The Rasmussen Tracking poll today shows President Obama with a 47% – 45% lead over Mitt Romney while Gallup’s Tracking poll shows Romney and Obama tied at 46% each.

The average of these two polls is now showing the Romney/Ryan campaign with 45.5% and the Obama/Biden at 46.0 for the first lead of the ticket in a week.

The average approval rate for President Obama despite leading is still at negative 1 meaning that the 1% more of those polled disapprove than approve of the Presidents job performance. The average approval rating for the President was 47.5% and the average disapproval was 48.5%.

Excerpts:

The Presidential race is boiling down to one dominant issue: which party’s policies will do more to help the financially stressed American middle class. President Obama’s campaign theme is that Mitt Romney and the Republicans cater to the rich, while Mr. Obama cares about struggling families.

He may care, but he sure hasn’t done much for them. New income data from the Census Bureau, tabulated by former Census income specialists at the nonpartisan economic consulting firm Sentier Research, reveal that the three-and-a-half years of the Obama Presidency have done enormous harm to middle-class households.

In January 2009, the month President Obama entered the Oval Office and shortly before he signed his stimulus spending bill, median household income was $54,983. By June 2012, it had tumbled to $50,964, adjusted for inflation. (See the chart nearby.) That’s $4,019 in lost real income, a little less than a month’s income every year.

Unfair, you say, because Mr. Obama inherited a recession? Well, even if you start the analysis when the recession ended in June 2009, the numbers are dismal. Three years after the economy hit its trough, median household income is down $2,544, or nearly 5%.

Add the authors: “The overall decline since June 2009 was larger than the 2.6 percent decline that occurred” during the recession from December 2007 to June 2009. For household income, in other words, the Obama recovery has been worse than the Bush recession.

The President portrays the financial decline of American families on his watch as part of a decades-long trend. He’s wrong. Real income for middle-income households rose by roughly 30% from 1983 to 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The political left likes to blame the ebbing of union power. But nongovernment unionization fell dramatically in the 1980s and ’90s, and incomes rose.

So what does explain falling real incomes? Slow growth, yes, but another culprit has been rising prices—especially for food, gasoline, medical procedures and college tuition—that have eroded worker purchasing power. The Federal Reserve claims this is no problem because “core inflation” has been relatively contained. But core inflation excludes food and energy prices, which are two of the biggest components of consumer budgets.

The big pay freeze is also the bitter fruit of public schools that have failed to teach the basic skills and knowledge needed to succeed in a competitive global economy. Rising health-care costs have also forced employers to take money that used to go into higher wages to pay higher premiums.

A key driver of higher wages in the 1980s and 1990s was a surge of capital investment in computers, plant and equipment, which made Americans workers more productive. When Mr. Obama pledges to raise taxes on investment income (capital gains, dividends and small-business profits), he is making it costlier to innovate and modernize. That plays out over time into slower gains in productivity and wages.

Consider the toll from America’s corporate tax rate, which is the highest in the industrial world. A 2011 study by economists at the American Enterprise Institute found that because of the capital flight from the U.S. as a result of this high rate, “every additional dollar of tax revenue [from the corporate tax] leads to a $4 decrease in aggregate real wages.” American workers would be the biggest beneficiaries of tax reform.

The new income data reveal other eye-opening trends. The group that has suffered the most during the Obama Presidency has been black Americans, whose real incomes have fallen by more than 11%.

Mr. Obama also likes to say that government workers like teachers are hurting and the private economy is doing “just fine.” But the data indicate that over the past three years households with government workers saw their incomes decline less than households with private workers. The public-private pay gap is now wider than ever ($77,998 government versus $63,800).

Every age group has seen a decline in income—except the elderly. Those between the ages of 65 and 75 saw an average 6.5% gain in income, though most are not working and collect Medicare and Social Security.

The last time incomes fell this fast was during the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter, and it’s no coincidence that economic policies then and now are so similar. If Mr. Obama succeeds in convincing voters that he really is the tribune of the middle class, it will be the political conjurer’s trick of the century.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303822204577468750027784434.html

PRESS RELEASE
FOR: IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Subject: First Security Bank to expand further into the Evansville, IN market
DATE: August 23, 2012

For further information, please contact: M. Lynn Cooper, 270-663-4678, LCooper@FirstSecurity.net or Steve Witting, 812-759-2332, SWitting@FirstSecurity.net

Announced today was First Security Bank’s completed acquisition of approximately 74,000 square feet of office space, which was location to the Evansville, Indiana main office of the former Integra Bank. The space was purchased from the FDIC for an undisclosed amount. The facility is located at Twenty One Southeast Third Street in downtown Evansville.

The property purchased was floors; lower level, 1, 2 & 3 along with the parking lot directly across the street on the corner of Third Street and Locust.

M. Lynn Cooper, President and CEO stated “We are excited about continued expansion into the Evansville, Indiana market, which further solidifies our commitment to the area. This purchase will allow us to have the space we need to grow for years to come. We are enthused about expanding into an area where the city and county government leadership are very pro-business. We look forward to further possibilities of expansion into the area, which has proven very profitable for our company. ” Cooper further stated, “Since First Security will not initially utilize all of the office space in the newly acquired downtown Evansville location, we will be leasing some under-utilized space to others until we grow into the space.”

Steve Witting, Evansville President for First Security Bank stated, “The Evansville facility will provide us a way to serve much of our downtown and some Westside clients. We have some exciting ideas to develop additional clientele in the downtown area and look forward to growing even further in the Evansville market.”

The office is anticipated to open by year end pending regulatory approval. Also recently announced was the acquisition of the former Integra office in Newburgh on Highway 66 near Highway 261, which is expected to open next month.

First Security Bank has announced in 2012; opening a new office in Lexington, KY, renovating and opening a new headquarters location in downtown Owensboro, KY., acquiring the Newburgh, IN office scheduled to open in September, acquiring 4 branch locations in the Louisville market which is scheduled to close this fall and the new Evansville location in the downtown area, expected to open by year end.

The Rasmussen Tracking poll today shows Mitt Romney with a 46% – 45% lead President Obama Romney while Gallup’s Tracking poll shows Romney and Obama tied at 46% each.

The average of these two polls is now showing the Romney/Ryan campaign with 46% and the Obama/Biden at 45.5 both garnering slightly less support than last week.

The average approval rate for President Obama is now even meaning that the same percentage of those polled approve and disapprove of the Presidents job performance. The average approval rating for the President was 48.0% and the average disapproval was 48%.

In an examination of all polls published after August 13th and applying them to the elector count, if the election were held today and the most recent polls are accurate Romney would win the presidency over Obama by an electoral vote of 282 – 256

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Krista Hamby Weiberg
Vanderburgh Superior Court
Administrator
Phone: (812)435-5469

VANDERBURGH SUPERIOR COURT TO RESTRUCTURE ENTIRE COURT SYSTEM
EVANSVILLE, IN:

Superior Court Chief Judge Mary Margaret Lloyd announced the restructuring of the current court system in Vanderburgh County for the first time in over thirty (30) years. On September 1, 2012, Superior Court will create more specialized courts. Sweeping changes are being made in how the Courts address Class D Felony drug/alcohol offenses, juvenile court, and paternity cases. Lloyd stated the seven (7) Superior Court Judges along with Judge Carl A. Heldt of the Vanderburgh Circuit Courts have been collaborating on changing their system for months to address the pressing needs in our community.

“With the problems caused by methamphetamine and other illicit drug use on the rise, we knew we needed to address addictions at an earlier stage in court. Strong court intervention for the addict arrested for drug possession will hopefully stop the addict before he or she is arrested down the line for creating a methamphetamine lab,” Lloyd said. The Courts’ plan will utilize Judge Wayne S. Trockman’s expertise in court interdiction with addicts by assigning him to handle all Class D felony drug and alcohol cases filed in Superior and Circuit Court in addition to continuing his duties with the Drug Treatment Court. Judge Robert J. Pigman will be assigned to adjudicate all other felonies filed in Superior Court.

The Court restructuring will also allow more time and resources to be devoted to abused and neglected children. Juvenile Judge Brett J. Niemeier noted he sees more neglect cases and children needing services filed with his Court due to children living in houses where methamphetamine is made or used, and more newborn babies testing positive for illicit drugs due to their Mother’s usage during pregnancy. Prior to the reorganization, Juvenile Court heard all Juvenile Delinquencies, Children Needing Services (CHINS), Guardianships, Adoptions, Probate, and Paternity cases filed in Vanderburgh County. Increased State ordered procedures in juvenile cases, a steady increase in new paternity cases over the years, and an increased caseload of children needing services overburdened an already weighted down Juvenile Court.

To alleviate the Juvenile Court caseload, the paternity cases will be moved into the Domestic Relations Court. Four (4) Judges and one (1) Magistrate Judge will regularly hear all paternity and marriage dissolution cases in Vanderburgh County. Chief Judge Mary Margaret Lloyd will bring her experience from being a member of the Indiana Supreme Court’s Domestic Relations Committee to now address paternity cases. This committee created a domestic relation textbook for all Indiana trial judges, assisted the Supreme Court with amending its Indiana Child Support Guidelines, and aided in the creation of a free on-line child support calculator for parents to use. Lloyd also created the Family Court Project which assists indigent parties without attorneys in divorce cases. She will be assigned to this new division along with her fellow Judges Robert J. Tornatta, Richard D. D’Amour, and David D. Kiely. “Putting the paternities into the same court where dissolutions occur simply makes sense,” Lloyd said. “Marital status or lack thereof is not a factor when the Court orders or enforces child support.” She further explained that, “When deciding the custody of a child or parenting time, the Judge always first considers what is in the best interest of that particular child whether in a divorce or in a paternity matter.”

The Superior Court has always had innovative ideas to adjust to the changing issues affecting the public in Vanderburgh County. Among the various innovations are the Drug Treatment Court in both Juvenile and Adult Court, and the Family Court Project and Alternative Dispute Resolution Plan in Domestic Cases. The Court restructuring is the latest adaptation to better serve the community.