Issue Position: On the Issues

Issue Position

We need effective leadership in Washington that can bring real results to the hardworking families of Vermont.

Our nation's most serious problem is the skyrocketing national debt.

Our national debt has now surpassed the value of our $15 trillion economy. $5 trillion of that debt has been added in just four years of Obama's budgets. We desperately need to rein in out-of-control spending and get our country back toward solvency.

This is not merely an economic issue. It's a moral issue as well. Our irresponsible national government is saddling our grandchildren with the responsibility for paying what we are irresponsibly borrowing to spend today.

As Vermont families continue to struggle with tough economic times, we need to send a strong and clear message to Washington that it can't be business as usual anymore. In short, we can't spend our way to prosperity; and we certainly can't do it by making our families shoulder the burden of Washington's reckless spending.

In fact, if this trajectory continues as projected, closing the gap between spending and revenues would require either cutting federal spending by two-thirds, or, nearly doubling every federal tax, individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, capital gains taxes, and payroll taxes.

The solution to this massive and crippling problem will require serious and courageous reforms of Social Security, and other entitlement programs.

The revenue side must be addressed as well. Pro-growth economic and regulatory policies that foster economic growth --policies like lower individual and corporate tax rates, and less intrusive government regulation -- will help spur an economic recovery and get America back on track.

We need effective leadership in Washington that will be unafraid to reform the tax code and cut government spending. Too many in Congress today have refused even to attempt to do so. For example, the United State Senate has not produced a budget for any of the last 3 years.

Vermont families pay their bills on time, and we should expect the same of our leaders in Washington DC.

But the problems we face, are more than just economic..

We have a crisis in moral leadership as well. As hard as it is to imagine, we are facing a full frontal assault on our religious liberties. The Obama Administration has issued a mandate to force religious institutions to buy health insurance that covers "free' provision of services that violate their deeply held moral values. This is an assault not only on our religious institutions - whether they are Catholic or Protestant, Buddhist or Hindu - it is an assault on our cherished first amendment right to religious freedom.

America faces tough decisions in the years ahead. We need legislators with the principles and the courage to make to make those decisions, to keep America strong, solvent, and free.

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