Issue Position: Reigniting our Economy

Issue Position

Our community is still suffering from the recession and lack of economic growth and opportunity. Middle class families are struggling to make ends meet and are living paycheck to paycheck. Seniors are suffering as their hard-earned retirement savings diminish. Young people are struggling to afford college, graduating with unprecedented debt, and are met with little opportunity when entering the workforce, and many are leaving Southern Arizona because of it.

To create more jobs and more opportunity, we must first get government off the backs of small businesses, the true engines of economic growth. Small businesses create 7 out of every 10 new jobs, but they have been faced with endless red-tape and uncertainty coming from Washington.

Congress needs to stop bickering and start doing its basic job by passing annual budgets and the 12 required appropriations bills while addressing our rising debt. This will help small businesses in Southern Arizona by instilling a sense of certainty in our economy and future. Congress should also focus on eliminating suffocating regulations, keeping taxes low, and restoring the 40 hour work week. Furthermore, it should replace Obamacare with reforms that do not discourage hiring more than 50 workers or burden employers with more taxes, costs, and penalties. It should provide more access to capital so business owners will start to invest, hire, and grow again.

We must also protect the critical assets in our community that have significant local economic impact -- Davis-Monthan (DM) Air Force Base and Fort Huachuca. Together, they provide thousands of well-paying jobs in the community and billions of dollars of economic impact in housing, retail, restaurants, and support to other small businesses. I was stationed at DM four times and worked with many of the specialists at Fort Huachuca in my 22 years as a military officer. I know first-hand that we need to defend and protect these national security treasures in our communities, and I am the candidate best equipped to do so.

Southern Arizona has numerous strategic traits that need to be capitalized on to grow our economy. Although some of the challenges of attracting businesses to our community are based on state and local government issues, as your representative in Congress, I can provide the vision and leadership needed to set the conditions for growth. We are a natural location to become a logistics hub for the booming trade with Mexico, and we need to be innovative to encourage companies that want to manufacture on both sides of the border. While we secure the border, we must have a wide gate and ensure our ports of entry have the infrastructure and manning to attract trade through Arizona instead of California and Texas.

We also have the potential to become a hub for the defense, aerospace, and bio-tech industries and must create conditions to attract companies to relocate here. I will fight for appropriate research dollars to be invested in the University of Arizona, while also supporting initiatives like TechLaunch AZ that help turn research into companies that will create jobs in our community.

Reigniting our economy takes someone who will fight tooth and nail for the people and small businesses in Southern Arizona, and that is exactly what I plan to do.

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