Issue Position: National Economy

Issue Position

Problem:

Bureaucrats are telling businessmen how to run their businesses. The upshot is that American business goes offshore in order to survive, and the American worker is left jobless or underemployed. We have a society run, not by reason and compassion, but by the whims of a few in power. A business which is built with great effort and investment over decades can be destroyed by the whim of a government official. The bulk of the traditional coal industry and of the nuclear industry has been destroyed by such whim. We all want safe and clean energy, but is the means to this end to be decided by bureaucrats with no real experience in those industries, or by experts?

I believe that one of the most important parts in life is having a job. Without it, a person cannot trade their labor for the very necessities of life.

After I was honorably discharged from the United States Air Force, I was offered a job at Empire Detroit Steel in New Boston, Ohio. I was a member of the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) and worked as a laborer in the Hot Strip. I wore a hard hat, fire proof vest and gloves, steel-toed boots and safety goggles. The mill was a dangerous place to work, yet I was injured a few times on the job in the two years that I worked there. I still have scars to prove it.

I respected the USWA that helped to create a safer environment for me and the other workers. They also had helped to set up a grievance process that helped protect the workers. I saw how unions worked from within as a laborer and later on in life, I was an elected official dealing with service unions, understanding both sides of the negotiating table.

Over the years I have seen our nation lose businesses and jobs, millions of them. The steel mill that I worked at shut down a few years after I left for college. At one time the mill employed about 6,000 people. There were many businesses in the area that served the needs of the mill, its employees and their families. The mill closing was devastating to the community. Workers and families were forced to leave their homes to seek work in other cities.

Later in life, I learned that our nation's trade policies had led to the dumping of foreign steel into our American market. Steel mills across the nation were forced to close, laying off many thousands of workers.

The devastation of our American factories did not stop at the steel mills. Look what has happened to our auto industry; look at the devastation in Detroit. These were good paying, middle class jobs that were lost, both union and non-union jobs.

In recent years, the Obama administration used the EPA to close down much of our nation's coal industry. Coal--fired electric generating plants have been shuttered. Hundreds of coal mines have been closed. Many thousands of workers in the United Mine Workers of America lost their good paying jobs, devastating their lives.

The EPA and our incompetent trade negotiators did not stop with just the coal mines and the steel industry. Business closures have occurred all over America. Our government continues to sell out our American jobs to other countries such as Japan, China, Mexico and others. The American worker, both union and non-union have been devastated. The great American middle class is being destroyed by terrible trade agreements negotiated by incompetent negotiators, people who have never picked up a shovel or a broom, never got a speck of dirt on their face.

More recently, President Obama's trade officials agreed in principle to the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. This is just the latest trade disaster that will kill more American jobs, both union and non-union.

Over 95 million Americans are not in the work force. 47 million Americans are on food stamps. The real unemployment rate is much higher than the media likes to show. Millions of Americans and businesses have been forced into bankruptcy and over five million Americans have lost their homes to foreclosures.

All of this has caused our government to borrow money from other countries and we now have a $19 Trillion dollar National Debt, and it is climbing. It has almost doubled since President Obama took office in 2009. When our government cannot borrow enough money, they resort to printing money. This is a disaster waiting to happen, unless sound fiscal policies can be implemented.

We must stop this headlong leap into a government that controls every aspect of our lives; a government that would in the near future be the producer of all goods and services. We now have a government that controls our health care, with many other government controls on the horizon.

Solution:

We need to decrease the size of our Federal government and at the same time increase the size of our private sector, free-market economy. This approach would bring trillions of dollars back to America that are now parked overseas. Lowering the tax rates for individuals and businesses will jump-start our economy and would begin to create millions of good paying, middle class jobs, both union and non-union.

Federal regulations must be reduced to common sense regulations. Excessive regulations are job killers. We must unleash our American free market system.

My Democrat opponent will not support any of the economic policies that I am proposing. Her approach is government all the time. That strategy has never worked in any nation that has ever tried it. Countries have been destroyed using the government as an end all to economic growth and stability. The policies that she supports were developed in the 19th Century. As a nation we must reject those failed economic policies or else a free and prosperous America will wind up in the ash heap of history.

As I stated at the beginning, one of the most important parts in life is having a job. Without it, a person cannot trade their labor for the very necessities of life.

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