Issue Position: Recovery in the Economy and Jobs Growth

Issue Position

Whatever your political views, it's obvious in real life that having huge debt, while continuing to spend much more than you make, is a downward slide to bankruptcy. Massive debt spending, unemployment, taxes, burdens ... had enough yet?

What we have. Jim McDermott's irresponsible fiscal legacy of 24 years in office is to leave you with a massive debt. He's been part of a huge national debt buildup to $16 Trillion -- over $13 Trillion of which is while he's been in office -- and of budgets unbalanced, with deficits over $1 Trillion year after year, even when he's in the House majority. Unfunded social program future liabilities are $120 Trillion, another 8 times higher than our annual total GDP of $15.3 Trillion.

Since 1989 when he entered this office, incumbent Jim McDermott has continued to authorize and vote for ever higher spending which has plunged our government six times deeper into debt. That $139,000 burden on each federal taxpayer (or $51,000 per person from what was only about $8500/person then) is essentially a massive tax and long-lasting drag on our economy and on each of our future opportunities. It took the first 213 years of our nation's history to amass $2.7 Trillion in total federal debt, but in the incumbent's 24 years since, instead of following the same gradual trend line that would have made it about $3 Trillion today, debt spending has instead been unsustainably doubled, quadrupled, and more, to become $16 Trillion today! If unchanged, it is projected to be $25 Trillion in a decade. Under our Constitution, all spending bills originate in the House of Representatives, which passes the legislation for every dollar spent. Yet the government continues to borrow 30-40% of its ever increasing annual spending (and just prints ever-devaluing dollars).

The incumbent is one of the biggest debt spenders in Congress (regardless of which President is in office or which party has a majority). Year after year, his fiscal voting record is graded "F" (failure) by the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union, which measures Congressional votes of all Representatives that significantly affect debt, spending, tax, and regulatory burdens on consumers and taxpayers. On a 0-100 scale, his average score over the past 5 years, a time when our economy especially can't afford this, is a dismal 10% -- even worse than his past 10 year average (16%) and past 20 year average (20%). According to their figures, as in the past, he recklessly voted last year to increase spending by $997 for each single $1 he voted to cut, and the cost of his increased spending votes averages over $1.5 trillion each year, an out of control amount that is nearly all borrowed by added debt.

We hear the stated unemployment numbers over 8%, but total combined 'real' unemployment is now over 22%, a 40 year high (counting all long and short term unemployed, underemployed, and those so discouraged they've stopped looking). Millions fewer have jobs, and total participation in the work force (ages 25-65) is down to about 62%, lowest in decades.

Jobs and growth stay stagnant year after year with over-regulation, waste, and employer burdening policies. Political crony capitalism remains rampant. The tax system stays numbingly complex and manipulated. Spending ever increases, and dollars are ever printed, based on massive legislation bills that pass unread by legislators and are "financed' solely by ever higher debt, now over 100% of GDP! Whether we look at Greece and Spain today, or Germany and other countries of the past, world history shows that such debt buildup, if unchecked, leads to hyper inflation, depression, or collapse.

What we need. We need a new effective leader, Ron Bemis, who will look beyond extreme partisanship or party labels to get needed results for all of us on these common interests, not just special interests for a few at the cost of the many.

We need policies that spur growth and investment and reform our complex, inequitable tax code. While programs such as unemployment assistance and food stamps may assist in the short term, in the long run the best social program is having a job, and there are too few. Most Americans want to be both self-reliant and caring, and they don't aspire to dependency and continuing downward or sideways as has happened on the incumbent's long watch. It's time to vote for and actively support Ron Bemis today for a real change. See specifics on Ron's political principles, positions and approach at reforms.

Source