Constitutional conservative Jake Towne, a Chemical Engineer by trade, has a firm understanding of how the free market functions. However, he has been so disturbed by the federal manipulation of our economy that he has decided to put his career on pause in order to pursue the rectification of policies which are pushing our country towards tyranny. Thus, he is taking the fiscal fight from the 15th district of Pennsylvania to DC.

Jake appeared as a panel member Wednesday on Freedom Watch.

Financial Fiasco

Endorsed by the 9/12 project, Towne believes that in order to restore freedom to our nation we must have economic liberty. His goal as Congressman will be to reduce the power of government and restore it to the people. Jake will have an open office which is directly accountable to his constituents.

Through the use of a small donor base, he will not be beholden to the special interests which have poisoned Washington. An example of corruption was revealed this week as House members of an appropriations committee took more than $6 million in campaign contributions from the lobbying firm PMA Group in exchange for over $200 million in earmarks.

Perhaps the most serious case involves a defunct lobbying firm, PMA Group, and contributions it gave to House appropriators, who then pushed for earmarks in the military budget that benefited the firm’s clients. The list included seven members of the military appropriations subcommittee. Spokesmen for those members said they had all been contacted by the ethics committee about their earmarks for PMA clients.

The seven members, including Representative John P. Murtha, Democrat of Pennsylvania, received a total of more than $6.2 million in contributions from PMA and its clients since 1998, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. And in the last two years they inserted more than $200 million in military earmarks to PMA’s clients, according to a tally by Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks such items.

Another instance of reported foul play in Pennsylvania stemmed from a pension probe which ties contributions by the private equity firm Blackstone Group to Democratic Governor Ed Rendell. His state returned the favor in the form of $2.8 billion worth of pension investments through Blackstone, which took $129 million in management fees.

Gov. Edward Rendell received $11,000 in contributions during his 2002 and 2006 campaigns from Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the private equity firm Blackstone Group. Pennsylvania’s governors appoint six of the state pension board’s 11 members. The state pension fund invested more than $2.8 billion with Blackstone from 1994 through 2007. Blackstone has earned $129 million in managemenmt fees.

One quarter of Pennsylvania’s pension investments were put into hedge funds, which led to losses of over $4 billion. This is expected to cost property owners in the state an average of over $550 each in higher taxes.

The next arena of pay to play politics promises to be health care, where nearly $1 trillion of the nation’s wealth being redistributed. For instance Congresswoman Anna Eschoo, a Democrat, has received more than $20,000 in campaign contributions from the world’s fourth largest biologics company, Johnson & Johnson. It was recompensated by an amendment introduced by Rep. Eschoo removing competition from generic drugmakers for up to 12 years. The measure is expected to cost taxpayers more than $100 billion over the next ten years.

A 2008 analysis by former Clinton Administration official Robert Shapiro, who has consulted for both biologics companies and their would-be generic competitors, suggested that generic versions of the top 12 categories of biologics whose patents have expired or will expire soon could save Americans up to $108 billion in the first 10 years and as much as $378 billion over two decades. “It’s the low-hanging fruit,” says Mark Merritt, head of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, the trade organization for prescription-drug-benefit managers. “If you can’t get this right on cost control, what can you get right?”

During an interview on the Radio Free Market radio show Jake discussed his ideas to provide real solutions to health care, which do not include socialized medicine.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

The sitting Congressman in Pennsylvania’s 15th district, Richard Dent, has legislated like a fiscal liberal. One example of this is his approval in July of nearly $50 billion for the State Dept to bailout countries throughout the world. Here are a few examples of what was contained in the bill:

• $2.2 Billion to finance the Israeli military
• $1.04 Billion to finance the Egyptian military
• $150 Million to finance the Jordan military
• $60 Million to finance the Colombian military
• $400.4 Million for “economic support” of the West Bank and Gaza
• $300 Million for “economic support” of Afghanistan

The question which Rep. Dent needs to answer is: where are you getting the money for these excursions? Why aren’t these countries forced to pay their own way? Where in the Constitution does it tell you to finance the globe? The budget deficit is already at $1.4 trillion, meaning the funding will either have to be borrowed or printed. The result is higher national debt and further devaluation of the dollar. It’s time to replace Rep. Dent with Jake Towne, a citizen who will not sell out his office to special interests.

To pledge support for Jake and other freedom candidates, visit thisnovember5th.com