The current administration has tried to throw many life-preservers to our flailing economy. Unfortunately they have all read, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." What our economy really needs is less federal debt, fewer regulations, and a stable tax structure that allows businesses to make long range decisions. We need policies that encourage businesses to create stable, long-term, private sector jobs. More taxes, regulations and government-related jobs are not the answer, and they must be held to a minimum. Mandates and subsidies have to give way to consistent and predictable federal policies that enable the private sector to get back to the job of building America.
Government Mandates
Here in Colorado, when I learned that four dollar prescription drug programs and ten cent per gallon gas discounts were prohibited by Colorado law, I got rid of those unreasonable regulations. It took two bills to eliminate all the laws that stood in the way of retailers choosing what prices they think best for their customers, but we got the job done. I will carry those same principles of freedom and tenacity to the halls of Congress.
Taxes, Spending, and Debt
Even as we see on the horizon the elements that could translate into a strong economy, there is still the strangle hold of a bloated national debt and uncontrolled federal spending driving our debt ever higher. This trajectory will make us look like Greece, and even worse, with no one big enough to bail us out. We have to stop the spending and hold the line on taxes.
Energy is an Essential Key to Economic Recovery
Conventional energy production is a key to our nation's economic recovery. Renewables are great, when they make economic sense, but our policy needs to be "all of the above." With recent drilling technologies and new discoveries of oil and gas reserves, I am convinced we can launch an economic recovery of historical proportions if we will assert a national resolve to empower our free market economic system to develop our energy resources.
Limited, Constitutional Government
A final component for a healthy economic recovery is insisting on Limited, constitutional government: moving Congress back into its constitutionally enumerated responsibilities. The federal government has a significant role to play, in both our systems of government and our everyday lives, but that important role should never exceed the authority the Constitution identifies as the powers of Congress. As our Bill of Rights declare: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
This has been a major theme for my debates in the Colorado legislature. I will continue to push for states' authority in Congress.
We as a nation cannot prosper if we allow the federal government to take over more and more of our lives. The free-market, competitive nature of our federalist system must be reestablished as our standard for limited, constitutional government.