StopLouBarletta.com

Less than a month after taking office in the US House of Representatives, Congressman Lou Barletta has already been absent for 13% of the votes in the House.  As casting votes on legislation is one of the primary job descriptions of a Congressman, it’s unforgivable that after such a short time, Lou Barletta has already found a way to under-perform at his duties.  As an elected member of Congress, there is absolutely no excuse for missing votes.  Lou Barletta was elected to be the voice of the people in Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District, and he can’t do that if he’s off goofing off elsewhere while legislation is being voted on in the House of Representatives.

Since taking his oath of office on January 5th of this month, Lou Barletta has missed two out of sixteen votes in the House of Representatives.  That translates into Barletta not being present for 13% of the votes.  That is unforgivable, unacceptable, and Lou Barletta needs to offer an explanation for why he’s missing these votes and what is so much more important than doing his job.  Lou Barletta was not elected to be our Congressman when it’s convenient for him.  He was elected to represent us in the US House of Representatives, full time, all the time, for all of the votes.

Barletta apologists (of which there are many…) will say things like, “Well, it’s only two votes,” or “It’s too early to pass this kind of judgment.”  Let me address that nonsense here and now.  Missing two votes in less than a month is simply unacceptable.  If this trend continues, and there’s no reason to believe that it won’t, Lou Barletta is on track to miss about 15% of the votes in the House.  That isn’t political spin or fluff, that’s cold math.  And in terms of it being too early to begin making this kind of criticism, I would argue that there is no learning curve for a Congressman.  They are elected to cast votes.  If they are not casting votes, they are not doing their jobs.  Right now, Lou Barletta isn’t doing his job 13% of the time, even though he’s still getting paid 100% of his tax-payer financed salary earned with hard sweat in your favorite Vegas NightClubs

I’ve been saying for years that Lou Barletta isn’t fit to be a Congressman.  As the Mayor of Hazleton, Barletta’s ability to screw things up was shockingly horrible.  When he was elected to the US House of Representatives, I was hoping that maybe I was wrong.  Now, after less than a month in Congress, I don’t see any reason to believe that I was.  Lou Barletta is cheating the people that elected him to Congress.  Lou Barletta spent a lot of time and money trying to get himself elected to Congress.  Now that he’s there, however, it seems that he has better things to do.  Lou Barletta, after less than a month as a Congressman, is already a failure.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

Today, Lou Barletta was sworn in as a Congressman.  This, I think, represents a huge setback for not only Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District, which Barletta now has the responsibility of representing, but also for the country as a whole.  With luck, Congressman Barletta will, for the first time in his political career, get something right and actually not end up screwing over the people he was elected to represent.  Given his history, and shocking incompetence, however, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Lou Barletta, while serving as Mayor of Hazleton, PA, was one of the most divisive, most ineffective, and most destructive politicians in the history of North Eastern Pennsylvania.  Simply put, the man’s tenure was something out of a nightmare.  Brutal tax hikes.  Mismanaged city pension funds.  Soaring deficits.  A racist and unconstitutional “immigration” law.  Record unemployment.  This is the legacy Lou Barletta leaves behind in his wake.  Today, while he was hamming it up with his new high-society friends, the people of Hazleon are struggling to survive in a city that has the highest unemployment rate in the state.  Barletta’s parting gift to the city was him raising the city’s property taxes by 70%, the highest in the state.  I wonder if he was thinking about that as he took his oath of office, today.

Here are some other things that I wonder if Lou Barletta is thinking about:

• How does he intend, if he does intend, to protect jobs at the Tobyhanna Army Depot?  Republicans have said they want to cut Federal spending by $100 billion.  If you are an employee at Tobyhanna, that should concern you.  The fact that Barletta excels at scaring jobs away should add to that concern.
• Speaking of spending cuts, what programs will Lou Barletta vote to cut?  Which ones will he defend?  Barletta, on his website, rails against all the spending that Washington has been doing over the past several years.  If he’s so opposed to government spending, does this mean that he will cut Federal spending to his district?
• What are Lou Barletta’s views on the Tea Party?  It’s no secret that many of his colleagues are proud, card-carrying members of the Tea Party.  Is Barletta willing to cast votes in support of Tea Party backed legislation?
• What are Lou Barletta’s top priorities now that he is a Congressman?  He has two years.  What does he want to accomplish in those two years for his district?  And when I say priorities, I don’t mean fluff like, “doing good things for my district,” or “restoring faith in our government,” or any of that other crap.  Specifically, what does he want to accomplish?

These are just some of the unanswered questions that I’d like Congressman Barletta to answer.  The horrifying reality that we all now face is that a man who has spent his entire political career making life worse for those that he represents.  That’s fact.  I think that as a Congressman, Barletta should clearly communicate what he stands for, what he opposes, what he wants to accomplish, and how he defines victory.  Otherwise, how can we be sure that Lou Barletta won’t do to the people of the 11th Congressional District what he did to the people of Hazleton?

As Lou Barletta prepares to cast his first votes as a Congressman, I think he owes it to his constituents to explain how he intends to cast those votes.  I don’t feel comfortable knowing so little about where my elected representative stands on issues that affect all of us.  I have been talking for years about why I don’t think Lou Barletta is fit to represent us in Congress.  Now, it’s up to him to prove me wrong.  I honestly hope he does.  However, as I look back on what he’s done to Hazleton, I am horrified at what he will do to his district.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

Hi, all.  It’s been a while since my last post and I just wanted to check in to assure you that this site isn’t dead.  I’m taking a little break for the holidays, but rest assured, come January, this site will once again fire back to life and will continue to stand up against Congressman Lou Barletta and the brand of failed, flawed leadership that he represents.  I haven’t given up.  This site will remain active.  Stay tuned and I’ll see all again next year!

Happy holidays, everyone!

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

Lou Barletta served as the Mayor of Hazleton, PA for ten years.  Elected in 2000, Barletta held the position until 2010 when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, representing Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District.  During his time as mayor, Barletta became one of the most out-spoken and controversial public figures in the state.  As Barletta transitions from mayor to Congressman, I thought it would be worth examining the legacy Barletta is leaving behind in Hazleton.

A Community Divided

Lou Barletta is perhaps best known for his “Illegal Immigration Relief Act”, an extremely controversial law that Barletta attempted to push into law.  The law would have made English the official language of Hazleton, would require anyone renting in Hazleton to register with the city, providing highly personal information such as social security numbers to city employees.  Additionally, the law promised hash punishments for employers who had undocumented workers on their payrolls.  The law, which was one of the most extreme and un-American laws ever enacted, quickly made Lou Barletta a cable news star.

However, the effect that law had on Hazleton and the surrounding area was toxic.  Businesses, not wanting to be subjected to additional regulation and local government oversight left Hazleton.  Residents, not wanting to register with “Big Brother” also moved away from the city.  Additionally, local civil rights and Hispanic organizations and leaders deeply opposed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act and it wasn’t long before the law was challenged in Federal Court.  In July of 2007, the law was ruled unconstitutional.  Barletta and the city appealed the ruling, but in September of 2010, the ruling was upheld.

To this day, the effect of Barletta’s radical law is still taking a toll on the area.  For his part, Barletta has become a poster boy for bigotry and racism.  As a candidate for the United States Congress, Barletta was endorsed by David Duke, one of the nation’s leading voices of hate and a former senior leader of the Ku Klux Klan.  For every person who supported Barletta’s publicity-stunt of a law, someone else opposed it.  The divide that Barletta created was so deep and painful that in 2010, Temple University began offering a course titled, The War in Hazleton which discussed the divisive politics and policies of Barletta and the effect that they had on the community.  It will take years to heal the wounds inflicted upon Hazleton and the surrounding communities by Lou Barletta.

Hazleton: Where Good Things Go to Die

As Barletta leaves Hazleton behind for Washington, he walks away from an utterly broken city.  Hazleton, as of this writing, has the highest rate of unemployment in the State of Pennsylvania.  Additionally, right before being elected to Congress, Barletta passed a series of brutal tax hikes, raising property taxes by 70% and earned income tax by 20%.  Additionally, Barletta brokered a deal to allow sludge to be shipped into a Hazleton dumping ground in exchange for cash.  All of this was done in an effort to help pay for mistakes that Barletta made while serving as mayor, mistakes that may end up bankrupting the city.

Hazleton currently owes well over $2 million in legal fees.  These fees were wracked up during Barletta’s ill-advised defense of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act.  At the time, Barletta was under the impression that the city’s insurance policy would cover these fees.  However, the insurance company challenged this and a Federal Judge ruled that the city would be paying these bills on its own.  Simply put, if Hazleton is forced to pay this money, the city will go bankrupt.  Even with the massive tax hikes and money-for-sludge schemes that Barletta has concocted, Hazleton will still be unable to meet its obligations.

Clearly, the quality of life in Hazleton is in decline.  With no jobs, high taxes, and impending financial disaster for the city, times are tough to say the least.  If and when Hazleton goes belly up, it will be the final ode to Barletta and his reckless and failed style of leadership.  The only bright side in all of this is that now that Lou Barletta is leaving for Washington, perhaps someone who is actually competent will take over the city and begin the monumental task of trying to pick up the pieces of the city that Lou Barletta broke.

Conclusion

As Mayor of Hazleton, Lou Barletta engineered one of the most destructive and divisive forms of “leadership” imaginable.  Over the span of ten years, Barletta has clumsily man-handled the city, pushing it to the edge of financial insolvency and leaving behind a wake of pain, anger, and failed policies.  Sure, some may look back and think fondly of Barletta.  However, anyone grounded in reality will realize that the only things Barletta has been able to accomplish have been bad.  Bad for the city, for its people, and for its history.  Lou Barletta owes the city of Hazleton an apology because the legacy he leaves behind is something that shouldn’t be wished upon any city.  Lou Barletta’s legacy can be properly summed up in one word: FAILURE.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

I’m not going to lie.  I was, and still am, deeply upset about Lou Barletta getting elected to Congress.  I was holding out hope that a person like Barletta, who represents all the wrong things, wouldn’t be given the chance to take his failed and divisive style of leadership to Washington.  I was hoping that my Congressional district would never be represented by someone as clueless, as incompetent, and as dishonest as Lou Barletta.  So much for that.

So now I’m left with a choice.  I can sit here and be miserable about the fact that a political hack like Barletta is now in a position to hold sway over an entire Congressional District and cast votes that will affect every American.  Or, alternatively, I can look at this as an opportunity.  I’ll chose the latter.  Yes, Lou Barletta is now a Congressman.  He won the election fair and square and ran a much more competitive political campaign in his opponent and enjoyed a favorable political environment.  I can’t change that.  However, I can step up my efforts to hold Congressman Barletta accountable for his promises, his actions, and his votes.  And I will work to build a unified and solid opposition to his brand, so that in 2012 he won’t be able just to skate into re-election.

StopLouBarletta.com isn’t going away.  I will continue to post here on a regular basis.  I will work to ensure that I keep everyone informed of how Barletta voted (or didn’t vote) on every single bill that comes in front of the House.  I will continue to call him out when he steps out of line.  I will continue to question his overly-friendly relationship with drug dealers, special interests, and extremist groups.  And I will continue to explain why I feel that Representative Lou Barletta is unfit and undeserving to serve in the United States Congress.

Moving forward, as always, I encourage your feedback.  Aside from obvious spam and hate-speech, I don’t censor comments.  If you’re interested in submitting a guest post, great.  Just email it to me and I’ll consider it for inclusion on this site.  And please, please, please take the time to join the StopLouBarletta community on Facebook and Twitter.  Additionally, as always, I have an open invitation to Lou Barletta to respond to anything that I post to this site.  I promise to post any response from Barletta unedited and without attached commentary.

So the next two years should be exciting.  I plan on upgrading the site to a faster server (traffic to the site continues to increase), use social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook on a much more expanded basis, and help build and encourage an opposition movement against Congressman Barletta.  If you’d like to help out, I’d really appreciate it.  I could always use more authors, more organizers, and more promoters.  To everyone who’s supported me thus far, thank you.  Your kind words and encouragement help keep me motivated.  The same is true for everyone who’s taken the time to tell me why they disagree with me.  To all of you, I look forward to to having you along for the ride.  Lou Barletta doesn’t deserve to be in Congress and, together, we can help make him a one hit wonder.

All for now.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

First off, congratulations to Lou Barletta and his supporters.  I sincerely hope that Congressman Elect Barletta goes to Washington and accomplishes great things.  As one of Mr. Barletta’s constituents, it really is in my best interest for him to do great things for the 11th Congressional District.  An while what I hope will happen and what I think will happen are two different things, the fact remains that Lou Barletta is the new Congressman in town.  Once again, congratulations.

And now that the formal niceties are out of the way, let’s take a look at how Lou Barletta became Congressman Lou Barletta.  Barletta beat Paul Kanjorski by 16,587 votes, capturing 54.5% of the vote.  To say the least, this was a tight race.  Here are the reasons why I think Barletta managed to come out on top…

• It wasn’t a good year to be an incumbent and/or Democrat in the House of Representatives.  Paul Kanjorski was both.  This year, voters were looking to shake things up in Congress and they did exactly that.  It could have been “Paul Kanjorski vs Somebody Else” on the ballot and Somebody Else probably would have scored an awful lot of votes, maybe even enough to win.
• Lou Barletta was a better candidate.  Now don’t get this twisted, being a better candidate is not necessarily the same thing as the best person for the job.  That being said, I have to give Lou Barletta credit.  He ran a more competitive race.  He connected better with voters, he was able to build more excitement around his brand, and he did what he had to do to win this race.
• Democrats finally gave up on Kanjorski.  While I think the previous two points played into this, I also think this was a little bit of the Democratic base deciding that now was a good a time as any to show Kanjorski the door.  That wasn’t something that they were able to accomplish in the Democratic Primary (if they had, Lou Barletta might not be a Congressman right now), but it was very easy for them to do in the General Election.  Look for this base to rally around a new candidate two years from now.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter how many votes Lou Barletta won by, how close this election was, or what could have happened had Barletta been up against a more competitive opponent.  Lou Barletta is now a Congressman, representing Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives.  Am I excited about that?  Absolutely not.  However, I respect the opinion of the voters and, like I said before, I really do hope that Lou Barletta is as good a Congessman as the people who sent him to Washington hope that he will be.  And while I have every intention of keeping this website active (more on that in a later post), for now at least, I’ll tip my hat to Mr. Barletta and congratulate him one more time.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

I’ve spent over two years writing about why Mayor Lou Barletta should not be elected to higher office.  In my opinion, Lou Barletta represents a failed, dishonest, and divisive style of leadership.  He has done nothing, that  I can see, that would qualify him for serving in higher office.  On this website, you’ll find two years worth of explanations as to why Barletta does not deserve your vote.  Here are the top ten reasons, in my mind, as to why you should NOT vote for Lou Barletta, today.

1. Lou Barletta has a record of destroying jobs.  As our country continues to claw and struggle its way out of the one of the worst global economic downturns in recent memory, now is not the time to put someone in Congress who has no experience in creating or saving jobs.  Hazleton, the city that Lou Barletta has managed for nearly a decade, has the highest rate of unemployment in the State of Pennsylvania.
2. Lou Barletta likes to raise taxes.  Just this past year, Mayor Barletta has raised earned income tax in Hazleton by 20% and property taxes by 70%.  Think about that.  In one of the worst economic environments in decades and in the city with the highest rate of unemployment in the state, Lou Barletta has went ahead and signed a brutal tax hike into law.  Clearly, Barletta has no concern for the people he represents.  As a result of these massive tax increases, expect further loss of jobs as employers leave the area and a reduced quality of life for the residents of the city.
3. Mayor Barletta has no regard for the Social Security Trust Fund.  How do I know this?  Because the first time Barletta ran for Congress, back in 2002, he was strongly in favor of privatizing Social Security.  Had Barletta had his way, the economic safety net for our seniors would have been obliterated when the stock market sank.  Additionally, Hazleton has the most under-funded pension fund in Luzerne County.  Barletta was illegally using the money collected to help support city retirees for other purposes.  Instead of stopping, Barletta pressured state law makers to change the law, making what he was doing legal.  To this day, Lou Barletta continues to use the Hazleton Pension Fund like a his own personal piggy bank.
4. Lou Barletta has been endorsed for Congress by former senior leadership of the Ku Klux Klan.  David Duke, one of the nation’s leading racist voices, has come out in full support of Mayor Barletta’s efforts to obtain higher office.  Stop and think about that.  If a scumbag like David Duke supports Lou Barletta, isn’t that reason enough not to support him.  Simply put, if the KKK thinks you’d make a great Congressman…you should think the opposite.
5. Mayor Lou Barletta has direct connections to convicted drug dealers.  Barletta made a small fortune when he sold his pavement line painting company, DBI, to the DeAngelo brothers.  Who are the DeAngelo brothers?  Paul DeAngelo was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1994 for being a member of the Empire Drug Ring, a New York City based drug ring that was distributing cocaine all across Luzerne County.  His brother, Neal, was also involved in this drug ring.  However, Neal DeAngelo avoided prison by snitching on other members of his organization.  Today, this dynamic duo of convicted drug pushers are some of Barletta’s closest friends and have donated thousands of dollars to his political campaigns.
6. Lou Barletta has been endorsed, and accepted money from, The Eagle Forum.  The Eagle Forum is a radical, right-wing organization that makes the Tea Party look like a group of liberal hippies.  This organization pushes an agenda that wants to make it legal for a man to rape his wife, the elimination of all forms of sexual education from public schools, and make it illegal for infants to be vaccinated against diseases.  The fact that Barletta has also been endorsed by David Duke and the DeAngelo Brothers should raise serious questions about his character.
7. Lou Barletta has brought Hazleton to the verge of bankruptcy.  The city’s finances are a joke.  Barletta wasted millions of city dollars in his stupid and failed attempt to defend his “Illegal Immigration Relief Act” in Federal Court.  He did this without permission from the city council.  Additionally, the city was ordered to pay back the money it had been siphoning from the Hazleton City Pension Fund.  Not having the cash to pay back, Barletta instead had to get the state’s lawmakers to change the law and make what he had done legal.
8. Mayor Barletta has tons of sludge shipped in to Hazleton in exchange for cash.  The sludge, dredged from heavily polluted water ways, has raised questions about Barletta’s concern for both the environment and public health.  Someone who is willing to turn his own city into a dumping ground probably isn’t someone we should want to have elected to Congress to look out for our best interests.
9. Lou Barletta, in the wake of the wost environmental disaster to ever strike the United States, publicly supported BP.  Barletta, in a posting on his website, called for the end of any criminal investigation into the company, saying the government should just stay out of it.  It’s this type of mindset that probably explains why Barletta thinks it was such a good idea to have sludge shipped into Hazleton.
10. For all of these reasons combined.  With all of these things considered, why should Lou Barletta be given the chance to represent us in Congress?  Why should we trust Lou Barletta not to screw us into the dirt, just as he’s done in Hazleton?  We shouldn’t.  Lou Barletta, as Mayor of Hazleton, has done nothing to earn our trust.  At every opportunity, he has betrayed our best interests and has sided with organizations and individuals who are so far removed from mainstream American that it’s scary.

When you go vote today, and please make sure you do, think long and hard about the candidates that you’re voting for.  Lou Barletta is not deserving of our votes.  He is, quite possibly, the worst qualified candidate on the ballot.  Lou Barletta has a long and documented history of failed leadership, of broken promises, and questionable ethical decisions.  Let’s not send this person to Congress.  Lou Barletta should not be elected to the United States Congress.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

Lou Barletta supports privatizing Social Security.  Or he did.  But now he opposes it.  I think?  The truth of the matter is that it’s difficult to say what Barletta’s true stance on the issue really is.  Originally, Lou Barletta was gung-ho about privatizing Social Security.  That didn’t go over so well so, apparently, he changed his mind and now opposes it.  Probably.  Until the next time he changes his mind.

When Barletta first ran for Congress in 2002, he was in favor of privatizing Social Security.  That’s not political spin, hype, or twisting of words.  Barletta favored having Social Security savings invested into government backed bonds and securities.  Not surprisingly, this reckless stance on Social Security played a big role in Barletta losing that election.  In 2008, Lou Barletta decided to run for Congress again.  This time around, Barletta decided to waffle on his stance on Social Security privatization.  In fact, he tried to convince people that he’d always been opposed to the idea.  In a Standard Speaker article titled, “Barletta takes new stance on Social Security“, here’s how Barletta tried to spin his opposition to privatizing Social Security….

“I don’t support privatizing Social Security and anyone who says I do is lying,” Barletta said Tuesday. “I’m against personal savings accounts. How much clearer could I be? The public has said it’s against personal accounts, so let’s take that idea off the table.”

That sounds good, right?  Let’s all just pretend to forget that Lou Barletta was in favor of risking people’s retirement with risky investments before he was against it.  The problem with this, of course, is that it’s now impossible to place any kind of faith in Mayor Barletta in terms of his opposition to the idea.  Sure, he says he’s opposed to it now, but how can we – and why should we – believe that?  If he changed his mind on the subject once, doesn’t that mean that he’d change it again?  Probably.

Also, keep in mind that Mayor Barletta presides over the most under-funded city pension funds in Luzerne County.  Barletta has been playing games with the Hazleton Pension Fund, using it for everything other than for what it was intended, to help support city retirees.  And isn’t old news.  This is happening now.  Lou Barletta has no respect for retirees’ money and he obviously finds it perfectly acceptable to use it for whatever the hell he feels like.  Combine this with the fact that he was in favor of privatizing Social Security and you should be very, very afraid of letting Lou Barletta anywhere near our Social Security money.

Lou Barletta has no respect or regard for Social Security.  In Hazleton, he’s under-funding and abusing the city pension fund.  He has, at one point, made it clear that he’s in favor of privatizing Social Security.  The bottom line is that we can’t trust Lou Barletta.  Not with Social Security, not with anything.  If elected to Congress, Lou Barletta would bring his failed style of “leadership” to Washington and then we’d all be subjected to his lies, to his stupidity, and to his flip-flopping on issues.  Lou Barletta does not deserve our votes, lets not give them to him.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/stoploubarletta

The midterm election is now only a week away.  In one week, we will have the opportunity to send a message to Lou Barletta that his brand of “leadership” is not wanted or welcome.  We can do this.  Lou Barletta can be defeated and we can make it clear to everyone that anyone seeking to represent us in Congress should be help to a higher standard.  Lou Barletta does not meet that standard by any stretch of the imagination.  In one week, we have the opportunity to stop Lou Barletta.

If you believe, as I do, that Mayor Lou Barletta is unfit for Congress, then we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to keep him out of office.  Mayor Lou Barletta represents something that we should all want nothing to do with.  However, on November 2nd, he’s going to get a lot of votes.  Make no mistake, this will be a close election.  In order to ensure that Barletta doesn’t get the opportunity to serve in the United States Congress, we all need to step up and make a commitment to stand up for the values and standards that we believe in, the same values and standards that Lou Barletta is in violation of.  So what can we do?

• Tell everyone you know about who Lou Barletta really is and why he must not be elected to Congress.  Send text messages.  Post updates on your Facebook account.  Have conversations with friends.  Get the word out.
• Vote!  Don’t sit this one out.  And since you’re going, take the time to make sure all of your friends and family vote, too.  Offer rides.  Remind people.  Encourage them to vote.  We need to make our voice count.
• Join and participate in the StopLouBarletta community.  Post comments and respond to others, join our Facebook Group, follow the StopLouBarletta Twitter account, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.  If you’re interested in submitting a guest blog post, feel free.  We’re in this together, so let’s stick together.

Next Tuesday we all have an opportunity to stand up for ourselves, our families, and our communities.  As a congressman, Lou Barletta will continue to do what he’s done as the Mayor of Hazleton.  He will support brutal tax hikes.  He will continue to kill jobs.  He will continue to divide communities.  And he will continue to screw people over.  This isn’t just political spin.  It’s fact.  The man has already done these things in Hazleton.  He can talk all he wants about what he will do, but we’ve all seen what he has done.  Lou Barletta should not be elected to Congress and, if we all stand up against him on Tuesday, he won’t be.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta

On Friday, Mayor Lou Barletta announced that he has a “jobs plan” that will finally get everyone working again. We should all be very, very afraid. Lou Barletta and jobs go together like oil and water, cats and dogs, or Lindsey Lohan and sobriety. The fact that the mayor of the city with the highest level of unemployment in the state of Pennsylvania is now promoting any sort of jobs plan is ludicrous. Mayor Lou Barletta knows nothing about creating jobs, but is very talented at destroying them.

I have two major problems with Lou Barletta and his jobs plan.  The first issue that I have with this plan, as I’ve already mentioned, is the fact that any other mayor in the state of Pennsylvania knows more about creating jobs than Lou Barletta.  As Mayor of Hazleton, Lou Barletta has proven to be a jobs killer.  Barletta has served as the Mayor of Hazleton for nearly a decade and during that time, things have gone from bad to worse to worst in the state.  As a direct result of Barletta’s decisions and policies, the city now suffers from a skyrocketing unemployment rate, massive tax increases, and a declining quality of life.  If Lou Barletta was capable of formulating a jobs plan, why didn’t he implement one while serving as Mayor of Hazleton?

Which brings me to my second problem with Barletta’s plan.  The fact is, his “job plan” isn’t really a plan at all.  Instead, Barletta has taken the standard Republican stump speech from this election cycle and has tried to spin it into his own brilliant idea.  Here are the steps that “Lou Barletta has proposed” to create new jobs…

•    “Stop the looming tax increases and preserve current tax rates in order to end the uncertainty facing small business owners. Small businesses should not be paying higher taxes at a time we need them to be expanding. Give small business a deduction equal to 20 percent of their income so they have the money to start hiring.”

•    “Reduce the spending spree in Washington that has wildly expanded government growth at the expense of small business job creation.”

•    “Reduce the burdensome overregulation being placed on small business, such as the requirement in the government healthcare takeover that any purchase of $600 or more by a small business requires a form to be filed with the IRS.”

Please take note that Lou Barletta’s job plan is only five sentences long.  In five sentences, Mayor Lou Barletta has explained his “plan” to create new jobs for Northeastern Pennsylvania.  Honestly, even though he basically just plagiarized some stuff from the Republican Party homepage, I’m still surprised that Barletta was able to cobble together even that many sentences about jobs creation since he obviously knows nothing about it.  This isn’t a jobs plan, these aren’t Lou Barletta’s ideas, and even if it was a plan and they were Barletta’s ideas, he’s still not smart enough to actually execute it.

Mayor Lou Barletta should stop pretending that he knows anything about creating or saving jobs.  His own record as Mayor of Hazleton is proof positive that Barletta is bad for jobs.  Hazleton has the highest unemployment rate in the state, and as the mayor of that city for nearly a decade, Barletta must accept a good portion of responsibility for that.  If elected to Congress, we should expect more of the same from Lou Barletta.  Higher unemployment rates.  Higher taxes.  Failed leadership.  Lou Barletta should not be elected to Congress.

-Dan Cheek
StopLouBarletta.com
[email protected]
Twitter.com/StopLouBarletta