CHEMICAL AGENTS DURING THE PERSIAN GULF WAR.” http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r103:1:./temp/~r103jEfsjZ::
Senator Riegle’s Report. 1994. Main page. http://www.gulfweb.org/report/riegle1.html Section with list of chemicals exported to Iraq from America, including anthrax and botulinum. http://www.gulfweb.org/report/r_1_2.html
Ali, Javel. 2001. “Chemical Weapons and the Iran-Iraq: A Study in Non-Compliance.” Tabun and mustard gas, page 6/16. http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/81ali.pdf
King, John. Photo of Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. Late 2003. http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
9/11 Commission Report. p. 74/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf
Iraqi No-Fly Zones. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones
9/11 Commission Report. p. 115/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf
Ibid. p. 137/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf
Scahill, Jeremy. 2005. “The Other Bomb Drops.” The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050613/scahill
Smith, Michael. 2005. “The War Before the War.” The New Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/200505300013
US State Department. 2002. “Iraq: A Population Silenced.“ p. 12/15. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/16059.pdf
Antiwar.com. US Soldier Deaths Count. http://antiwar.com/casualties/
Iraq Body Count. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Lancet. 2006. Mortality in Iraq. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2807%2960062-2/fulltext
Thieren, Michel. 2008. “Deaths in Iraq: How Many and Why It Matters.“ http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-iraq/iraq_deaths_4011.jsp
Just Foreign Policy. Iraq Deaths. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
BBC. 2003. “Bush rejects Saddam 9/11 link.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3118262.stm
CNN. 2009. “Cheney: No Link Between Saddam Hussein, 9/11.” http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/01/cheney.speech/
CNN. 2008. “Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war.” http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/
Schmitt, Eric and Alison Mitchell. 2002. “US Lacks Up-to-Date Review of Iraqi Arms.” http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/middleeast/11IRAQ.html
Towne, Jake. 2008. “My Father’s Vietnam is My Iraq – Disturbing Parallels.“ http://www.nolanchart.com/article3436.html
Youtube. Wilkerson, Lawrence. 2007. Testimony about Colin Powell’s presentation on Iraq from his former Chief of Staff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwdsm-Oux4o
Higgs, Robert. 2007. ”The Trillion Dollar Defense Budget is Already Here.” http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941
Towne, Jake. 2009. “America’s Military Empire.” http://towneforcongress.com/economy/americas-military-empire
House Resolution 2647. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2647
Towne, Jake. 2009. “Barack Obama, Elinor Ostrom, and the Nobel Prize, Part 1/2.” http://towneforcongress.com/economy/barack-obama-elinor-ostrom-and-the-nobel-prize-part-12
Drutman, Lee and Cray, Charlie. 2003. “Cheney, Halliburton, and the Spoils of War.“ http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6288

A 2-page handout of the above is available for printing out below or from here.

Jake Towne for Congress – Iraq War Plank

_______________________________________________________________________

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Veritas numquam perit. Veritas odit moras. Veritas vincit. Truth never perishes. Truth hates delay. Truth conquers.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.

For those wishing to learn more about a foreign policy of non-intervention to decide for themselves, I heartily recommend Blowback by Chalmers Johnson which was originally written just months before the 9/11 attack in 2001. The Council on Foreign Relations called it a “comic book” prior to 9/11, and unfortunately the research presented by Chalmers is true.

http://towneforcongress.com/platform-issues/iraq-war

Right to Bear Arms

Aaron Emery — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 02:32:33 +0000

Right to Bear Arms Plank

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.“

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.“

- The Second and Tenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

At no point would I vote for limits of any sort on the right to bear arms as a federal congressman. There is simply no authorization in the Constitution that delegates this power from the people and the states to United States Congress. States and localities can decide details for themselves based on state constitutions, local preferences, and the U.S. constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.

As for my personal view, I have spent several years of my life in China, which bans guns, and this changed how I personally view this issue. There are four exceptions to China’s rule, and the first three naturally belong to the State. The power to use force against citizens is retained by the armed forces, the police, and the banks’ security personnel who transfer the paper currency.

China’s fourth exception is, of course, the criminal class, and they are not disposed to leaving victims alive since the penalties (if caught) are severe. I believe Americans should always be very wary of efforts, especially good-intentioned ones, to regulate the right to own guns and bear arms. One should always remember that unscrupulous individuals, just like criminals in China and everywhere else for that matter, will always avoid and find ways to violate the legislation as they commit theft and assaults.

I believe the only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights life, liberty, and justly acquired property against aggression. I also respect the natural rights of those who do not bear arms, and the rights of individuals to forbid the presence of arms in their homes or privately-owned places of business or worship. I am against prior federal acts to control gun ownership as the consequences are often unintended.

Let me be clear and speak plainly. The Second Amendment is NOT about shooting game or even defending your home. It is not even about retaliating when assaulted by criminals; these are all protected de facto. Read it again: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Second Amendment protects your natural right to freedom from tyranny by using force. It matters not if the tyrants come from our own government.

August 25, 2009

Jake Towne for Congress – Right to Bear Arms Handout

http://towneforcongress.com/platform-issues/right-to-bear-arms

Our Veterans

Aaron Emery — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:59:19 +0000

Veterans Plank

“Soldiers’ supreme wish is to avoid war, for the costs are inevitably paid with their blood and brains.“ – Jake Towne

There is no end in sight to the occupation of Iraq. Under President Obama, the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are accelerating. I believe that spending cuts have to be made everywhere in government if we are to curb errant spending and inflation from the FED, even including the Veterans Affairs Administration. The VA is a large government bureaucracy run much like a DMV to provide health care and benefits to our veterans. Long lines at VA hospitals, long waiting periods to receive benefits, poor treatment and bureaucratic red tape have plagued the VA for years. The federal Congress is constitutionally responsible for raising armies and navies, they are also responsible for providing care and benefits in return for the veteran’s willingness to place his body into harm’s way. There are several areas where free market principles can be applied to both increase the quality of care and options for our veterans and yet still cut costs.

Veterans Affairs Administration Budget (source)

2001 Fiscal Year Budget - $48 billion

2008 Fiscal Year Budget - $91 billion

Estimated 2009 Fiscal Year Budget - $98 billion (+7% from 2008)

Proposed 2010 Fiscal Year Budget - $113 billion (+15% from 2009, +134% from 2001)

Health Care

Health care and maintenance of VA medical facilities comprises 42.5% or approximately $45 billion of the proposed 2010 VA budget. I would like to remark here that, unlike the health care for private citizens, this particular area is different. We the People have made a contract with our veterans which states that they receive health care as part of their compensation for serving the common defense. Not only is this a moral contract, but it is fully constitutional per Article 1, Section 8 which states: “Congress shall have the power… to raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years [and] to provide and maintain a Navy.”

Many veterans suffer for their lifetimes from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), missing limbs, brain injuries, and other maladies. Health care should never be lessened or denied to these vets, but there are ways to cut costs and improve care at the same time. I want to add here that while I am fiscally quite conservative, the actual care provided to our veterans is not an area where I would skimp at all, but why waste money on bureaucracy?

Most veterans are required to travel to far-away VA hospitals to obtain treatment and medicine in facilities that are very sub-par, like the infamous Walter Reed scandal in 2007. In fact, rural heath initiatives to treat vets who live far from metro areas for the 2010 Fiscal Year budget alone increased by 633% to nearly a half billion dollars! (page 2/3) Instead of requiring veterans to go to the relatively few VA hospitals, they should be free to go to ANY existing hospital and a doctor of their choosing for treatment. Doctors currently practicing in VA hospitals would slowly be absorbed into existing hospitals and would therefore still be able to specialize in the treatment of unique, veteran-related medical conditions. This would also prevent long travel time to vets in rural areas and would be far more economically efficient.

Hospitals generally have fixed costs which include utilities, equipment cost and maintenance, and salaries. These costs are the same whether or not a hospital treats a few additional patients. Therefore, the additional marginal cost of treating vets at existing non-VA hospitals is far less than maintaining entire facilities rife with bureaucracy.

After this conversion process is complete, the existing VA facilities could be phased out and sold to private business in order to recoup costs associated with the transition.

Employment

Veterans often face difficulty in obtaining proper employment upon retirement or separation from the military. In order to expedite the process of obtaining employment a temporary federal income tax credit could be granted to employers who hire veterans this is a zero-cost benefit to veterans and employers alike and the money saved by companies employing vets would be put to better use, helping those businesses and the economy thrive.

The Combat Veterans Debt Elimination Act HR 5148

If a service member dies in combat and has previously collected GI Bill benefits, the family of the deceased is required to repay those benefits to the VA. So far the VA has attempted to recover over $56,000 from the families of 22 deceased service members. This is a complete travesty and should be stopped immediately with any money repaid thus far immediately given back to the families. The text for HR 5148 prohibits “the Secretary of Veterans Affairs from collecting certain debts owed to the United States by members of the Armed Forces and veterans who die as a result of an injury incurred or aggravated on active duty in a combat zone.” This would provide much-needed peace to the families of the deceased.

Refusal to Participate in Unconstitutional War

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to declare war, not the President. The United States of America has not declared war since 1941, and since the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, the current wars are both unconstitutional.

I support dismissing any criminal charges against veterans, current service members, and civilians who have refused to participate in any unconstitutional military action. All service members swear an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.” Any person refusing to violate the tenets of our Constitution by participating in unconstitutional warfare are fulfilling their oaths, and it is an outrage that any be tried in a court like a petty criminal. This includes, but is not limited to, America’s past military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Korea and Vietnam.

As Congressman, I would file a resolution to the executive branch that all veterans found guilty previously be pardoned immediately, and legislation to clarify that soldiers are not required to participate in unconstitutional warfare.

Military Draft

Forced military service is an affront to our liberties and rights and should never exist in a free society. History has shown that when faced with a threat against our homeland Americans respond and volunteer to defend our country. Unjust wars and foreign occupations, on the other hand, have shown a lack of support and usually result in a military draft.

Drafting males or females to join the military in non-combat roles is likewise morally wrong. Being an accomplice to forced aggression is morally only marginally better than committing the aggression itself. (As can be seen in the “Philosophy of Liberty“) This statement holds true whether the individual is a cook, mechanic, stationed in a peacekeeping role in the homeland, or a POW guard all are helping in the war effort, and throughout history armies have always needed just as many or more support personnel.

Likewise, the event of an imminent physical invasion (or a multitude of terrorist attacks) is no justification for a draft either. Individuals should be allowed to join the armed forces in a nation’s time of need of their own free will. In a truly free nation, it is my belief that there will be no need for a draft as We the People would gather to defend our freedoms from being stolen, our wealth plundered, and to protect our families.

The idea of using young people between the ages of 18 and 21 as raw material or cannon fodder is likewise morally unacceptable. In today’s America, it is my view, as a young American, that these years are certainly not those of childhood, but for the wide majority of 18-21-year-old Americans, I charge they are still in their formative ‘self-seeking’ years, sent into harm’s way by those a decade or more older. For those who have already gone to college, do you remember how your life changed before and after college? Were you really mature enough to fight a brutal war? (Is one ever?) Our societies’ laws defy logic in that a person is old enough to be forced to fight a war but is not yet old enough to legally drink an alcoholic beverage.

Furthermore, forcing an individual to serve in the armed forces when they do not wish to do so is clearly involuntary servitude and as such is a blatant violation of the 13th Amendment.

As Congressman, I pledge to fight against any and all future attempts to institute a military draft, and I will attempt to specifically ban military drafts.

Individual Ready Reserve

The Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) is a pool of vets who have not yet completed eight years in the military. All service members are subject to eight (8) mandatory years of service upon entry and any of that time not served on active duty or in the reserves is spent in the IRR. Vets who have completed any length of service, up to 7 years and 364 days, are subject to recall by the military at any time up until the last day of their 8-year term.

This is a glorified form of a backdoor draft and is no way to thank our veterans for their service. As of March 2009, orders had been issued to 26,954 members of the IRR since September 2001. These numbers only reflect that of the Army, not the other services. Only 48% of those recalled have actually reported for duty. This is an illustration of the level of support these wars have among recent veterans.

As Congressman, I support ending the IRR mandatory service requirement immediately.

Conclusion

Service members shoulder a heavy burden when they volunteer to risk their lives in defense of our country. They perform a necessary function in our society and for their service veterans receive deserved benefits and gratitude. However, the greatest way to honor them is to keep them out of unnecessary conflict. The only just war is one carried out in self-defense, as a non-aggressor, and as a last resort.

It’s important that we have a strong military to deter attacks against the our country and protect it when attacked. However, asking our young men and women to participate in unjust war is a moral abyss that we as a country should never leap into. If we aspire to be a just nation ruled by laws we must resolve to never ask our military men and women to engage in unconstitutional warfare and nation-building missions.

September 11, 2009. Special thanks for this plank goes to former Staff Sergeant Aaron Emery, United States Army, who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Aaron was recalled under the IRR and has been decorated and honorably discharged twice – both before and after being recalled.

“Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them, must share the guilt for the dead... Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.”

- Five-Star General of the Army Omar Bradley, WWII veteran and Head of Veterans Affairs from 1946-1947

A 2-page handout for printing out is below, backup site is here.

Jake Towne for Congress – Veterans Plank

Health Care

Aaron Emery — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:53:05 +0000

Health Care Plank

“A time came when the only people who had ever been free began to ask: ‘What is freedom?’ ” – from The People’s Pottage

Summary: Our health care is simply too important to be left to bureaucrats in Washington, plus it is unconstitutional. I strongly disapprove of the Democrats’ Obamacare and also the incumbent Republican’s “Medical Rights and Reform Act” as both are simply matching strains of the same disease – socialized medicine. (1) (2) (3) (symbol) Congress, via the HMO Act of 1973 and other acts, has created a government-sponsored insurance cartel that does not serve consumers best.

Beyond establishing a framework of laws and acts for a competitive free market, running health care is simply not a duty of the federal government, and is best left to individuals and privatized insurance. While the federal government should do it’s best to deliver the promised benefits from the current form of socialized medicine, Medicare, expanding this system is out of the question. Younger generations should be given the opportunity to opt out as Medicare’s total unfunded liabilities were $85 trillion in 2008. (4)

If elected, I will not enroll in Congress’s elite health care plan. Citizens should be wary of politicians who plot to control their constituents’ health care, but will not and do not enroll in it themselves.

Why You Should Oppose Government-Run Health Care

Government-run health care, also known as socialized medicine, also called ObamaCare, is an unsustainable idea and is an erosion of personal freedom. Health care is much too important to be run by the government. The services and products that are most abundant and affordable in America are those that are produced and exchanged in a free market. Health care is no different.

People who are concerned with their freedom, the cost of health care, the availability of health care in their community, and the truth, should never allow the government to control any part of health care delivery.

Here are some basic facts about health care. This is not wishful thinking or hopeful bureaucratic programming. Below is a list of references which go into more detail.

Rationing and Price Controls Result in Higher Costs and Less Care

With government-run health care, your health care will be as successful as Amtrak and as efficient and well-run as the U.S. Postal Service. Rationing and price controls will be necessary to make the system run. That results in less available care, fewer health care providers, and higher costs, plain and simple. Government is already heavily involved in our health care delivery, which is why it is so expensive. We don’t want to make it worse with more Government. (5) (6) (photo)

With government-run health care, the best health care available in the world (ours!!) will be reduced to the level of a third-world country’s medical care. Why? Because in any socialized system for any commodity, rationing occurs. The available service must be apportioned, or “spread out,” to cover everyone. And who will get to decide who gets priority for these services? Not you, not your health care provider, not your family, but some bureaucrat in the Federal Government. Who are the most likely to be rationed? If Europe is a model, then those who are unemployed or elderly are the top targets.

More Coverage Does Not Equal More Health Care

The national socialist plan is advertised by the Obama administration as increasing health-insurance coverage for everyone, especially those who are presently uninsured. However, due to the basic economic laws of supply and demand, this does not guarantee increased health care. “Coverage” does not necessarily mean that there will be a doctor or hospital room waiting for you when you need one. In fact, as mentioned above, when government funds the “coverage” it is inevitable that there will be less health care and less access to it. (7)

The HMO Act of 1973

President Richard Nixon sold out the American people after he sponsored the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. Nixon was famously told that “all the incentives [of HMOs] are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make and all the incentives run the right way.” (8) (9) (photo)

The HMO Act of 1973 required employers with 25 or more employees to offer federally certified options and mandated that only care could be rendered by HMO doctors and other professionals who have agreed to treat patients in accordance with the HMO’s guidelines and restrictions in exchange for a steady stream of customers. The businesses – but not individuals – could deduct the cost of health care premiums from their taxes. (10)

We should always keep in mind that the inefficient HMO structure did not arise out of the free market, but rather was forced into existence by the Nixon administration. Prior to HMOs, we did not have today’s technology but our health care system was unquestionably the best in the world. Our doctors and hospitals were the best, our patients were treated with excellent and affordable care, and thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients per the Hippocratic oath and, when possible, curing them as quickly as possible, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and insurance was only for major illnesses or accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment, rather than an HMO, Medicare or other government programs. (11)

Health Care’s Like a Box of Chocolates: The Candy Store Analogy

Imagine for a moment you own a candy store. You work hard to find all the best suppliers and employees and to make your prices competitive so you can increase the size of your business and profit.

However, several people eat way too much chocolate and start getting health problems. After several lawsuits, your candy store is faced with two choices: either increase your prices, or go out of business. You choose to increase the cost of your chocolate.

The government decides that you are overcharging people for chocolate. They decide that the best thing to do, is to open a new candy store which will guarantee cheaper prices. They lower their prices to an amount that is well under what you are now able to charge since you got hit with all those lawsuits.

Very shortly, most people decide to buy chocolate from the government-run candy store because it is cheaper. Whether someone sues the government store or not is immaterial; it will not fail. A government-run business can go way past a state of bankruptcy and has no potential of being beaten. It can keep prices down until it is the only option left. Then, with no competitor, they can carry any quality of chocolate they wish. If they want to balance their budget, they can simply offer a much lower quality of chocolate because they have no competition.

In short, if anyone wants chocolate they are now stuck with only the government candy store, who has no reason or motive to provide quality chocolate.

Is this healthy competition? No, this is a serious problem. We are not dealing with chocolate. We are dealing with people’s lives. Once this system is in place, it will be nearly impossible to destroy the nationalized, socialized medicine program without hurting millions of Americans. Even worse is the fact that millions of Americans will be hurting more WITH it in place. This is what is called a “lose-lose” situation.

The answer? Why not protect the candy stores from frivolous lawsuits in the first place? Why not offer tax relief for those paying private health care premiums to encourage private health care? (photo courtesy Andre Karwath license)

Health Care Is Not Exempt From The Laws of Economics

From the Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2005:

“The larger lesson here is that health care isn’t immune from the laws of economics. Politicians can’t wave a wand and provide equal coverage for all merely by declaring medical care to be a “right,” in the word that is currently popular on the American left.

“There are only two ways to allocate any good or service: through prices, as is done in a market economy, or lines dictated by government, as in Canada’s system. The socialist claim is that a single-payer system is more equal than one based on prices, but last week’s court decision reveals that as an illusion. Or, to put it another way, Canadian health care is equal only in its shared scarcity.” (12)

Socialized health care gives government the power to control prices and to control available medical procedures. Price control is not only an affront to freedom, it actually makes health care less accessible. When a caregiver is limited to charging a certain price, fewer individuals will want to be doctors. The current doctors will retire early and younger potential entrants to the field will be discouraged from doing so, as well as taking on the debt of medical school. The end result is that the profession will attract less talented individuals. Fewer doctors equal less care for the population. This is quite simple, and is evident in anything that government regulates. (13) (photo)

It’s also crucial to note that rising health care costs are also due to inflation, the expanding of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. Inflation is a hidden tax enacted by DC to stealthily steal the purchasing power from your wallet. Since the government steals at a faster rate than wages increase, each year we have to trade in a larger share of our incomes to obtain the same amount of health care. With a sound currency, monetary inflation would be neglible. Read “The Real Interest Rate” to have a clearer understanding of the magnitude of inflation during the last 30 years.

Also, the idea of socialized medicine is nothing new. In 1950, the American Medical Association wrote:

“The mass-production methods of factory assembly lines are applied to sick human beings… Speed, uniformity, and mediocrity become the order of the day. There is no time for careful diagnosis and treatment, individual attention and medical excellence.” and…

“If the medical profession should be socialized because people need doctors, why not the milk industry? Certainly more people need milk every day than need doctors. On the same erroneous premise, why not the corner grocery? Adequate diet is the very basis of good health! Why not nationalize lawyers, miners, businessmen, farmers?” (14)

Of course the USSR did exactly this, and their road to serfdom resulted in disaster, which brings me to my closing points.

Federal Health Care is Unconstitutional and is NOT a Right

Lastly and importantly, as a federal Congressman I will give an oath to obey the Constitution. Well, there is simply nothing in the Constitution of the United States that delegates the power to federal Congress to legislate on this matter. (15) At least in the Bill of Rights of the Soviet Union, they were more honest about health care – it states that “citizens of the USSR have the right to health protection.” This document also stipulated Soviet citizens have the “right to work” not longer than 41 hours in a workweek, the “right to rest and leisure,” the “right to education,” the “right to enjoy cultural benefits.” (16) (photo)

The Soviet Union had it all wrong of course. Health care is not a right. People must pay for things like health care. Health care providers have bills to pay and families to support, just as you do. If there is a “right” to health care, then you must have the ability to force health care providers, or exert force indirectly on them by using the government, to serve you. Therefore health care is a privilege, a good and service that everyone pays for. As Dr. Ron Paul notes:

“Obviously, if health care providers were suddenly considered outright slaves to health care consumers, our medical schools would quickly empty. As the government continues to convince us that health care is a right instead of a good, it also very generously agrees to step in as middle man. Politicians can be very good at making it sound as if health care will be free for everybody. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration doesn’t want you to think too much about how hospitals will be funded, or how you will somehow get something for nothing in the health care arena.” (17)

Furthermore, a true concern is to provide health CARE (not insurance) to the poor. While I believe a true privatized system would provide this too, I point out that the EMTALA Act of 1986 ALREADY provides care to those unable to pay. Under EMTALA, virtually all hospitals are prevented from rejecting patients, refusing to treat them, or transferring them to “charity hospitals” or “county hospitals” because they are unable to pay or are covered under Medicaid/Medicare by the force of government. (18) (19) (19-B)

The “50 Laboratories” Model

For those who remain unconvinced by the above, my final argument is if we really do decide we want national socialized medicine, then a successful state health care experiment should precede it. With the fragile state of our economy today, what is the sense in risking a possible national disaster? Is not the far more prudent path to first see a state or group of states first succeed before proceeding to nationalization? Why do we not use our 50 States as “50 Laboratories”? This would provide us with the following:

A real-life feasibility study.
If there is success, some valuable lessons on optimization would be learned from any mistakes and generate confidence in the plan
Disaster proofing – we do not run the risk of failing the whole country on any given idea all at once (20)

So far, only the experiment in Massachusetts for the last 3 years qualifies, but the results are not pretty. The Cato Institute found that – although Massachusetts politicians promised that the insurance mandate would reduce medical costs and drop health insurance premiums by 25-40% – instead this has happened:

Premiums rose by 7.4% in 2007, 8-12% in 2008, and are expected to rise 9% this year
This compares to an average nationwide increase of only 5.7% over the same period
Annual health insurance costs for a family in Massachusetts average about $4,000 more than the national rate
Health care spending has also increased in Massachusetts by 23% since the coverage mandate was enacted (20)

What I Would Do As Congressman

If citizens are in favor, I would introduce tax relief legislation to allow individuals and families to reduce their federal income tax nearly dollar-for-dollar by the amounts they spend out-of-pocket on private health care premiums. This would help make private health care a more affordable option for everyone.

I would introduce a bill to reduce federal income taxes dollar-for-dollar by amounts spent out-of-pocket by parents for their children with terminal illnesses, major disabilities or cancer. How silly is it that the government helped finance the housing boom through mortgage credits, but has no mercy when it comes to a truer form of wealth, our children? Parents in such situations would greatly benefit from such a tax relief.

Similarly, I would introduce a bill to suspend the obligation of individuals suffering from terminal illness or cancer to continue paying the Social Security tax on their income. What could be more heartless than forcing a person to continue paying Social Security money they will never see while they are sick and need every dollar to survive?

While I condemn frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits, there are certainly sad cases where individuals are harmed physically, mentally, or economically either by health care providers or insurance companies. However, liability and contract law are the responsibility of the state Congress of Pennsylvania, not DC. Of course, the right of individuals to seek recourse in state courts should not be infringed, but it is the responsibility of the state Congress to determine how best to discard frivolous lawsuits and procedurally balance the rightful reparation for plaintiffs with the need for reason in judgments against defendants.

One of the constitutional responsibilities of Congress is to “regulate Commerce… among the several States.” Currently there is no state portability over state lines due in large part to the crippling state mandate system. (21) (22) This means major health care insurers must subdivide into 50 companies to cover each state, which is fairly ridiculous. I am for portability over state lines, although I must remark that using the Commerce Clause as justification for “essentially unlimited power” over health care (from House Speaker Pelosi) is completely false, see my article “To Nancy Pelosi on Health Care – Are You Serious?” (23)

THE BOTTOM LINE: Your health is too important to be in the hands of bureaucrats who can’t even balance a budget.

Health care, like everything else, becomes more available and affordable when it is allowed to flourish in the free market. It attracts more talented practitioners to your community when it is left to private enterprise. The free market encourages advances in medicine, invites more willing practitioners to the field, and allows for consumer demand to be met by ambitious, free people. Don’t let bureaucrats control this essential part of your life!

*** A big thank you goes to volunteer advisors Maria Folsom and Erik Gumbrecht for their significant contributions to the above. For a full list of my proposed solutions, please read “Health Care Solutions.”

References:

(1) Text of the Democrat’s “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” HR 3200

(2) McKalip, Dr. David. July 2009. “Stop Obamacare Now!“

(3) The incumbent Republican’s Socialized Medicine plan, the “Medical Rights and Reform Act” will “foster state innovation through insurance market reforms, high-risk pools, community health networks, and new association options for small businesses” and promises to socialize medicine by “giving low-income families the option to use public funds to purchase private health insurance plans.” LINK

(4) Fisher, Richard. 2008. “Storms on the Horizon.“

(5) Forty years ago, the government bought Amtrak, and initially they were supposed to be out of the passenger rail business after 3 years. Many billions of dollars later, the federal government still operates Amtrak at a loss, despite the fact that they have created a monopoly by making it illegal to compete with Amtrak. Many Americans have never even taken an intercity train in their lives.

(6) Hart, Ron. May 2009. “Health Care Hijacking.“

(7) Dalmia, Shikha. May 2009. “Obama’s Health Care Quackery.”

(8) Wikisource. 1971. “Transcript of Taped Conversation between President Richard Nixon and John Ehrlichman that led to the HMO Act of 1973.”

(9) Youtube. 2009. Audio of Conversation between President Richard Nixon and John Ehrlichman that led to the HMO Act of 1973.

(10) Wikipedia. July 2009. “Health Maintenance Organization.“

(11) Paul, Dr. Ron. 2006. “Lowering the Cost of Health Care.“

(12) Wall Street Journal. 2005. “Unsocialized Medicine.“

(13) Moffit, Dr. Robert and Nina Owcharenko. 2008. “The Obama Health Care Plan: More Power to Washington.“

(14) American Medical Association. 1950. “The Voluntary Way is the American Way.“

(15) The Constitution of the United States. 1787 to present.

(16) The Constitution of the USSR. 1977. Soviet citizens also had the “right to submit proposals to state bodies and public organisations for improving their activity, and to criticize shortcomings in their work.” Sardonically, “persecution for criticism [was] prohibited.” Tell that to a survivor of the gulags.

(17) Paul, Dr. Ron. July 2009. “Health Care is a Good, Not a Right.“

(18) FAQ on EMTALA, Question #1.

(19) Pipes, Sally. 2008. The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen’s Guide. Pacific Research Institute. See Myth #8.

(19-B) Towne, Jake. December 2009. ”Health Care is NOT a Right.”

(20) Towne, Jake. June 2009. “The ’50 Laboratories’ Model.”

I also want to add a special note on state health care mandates. These are a major factor in driving up the cost of premiums – most states are between 18-40%. While the intention of adding these mandates was “benign,” the end result is you are paying the insurance costs on some items that you do not need or want; in some cases, you are just paying for the insurance of others.

In the state of Pennsylvania, our state legislature mandates that you must pay 70 mandates, including insurance for diabetic supplies, autism, cleft palate, chemotherapy, mental health parity, telemedicine, chiropractor, optometrist, drug abuse counselor, and many more. The mandates for Pennsylvania are estimated at >>19%, probably closer to 40% of your total premium. The logic follows that if you do not need or want this insurance, you should not be forced to pay for it. (21) (22)

(21) Roche, Shelly. 2009. “State Mandates and Health Insurance.”

(22) Council for Affordable Health Insurance. 2009. ”Health Insurance Mandates in the States 2009.”

Another special note is on the portability of health care over state lines – there is none of this currently, most likely in large fact due to the different state mandates mentioned above. As Congressman, I am for portability over state lines which via the Commerce Clause is a congressional responsibility. However, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress unlimited power over health care, just to smooth out transactions from state to state – which would increase competition. Perhaps one of the greatest acts of fallacy by the federal government today is the illegal misinterpretation of this clause, as explained below.

(23) Towne, Jake. October 2009. ”To Nancy Pelosi on Health Care – Are YOU Serious?“

Yet another note is that states have the power to nullify federal acts, such as the current health care bill. In this article, I rehash solutions to the current health care situation and discuss nullification.

(24) Towne, Jake. January 2010. ”The Next Defense – Nullification of the Health Care Tax.”

Lastly, I compared the enormous levels of military spending and ask the critical question – where should we allocate resources?

(25) Towne, Jake. January 2010. ”Guns or Health Care?“

In this article, the current health care tax’s unintended consequences from changes of labor laws are discussed in more detail.

(26) Steib, Eric. M. December 2009. ”The Health Care Tax Will Devastate the Working Class.”

August 4, 2009

In September 2009, covered Health Care Economics with Michael McKay of Radio Free Market. Here is the summary.

A couple 1-page handouts on this plank for download and printing out are available below, backup is here, along with the entire plank in PDF.

Jake Towne for Congress – Health Care Handout – “Chocolate Store” Analogy

Jake Towne for Congress – Health Care Solutions