Jim Trautz For Congress (Virginia - 10)

Well, I am certainly going to do my part to get the RINOs out of Congress. Here in Northern Virginia, we haven't had much of a chance to do that with Frank Wolf (R-VA) because there haven't been any true Conservatives to challenge him lately ... until now.

Jim Trautz is a Conservative and I am wholly endorsing him for this November's elections.

From Jim's Platform:

Simply put, our representatives have the responsibility to be good stewards of OUR money. Of course, the Federal Government does have a need for a budget, and funds do need to be allocated, but only on those things that are necessary, legal & ethical, Constitutional, and are the will of the people. That said, I can find no constitutional basis for wealth redistribution, bailouts, TARP bills, stimulus packages, or anything of the sort, and I will aggressively oppose any such legislation as a member of Congress. I believe that no one person or group should benefit more than another. ... Leaders lead people – and true leadership requires more than just “playing it safe.” I believe that true leaders do more than simply support a cause – true leaders will be at the tip of the spear for those causes that are near and dear to the hearts of their constituents. They’ll do so without reservation or regard for their own personal gain, not because it’s a “good political move,” but because it’s the right thing to do, because they believe their cause to be just, and because the people they represent look to them for leadership. Leaders lead people – not just when the cameras are on, not just when there’s a political advantage to be gained, and not just at election time, but whenever and wherever they’re called to do so. ... All too often, our representatives forget the idea of accountability. They work for us, they’re elected by us, and they’re accountable to us. Bottom line, they answer to us. I believe that every person has the right to expect a clear and concise understanding of where their Representative stands on the issues of the day, and that he has a responsibility to report his position on those issues, regardless of party affiliation or political ideology.

Jim Trautz is also a 912 Candidate and believes the following:

• America Is Good.
  
• I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
  
• I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
  
• The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
  
• If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
  
• I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
  
• I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
  
• It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
  
• The government works for the people. The people do not answer to the government, the government answers to the people.
  

You can access more information about Jim Trautz on-line here:

Jim Trautz 2010

I hope the people of Virginia's 10th District will join me in supporting a true Conservative candidate.

Response From Frank Wolf (R-VA, 10th District)

A couple of weeks ago, I called on Frank Wolf (R-VA) to resign his seat for violating the Constitution by voting "Yea" on HR 1586. For a refresher on that story, visit the following link:

Time For Frank Wolf (R-VA, 10th District) To Resign
84rules
March 20, 2009

My argument is that by voting for legislation that essentially amounts to both a Bill of Attainder and an Ex Post Facto law, Rep. Wolf violated his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution and must be held accountable for it. I sent Mr. Wolf a letter voicing my concerns and asking that he step down. I further made it known that my concerns were over the Constitutional issues, not the bonuses.

I got a response through the mail yesterday. A hard copy letter signed by Mr. Wolf. Here are two excerpts from that letter:

By a vote of 328-93 on March 19, the House passed the bill (H.R. 1586) to impose a new 90 percent tax on the bonuses paid after December 31, 2008, to employees of companies that recieved over $5 billion in taxpayer money.

Here, Mr. Wolf freely admits that HR 1586 qualifies as a Bill of Attainder, which is defined as any legislation that will pose negative effects on a narrowly defined group of people. Mr. Wolf himself defines that group. Further, Mr. Wolf noted that the date of the legislation in question was March 19, 2009 and that it would be retroactively enforced back to December 31, 2008. That qualifies this bill as an Ex Post Facto law.

So, why did he do it? Here is what he wrote:

While I had concerns about the rushed nature of the legislation and some of the legal and constitutional issues raised, I voted for the bill. I reached that decision because of the message that AIG's payment of bonuses was sending hard-working Americans whose tax money was being used to bail out the company.

That's it. Frank Wolf voted to trample on Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution of the United States in order to "send a message." He had no concern whatsoever that what he was doing violated the Constitution.

What's next? Will Mr. Wolf vote to repeal the 2nd Amendment in order to "send a message" to violent criminals? Maybe Mr. Wolf will vote to allow duties or taxes on exports from a certain state in order to "send a message" to the people of that state. Maybe Mr. Wolf will vote to impose taxes on a specific religious denomination in order to "send a message" to the members of that religion.

Mr. Wolf's actions regarding HR 1586 are inexcusable. His excuse for taking those actions is intolerable.

Anyone who would violate a certain part of our Constitution will be capable of violating other parts of the Constiotution. Such a person is not to be trusted.

I repeat my earlier call for Mr. Wolf's removal. I would rather deal with an honest Democrat than a disgraceful Republican. I have already decided that I will not support Frank Wolf for re-election in 2010.

Time For Frank Wolf (R-VA 10th District) To Resign. Otherwise, We Should Recall Him.

Frank Wolf (R-VA) is usually a stalwart Congressman who fights hard for the 10th District. But, his vote of "Yea" on HR 1586, the retroactive taxing of bonuses paid to AIG, shows that he is no longer worthy of our trust or respect.

Here's why he needs to go:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution of the United States may very well be on the chopping block. Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to impose a 90% tax on the bonuses given out to AIG employees. Frank Wolf voted "Yea."

Now, the bonuses are not at issue here. Whether they are right or wrong, good or bad is immaterial to what is really going on.

The House passed a bill that is specifically forbidden by Article I, Section 9, Clause 3. “No Bill of Attainder or Ex Post Facto Law shall be passed.” You can pick either one of those and it would cover this 90% bonus tax.

First, a Bill of Attainder, in the context of the Constitution, means a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group. A punitive tax that specifically targets a certain group (i.e. those who were to receive these bonuses) certainly falls under the definition here. That makes this tax unconstitutional.

Second, when Congress passed the stimulus package and Barack Obama put the Presidential signature on that bill, it became the law of the land. Part of that law is an amendment put in by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) that specifically exempted these bonuses from any regulation. Now, Congress is seeking to implement a law that puts such regulation in place and they want to enforce this law retroactively. That is known as an Ex Post Facto law.

Either way you look at it, this 90% tax Congress wants to retroactively impose on bonus payments that had previously been made perfectly legal by Congress and the President, is wholly, completely and absolutely unconstitutional. It is not the bonuses that matter here. It is the fact that Mr. Wolf voted to allow Congress a power that it never had before and should absolutely never, ever have at all.

I have already written Mr. Wolf asking him to resign. I highly recommend that other residents of Virginia's 10th District do likewise.

Within the next few days, we residents of the 10th District need to get together and begin a recall campaign.

If Mr. Wolf is willing to violate this part of the Constitution, then he is willing to violate other parts of the Constitution as well. The 10th District deserves much better representation than that.

We need to come together and demand that Mr. Wolf step down before he votes to do even more damage to the Constitution's integrity.

House Approves Automaker Bailout, Sends Measure To Senate. Time To Tell The Senate "No!"

Well, the House has approved the ill-fated bailout of Detroit, mostly along party lines. It is clear that the Dems are serious about paying back the big unions for their support in the election and that they want the American taxpayer to foot the bill for it.

The only good thing I can say about this is that my own Representative, Frank Wolf (R-VA) actually voted against this bill. Maybe because of the letters he recieved from people like me or maybe because he has looked back at the dismal failure of the Wall Street bailout and thought better of doing the same thing again.

Now, we have to stop the measure from passing in the Senate. According to Bloomberg:

The House approved a $14 billion loan package intended to prevent a collapse of domestic automakers that would threaten millions of U.S. jobs. The 237-170 vote sends the measure to the Senate, where opposition is growing. ... Some Republicans said the measure would waste taxpayer money without saving the companies from collapse. The bailout “won’t save a single job,” said Representative David Dreier, a California Republican. ... In the Senate, Republicans said the bill lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome delaying tactics threatened by some members. Democrats have a 50-49 edge in the Senate.

It's time to get going and write your Senators. Ask them to vote "Nay" on the automaker bailout. It is destined to fail as surely as the Wall Street bailout failed.

Besides, given that Congress has been running massive deficits and cannot balance a budget, can we really trust them to prevent the Big Three from going into bankruptcy? I am not the smartest man in the world, but even I know better than that.

You can access Congressional email directories on-line here:

Congressional Email Directory

Just click on your state and you will be taken a page with contact links for your Congressional delegation.

Here is a sample of what you can email to your Senator. Feel free to copy and paste it:

Dear Senator, I am writing this email to ask you to vote "Nay" on the automaker bailout bill which recently passed the House of Representatives (H.R. 7321). This bill is destined to be a dismal failure just as the $700 billion Wall Street bailout was a failure and huge waste of taxpayers money. It is already bad enough that our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay for these bailout failures. We need to stop this foolishness now before we begin saddling a debt on our great-grandchildren as well. The best thing to do for Detroit is to let them go into Chapter 11. That way, they can reorganize and retool. This will allow them to modernize as the foreign carmakers have done and Detroit can become competitive again. Right now, the Big Three have manpower costs such that they must pay over $70 an hour to build a car whereas other automakers can do the same job for $35 to $45 an hour. Bailing out Detroit will only prolong the inevitable and waste billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. As a final note, you should realize that hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the United States are in danger of failing, but no one is proposing to bail any of them out. Please apply that same standard to Detroit. Thank you.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

House Approves Automaker Bailout, Sends It To Senate
John Hughes
Bloomberg.com
December 10, 2008

A Letter To Virginia Senators Warner And Webb, And Representative Wolf

Another bailout? Another failure in the works? Why won't Congress learn?

If you are from Virginia, feel free to copy this letter and send it in:

Dear [Congressional Representative], I am writing this letter to ask you to vote “Nay” on the proposed bailout of the Detroit “Big Three” automakers. While it is true that the American economy has been in a recession since last December, it is also true that we cannot kick-start it by placing yet another burden on the children and grand-children of the American taxpayer, especially a burden of a program that is doomed to failure. As a case in point, I show you the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that was supposed to fend off a market crash. Not only was that bailout a complete and total failure, but it saddled a $905 billion debt on our children and grand-children. And even beyond that, the pork that existed in that bill was nothing short of unpardonable. After all, those toy wooden arrows, wheat research grants and subsidies for Puerto Rican rum didn’t do a damn thing to shore up the markets. And now, the Federal Government wants to make the same mistake again, only this time with Detroit. There comes a time when you simply must let a business fail. Detroit has reached that time. The legacy costs they have incurred over the years are too much for them to overcome and certainly not worthy of the hard-earned dollars that the American taxpayer will be forced into paying for them. As a case in point for this, I show you the Jobs Bank program that the United Auto Workers negotiated with the Big Three. In this program, workers are literally paid not to work. How long can any business maintain such a ridiculous policy? It is true that there is talk of “suspending” this program, but that won’t help since it means the program could come back and force more legacy cost on the automakers. It needs to be killed completely along with several other concessions to the UAW that have contributed to the legacy costs that are right now killing Detroit. The best way to fix the problem is to allow the Big Three to go into Chapter 11 and re-organize. This is the most viable option as is evidenced by the other big automakers in the United States who have plants in California, Tennessee and South Carolina. None of them are in trouble nor are they asking for any kind of bailout nor are they beholden to any labor unions. If the Big Three want to survive, they should look to Toyota, Honda and BMW as models for restructuring. One last point I want to make. Small businesses all over Virginia are in danger of failing due to the bad economy. Hairdressers are losing business because people don't have the money to get their hair done as often. Garages are losing business because people are putting off auto repair for as long as possible. Painters, plumbers and carpenters are losing business because people are putting off home repairs as long as possible. But despite the fact that small businesses here in Virginia are in danger of failing, no one has been proposing a government bailout for us. Please apply that same standard to Detroit. Thank you.

Congress Passes Legislation That Hands American Taxpayers The Largest Bill In History

All the scaremongers said that it was necessary to avert a credit crisis.

Credit crisis?

Where? I was still getting credit card offers through the mail. A 20-year-old friend of mine just got approved for a car loan. Student loans are still being approved. Small businesses are still able to get loans. Exactly where is the "credit crisis?"

Only on Wall Street. And Congress has now authorized the President to screw the American Taxpayer with over $805 billion in responsibilities. Maybe our children will be able to pay this off, but those of us living on Main Street just got served notice that the Federal Government cares more about the people who make big campaign donations than they do about the American people.

From the Associated Press:

The final vote, 263-171 in the House, a comfortable margin that was 58 more votes than it garnered on Monday. The vote capped two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by daily warnings that the country confronted the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act. Bush was poised to make a statement on the historic vote. "We all know that we are in the midst of a financial crisis," House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, said shortly before casting his vote for government intervention in private capital markets that was unthinkable only a month ago. "And we know that if we do nothing, this crisis is likely to worsen and to put us into an economic slump like most of us have never seen."

And this bailout is going to put us in a situation like none of us have ever seen!

Here is what I see:

- Wall Street Big Wigs and the Congressional recipients of their donations are stuffing my tax dollars into their pockets.
- Numerous recipients of earmarks and pork stuffing my tax dollars in their pockets.
- My gasoline prices going up because some idiot inserted a carbon tax into the bill my and stupid fool Senators (Webb and Warner) and Representative (Wolf) completely missed it!

Here is what I don't see:

- Accountability from those who caused this mess.
- I don't see Chris Dodd (D-CT) or Barney Frank (D-MA) being hauled before a Congressional committee to give account of how they blocked Republicans from enacting the reform that could averted this whole mess and saved us $805 billion dollars.
- I don't see Franklin Raines being hauled before a Congressional committee to explain how he made $90 million while Fannie was losing money.
- I don't see that the progenitor of this whole thing, the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, has been repealed which means that banks and lending institutions are still being forced to make bad loans.

Let's see who the big winners really were:

Sec. 101. Extension of alternative minimum tax relief for nonrefundable personal credits.
Sec. 102. Extension of increased alternative minimum tax exemption amount.
Sec. 103. Increase of AMT refundable credit amount for individuals with longterm unused credits for prior year minimum tax liability, etc.
Sec. 201. Deduction for State and local sales taxes.
Sec. 202. Deduction of qualified tuition and related expenses.
Sec. 203. Deduction for certain expenses of elementary and secondary school teachers.
Sec. 204. Additional standard deduction for real property taxes for nonitemizers.
Sec. 205. Tax-free distributions from individual retirement plans for charitable purposes.
Sec. 206. Treatment of certain dividends of regulated investment companies.
Sec. 207. Stock in RIC for purposes of determining estates of nonresidents not citizens.
Sec. 208. Qualified investment entities.
Sec. 301. Extension and modification of research credit.
Sec. 302. New markets tax credit.
Sec. 303. Subpart F exception for active financing income.
Sec. 304. Extension of look-thru rule for related controlled foreign corporations.
Sec. 305. Extension of 15-year straight-line cost recovery for qualified leasehold improvements and qualified restaurant improvements; 15-year straight-line cost recovery for certain improvements to retail space.
Sec. 306. Modification of tax treatment of certain payments to controlling exempt organizations.
Sec. 307. Basis adjustment to stock of S corporations making charitable contributions of property.
Sec. 308. Increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
Sec. 310. Extension of mine rescue team training credit.
Sec. 311. Extension of election to expense advanced mine safety equipment.
Sec. 312. Deduction allowable with respect to income attributable to domestic production activities in Puerto Rico.
Sec. 313. Qualified zone academy bonds.
Sec. 314. Indian employment credit.
Sec. 315. Accelerated depreciation for business property on Indian reservations.
Sec. 316. Railroad track maintenance. Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
Sec. 318. Expensing of environmental remediation costs.
Sec. 319. Extension of work opportunity tax credit for Hurricane Katrina employees.
Sec. 320. Extension of increased rehabilitation credit for structures in the Gulf Opportunity Zone.
Sec. 321. Enhanced deduction for qualified computer contributions.
Sec. 322. Tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia.
Sec. 323. Enhanced charitable deductions for contributions of food inventory.
Sec. 324. Extension of enhanced charitable deduction for contributions of book inventory.
Sec. 325. Extension and modification of duty suspension on wool products; wool research fund; wool duty refunds.
Sec. 401. Permanent authority for undercover operations. v Sec. 402. Permanent authority for disclosure of information relating to terrorist activities.
Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child tax credit.
Sec. 502. Provisions related to film and television productions.
Sec. 503. Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.
Sec. 504. Income averaging for amounts received in connection with the Exxon Valdez litigation.
Sec. 505. Certain farming business machinery and equipment treated as 5-year property.
Sec. 506. Modification of penalty on understatement of taxpayer's liability by tax return preparer.
Sec. 512. Mental health parity.
Sec. 601. Secure rural schools and community self-determination program.
Sec. 602. Transfer to abandoned mine reclamation fund.
Sec. 702. Temporary tax relief for areas damaged by 2008 Midwestern severe storms, tornados, and flooding.
Sec. 703. Reporting requirements relating to disaster relief contributions.
Sec. 704. Temporary tax-exempt bond financing and low-income housing tax relief for areas damaged by Hurricane Ike.
Sec. 706. Losses attributable to federally declared disasters.
Sec. 707. Expensing of Qualified Disaster Expenses.
Sec. 708. Net operating losses attributable to federally declared disasters.
Sec. 709. Waiver of certain mortgage revenue bond requirements following federally declared disasters.
Sec. 710. Special depreciation allowance for qualified disaster property.
Sec. 711. Increased expensing for qualified disaster assistance property.
Sec. 712. Coordination with Heartland disaster relief.
Sec. 801. Nonqualified deferred compensation from certain tax indifferent parties.

And don't forget Sec. 117. The carbon tax. Now the Feds can royally screw our economy just like the governments in Europe are screwing theirs!

At least I can say one thing that is a bit of a relief. This bailout is going to ultimately fail and the economy is going to crash (we cannot keep the markets artificially inflated like this) and it looks like Barack Obama is going to win this election. The crash will happen on his watch and he will have no one to blame except himself and the Democrat-controlled Congress.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Congress OKs Historic Bailout Bill
Julie Hirschfeld and David Espo
Associated Press via Breitbart
October 3, 2008

An Open Letter To Rep. Frank Wolf Concerning The Wall Street Bailout

Frank Wolf
241 Cannon Building
Washington, DC 20515

Subj: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act

Mr. Wolf,

As you already know, Senators Warner and Webb have voted “Yes” to bailing out the Wall Street Banks and Institutions that got themselves into a serious mess by engaging in extremely poor business practices. This bailout amounts to the Federal Government using my hard earned money to give a huge payday to a group of Wall Street executives while completely failing to hold accountable any of the people who caused this whole situation to begin with.

Further, this bill is being shoved down our collective throats since there have been no hearings, no debates and no investigations into the exact cause of the problem.

I recommend that at least four people be brought before Congress and put under oath to explain their exact roles in this matter. These four are Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Franklin Raines, who made $90 million in personal income off of Fannie and Jim Johnson who made over $20 million. I, for one, would like to know how these last two made money while everyone else lost money.

Beyond all of this is the pork that has been tacked onto this bailout. Main Street is going to bail out Wall Street for some Puerto Rican Rum and maybe some NASCAR tracks? How about that “Wool Research?” God knows we can never have too much of that now, can we? And what about those “Wooden Arrows designed for use by children?” Maybe we can line the Wall Street CEOs up against the wall and shoot them with the arrows!

This $700 billion legislation just went up to $850 billion, and now the House is talking about tacking even more pork onto this!

It doesn’t matter whether this bill is 3 pages or 3000 pages. It is still a socialist bailout that will saddle me and my children with bills that will take decades to pay off, if we can even pay them off at all.

Perhaps you should take the time to read through the entire bill before voting to require the American Taxpayer to handle more debt than we can afford.

Also, you should know that the contributions made to you in gratitude for your “Yes” vote on the original bill have not gone unnoticed. To wit:

Securities brokers & investment companies: $28,150
Finance, Insurance & Real Estate: $27,250
Commercial banks & bank holding companies: $21,700
Credit Unions: $13,250
Investment banking: $11,800
Credit agencies & finance companies: $11,250
Private Equity & Investment Firms: $7,800
Venture capital: $7,500
Banks & lending institutions: $6,000
Stock exchanges: $1,950
Savings banks & Savings and loans: $400
Commodity brokers/dealers: $250

The total you received from entities who support this bailout is $137,300. That is how much you have effectively been paid to hand me and my children this huge debt of at least $850 billion plus whatever other pork you and your peers decide to put into this thing. The latest estimate I saw was a final bill of $905 billion.

There is a reason these banks and lending institutions are failing. It is because the market is dictating that the fail. Once they do, businesses that engage in wiser practices will step up and take their place.

Please do the right thing and vote “No” on this bailout bill, or if you cannot do that, please explain to me why I have to provide a huge payday to Wall Street while those who got us into this mess get to walk away with no accountability and at the same time, are shoving my money into their pockets.

Thank you.