Issues
Taxation & government spending
On average, the government consumes 50.4% of the income of every taxpayer. This means that in more than half of your work days, you are working solely to fund the government.
Much of your tax money, of course, is wasted. This year, Congress bloated the budget with 14,000 new "pork" projects, compared to 1,400 a decade ago. To cover these unnecessary expenses, Congress has nearly tripled pork-barrel spending, from $10 billion in 1995 to an unprecedented $27.3 billion in 2005.
Fiscal restraint among our elected officials is at an all-time low.
Politicians treat your hard-earned money like an endless cash flow from a communal spigot. They can hardly resist the temptation to sprinkle the money around. Even when they approve budget caps, somehow more dollars manage to drip out of that leaky faucet for more pet projects.
And the real, Constitutional duties of the federal government, limited and essential as they are
-- like securing our national borders against foreign invasion, and protecting America's national sovereignty against foreign subversion
-- get pushed aside in the floodtide of pork-barrel expenditures.
Government spending needs a shut-off valve!
I believe our elected officials have forgotten what it means to be accountable to the people, and to adhere to the standards of responsible self-government. The federal government has grown to towering levels, well beyond the control of everyday citizens. The more it grows, the less responsible it becomes. Government serves best when it is closer to the people.
Republican Party leadership, those of my old political party, are acting little different than the "tax-and-spend" liberals of the Democrat Party. Bill Clinton once said that "the era of big government is over." Unfortunately, in the nine years since this declaration, the opposite has been true. Federal spending on the whole is rapidly increasing, and now has reached its fastest growth rate in 30 years. The 2004 fiscal year gave us the largest budget deficit in U.S. history: $520 billion. This year, Congress spent $22,039 per household, but will recover only $18,248 per household in taxes. The remaining $3,791 will be saddled on the backs of our children to pay in debt, plus interest. By the end of 2005, our national debt will likely reach $8 trillion. That's a debt increase of
$1 trillion in just two years.
Much of the federal spending increases are for corporate welfare, farm subsidies, medical research, education, unemployment benefits, and numerous low-priority programs. Combined,
these add more to the budget than national defense.
We need to cut government largesse, eliminate waste, rethink programs, improve bureaucratic efficiency, and carve the federal government down to a manageable
-- and constitutionally authorized
-- size. Only then will it truly be responsive to citizens.
It's
your government spending
your tax money. Isn't it about time Congress remembered that?
Right to life
As a moral conservative, I stand firmly on the words of the Declaration of Independence in defending the
right to life. I do so proudly, without equivocation or exception.
According to the Declaration, there can be no right to abortion, since abortion means denying the most fundamental of rights to human offspring in the womb. The Declaration states plainly that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with our basic human rights, including the right to life.
If human beings
-- whether legislative bodies, courts, mothers, or anyone else
-- can choose who is human and who is not, the doctrine of God-given rights upon which rests all the rule of law is utterly corrupted. We then become a nation governed by the arbitrary rule of those with privilege and power.
There can be no question that abortion is the unjust taking of an innocent human life
-- and thus a breach of the fundamental principles of human equality and justice enshrined in our public moral creed and our Republic's most respected institutions.
Some people talk about "viability" as a test to determine which human offspring have rights that we must respect, and which do not.
But might does not make right. So the mere fact that the person in the womb is wholly in its mother's physical power, and thus completely dependent upon her for sustenance, gives her no right whatsoever to extinguish that human life, since the mere possession of physical power can never confer such a right to kill.
Medical procedures deliberately resulting in the death of the unborn child are therefore impermissible. Medical intervention to save the mother's physical life that has the
unintended consequence of failing to also save her unborn child is not abortion, per se, but rather a human tragedy.
Not only does the Founding philosophy of our great nation preclude us as a society from destroying innocent human life, but it also precludes us from engaging in
embryonic stem cell experimentation, and other medical technology practices that violate the dignity and humanity of life at its earliest, most vulnerable stages.
As for the so-called "right to suicide," and related practices such as euthanasia: whatever emotional arguments may be made to defend such practices, they represent a violation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and for that reason alone I reject them.
Our rights, including the right to life, are unalienable. If we intentionally kill ourselves or consent to allow another to do so, we both destroy and surrender our right to life. We act unjustly.
We usurp the power that belongs solely to the Creator, and deny the basis of our claim to human rights.
Roe v. Wade
As one who is pro-life without exception and who also believes in the rule of law, I believe that the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision was wrongly decided. I will work as a member of Congress to overturn Roe v. Wade, which effectually has prohibited state legislatures from passing laws to restrict abortion on demand.
As a member of Congress, I will fight the use of tax dollars to promote abortion or aid groups that provide abortions. I do not support so-called "exceptions" to abortion based on the circumstances of the child's birth. All children have the inalienable right to life granted them by the Creator and invoked in our Declaration of Independence, which right is properly protected under our constitutional system.
On this ground, I also oppose embryonic stem cell research and other forms of fetal harvesting where unborn children are produced like crops in a field for their body parts,
and I will vigorously oppose efforts to fund this so-called "research" with tax dollars.
As a member of Congress, I will fight to create a Culture of Life where all human life is protected from conception to natural death, and I will be a champion for those who are unable to speak out for themselves.
Affirmative action
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of a nation where people would be judged, not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character.
Affirmative Action quota schemes have made a mockery of Dr. King's dream because they require people to "check a box" saying what their ethnic or racial background is. Defining human beings by race is wrong and everything Dr. King fought against.
As a member of Congress, I will sponsor legislation that will make it illegal for the federal government to ask someone's race, ethnic background or religious affiliation on any job application, college admissions form, or other government document.
It's outrageous that illegal aliens are eligible for Affirmative Action benefits "entitling" them to receive preferential treatment over someone born here. It's time that stopped and that we recognize equal rights for all
-- including those of us who are not illegal aliens.
It's time to make Dr. King's dream of a color-blind society a reality.
2nd Amendment / gun control
I strongly support the Second Amendment to our Constitution, and recognize its critical role in defending the First.
The gun control agenda is based on the view that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to use the physical power of arms responsibly. But a people that cannot be trusted with guns cannot be trusted with the much more dangerous powers of self-government. The gun control agenda is an implicit denial of the human capacity for self-discipline, self-mastery, responsible self-government
-- and it is therefore tyrannical in principle.
The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution; it may not properly be infringed upon or denied.
As your Congressman, I will uphold the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. I oppose attempts to prohibit or unreasonably constrain ownership of guns by law-abiding citizens, and I stand against all laws that would require the registration of guns or ammunition.
Gun control laws make criminals out of law-abiding citizens while the real criminals continue to ignore the law. Rather than passing new gun control laws, we should be focusing our efforts to secure our borders and keep out the illegal alien criminal element that is responsible for so much of the violent and other crime in our nation and in Southern California today.
Defense
As the leader of the free world, America has a right and a duty to do all in her power to protect herself at home and abroad. We must vigilantly defend our sovereignty, independence, and identity as Americans. In doing so, we must be certain that our policies, military might, and foreign relationships are executed with prudence and justice.
It is the most essential obligation of the federal government to provide for the common defense, and to be vigilant regarding potential threats, prospective capabilities, and perceived intentions of actual or possible enemies
-- including the threat of foreign invasion and sedition. Therefore, I advocate in the strongest possible terms the imperative of securing our national borders, and enforcing existing immigration law. I oppose in principle unilateral disarmament, the influence of international military practices, and any dismemberment of America's defense infrastructure.
As a member of Congress, I will lead the fight against ceding our national defense to such bodies as the United Nations and will stand tall to protect our sovereignty over our national defense.
Under no circumstances would I consent to committing U.S. forces to serve under a foreign flag or command.
As a nation, we should be the friend of liberty everywhere, but the guarantor and provisioner of America's freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity above all. I support the development and maintenance of a strong, state-of-the-art military on land, sea, in the air, and in space. I will vote to continue to provide for the modernization of our armed forces, in keeping with advancing technologies and a constantly changing world situation.
Israel
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
Psalm 122:6 (King James Version)
American support for Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people predates our own founding as a sovereign nation, rooted from early colonial days in our people's reverence for the Mosaic Code, our respect for the teachings of the Psalms and the Prophets, and our sympathy with the "Old Testament" teaching of a faith of liberty. As the Liberty Bell is inscribed from Leviticus 25:10, "And Proclaim Freedom Throughout the Land Unto All The Inhabitants Thereof."
International consensus finally founded the modern Jewish state of Israel in the wake of the unspeakable desolation of the Holocaust, and that judgment was deemed at the time as the fruit of "the best conscience of the civilized world."
We must and shall continue to stand firmly in that judgment, which is a judgment endorsed by sacred Scripture, and shared across the span of centuries among our greatest statesmen.
America's friendship with Israel enjoys a special status, because it reflects a timeless moral truth. In our foreign policy and international alliances, we must never be subservient to strategic interest or merely pragmatic considerations of power, money, oil, or any other expediency. We must be mindful that we are morally obligated to always stand foursquare with those who fight on the front lines of freedom and responsible self-government — especially if they do so with the kind of decency, courage, integrity and tenacity demonstrated by the valiant people of Israel.
America's support for Israel is an ongoing demonstration that America will stand with those who champion liberty. Such commitments are not for sale at any price, and certainly not for the price of oil.
As a member of Congress, I will see to it that America stops discouraging Israel from steps necessary to ensure against her destruction by her enemies. I will labor to aid her in achieving the security and tranquility to which she has a right. I am at best skeptical of the wisdom of the strategy of "land for peace," I do not favor returning the Gaza Strip to Palestinian control, and I am concerned that Israel remain a Jewish homeland.
I endorse America's full recognition of Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jewish state of Israel, and advocate relocation of our Embassy from Tel Aviv to the true capital, Jerusalem. I reject the many proposals and schemes from her foes for the "internationalization" of Jerusalem as cynical ploys to drive Jews and Jewish influence from the heart of the sacred city. I wholeheartedly defend Israel's right to construct a border fence to protect her people and territory from suicide bombers, I reject the pressure being applied to her by American diplomacy to compromise her national identity with "guest-worker" visas, and I respect her right as a sovereign state to take all measures she deems necessary to defend her national integrity against violence, sedition and treason.
Our political leaders need to make it their business to suffer no confusion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to accept no false moral equivalency between the Israeli and Palestinian positions. Such confusion has already begun to undermine the clarity of America's policy on terrorism — as our pressure on Israel to make concessions, and our passivity toward Palestinian violence — illustrate.
American unity of purpose in the wake of 9-11 is worth little if we are only willing to recognize terrorist evil when it strikes Americans. And with virulent anti-Semitism, and anti-Westernism on the rise across Europe and in the Arab streets, America's obligation to provide principled leadership and unwavering statesmanship is all the more urgent. American policy in the war on terror will maintain its integrity only so long as it reflects American moral clarity on why our relationship with Israel is so crucial, so unequivocal, so strong.
