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For Immediate Release Sep 25, 2008
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As Election Day Nears, Presidential Candidates Continue Out-Promising, Out-Spending Each Other

(Alexandria, Va.) -- As John McCain and Barack Obama jockeyed for position in the race to appear "leader-like" over the economy and in upcoming debates, the latest update of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation's (NTUF) candidate cost analysis project shows that despite their different styles, the major party Presidential hopefuls have one thing in common: both their agendas would add billions more to the taxpayer's tab every year.

NTUF's fourth and final round of assigning price tags to the candidates' platforms since January 29 found that Sen. McCain (R-AZ) would increase yearly federal spending by $92.4 billion, compared to Sen. Obama's (D-IL) $293.0 billion. NTUF also released a first-time analysis of Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, who would instead cut annual federal spending by $200.9 billion. The studies include proposals through September 19.

Jason Scheurer's campaign released the following questionaire from the League of Women Voters. They thought that everyone would be interested in reading his responses to their questions. Enjoy!

1.)    The No Child Left Behind Act is set to be reauthorized in 2009.  What kind of reforms, if any, will you be advocating during the legislative process? 

I will not reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act.  Just like most of these government experiments, this has failed miserably relative to the costs.  This is just another bureaucratic, paper-pushing, government failure that is designed to convince you that the federal government can fix an already broken education system.  Why not instead have each child be worth a set dollar amount?  For example, $7,000 per child and allow parents to shop around for the very best school program or home-based learning option in the market. Only by increasing competition can we fix our government-run, broken schools.

At last night's excellent event at Luciano's, Bob Barr addressed (among other things) how the United States intercepts and reviews emails based on whether the interceptor reasonably believes one party to the communication is outside of the country.  For this and other reasons, many do not trust the privacy and security of email and electronic communications, because the United States government intercepts, stores, and reviews those communications.

The principal reason the Unites States government has this ability is because most Internet traffic in the world is routed through the United States.  An article in tomorrow's (Aug. 30, 2008) New York Times addresses the current free-market response to the U.S.'s invasion of privacy:  more Internet traffic is now being routed outside of the United States, and businesses and companies are aggressively building Internet infrastructure outside of the United States.  While certainly some amount of development outside of the U.S. is inevitable, I have no doubt that the U.S. has lost some amount of commerce because its government does not respect the privacy of communications through the Internet.

And, it also increases the ability of true enemies of the United States to hide their Internet communications from legitimate surveillance techniques (e.g., those performed pursuant to a warrant issued by a judge that is based upon a showing of probable cause).

Fellow patriots,

Last week, a Republican Party official filed a lawsuit in the State of Pennsylvania to keep the Libertarian Party off the ballot in November. Basing the lawsuit on a substitution technicality the merits of the case are scheduled to be heard September 4, 2008 in Philadelphia. After collecting over fifty thousand signatures and an enormous strain on our manpower and monetary resources I must ask the question, when is enough, enough. We know they don't want us in the debates, but if they will fight tooth and nail to keep us off the ballot it begs the question what type of government would they run if elected. We must begin to take a stand and let them know this will no longer be tolerated. For the next two and a half months we have our opportunity to unite and send a message this is no longer acceptable. So what can you do?

Start by joining Bob Barr and Jason Scheurer at Luciano's at 1579 Main Street in Rahway, New Jersey, this Thursday beginning at 8PM as we simulcast our message across the country. We will be joined by Wayne Root in Denver as he reports on the Democratic convention as well as others around the country. Make your voice heard.

In Liberty,
Lou Jasikoff
570-877-1716

A text message arrived at my phone this morning announced that Democratic Senator Barack Obama had selected Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.  I looked at it, said, "No surprise there," and went back to sleep.

After all, there isn't much to Biden that the public doesn't already know.  He's a career Senator with more than 30-year history of being a "Congress critter." Biden is not only a part of the political establishment, he's a senior member of it!

In fact, Biden has only spent four years working in the private sector after graduating from college. 

As our acting Executive Director said, Biden's pick was "predictable and typical."