BUDGET/SPENDING (top)
 There is no bud­get, be it that of a sin­gle mom liv­ing on a fixed income or the gov­ern­ment of a world power, which can bear relent­less deficit spend­ing. The recent deci­sion of House Repub­li­cans to allow the Obama admin­is­tra­tion to bor­row another 2.4T was the antithe­sis of what the Amer­i­can peo­ple voted for in Nov. 2010. While I fully sup­port the adop­tion of a Bal­anced Bud­get Amend­ment what I adamantly sup­port is a Bal­anced Bud­get rely­ing solely on reduced spending. This could have been achieved with the refusal to con­tinue the prac­tice of irre­spon­si­ble bor­row­ing known as 'rais­ing the debt ceil­ing'. We should be intro­duc­ing a Bal­anced Bud­get Amend­ment with spend­ing caps EVERY ses­sion not only when we get per­mis­sion from the Democ­rats to do so.

ECONOMY/TAXES (top)
I believe that you are a bet­ter stew­ard of your money than a bureau­crat in Wash­ing­ton The worst thing that could hap­pen to the econ­omy now would be ANY increase in taxes. Extend the cur­rent Bush tax rates indef­i­nitely and start the move to either a flat tax or FAIR tax model. A healthy free mar­ket is the cor­ner­stone of the unpar­al­leled pros­per­ity enjoyed by the cit­i­zens of the United States. The removal of the over reg­u­la­tion of our free mar­ket will result in pro­duc­tive wealth build­ing employ­ment. The bailout of poorly man­aged enti­ties of the finan­cial and auto indus­tries con­tra­dicts the model of the free mar­ket. The pas­sage of the TARP Bill in Octo­ber of 2008 has proven to not only be a bad deci­sion, but has paved the way for a series of bad decisions.

HEALTH CARE REFORM
The need to repeal or defund the leg­is­la­tion known as Oba­macare is imper­a­tive to save the sys­tem that offers the great­est health­care in the world. There are prob­lems which need to be addressed such as acces­si­bil­ity for those with pre-existing con­di­tions. The Texas Health Insur­ance Risk Pool offers a viable model to address these acces­si­bil­ity issues

ENERGY (top)
First, get out of the way of our oil/gas indus­try and let them sup­ply us with the fos­sil fuel the econ­omy needs right now. With the advent of new tech­nol­ogy, increased domes­tic oil/gas pro­duc­tion can be accom­plished in an envi­ron­men­tally sound way. The pro­mo­tion of clean coal tech­nol­ogy, wind and solar farms, safe nuclear power plants, as well as con­tin­ued devel­op­ment of alter­na­tive energy tech­nolo­gies should be advanced by the pri­vate sec­tor. The free mar­ket will deter­mine which alter­na­tives have the poten­tial to afford cost effi­cient choices for Amer­i­can energy.

BORDER SECURITY/IMMIGRATION (top)
It is sim­ply unrea­son­able to assume that we can con­tinue to allow mil­lions of indi­vid­u­als to vio­late our laws and then expect us to sup­port them. This is an eco­nomic as well as a national secu­rity threat. We must employ every rea­son­able mea­sure, includ­ing phys­i­cal bar­ri­ers and use of our mil­i­tary, to stop ille­gal immi­gra­tion at the source. In addi­tion we must strive to elim­i­nate the cir­cum­stances which encour­age, and in some cases reward ille­gal immi­gra­tion. I will push for sanc­tions against employ­ers who know­ingly hire, dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion for pub­lic assis­tance, and the removal of pro­tec­tions afforded by sanc­tu­ary city poli­cies. We need to ter­mi­nate the dis­cus­sion of an eas­ier path to cit­i­zen­ship for those here in vio­la­tion of our laws.

DEFENSE (top)
This is, and always has been, the first respon­si­bil­ity of our fed­eral gov­ern­ment. We can­not afford to fund unnec­es­sary pro­grams, espe­cially ones which are devised in vio­la­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion, at the expense of main­tain­ing the strongest and most effec­tive mil­i­tary in the world. I have no doubt there are sys­tems and pro­grams which can be stream­lined or done away with to ensure we are spend­ing our money wisely and with­out detract­ing from the mission.

2nd AMENDMENT
For my stance on the 2nd Amend­ment you can read the last four­teen words "the right of the peo­ple to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That seems pretty clearly worded. The right of Amer­i­cans to own the firearms of their choice is the real sym­bol of freedom.

EDUCATION (top)
First and fore­most, I am inflex­i­ble in my belief that author­ity and respon­si­bil­ity for the pub­lic edu­ca­tion sys­tem, should be returned to the states. It is at the state and local lev­els where the best deci­sions can and should be made.

ABORTION
From con­cep­tion all inno­cent human life should be pro­tected. Specif­i­cally regard­ing Roe v. Wade — any court deci­sion that pro­vides for the loss of over 1 mil­lion inno­cent lives per year needs to be over­turned. I sup­port pro­grams which pro­mote adop­tion, leg­is­la­tion requir­ing parental noti­fi­ca­tion for minors and the denial of tax­payer fund­ing of abor­tion, here and abroad.

ENVIRONMENT (top)  
We can all agree that we are oblig­ated to be good stew­ards of our envi­ron­ment, for our­selves and our pos­ter­ity.  Eco­nomic con­trol should not be dis­guised as envi­ron­men­tal legislation.

VETERANS' AFFAIRS (top)
There is no greater a sac­ri­fice than to lay ones life on the altar of free­dom, we have no greater oblig­a­tion than that which we owe our vet­er­ans and their fam­i­lies. I think our vet­er­ans deserve a health care sys­tem of higher qual­ity than that which our elected officials enjoy.

TERM LIMITS (top)
I do under­stand there are rea­son­able argu­ments for both sides of this impor­tant debate, I per­son­ally believe there is more to be gained than lost by impos­ing term lim­its on Con­gress and pos­si­bly the Supreme Court.  3 terms (6 yrs.) for House mem­bers and 1 term (6 yrs.) for Sen­a­tors. I could sup­port a 4 year term for both the House and Sen­ate with a limit of 2 terms. I believe we need to return to the idea of pub­lic ser­vice being a duty and not a per­ma­nent career.