Marty Bender

Marty Bender (R) is the current President of the Fort Wayne City Council.  He is also a high ranking police officer in the Fort Wayne Police Department.  He keeps voting on issues involving the police, including their pay raises as a member of City Council.

I do not think he should vote on these matters.  He has a conflict of interest that is obvious to everyone and for that reason he should not vote on these issues.

What do you think?

Mike Sylvester

Definition of Presidential Insanity

Hiring a bunch of Clinton retreads to shape your policy and expecting a different midterm election result than Bill Clinton got. There’s a lesson in there somewhere…

We’re Doomed

From California Republican Senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina:

“Let me propose something that may seem crazy to you: you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs,” Fiorina said

Of course California is hopelessly bankrupt so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at such nonsense but unfortunately the stupidity is spreading like a virus:

It was a lively debate Friday night in Colorado Springs between Ken Buck and Michael Bennet, the two candidates for U.S. Senate.
[...]
In regards to the economy Ken Buck said, “By extending tax cuts you pay down the deficit, you grow the economy by giving people more money and giving people the certainty they’ll know how to spend, they’ll have more money down the road to spend.”

This is the same intellectually bankrupt thinking that took over the Republican party 2 decades ago when they decided that balanced budgets didn’t matter anymore. Neither party is capable of grasping what is inherently obvious to every non-brain dead individual outside of Worshington - the only way to balance the budget and eventually pay down the deficit is to spend less than you take in. It really isn’t that difficult and the fact that neither major party seems able to comprehend that basic fact is why we’re inevitably doomed…

The student loan “racket” in the United States

A couple of months ago the total amount of student loan debt in the United States exceeded the total amount of credit card debt in the United States. 

Let me say that another way; Americans owe more money due to loans they took out to pay for college than they owe on their credit cards.

I find that statistic to be absolutely incredible.

The cost of college has increased by even more that the cost of medical care in the United States.  The cost of college has increased by astronomical rates partially because the Federal Government and State governments heavily subsidize higher education.  The Federal Government spends increasingly more on higher education each and every year; this in turn allows colleges to raise the fees and costs paid by the students.  For years and years the States have been pouring increasing amounts of money into higher educations as well; the current recession has reversed that trend at the State level.

Far too many Americans decide to pay for college with student loans.  In some cases the cost of paying these loans back (with interest and fees) can be cost justified because the individual is able to make more money and use this additional income to service the loans.  Unfortunately in many other cases the costs cannot be justified.  Reasons for this include:

  1. The student does not gain the skills or education that allows them to obtain a higher paying job.  This happens in some cases by students choosing degrees which lead to no job or poor paying jobs. 
  2. Many students take out student loans for expenses that have nothing to do with education; many buy new cars, pay their rent, eat out, etc.
  3. Many students fail to graduate and return to their old jobs.
  4. Many students take a long time to graduate.  Remember that you are likely earning a lot less income while you are attending school.

Read more

More Hogwash From Another Allen Co. School System

In Wednesday’s News-Sentinel, Sarah Janssen published an article covering the action of the SACS board in approving a $1,350,000 contract to a Michigan firm to install an “energy-saving” roof on the Summit Middle School building.  She quoted Mr. Jim Coplen, Business Manager from SACS, in saying that the yearly savings due to this expenditure would be $37,000 per year resulting in a pay-back in 8 years.

Well, $37,000 for each of  8 years would result in a total of $296,000 - not even close to the $1,350,000 cost of the energy-saving roof!  So I wrote an email note to Sarah asking how Coplen came up with these erroneous numbers(copying Mr. Coplen).  

As of tonight, 8/5/2010, I have not heard from Sarah.  But, I did hear early this morning from Coplen, outlining how he had calculated the payback.  Basically, he told me that the cost to just replace the roof was quoted back in early July at $425,000.  The school board asked him to see if there was some way to get help in paying for part of this cost.  So the administation came up with a scheme that could allow them to apply for federal help and - yes, help was available - but it required spending an additional $825,000 on an ‘energy-efficient” roof.  If this was purchased, $600,000 in federal money would be available.  So the net increase in SACS money to be spent would be $225,000 and this would result in the 8 year payback, but only of the $225,000!   So another $600,000 in future tax revenues could be used to enable SACS to spend $225,000 more than the replacement cost.   So all the kids and grandkids in the USofA will be paying this $600,000 back - with interest - probably to China over the next 20 or so years.

Mr. Coplen included a statement in his reply to me that said,”I have been told by the feds if we don’t use the $600,000 it will go to someone else”.  This is like our young children saying, “Everyone else is doing it, why can’t I do it also?” 

We are in dire need of some fiscal restraint not only on the federal level , but also on the local level!  Seems like we are not getting it!

I am back

I took a break from blogging over the last several weeks; however, that break is now over. 

The first few weeks of summer I took an MBA class at IPFW; then we spent a week and a half in Texas, and we recently spent a week at Disney in Florida.

I should be a little less busy from now on!

Mike Sylvester

Local Government Video on Demand

Being a member of the city’s Cable Fund Access Board gives me some insight into what’s going on relative to public access television in our community, and there’s a service being provided by the people at Access Fort Wayne that I should’ve pointed to long ago.

They now have the capability to archive video of local government meetings and stream them over the web. This service is called PEG Central and is provided through a company called Leightronix. So you can now view City Council, County Council, County Commissioners and Plan Commission meetings any time you wish.

This is a great service and the people at Access Fort Wayne should be commended for continuing to improve their service year after year with a limited budget. Go check it out for yourself by clicking the link provided above. Or if you want to surf to it on your own you can go to the main page of the Allen County Public Library and click on the Access Fort Wayne link in the lower left hand corner and from there you’ll see a link to PEG Central.

If you have suggestions about how to improve the service, or what programming you might want to see in the future, then send them to me, any member of CFAB or better yet send them to Access Fort Wayne directly…

FWP @ Republican State Convention

Since the originator of FWP claims to be a Democrat (and he is on an extended sabatical from this blog), I took it upon myself to use my time at the convention (as an elected delegate!) to glean as much useful information from this event - plus represent FWP in a couple of ”Question & Answer” sessions that came up.  So here it is -

I am convinced that our state GOP candidates for this November’s election, including those chosen at the primary, the one chosen at last Saturday’s caucus, and the three elected at the convention are all very, very electable in addition to being true fiscal and social conservatives.   Richard Mourdock, Charlie White and Fort Wayne raised and educated Tim Berry all fit this category.

The question/answer sessions were held on this afternoon at a post-convention reception sponsered by the Indiana Federation of Young Republicans.  (I was admitted, after proving that I had not yet reached the 40th anniversary of my 39th birthday!)  About a dozen political bloggers from our state’s conservatives were represented.  We questioned Senator-to-be Elected Dan Coats and our own 3rd district Representative-to-be Elected Marlin Stutzman.  

Dan was asked “Why” and his answer was that he was concerned about having Evan Bayh serving another 6 years as Indiana’s junior senator and felt that his name-recognition would assure a good chance of swinging the vote to the GOP.  And, the unexpected departure of Mr. Bayh made running even more sense.  Dan was also questioned if he felt his opponent would be blasting him for the reported ommission of two organizations in the list of his clients in the lobbying group that his has been employed with for the recent past.  Dan responded that his group represents many organizations, and that he cannot recall ever working for either of these entities in a lobbying position.  Dan was also asked how he stands on the large number of “earmarks” that have been used by our elected Senators and Representatives in the recent years.  He indicated that he is in line with the position of Mike Pence on this subject.

Marlin was questioned about how he was going to respond to Dr. Hayhurst’s questions about his working so closely with Mark Souder without knowing what was transpiring in his life.  Marlin responded that, as he has said, when he became aware of the rumors about this, he went to Mark directly and Mark lied to him, saying that they were not true.   This will continue to be Marlin’s truthful response.   Another blogger asked if Marlin might run into questions about his being “an opportunist” - taking the opportunity of Mark Souders resignation to run for another office after finishing second in the primary race for the junior senator election this fall.  Marlin responded that he felt that his state-wide contest for the senator’s job would enable him to garner the caucus vote and thereby aid the GOP in the November election against Dr. Hayhurst.

The Young Republican’s are to be thanked for holding this event, giving the New Media a chance to interview conservative candidates.   Dan Coats was asked how he viewed the “New Media”.  His response was that “it’s the way that we will be conversing in the future” - but, he asked that conservative bloggers allow him to respond to “revelations” prior to there appearing as posts in the public domain.

If anyone wants specific info on the GOP State Convention, just respond as a coment or email me.

New 3rd District Poll Open

The last poll had Stutzman winning easily. I’ve eliminated some people and am interested in seeing how this might change the vote. Other interesting issues:

Lot of jockying left to go. Go ahead and vote in the new poll over in the far sidebar…

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:

  1. 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. 
  2. 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.
  3. 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.”
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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

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