The whole world's watching--fallout in the German press was quick

[DFW]

43. I don't know who Joyce Vance is

But even so, if 900,000 Americans abroad returned ballots, then logic would dictate that there at least three times that many of us out here, and not a third that many. The fact that there are in reality ten times that many attests to hiw much work goes into obtaining, filling out and sending off a ballot back to the USA, and even then, whether or not it gets counted, we have no way of knowing.

If Sherrod Brown is that drastically ignorant of our numbers, he is also missing out on a huge potential donor pool, which he can only increase if he were to support legislation for fair taxation. But if he thinks there aren’t enough of us to warrant the effort, then he won’t get busy with it. Because that remains the case, and contributions to political candidates are not tax-deductible, I have to earn $400 for every $100 I contribute to him. He’s not interested in helping with residence-based taxation, but comes with his hand out every election season. He called me after primary season was over, so the max I could give him was $3300, and I did. The fact that I had to earn about $13,000 to be able to make that contribution did’t interest him (the rest got divided up between the IRS and the German tax bureau). My salary is no half million, so for me to set aside $13000 of my salary for a Senator who isn’t even interested in me or my fellow 9 million Democrats Abroad is a very big deal to me. I know how vital it is that we maintain his seat, so I made the contribution anyway, but he has two strikes against him in my book. He never apologized to Al Franken for helping hound Al out of the Senate, and he hasn’t shown the slightest interest in the unfair double taxation of Americans Abroad. I talked to him in March, and since then he hasn’t said a peep, publicly or privately (promises, promises)), about residence-based taxation. I know, he has a tough re-election campaign, etc. But just a small word, “I haven’t forgotten you,” whatever, would be nice. Instead, “please give me money, and then shut up for the next six years” is not what we like to hear from our allies in Congress.