My ballot for tomorrow
As is my custom; the day before the election I post my voting plans for tomorrow…
US Senator, Rebecca Sink Burris (L). (I cannot vote for Coats, he is a carpetbagger from the East Coast).
Sec of State, Mike Wherry (L). This race is the ballot access rate for the Libertarian Party. I want to keep the Libertarian Party on the ballot because our two Party system is destructive.
State Auditor, Tim Berry (R).
Treasurer, Richard Mourdock (R).
US Representative, Scott Wise (L). This was the toughest race on the ballot for me…
State Senator District 15, Jack Morris (D). His opponent is long time incumbent Tom Wyss (R). Tom Wyss is a nanny state big government Republican who keeps enacting new seat belt laws. He has been in office too long and needs to be replaced.
State Representative 85, Paul Leslie (L). Phyllis Pond (R) has been in office way too long and needs to be replaced.
Judge, Superior Court, Wendy Davis. This was hard for me as well; I had a hard time choosing between Griffin and Davis. There is no way I was going to vote for the incumbent Scheibenberger.
County Auditor, Tera Klutz (R).
Sheriff, Ken Fries (R).
County Commissioner District #3, Therese Brown (R).
I will vote against putting the proposed property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution.
Mike Sylvester
Property tax caps on the ballot next week (Wonkish)
It is rare that I find myself in agreement with the Journal Gazette and opposing Governor Mitch Daniels. It happens so rarely that it is notable.
Next week Hoosiers get to decide whether to put the property tax caps in the Indiana Constitution. Putting them in the Indiana Constitution will make them almost impossible to change. I oppose the property tax caps because they are unfair. Basically property taxes are capped as follows:
- Homes that are a primary residence of a taxpayer are capped at 1% of assessed value.
- Rental Properties, Farms, Land for Mobile Homes, and Long Term Care facilities are capped at 2% of assessed value.
- Business Real Property (Land and Buildings) are capped at 3% of assessed value.
- Business Personal Property (Equipment, Furniture, Computers, etc) are capped at 3% of assessed value.
Note these caps will be not apply if the voters pass a Referendum authorizing additional taxes.
I completely oppose these caps because I do not feel that they are in any way fair. I would have supported the property tax caps if they had been the same for all types of property. For example I would have supported them if the caps would have been 1.5% for all classes of property.
My Caucus Predictions
A few days ago I posted my initial caucus predictions. Those predictions have changed a small amount due to several factors. First off Phil Troyer dropped out of the race. Secondly Mark Souder sent a facebook message that seems to attack Stutzman. Third the phone calls I received from candidates. Fourth the direct mail pieces I have received so far.
I was called by the following candidates: Stutzman, Borror, Brown, Elijah, and Morris.
Local Fox TV 55
The local FOX affiliate is polling 125 3rd Congressional District Committeemen concerning the Saturday caucus. They will post their results online tonight at 10 PM and it will be discussed at the 10 PM newscast.
Tonight I will also be updating my predictions for the Saturday Caucus. Several things have changed and I will change my predictions accordingly.
Mitch Harper over at Fort Wayne Observed has decided to endorse a candidate around 4:30 PM today. It will be interesting to see who he endorses; however, I would be willing to bet you that he will endorse Marlin Stutzman. That being said; I have no idea who he will endorse; I am just making a wild and uneducated guess.
Updated at 4:38 PM. Well I completely missed the direction of the Fort Wayne Observed endorsement and I should have known better. You should check it out.
Mike
The actual Souder Facebook message
This post contains the actual email sent to three media sources on 6/7/10 at 3:07 PM and it contains the actual facebook message that former Congressman Souder sent. There are no editorial comments in this post; it is provided so that you can see it as is.
First the email:
From: Steven Clouse [
mailto:stclouse@gmail.com]
Sent: Mon 6/7/2010 3:07 PM
To: jeffn@indianasnewscenter.com; Niki Kelly; mattg@kpcnews.net; bhowey2@gmail.com
Subject: Congressional caucus - message from Souder
Last night at 8:03 PM I received the attached personal message from former
Congressman Mark Souder. This repreents the only communication I have had
with Mr. Souder since his resigation from office last month. I do not know,
nor do I care to speculate, as to his motives for sending the message, via
Facebook, to me last night. According to the header of the message, the
message was sent to myself, and Randall Kirkpatrick, chariman of the Noble
County Republican party. After much deiberation with Mr. Kirkpatrick, it
was our decision to release the statement so that the voters on Saturday
have as much information before them as possible. At the time I am sending
this to you, Mr. Kirkpatrick will soon distribute the message to his fellow
county chairmen, as well as to the Noble County precinct officials.
As far as the ethicacy of releasing a message that appears to have been
intended to be a private message, let me state that given the subject matter
at hand, to not share this message would be as reckless as the acts that
drove Mr. Souder from office. Mr. Kirkpatrick did attempt to contact Mr.
Souder for an explanation this morning, but was not successful in reaching
him.
Sincrely,
Steven Clouse
Souder Facebook message concerning Stutzman
The press is reporting that former Congressman Mark Souder sent a lengthy email to The Noble County Republican Chair and the Noble County Prosecutor.
The Howey Political report has a lot more on the story.
Angry White Boy (Fort Wayne Blog) has his own spin on the story that is well worth your reading. The comments on this post at Angry White Boy are also well worth your time.
I have a lot to say about this; however, I am trying to secure a copy of the supposed email. I currently have two copies; however, there are some subtle differences between them; hence I am not sure which is accurate.
I have reached out to several sources and hope to get a copy to review and post in the next 24 hours or so.
If you have a copy of this email please send it to me. I feel that it should be posted in its entirety. Currently several news sources have the document and are just printing parts of it and then commenting on it. Just email it to me at sylvester@fortwaynepolitics.com.
It will be interesting to see how the usual “Souder apologists” try to spin this.
Former Congressman Souder needs to get entirely out of politics and stop trying to play “kingmaker.” He needs to focus on fixing his life and his marriage and stop trying to be involved in politics.
Pat Miller discussed this on WOWO today and was “spot on.”
Mike Sylvester
Phil Troyer drops out of 3rd District Congressional Caucus
Instead he is now running for the Indiana seat to be vacated by Matt Bell…
Troyer dropping out will change the caucus somewhat and I feel that his dropping out will help Stutzman in the early rounds.
Mike Sylvester
Congressional Democrats are out of the their minds
HR 4213 passed the House of Representatives on a largely Party line vote. Every Democrat reading this blog should be ashamed to be a Democrat after reading this bill. This is an awful bill. There are several reasons it is awful:
- The Democrats campaigned in 2006 and 2008 on a platform of allowing the “Bush tax cuts” to sunset. President Obama specifically campaigned on this. HR 4213 extends many of these tax cuts for anywhere from 2 - 10 more years.
- This bill serves to make the entire tax code even more complicated. Our government needs to simplify the tax code; not make it more complicated.
- The bill has four broad sets of increases or revenue offsets embedded in it. These four provisions are expected to increase Federal tax revenues by almost 56 billion dollars from 2010 - 2020. The Democrats are calling this bill the “American jobs and closing tax loopholes act of 2010.”
- The first set of revenue offsets (about 15 billion) are all designed to enable the US to tax more foreign income. I do not prepare tax returns for many people with foreign income and hence do not know a lot about these provisions. I am not sure if these provisions are a good idea or not.
- The second set of revenue offsets (about 18 billion) are designed so that those people (hedge fund managers etc) who earn “carried interest” are taxed at a higher rate than they are currently taxed. Currently most “carried interest” is taxed as a capital gain. The new law is complicated; however, it will eventually cause much of the “carried interest” to be taxed as regular income. I would favor this provision if it were done in a simple and fair way; however, Congress is incapable of that.
- The third set of revenue offsets (about 12 billion) is a 34 cent per barrel tax on oil. This is supposed to go into an Oil Spill liability Trust Fund. I oppose this provision; the oil companies are already responsible for paying to clean up oil spills; we do not need another tax at this time on oil.
- The fourth set of revenue offsets (about 11 billion) is a special tax that will only target certain small business owners. Basically this tax will only be levied against certain subchapter S corporations. It will target certain professional service S corporations and will ignore the rest of S corporations. This tax will effect only certain professional service S corporations in certain industries; it also will only effect those with three or fewer members. I think this provision is extremely unfair and I hope it is killed in the US Senate. I will post more about this in separate posts because the way the House Democrats worded this provision it could cost my wife and I well over $12,000 in additional annual taxes starting in 2011. Worse yet it will effect a large number of my clients who own small businesses.
I am so angry at the Democratic Party that it is hard to put my feelings into words. The Democrats in the House are complete idiots and need to be voted out of office in November.
The United States economy is extremely fragile. Why is the Democratic Party targeting professional service businesses in only certain industries with a new tax if they have three shareholders or less? How is this fair? For example I own an Accounting firm with two owners. I will have to pay a higher percentage in taxes than an Accounting firm with four owners. Does this make sense to anyone?
Would any of you Democrats like to defend your brethren in the House of Representatives?
Mike Sylvester
3rd District Republican Caucus
Today I received my second piece of direct mail for the upcoming Caucus. This piece was from Marlin Stutzman. It was in the form of a letter. This was a reasonably good direct mail piece and was a positive mail piece.
So now I have received two direct mail pieces for the upcoming Caucus; I still predict I will get 50 by the time June 12th, 2010 is here.
Mike Sylvester
3rd District Congressional Caucus
The caucus to replace Mark Souder as a Republican candidate will be held in Whitley County on June 12th. Time and location to be announced.
About 520 Precinct Committee persons are eligible to vote on June 12th. The candidates can easily get the contact information for all 520 people. Based on this fact I expect to get a lot of direct mail over the next three weeks and several phone calls from prospective candidates.
I got my first piece of direct mail from a candidate yesterday. I got a piece from “Randy Borror for Congress.” It was a positive piece and I think his campaign did a reasonably good job designing this letter. It is positive and talks only about Randy Borror.
I think I will likely get at least 50 direct mail pieces from candidates between now and June 12th, 2010!
Mike Sylvester
