Financial Responsibility
There are only five accountants serving in our current Congress. That is a big reason why we are currently closing in on $34.5 Trillion in debt. By the time the election comes around we are on pace to be over $37 Trillion in debt. And unlike the cheap money of the past decade, we are now borrowing with a 5.5% interest rate. This is not sustainable. To fix this we need to have some responsibility from Congress. Below are some basic reforms I would work to enact as your representative.
Passing a balanced budget that doesn’t refinance current maturing debt
Our debt being out of control shows that Congress can't be trusted to balance a budget. That is why we need to make it not negotiable to have a balanced budget. Additionally something that has been under-reported is that we are refinancing 0-1% debt with 5.5%. The damage that is doing to our fiscal future cannot be understated. To dig out of this awful hole, we cannot continue to add to the problem.
Passing spending guard rails that limit Congress’s ability to borrow to 80% of GDP
Failing to adhere to this principle is why the dollar is being replaced as the global reserve currency. We must mandate fiscal discipline and force our representatives to make hard choices. It's easy to borrow money and go back to your district with a project you got earmarked showing how you have helped the community. But easy isn’t helping anyone.
Creating consequences for Congress when appropriations and budgets are not passed on time
I mentioned this in my government accountability platform, but it is worth repeating. Only twice in my lifetime have these basic deadlines been met. That is unacceptable. No member of Congress should be eligible for a pension if they don’t pass budget and appropriations on time. And they shouldn't be getting paid while the government is shut down.
Pass appropriations bills individually
Members need to be held accountable for their record. To make that possible we must eliminate these “Frankenstein's Monster” type legislation. They call them "omnibus," where we roll a bunch of garbage in with things that are popular. This is how most of the pork gets passed. We need to fix this, otherwise we will continue to get the same poor quality of representation that we have had in recent history.
Reform entitlement programs
It is politically taboo to mention this, but it's also honest. We pay far too many people to not contribute to society. When I was shot and lost the ability to do manual labor I could have sat around and collected disability for the rest of my life. Instead I made sacrifices to better myself and got my degree in accounting. The government has spent $15 trillion on the war on poverty, only to basically have the same amount of poverty we started with. That shows that the government isn’t the solution, it's part of the problem.
These are all common sense things that need to be addressed. We will need to do a lot more in the long term to fix our situation, but when I was shot the most important step in allowing me to survive was to stop the bleeding. Right now our nation is bleeding money the way I was on the battlefield, and we need to do what Doc did for me and stabilize everything, and get me to the operating table. In this case that means balancing the budget as we reassess what problems the government is actually capable of solving.