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Greetings, Below you will
find out my views on numerous issues. Before you do this, however,
I want you to know that it is my belief that an elected official should
be a servant of the people and not their ruler. As a servant it is
my responsibility to work for the seventh district to protect the values
and interest we share as hard working individuals that cherish the
freedom we have under the constitution. It is my job to protect our economy
and work with area business and industry to create a seventh district
where we can prosper, raise our families and enjoy the blessings
God has given us. Thank you, Dan
The
Bailout: The
following is a response I made when the bailout idea first came to
light.
I
was on 550 AM WSAU this morning and we were discussing this issue and
thanks to the callers I have formulated what I think should be done
regarding this situation.
What
we are seeing is the result of congress messing with the free market.
In the 90s there was a huge push to help people to buy their own homes.
Congress partnered with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to remove those
hurdles that prevented people from getting loans. Contracts
were made simpler, down payment requirements were lowered and interest
rates were kept low. They felt that this would boost the economy.
Today
Congress is faced with trying to undo what they themselves caused.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were led astray by Congress and we, the
taxpayers, will suffer for it.
If
there were a plan, which could ease the potential damage this is
causing, I would consider voting for it. Presently the solution
they are trying to put through deserves a no vote.
A
bill I would vote for must contain all of the following.
·
A
plan that does NOT salvage Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae
·
A
plan that does NOT bail out those who borrowed above their ability to
pay.
·
A
plan that does NOT cover up the stupidity of Congress and their misdeeds
in the first place.
·
This
plan should stabilize our economy.
·
The
plan should NOT create a government owned lending business.
·
The
plan should include selling off all
of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s assets, which should go to paying off
their debts.
·
The
plan should include an investigation into illegal activities and those
who are guilty should be punished, including Congressmen and Senators.
·
The
plan should include putting protections back into the law to prevent
this from happening again.
·
The
plan should have no attachments or earmarks that do not pertain to the
problem at hand.
·
The
plan should be openly explained and presented to the public a week or so
before it is voted on, so that Congress and the Senate can hear feedback
from their constituents first.
If
this were humanly possible, I would vote for such a plan. If not, then I
would suggest that we back out of the mess and let nature take its
course.
I
am open to other suggestions and ideas, but at the present time this is
my position.
Energy:
I
lay much of the blame for our high cost of energy on Congress. It is
not the lack of crude in the ground but the over abundance of crud in
Washington. They
need to quit fighting amongst themselves and work together for a
positive change to bring about solutions to the problems that face
this nation. At present
they only hinder.
I
believe very strongly that our nation needs to be sustainable.
We cannot continue to depend on foreign oil and natural gas to
run our nation.
We
as a nation have to work together to build our energy resources to a
level that is sustainable.
My
suggested solutions to the energy crisis are below:
I
am in favor of promoting research into new energy options other than
oil and natural gas.
I
am in favor of the wise and safe use of our oil reserves within our
nations boarders.
I
believe that environmentally we can do a better job of utilizing our
own resources than by getting our oil from countries we have no
control over. I am
opposed to the “not in my
back yard” mentality. Sustainability requires us to be
responsible for our own actions.
We use; we drill. If
we don’t want to drill then we need to find alternative energy
sources. Shipping
it in from other countries while we stick our heads in the sand is
neither a solution nor environmentally friendly.
I
am a firm believer that local oil poses less of an environmental
threat than transporting crude across the oceans from other countries.
I
would rather see our nation drill for our reserves than having other
countries such as China do so off our coast.
Isn’t it better to be in charge of the drilling than to have
no say at all?
China has a poor reputation regarding polluting the earth.
I
am opposed to taxing energy, industry, and business.
It all ends up coming out of the consumer’s pockets anyway.
I
am opposed to excessive government interference in the normal affairs
of industry and business. When we burden them with
bureaucracy, we push them to other countries.
I
am a firm believer that competition is the best way to keep prices
down. This means that we cannot show favoritism to any particular
energy resource or company. I
am opposed to monopolies and cartels controlling prices.
I
am in favor of growing other energy options such as solar, wind,
geothermal, hydrogen, hydroelectric and any other viable options
available now or in the future.
World
peace would be a lot easier if we were not competing with other
nations for Oil.
The Economy:
We cannot
continue to send our jobs and industry outside our borders.
We
must work to encourage companies to remain within the US.
Loyalty to our own is a crucial part of securing a strong
economy. America
cannot survive if we continue to export our jobs and industry to other
nations. We should export
products and services, but not jobs and businesses.
We
cannot continue to allow illegal immigration to drive down the wages of
our workforce. Allowing
illegal immigration to supply cheap labor for business benefits no one
in the long run. Illegal aliens cause $200 billion dollars a year in
suppressed American wages.
Crime:
Our
present system of dealing with crime obviously is not working.
We cannot continue as we have been.
The costs are crippling and the bureaucracy is overwhelming,
often prolonging court cases for years.
It is time we find ways to reduce crime, reduce the prison
population, and reduce the bureaucratic system that enables criminal
activity.
Some
changes that should be considered:
-
Close
to 30% of our federal prison population consists of illegal immigrants. We cannot continue to incarcerate criminals from other
countries at the taxpayer’s expense. We must stop the tide of
criminal importation. This
alone would cut our prison costs by almost a third.
We must enforce our immigration laws. We must find ways to encourage local law enforcement
agencies to aid in stopping the flood of illegal immigrants entering
our nation.
-
Non-violent
crimes need different methods of punishment than costly
imprisonment. We need to look towards mandatory restitution and
compensation to the victims and stiffer fines to deter crime and
help compensate for costs incurred.
-
A
proper punishment for the crime should deter repetition of the act. This is not happening.
We need to seek out better methods of deterrent.
-
We
need to reorganize our justice system to make it less costly and
more efficient.
-
We
need to find ways to carry out due process and speed up the process
so that people can get on with their lives.
-
We
need to make sure that the American people are protected from crime
without interfering with their individual rights and freedoms.
-
We
need to find ways to allow and encourage citizens to become more
involved in crime prevention.
-
Restitution
and compensation need to have greater roles in crime prevention than
they presently do now. A debt to society is a debt that must be
paid. We cannot
continue to enable crime and criminal behavior by supplying room and
board to those who would rather socialize with their friends than
work.
Education:
The strength and
wealth of our nation depend on our children receiving the best possible
education they can get. This
is a commitment that government cannot afford to ignore. We must keep in mind, however, that the child no matter how
valuable to the nation does not belong to the nation but to the parent.
We cannot act without their opinions, consent, and support.
I come from a long line of schoolteachers, and I know how
important they are to this nation.
We, however, chose to home school our children and have no
regrets. They are grown and raising children of their own and should be
able to make their own choices regarding their children’s education. I
am open to allowing the parents to have choices in where and how to
educate their young. I am also open to public schools and the community
in which they exist to have a larger role in how their children shall be
taught and what methods will be used.
I believe that the federal government should leave more of the
decision making process up to the communities where the students live.
Funding, however, should be balanced throughout the country so
that all students have the same opportunities.
After all, no one knows where, within our nation, that child will
work when they reach adulthood.
Our
Military:
Going
to war is something that must be considered carefully. But once we
commit our
soldiers to battle, we must commit our nation and its
resources to back them.
When our soldiers are sent
abroad by our elected leaders and put in harms way for a purpose these
leaders decided was necessary, then right or wrong, we as a nation MUST
support those soldiers until the job is completed or they are brought
home.
No
soldier should ever hear rumors that this nation might cut their
supplies, equipment and provisions to force an end to a war.
To politically cut the budget to force an end to a war is, in my
view, deserting our soldiers and those who do so are guilty of treason
and murder.
(In
law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one’s nation. A person, who betrays the nation of their citizenship and/or
reneges on an oath of loyalty and in some way willfully cooperates with
an enemy, is considered to be a traitor.)
The
following quote by George Washington speaks my belief regarding our veterans.
"The
willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no
matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they
perceive the veterans of earlier wars were
treated and appreciated by
their nation."
- George
Washington
I
am proud of those who served this nation and will stand behind them
completely!
Immigration:
I am strongly opposed to illegal immigration
and I do not believe in granting amnesty to those who defy our laws.
We must stop the incentives that bring them here illegally. Those who
immigrate to this country legally are welcome provided they are willing
to abide by our laws and become loyal Americans.
Second Amendment:
The second amendment speaks for itself.
I will uphold that amendment!
It was plain and simple when it was
written
and
it should be plain and simple in its application.
Social
Security:
Social security
funds are not like soup where you can add a little water to make it
stretch further. While
Congressman Obey claims to be a friend of the elderly, he is in fact
willing to pick their pockets of millions of hard earned dollars so he
can give it to those who did not earn it.
I believe that we must honor our commitment to the elderly and
protect their future.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/
TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
Labor:
It
is time that union labor, employers, and non-union labor join forces and
become allies against the economic invasion from those who no longer
have an allegiance to this great nation.
America’s economic security depends on us working together to
protect our autonomy in a global environment.
Our laws no longer protect our workers and their jobs.
Our laws
no longer protect patriotic companies who strive not only to make a
profit but to also uphold this nation above all others.
o
It is possible to be good neighbors and compete in a global economy
without sacrificing the autonomy of this nation.
o
It is possible to be good neighbors and compete in a global economy with
out sacrificing our jobs or our businesses.
o
It is possible to be good neighbors without sacrificing our
constitutional freedoms.
We must work together to put in place policies that
reward those who work together to strengthen our nation economically.
Healthcare:
It is the responsibility of elected leaders to protect the lives and liberty
of every American citizen irrespective of their age or health
condition.
I firmly
believe that the healthcare industry is in trouble. The cost of healthcare is skyrocketing. The solutions, however, are not easily within our grasp.
Who chooses
to write the check is not the answer, as we full well know that all the
money ends up coming out of our citizen’s pockets either way.
I do have a
number of concerns regarding how we deal with
healthcare.
We must protect the patient’s right to be in control and make their own
decision regarding their medical care. No one should have
control over your medical choices other than you, especially not the
government.
We also must not allow others to carry the financial burden for those
choices you make regarding your own health.
We
must protect the medical profession’s right to exist and to make wise
decisions separate and apart from bureaucratic meddling.
Abusers of the healthcare industry must be stopped even when those
abusers are government officials, patients, or the medical profession.
We need to protect all healthcare workers from becoming slaves to
corporate control and manipulation.
We need to allow more room for alternative medical practices to become
available to those who choose to seek them.
We need to find ways to reduce the high cost of
malpractice insurance.
I
am Pro Life!
I
am opposed to abortion
Had
we not exterminated some 40,000,000 babies
-
Our
educational system would not be suffering!
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Our
social security system would be Flush.
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Our
economy would be thriving!
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Our
workforce would be stable!
-
American
industry would still be in America!
Poor and needy:
We must
provide for our own poor and needy.
It appalls me to see how our government under the guise of
helping the poor is in fact using the poor and needy to fill their own
pockets. Our poor and needy
are becoming slaves to a system that thrives off of their hardship.
Little effort is made to help them out of their poverty.
We must find ways to allow more of the funds that are allocated
for our poor and needy to actually get into their hands.
Our government has learned well from con artists who claim to be
concerned about the needy, when in fact, they make their living off the
donations that were intended for the poor and needy.
We must streamline the system to reduce the cost of carrying out
this good work. We also
need to make sure that we do not enable people to stay poor and needy.
Those who abuse our generosity should be punished and removed from the
system. We should constantly be looking for ways to do our job better.
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