The good folks over at the Circle City Pundit have decided to endorse Luke Puckett in his bid to become the 2nd district’s next Congressman. This is the first official blog endorsement that the campaign has received and we sincerely appreciate it.
Here is part of the reason they’re endorsing Luke:
“…then I had the chance to meet Luke Puckett a few weeks back, and realized I was supporting the wrong guy (not to mention that Donnelly has turned out to be another of Pelosi’s robots), and so we are officially, for the first (and not likely the last) time doing a u-turn and switching our support to the “other guy”.
Certainly he [Puckett] brings enough depth to represent the people of the 2nd CD well, much better than Donnelly has.
We here at CircleCityPundit.com are proud to font formally endorse Luke Puckett.”
Thanks, guys. Click here to read the rest of their post.
“Congressman Donnelly Opposes Democratic Budget” states the headline of the most recent press release from Rep. Joe Donnelly (D). To be strictly and technically accurate, that statement is true. In a roll call vote today Donnelly (and the two other Indiana Blue Dogs, Hill and Ellsworth) voted against HCR 312, the Democrat supported budget resolution for fiscal year 2009.
HCR 312, the Democratic budget resolution, is the largest tax increase ever. If enacted, taxes will rise by about $682 billion. The Heritage Foundation did a study of how those taxes would impact individual congressional districts both from a tax standpoint and from an economic standpoint. Tax increases have two affects, first, they directly take money from the taxpayer, second, they have economic costs like job losses and increased production costs which are passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
In Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, Rep. Donnelly’s district, the impact of the tax increase would be an additional $1,618 in taxes per taxpayer. Counting the economic costs would mean that individual taxpayers are out a total of $3,148 per capita as a result of the tax increase. It is also estimated that 2,111 jobs would be lost in the 2nd District as a result of the Democrats budget.
To look at the entire situation surrounding that dismal budget resolution, however, presents a slightly different picture. Rep. Donnelly and his fellow Blue Dogs have proclaimed themselves to be fiscal conservatives. At times they have cast conservative votes. There is a difference though between casting occasional conservative votes or even just conservative votes on key votes, while neglecting the overall series of actions that a true fiscal conservative would take.
On March 12 the House considered and voted on a resolution to consider HCR 312, the budget resolution. That March 12 resolution was not the budget resolution, but if it had been defeated it would have at least slowed down the passage of the actual budget resolution. On that roll call vote, Joe Donnelly, Baron Hill, and Brad Ellsworth joined their Democratic majority and voted to allow the House to consider the fiscal year 2009 budget resolution.
Here is why that vote was not a good vote: everyone who voted on that measure realized that even if they voted against the actual budget resolution, the tax raising unemployment generating budget resolution would pass because a Democratic majority controls the House. Therefore, if one was going to be wholly principled on the matter, he or she would have to vote against the initial resolution and the actual budget resolution.
Donnelly and his fellow “conservative” Democrats were only half-principled on this matter of the budget and it is disingenuous of them to portray themselves as advocates of the hard-working middle class American.
When Joe Donnelly and the House Democrats allowed important terrorist surveillance legislation to expire, they put the American people at risk and tied the hands of our national intelligence workers. Without critical legal tools, the dedicated individuals at our national security agencies are helpless when it comes tracking and targeting new terrorist organizations.
The Puckett campaign has launched a petition drive to show Joe Donnelly that Americans want to be safe from terrorists and not susceptible to a sudden attack from a terrorist cell our government wasn’t allowed to do anything about. Go here to read and sign the petition urging Joe Donnelly to do his job and protect the American people.
Bob Novak, a Washington based political reporter, wrote a very revealing article on the recent failure of the House Democratic Majority to permanently bring America’s intelligence gathering laws into the 21st Century.
Apparently the sticking point for some in the Democratic Majority in the House was that trial lawyers were arguing against the bi-partisan Senate passed bill that put in place a long-term fix to the terrorist loophole. Some trial lawyers have helped bankroll Democratic candidates. By not working for a real solution to this problem, House Democrats have effectively put the interests of trial lawyers and big donors ahead of the safety of the American people.
Luke Puckett believes that we do not need to advocate for short-term fixes that don’t deal with problems. As our Congressman, Luke Puckett will stand up for the most important special interest group: The American people. Often this group is overlooked and under-represented in the offices of K-Street lobbyists. It’s time for real, common-sense solutions that keep America safe.
We’ll see how this works out, but right now I’m going to try to do an occasional post with links to websites and blogs that have run articles or posts about our campaign. The 2.0 version will be for the “new media” or the blogs and other websites that are talking about us. The 1.0 version will be for the more traditional news media (memo to conventional media folks: Don’t take the 1.0 designation wrong, most folks are still using 1.0 and 2.0 is still growing).
Today we’ve been in two blog posts so far:
Dan Turkette has this piece up on his site Ft. Wayne News.
Luke Puckett, 2nd District GOP candidate, stared in awe Monday at how fast his congressman caved under pressure from Nancy Pelosi and the liberal Democratic Congress during last week’s Protect America Act debate. Donnelly voted with the Republican leadership Wednesday morning but switched his vote to side with the Democratic leadership that afternoon.
On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill that would permanently extend the Protect America Act by a vote of 68-29. On Wednesday, House Republicans sought to vote on this same bill. When House Democrat leaders objected, Republicans forced a vote on considering the bill. All but five House Democrats voted to block the House from considering a permanent extension of the law. Joe Donnelly was one of these 5 Democrats. Later that day, Republicans again tried to offer an amendment to pass the Senate bill, yet all but one Democrat voted to prevent the amendment from being voted on. Joe Donnelly was NOT this one Democrat. Shamefully, most the 21 Democrats who sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi in support of the Senate bill still sided with their liberal leadership on at least one of these two votes, proving that this letter was just a shallow grasp for political cover.
“Either Joe Donnelly’s personal idea of how to protect Hoosiers and our American homeland changed from morning to afternoon, or this is just the latest example of Donnelly telling the folks of the district one thing and doing the exact opposite when he gets to Washington” Puckett says. “Actions speak louder than words, and this particular flip-flop of Donnelly’s is even more alarming because it deals with the future safety of our Hoosier families”.
Prior to enactment of the Protect America Act, wholly international communications transmitted over a wire required a FISA court order. This requirement has hindered our intelligence community’s ability to collect vital intelligence from terrorists communicating with other foreign intelligence targets located in a foreign country. It is difficult to compile enough information in a short period of time on a foreign person of interest to satisfy the FISA statute, and this is where the terrorist loophole arises. The protect America Act has been credited for stopping a number of terrorist attacks before they happened.
Democrats have now headed home for a ten day recess with the Protect America Act about to expire. Despite Democrat claims that there is no harm in that, DNI McConnell wrote in the Washington Post Friday that:
“Without the act in place, vital programs would be plunged into uncertainty and delay, and capabilities would continue to decline. Under the Protect America Act, we obtained valuable insight and understanding, leading to the disruption of planned terrorist attacks. Expiration would lead to the loss of important tools our workforce relies on to discover the locations, intentions and capabilities of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets abroad.”
Puckett concludes, “How many more terrorist attacks will we have to prevent before Joe Donnelly and the Democratic Congress allow us to permanently extend the Protect America Act?”
Who said that Washington’s not fair? Here is a partial list of tax increases that will happen automatically over the next few months and years if something is not done.
When the economy slows down we don’t need more taxes.
The exemption for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will decrease from $44,350 to $33,750 for single filers and from $66,250 to $45,000 for married couples filing jointly.
Taxpayers will not be allowed to deduct their state and local general sales taxes from their federal income tax.
Taxpayers will not be able to adjust their income for qualified tuition and related expenses.
Businesses will not be able to claim a tax credit for research, experimentation, and development activities.
First-time homebuyers in the nation’s capital will no longer be able to claim a tax credit.
2011:
The marginal income tax rates will increase as follows:
–35% bracket will increase to 39.6%
–33% bracket will increase to 36%
–28% bracket will increase to 31%
–25% bracket will increase to 28%
–10% and 15% brackets will condense to 15%
Here’s what it comes down to: Unless something is done to curb spending and control government, our taxes are going to increase. Unfortunately, our tax policy is pretty complex right now so some politicians can offer short term solutions that provide temporary relief for some but still leave the underlying problems intact.
As part of his solution to reduce the tax burden on the American people, Luke Puckett has declared his support for a two-year moratorium on pork spending. Luke realizes that now, especially as economic uncertainty is on the rise, the American people need to be free to keep more of their own money and the Government must tighten it’s belt just like everyone else.
Here is the live blog of today’s candidacy announcement.
4:06 pm-St. Joe County GOP Chairman Chris Riley starts off. Riley praises Puckett for deciding to run. Puckett’s family is standing in the front on one side, former GOP mayoral candidate Juan Manigault and state party employee Brad Powlen flank the podium on the other side.
4:09pm-Puckett takes to the podium to applause and thanks all for attending.
4:10pm-Puckett talks about the excitement of this race. Thanks his family for standing with him and allowing him to run this race.
4:11pm-Talking about meeting people from across the district. Says there is no Red side and Blue side but a unity of people across the district.
4:13pm-Economy, health care, national security, border security and Hoosier values are the themes of the campaign.
4:16pm-Not the time for a tax increase. *Puckett’s little niece toddles up to him and gives him a hug.*
4:17pm-We’ll fix health care by driving down costs and increase competition.
This blog will be regularly updated with news, information, and commentary. Please feel free to leave comments with your thoughts or ideas. This campaign is about providing common-sense solutions to our nation's problems and common-sense solutions don't come from Washington, they come from you, the citizen.
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