Democrats Raise Sarasotans Taxes; Deny Self-defense Rights

By Joe Gruters

One thing is now perfectly clear for all to see: Partisan politics are alive and kicking in Sarasota government.

Within a few days, the Sarasota City Commission voted to raise taxes in a weak economy and then to urge the Florida Legislature to repeal the Stand Your Ground law. Those were both 3-2 votes and they were along party lines.

But wait, you say, you thought city elections were nonpartisan? Think again. That’s a ruse by the minority party in our county to try to win elections. You simply cannot get rid of partisanship simply by obfuscating party affiliation with a different label.

Worldviews matter. And the parties roughly represent those world views.

But Democrats want to obscure those worldviews by making county elections “nonpartisan” for one reason: There are 122,000 registered Republicans in Sarasota County and only 89,000 registered Democrats.

So first, the city commission voted 3-2 to increase taxes by 8.5% even though property values are shooting up and putting more money in the city’s coffers without the tax rate increase. The combination will mean a much higher tax bill for city residents.

The three Democrats on the commission said the city was so cash-strapped that it had no choice but to raise taxes on struggling families in the Obama economy, even while increasing property values were already going to raise tax bills.

And yet they found $500,000 for their homeless program — more than one-third of the money the tax rate increase is expected to raise.

And people say there is not a left-right divide on city issues? That’s just not honest.

And then, the same three Democrats were the majority vote to urge the Legislature to repeal Stand Your Ground.

Of course, this comes after George Zimmerman was unanimously acquitted by a jury in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin — a trial in which Stand Your Ground played no role. The trial verdict was merely a whipped-up ruse with which to further erode the rights of law-abiding citizens and tip the scales to the criminals and thugs.

Democrat Commissioner Suzanne Atwell tried to back-peddle after the vote and the public outcry, saying her vote was to have a “conversation about a highly charged issue.” She told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, “I just want to start a conversation.”

Right, because no one had been talking about Stand Your Ground until the city commission brought it up. How disingenuous, and weak.

Newly-elected Democrat Commissioner Susan Chapman also walked it back a bit, saying her vote was to “revisit” the issue.

But here’s the language: “The City Commission requests that the State Legislature repeal the Stand Your Ground statute and establish a more civil approach to governance than afforded under the current statute.”

They voted to have the Legislature repeal the law, not revisit a conversation.

So for the record, the Democrats who voted to raise your taxes and deny your self-defense rights were:

• Vice Mayor Willie Shaw, Willie.Shaw@sarasotagov.com

• Commissioner Suzanne Atwell, Suzanne.Atwell@sarasotagov.com

• Commissioner Susan Chapman, Susan.Chapman@sarasotagov.com

The Republicans who supported lower taxes on hard-working Sarasotans and to maintain self-defense rights were:

• Mayor Shannon Snyder, Shannon.Snyder@sarasotagov.com

• Commissioner Paul Caragiulo, Paul.Caragiulo@sarasotagov.com

Let them know how you feel about their votes. And never forget that our core principles are represented in the Republican Party, and attempts eliminate that is an attempt to eliminate our core principles from triumphing.

Thanks for being informed and engaged.

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Sweet Hypocrisy

By Joe Gruters

Here’s an inconvenient truth: If you were hungry

or needy in this nation and there was not the

thick welfare net to land on, you would pray that

your neighbors were conservatives. And that

would be particularly true if you were a minority.

 

Ben Cohen’s Amend-O-Matic Stamp Mobile in Sarasota last week.

 

The Hypocrisy Machine rolled into Sarasota last week in the form of the Amend-O-Matic StampMobile piloted by Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Cohen is a well-known liberal and big Democrat financial donor, but his contraption runs under the banner of “Stamp Money Out of Politics.” Run a greenback through it and it will deface it with the banner in red letters.

Cohen alone has donated more than a $155,000 of his own money to Democrats since 1988. Unions donate tens of millions to Democrats. Hollywood and coastal elites contributes tens of millions to Democrats. And then there are the boundless in-kind donations of the national media, which are not IRS reportable.

But that is not the money, Cohen wants to stamp out of politics. That money is OK. It’s corporate donations that he is after, and he is perfectly comfortable using his large amount of corporate-derived money to fund his own PR machine limiting it for others.

Specifically, he is after the Citizens United decision that reaffirmed that money equals political speech access. Cohen utilizes that concept, of course, he just doesn’t want those he disagrees with to have the same freedoms. All Cohen really wants is to stamp conservative money out of politics.

Cohen comes through a long line of hypocrisy on the left when dealing with money.

Consider charitable giving. Liberals proclaim themselves to care more about the poor and needy than conservatives — and that is the nice way of putting their rhetoric. But it turns out that only appears to be the case when they are using other people’s money, such as taxpayers that include corporations. And conservatives know instinctively that keeping the poor trapped in welfare nets is not compassionate.

Arthur C. Brooks, in his book, Who Really Cares – America’s Charity Divide, combed through mountains of data to find this reality:

“Liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year than conservative families, but conservative families gave more than liberal families within every income class, from poor to middle class to rich. Despite their lower earnings, conservative households in America donate 30 percent more money to charity each year than liberal households.”

A Google study found an even greater disproportion between conservatives’ giving and liberals’ giving, suggesting that conservatives give about twice as much.

Democrats know these stats and try to slough them off on church giving. But even when that is backed out, conservatives still give more. But, we are told, liberals care about those in need! Here’s a stat from Brooks: “A religious person is 57 percent more likely than a secularist to help a homeless person. If liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45 percent.”

Hypocrites.

Brooks looked at other data and found people who give charitably express less prejudice than non-givers toward African Americans, Latinos, and Asians.

It should be noted that when Brooks began researching his book, he assumed he would find that liberals were more generous. That was, and is after all, the well-crafted Democrat and media stereotype. The facts ended up forcing him to change his mind and the conclusion of the book.

Brooks looked at the macro level. On the micro level, Vice President Joe Biden is one example among many of the hypocrisy. While safely ensconced in his Senate seat, he typically ponied up about one-tenth of one percent to charity, sometimes less than one-hundredth of one percent. Essentially, nothing. The generous liberal in reality.

Once Biden was running for vice president, he managed to up his giving all the way to 1.5 percent. So even while doing it for crass political gain, he still came up with less than half of what a typical conservative gives — who makes only a fraction of Biden’s income.

Ditto for President and Michelle Obama, whose giving ranged from four-tenths of one percent to 1.2 percent until he ran for office and became president. This, from two stalwart liberals purporting to want to help the poor and needy.

Hypocrites.

Even with the Obamas and Bidens increased giving when running for office, Mitt Romney still gave more than both combined in raw dollars and as a percentage of income. In fact, he gave away 29.4 percent of his income in 2011, which is one big reason his effective tax rate appeared so low. He gave it away!

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a big Democrat and Obama fan. Presumably he agrees with wringing more money out of American taxpayers to pay for big government. Yet Bloomberg reports that while Facebook is reporting $1.1 billion in pre-tax profits, the company will not only not pay a dime in income taxes but will get about $429 million in “refunds.”

Hypocrites.

Here’s an inconvenient truth: If you were hungry or needy in this nation and there was not the thick welfare net to land on, you would pray that your neighbors were conservatives. And that would be particularly true if you were a minority.

What does this prove? Sanctimonious politics is not charity. Liberals accuse conservatives of being cold-hearted, but they are far less “compassionate” if it actually costs them something. Liberal bumper stickers and cheap slogans mean nothing because so many liberals are only generous when giving away other people’s money — not their own.

Hypocrites.

Thanks for being informed and engaged.