9th District

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- his week, Mike Sodrel proposed a town-hall meeting in each of the 9thDistrict's 20 counties—as well as an independent commission to regulate advertising in the campaign. Rep. Baron Hill replied by refusing the commission and trying to diminish expectations about debates.

According to a story in the News-Tribune, Hill said that he had "good reason to be skeptical of entering into campaign pledges" with Sodrel: "As history evidenced, you did not honor your word and broke our campaign pledge the last time around." Hill said further that he wants Sodrel to apologize before he'll agree to talk about campaign issues with him.

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- Just in time for the Olympics, the White House has predicted a $482 billion deficit for 2009—which if successful, would allow the President and the Democratic Congress to set a new world record. A $482 billion deficit would smash the current record of $413 billion in 2004.

The 2009 deficit will extend the current national debt to more than $10 trillion. On top of that, unfunded liabilities—most notably, for Social Security and Medicare—add tens of trillions of dollars in debt.

CHARLESTOWN, IN -- This week, 9th District State Central Committee Representative Greg Hertzsch issued the following statement regarding their local efforts at the Clark County Fair.

Dear South Indiana Libertarians,

We will be operating our yearly OPH booth at the Clark
County 4-H Fair. Our booth will operate from this Monday, July 14
through Friday, July 18. The hours of operation will be from 6:00 PM
until around 9:15 PM or so, whenever it gets dark.

We will be giving out the World's Smallest Political Quiz to
passerbys. We will have Libertarian Party literature to hand out.
We will be giving out our "Vote Libertarian" balloons to the kids.

And, most importantly we will be promoting our candidates. These
include our 9th District congressional candidate Dr. Eric

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- Dr. Eric Schansberg will hold a press conference at Warder Park in Jeffersonville on Wednesday, July 16th at 9:30 AM—to address a variety of issues about gas prices, "energy independence", and federal policy. (Warder Park is located at the corner of Court Avenue and Spring Street in downtown Jeffersonville.)

Dr. Schansberg is an economics professor at Indiana University Southeast and the Libertarian candidate for Congress in the 9th District.

In his prepared remarks, Dr. Schansberg will address:

• the importance of expanding domestic drilling of the Gulf Coast and in ANWR
• the dramatic but overlooked impact of the weaker dollar on the price of gas
• the (limited) usefulness of reducing the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• proposed policies that cannot significantly decrease the price of gas: windfall profits taxes and additional regulation on "speculators" and "price gougers"
  

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- During recent TV interviews on Louisville's WAVE-3 and Indy's WTHR-13, Baron Hill asserted that speculators in the futures market are causing gas prices to be as much as 50% higher. Hill cited unnamed economists in making this claim.

Eric Schansberg, an economics professor and the Libertarian candidate for Congress in the 9th District, found this incredulous. "I can't imagine an economist making that claim. If it's true, he and Baron should take advantage of their superior knowledge of the market, change their investments, and make a ton of money."

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- On Tuesday July 1st, Dr. Eric Schansberg, the Libertarian candidate for Indiana's 9th District, will be the guest on WSLM's live show "Coffee Talk" (Salem; Channel 17; 8:00-8:30 AM). Afterwards, he will pump gas and talk with voters at S&S Petroleum in Salem (1306 W. Mulberry St.) from 8:45-9:45 AM.

Schansberg also took the occasion to criticize Baron Hill and Mike Sodrel for their remarks last week on gas prices and energy policy.

About Hill, Schansberg remarked: "Baron seems to think that more government and regulating markets is the answer. He pushed for tighter fuel efficiency standards, but higher gas prices will encourage people to demand more fuel-efficient cars quite naturally. And he wants to regulate the futures market and reduce the number of investors. At best, that's pandering and it may make things worse by limiting competition in the futures market."

JEFFERSONVILLE, IN -- On Tuesday, Eric Schansberg, the Libertarian candidate in Indiana's 9th District for the U.S. House, completed his tour of the 9th's business districts. Schansberg walked through 38 cities and towns, meeting small business owners and their employees.

Schansberg said, "Most of the time, it was just a brief introduction. But I really enjoyed talking at greater length with many people—talking with them about economics and public policy and hearing their desire to have someone new in Washington."

On Thursday, Schansberg will campaign with his wife Tonia at the Dearborn County fair—the first of 20 county fairs in the 9th District over the next six weeks.

And next week, Schansberg will debut his radio ad of the campaign—on gas prices. The 60-second ad will run more than 500 times on 10 different stations across the district over the next five weeks. The ad can also be heard at www.EricForCongress.com.