Reduce the Debt Burden

I've been traveling around the state of Maine for a few months now, talking to Mainers about the economy and the causes of the current economic crisis. The perfect storm of debt, deficits, and the sub-prime housing crisis has created the worst recession since the 1930s. It has gotten to the point where The state government of California--the eighth-largest economy in the world!--has asked the federal government for an $8 billion bailout. The people who are paying attention are asking, "who will bail out the federal government?"

This crisis has forced all of us to come to grips with our economic situation. Debts and deficits are more than just red numbers in a spreadsheet. They have a real impact on your life and on the lives of your children. The funding gap between tax revenues and governmental spending must be made up somehow and the way our government does that is by borrowing money from other countries. The federal government sells that debt to other countries to fund much of the governmental operation. But these are still loans, and loans bear interest that we have to pay. As our government grows in size--which it has been doing an awful lot lately--the deficit, the gap between revenues and spending, just keeps growing.

The current unfunded debt obligation of the United States is $54.6 trillion. That's a staggering number. If you divided that amount by the number of households in the United States, each would bear a debt burden of over $483,000! The politicians in Washington are too busy worried about the next election to consider the long-term effects of this out-of-control spending. It has to stop now if we don't want our children and grandchildren to face significantly higher taxes and fewer liberties.

As Maine's next Congressman, I'll work tirelessly to change this. I won't promise you the moon and I won't promise you earmarks and entitlements to secure your vote. Instead, I will cast every vote with an eye toward principled economic responsibility.

The Right Financial Fix

Why is it that, every time something goes wrong in the American economy, a member of Congress is compelled to try to fix it with more and more governmental regulation? Affordable housing and affordable health care are noble goals, but they can't be accomplished through onerous regulations or by creating massive government bureaucracies like the government-run health care system currently facing Congress. It's been proven time and time again that the government just doesn't do a good job at tackling these issues.

Still, some still suggest that the government should play a larger role in housing, health care, banking, and so on. We've already seen the results of increased government involvement in housing and health care. It hasn't been pretty. So why should we keep trying the same failed solutions and expecting different results?

Economists, accountants, and even voters agree: raising taxes, increasing regulation, and encouraging government involvement in the economy are no way to build a sound economic foundation for America. Yet career politician after career politician, with no better solutions than "more government" in their playbook, continues to promote more and more spending. Too many of our elected representatives campaign on what pork-barrel entitlements they can bring home to their district and what favors they can extract for their constituencies. No more. We must to break this irresponsible cycle, or we and our children will suffer.

Expose Horse-Trading and Cronyism in Both Parties

Some call it corruption. Some call it cooperation. Still others try to dress it up and call it "the art of compromise." I call it cronyism. We've watched as members of Congress have taken huge sums of money from hedge funds and Wall Street and Fannie and Freddie alike, neglecting their duties to their constituents in order to cater to the special interests lining their pockets.

The horse-trading to garner support for the health care bill in Congress has found its way to the headlines. We've gotten to see the worst of the favor-trading amongst our elected representatives over the last few months. What I've seen makes me sick. It should make voters from both parties sick! Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana extracted the infamous "Louisiana Purchase," taking home $300 million of taxpayer money for her state. Even worse was Sen. Ben Nelson's Medicare deal, trading his vote for the health care bill in exchange for the federal government paying any increases in the Medicare bills of his home state of Nebraska's forever! And while these states receive fat sacks of taxpayer money, Maine and other states drown in Medicare debt!

Lobbyists have taken members of Congress on all-expenses-paid junkets to tropical islands and given them sweetheart loans on the kind of favorable terms that no regular citizen could ever even hope to see. Our elected representatives haven't been content with that, though--they've voted themselves raises while our economy has crumbled, and some haven't even bothered to pay their fair share of taxes on the money. They're elbow-deep in the cookie jar while they protest, "Well, it's not illegal!" No, it might not be illegal. That doesn't make it right. And I'll work my hardest to fight this kind of despicable cronyism in Washington.

Protect Health Insurance Choice

If you think health care is expensive now, just wait 'till it's free! - P.J. O'Rourke

Competition has a downward effect on prices. It only makes sense: different providers of the same product have an incentive to sell their product more cheaply to attract more business. The more alternatives we have when buying a product, the lower the price is likely to be. So if Congress's goal is to make health care more affordable, then why are they trying to take our choices off the table? While we certainly must do something to rein in the cost of health care, the answer can't be found in either the House or Senate versions of the current health care bill circulating through Congress. After all, we've already tried the governmental route here in Maine. DirigoHealth is costing Mainers tens of millions of dollars to insure less than two percent of the people of this state. What makes anyone think it will work on a larger scale?

The current regulatory system for health care in America was developed in the 1940s. We need to modernize the regulatory system, not replace it with an even bigger bureaucracy than the one we already have on our hands. Removing the restrictions on purchasing insurance across state lines will increase choice and increase competition, lowering prices for everyone. Medical malpractice reform and modern electronic health record systems will reduce costs on health providers and reduce the burden on all of us. That's what we need, not more government waste.

A Smart Energy Policy

When this Congress took office, about 85% of Maine's population was dependent upon oil to heat their homes. Since then we've heard a lot about clean energy and green jobs being the future of Maine and of America. So how many Mainers still heat their houses with oil?

About 85%. And they will for the foreseeable future.

This Congress hasn't done a thing to solve the real problem. If anything, they've made it worse. Our national energy policy, the one that they're so proud of, often doesn't have anything to do with energy at all! Six million dollars of the stimulus bill went to weatherizing homes. Home weatherization makes for a great press release, but it doesn't have much of an impact on the bottom line of everyday Mainers. We still heat with oil and we'll keep heating with oil, paying 50% more per kilowatt-hour than the national average all the while.

I am the co-owner of a company that specializes in alternative energy solutions. I've spent the last two years working on alternative energy projects around the state. And I've seen big developers come in to profit handsomely, while prices have only risen for the people paying the bills at the end of the day. Natural gas and oil reserves in this country must be tapped for the short term, but if our talk of energy independence is to evolve beyond empty promises, we must strive to build nuclear power plants that will ensure America's safety in the years to come. I'll work hard to develop an energy policy that's responsible and economically sound.

Safeguard Our Nation

When a new member joins Congress, he or she takes an oath to protect our Constitution from enemies, both foreign and domestic. But we've seen the specter of domestic terrorism return with the Christmas Day "underwear bomber" and the tragedy at Fort Hood.

This administration has vainly attempted to deny the realities of terrorism. They have extended Constitutional protections to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others detained on the field of battle. They've moved Mohammed's trial to the very ground on which the worst act of terror in this country's history occurred. One of my highest priorities will be to strengthen this country's security and end this cycle of enemy appeasement in which we seem trapped.

Term Limits

Many of the priorities I've listed above are a direct result of career politicians losing touch with everyday Americans. After a decade or more in Congress, it's not hard to imagine that career politician caring more about the interests of the lobbyists they talk to every day than the constituents they only have to see once every two or six years, and the rules of seniority in Congress give disproportionate power to those who hang onto their seats for such a long time. I don't want to be "that guy," and I'll make a promise to you: I will sign an oath to term-limit myself to no more than three terms.