Liberty Maven

As a Senate vote on the new Health Care Tax bill looms, a special campaign announcement just in time for Christmas!!

How can voters believe that any candidate will represent them by tightening the purse-strings on wasteful government spending if they fail to start with themselves?  Now voters can rest assured they have this promise once Jake Towne is elected as Congressman in 2010.

Jake Towne, an independent candidate for U.S. House in PA-15, believes government needs salary cuts – and will start with his own. Towne will only accept the estimated 2008 median household income in the 15th district of $58,080 instead of $174,000. After taxes, Towne will donate the remainder of his salary to local non-profit hospitals to help provide health care to those who need it the most in the district.  As he wrote last week in “What is Wealth?“, he believes health is a prime source of wealth.

As a Senate vote on the new health care tax bill looms, Towne also hopes his actions will bring attention to his detailed plank on health care which is that unconstitutional and ineffective government interventions with our health care is the TRUE problem, especially the government-sponsored cartelization of the health care insurance industry which started via the HMO Act of 1973.   Towne protests that affordable health care for all with thousands of new features is possible only if government can be stopped from interfering with the marketplace.  

Towne believes serving as a public servant should not be a lucrative post. He cites that the average federal worker’s salary is $71,206 and the average salary in the private sector is just $40,331 per USA Today.  As the economy has worsened, the number of government jobs have been increasing and the number of federal employees earning more than $100,000 has jumped from 14% of all government workers to 19% this year.  Towne protests that GOVERNMENT HAS NOTHING – the government can only redistribute handouts after first taxing or confiscating it from someone else. By its very nature government is not productive and completely non-value added in the economic sense. Government does not create wealth; rather, it consumes and destroys it.

Towne has previously promised he will not enlist in the congressional pension plan, which guarantees members up to 80% of their salary in annual pension for the rest of their lives. He will also not take part in the elite congressional health care plan and warns citizens should be extremely wary of politicians who plot to control their constituents’ health care, but will not and do not enroll in it themselves.

Towne does not plan to run for more than two terms since he views his role as that of a temporary statesman, not a career politician for the Republocrat parties. Born and raised in the district, Towne spent the past 4 years working in communist China as a chemical engineer in the semiconductor industry. On his publicly available US House financial disclosure, Towne reported a 2008 salary of $209,600.   It should be plainly apparent to voters that Towne has no plans to personally enrich himself by running for office.  In succeeding years in office, if the median household income rises, Towne would take a pay raise.  He would take a pay cut if the median household income falls.

Towne resigned his promising and successful career (see his resume here) to return home and run for Congress full-time because he is gravely concerned for his country’s future and points out the integrity of the dollar is a key and pressing issue. Since he discovered how precious and rare liberty really is while living abroad, this 1776 quote from Thomas Paine’s “The American Crisis” has been a guiding light:

“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes… I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it.“

He would listen to comments from residents on his performance before running for a second term via his novel-yet-simple Our Open Office plan, which will give each individual a public voice and deliver real accountability and transparency – not just buzzwords – to the public.

Towne supports introducing term limit legislation if there were significant citizen interest via his Open Office plan. While he believes the most effect term limit is, in fact, the ballot box, he favors term limits but does not hold strong opinion details such as the number of terms for Representatives and Senators. These could be discussed and determined using “Towne” halls and the Open Office’s forum function once Towne is in office.

While grassroots activities continue through the snow and sleet, the next major campaign event will be a Towne Hall on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 in Allentown at 7 pm in the Lehigh County Senior Center, 1633 Elm Street.  Until then…

STAY FREE!!!

Jessica Roth, Campaign Manager

Jake Towne, 2010 Candidate for US Congress, PA-15
Liberty, Sound Money, the Rule of Law, and Accountability
TowneForCongress.com

December 20, 2009

NOTE 1: Proximity’s 2008 estimate is seen as realistic since the last census in 1999 placed the median household income for Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District at $44,947 (see page 3/4 here) and although the nominal dollar amount has increased due to the Federal Reserve’s hidden inflation tax.

NOTE 2: Each year Congress automatically grants itself a cost of living increase, which was $4,700 in 2009, bringing the salary of a representative to $174,000.  While Congress received a raise, citizens living on social security saw no cost of living increase this year, even though they should be receiving roughly double the current levels if the purchasing power of the dollars they contributed were conserved, as I detailed in my article “The Real Interest Rate.”

NOTE 3: Obviously, the tally of money donated to non-profit hospitals would be transparent to the public on the congressional website after it is disbursed. Towne has previously promised to make his office’s budget transparent on his home page when elected so residents can see how their tax dollars are being spent. This information has been requested from the incumbent (no response was received to both this query and multiple open letters.) Currently, residents must travel to special federal depository libraries to view details on how their Representative is spending their taxes.   Each congressional office has a budget of roughly $1.4 million.

NOTE 4: For the graph shown, the private sector and average federal worker salary per USA Today here. Congressional salaries were doublechecked on dot gov sites and the reference is here.  Federal Reserve (central banker) average salary referenced in an article I wrote here.

For any who may have missed it, here is Towne’s appearance on national media with FOX News’ Judge Napolitano (who also likes to say “stay free” .  His candidacy is being taken seriously by the local press, especially as seen in last week’s featured Sunday editorial December 13th in the Morning Call. Questions may be left below the article or directed via email to TowneForCongress@gmail.com.