Our national debt of over $9 trillion, and growing by over $1.5 billion per day, has weakened our economy and created a monumental tax burden for future generations. While the Bush administration has squandered billions on an unnecessary war and government mismanagement, Congress continues to be controlled by special interests.

I am beholden to no special interests and am strongly committed to putting our fiscal house in order. I will reach across the aisle in an honest effort to cut unnecessary spending and will pursue a “pay-go“ policy that requires new programs to be paid for by other cuts in spending.

Our world is being challenged as never before by escalating demand for energy, food and other vital commodities. Of particular concern is the urgent need to develop alternatives to high priced oil. The Bush administration and my opponent Darrell Issa continue to call for more oil drilling to solve our energy problems while Germany, Brazil and other nations develop better solutions.

During the last seven years, our government has disengaged from programs to reduce global warming, ridiculed the need for conservation, undermined attempts to reduce oil consumption, and paid huge subsidies to oil companies while cutting subsidies for development of alternative sources of energy. I will work to reverse these misguided policies.  

It is time to invest in the repair and replacement of our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Our aging bridges, dams, water supply conduits, power generation and distribution systems all threaten us with catastrophic loss of money and lives when they fail. Dealing with these problems before disaster strikes saves money in the long run and produces jobs during an economic downturn . 

We must also repair and expand our overburdened national rail freight transport system and encourage public/private investment in our rail passenger system as a viable alternative to air travel. Recent overwhelming bi-partisan Congressional support (opposed by my opponent Darrell Issa) for the renewal of Amtrak funding is a step in the right direction.

Our economy can never be sound when individuals cannot afford health care.  It is imperative that we provide portable health insurance for all Americans, regardless of preexisting conditions, and ensure that no person is vulnerable to catastrophic loss from an unexpected illness or hospitalization. Here, also, I will reach across the aisle to find a foundation on which we can build a solution over time to our current health care dilemma.

Small businesses account for the majority of employment and the transfer of goods and services, yet have been short-changed by the Bush administration and my opponent in favor of large corporations. For example, the offices of the U.S. Trade Representative do not have a single person dedicated to serving the needs of small businesses in respect to international trade despite the fact that those firms make up 97 percent of America’s exporters. I will work to ensure that the interests of small businesses are supported in Washington. 

We need to gradually, responsibly withdraw our troops from Iraq as soon as possible so that we will be able to effectively fight the terrorist networks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other parts of the world.

Our military and civilian officials should drive the withdrawal. The perception that U. S. troops will be in Iraq indefinitely discourages Iraqi ownership of the political process and fuels terrorist hatred. We should have our troops out by the end of 2009.

While violence is down in Iraq, for many reasons, the national reconciliation promised by Iraqi politicians has not occurred.  We are stuck in a peacekeeping role as we continue to drain our treasury and degrade our military strength.

We need to bring other countries into the effort to preserve the progress that has been made and pressure the Iraqis to resolve their political issues. For the most part, our allies and friends have abandoned us because of their dislike for the current administration’s foreign policies. We need to reestablish a good working relationship with our allies and include Iraq’s neighbors, who want to avoid the spillover chaos of all-out civil war.

I will work diligently to ensure that we provide excellent medical care to all of our injured veterans.

Where Veterans Hospital facilities are remote, we must pay for veterans to go to comparable, or better, civilian facilities closer to home.

The incumbent, Darrel Issa, has only a 29% approval rating from the conservative Disabled Veterans Association and his Congressional Republican colleagues from Southern California also have very low approval ratings. These results indicate an appalling lack of support for veterans, and you can be sure that I will do better. I will work with Congressman Bob Filner (96% approval) and Congresswoman Susan Davis (95% approval) who have shown real leadership and results in supporting our veterans.

We must continue to improve our education system nationally to provide the skilled research and workforce needed to solve problems, compete globally, and meet the needs of the future.

I would urge expansion of early education programs, further reductions in classroom sizes, especially in middle schools and high schools, and making higher education costs affordable.  We need incentives to attract qualified science and math teachers and to provide experienced and motivated teachers for inner-city schools.

I want to repeal the No Child Left Behind legislation because it sets unreasonable standards and punishes schools that need help most.  While student achievement needs to be measured, I believe the federal government has taken too heavy a hand in that process.  The best schools are the product of effective management at the local level, parent participation in the school and in their child’s education, and support and appreciation for teachers who are motivated to care through a sense of their own accomplishment, rather than testing forced on them by Washington. 

We must reverse the trend toward global warming by investing in clean energy production.

Indeed we can become global leaders in new industries that protect the environment and answer the need for alternative energy solutions.

We must practice good stewardship of our resources in the country, balancing the demands of business and consumer with the obligation we have to ourselves and to generations to come of leaving this land and its resources beautiful and healthy.

We must enforce our borders. We have laws in place and all people that break our laws should be held accountable.

At the border, we should build a “virtual” wall with equipment capable of detecting unauthorized cross-border human transit and hire more border patrol agents to respond where needed. I believe that a physical wall extending along the entire border would be both expensive and ineffective.

We also should enforce the requirement that employers verify and take responsibility for the immigration status of their workers. But, at the same time, it will sometimes be appropriate to allow immigrants to work on a temporary, seasonal basis.

We should negotiate with Mexico and its neighbors to do more to enforce their borders and develop their economies to provide jobs and living wages for their people in their own countries.

While we need an immigration policy that maximizes national security, strengthens our economy, and protects American workers, we also want a policy that respects the dignity of all.

We also must recognize that there will still be an unmet need for workers in California’s $17 billion agriculture industry. If we can’t economically produce crops here, the major agricultural companies will outsource the production of their fresh produce to where the workers are available south of the border.

We should conduct a comprehensive review of all our immigration needs, policies and programs, with the above in mind.

Social Security has served us well and must be preserved. 

Social Security remains one of our country’s most important ways to help our elderly live with dignity.  Yet, we need to act soon to adjust the cap on which wages are taxed and the age when benefits are collected.

The incumbent Darrell Issa refers to Social Security as a “welfare program”, ignoring the fact that recipients have paid into it during their working lifetimes. Republicans have been opposed to Social Security since its inception, and we must remain vigilant against their proposals to cut the social security program.

I am opposed to locating the Liberty Quarry on the border between San Diego County and Riverside County, next to the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve and the Santa Margarita River.

San Diego State University has millions of dollars invested in sensitive scientific research that would be rendered useless by the proposed quarry in that location. The quarry would affect the river, which provides potable water to the United States Marine Corps Base downstream at Camp Pendleton and is the only river remaining in California in its relatively pure state. The silica blown into the air would be a serious health hazard to the surrounding communities of Temecula, Rainbow, Fallbrook, and Murrieta. 1600trucks per day would be entering and leaving the quarry site at the Rainbow entrance to the I-15 Freeway, increasing congestion and traffic hazards.

In addition, operation of the quarry would require large amounts of water, a resource now in very short supply in this area.

There is no shortage of granite deposits in Southern California and, surely, other locations would be less harmful. The proposed benefits to the community, 100 jobs and minimal tax revenue, do not out-weigh the drawbacks.

These jobs in all likelihood would still be available at some other nearby quarry location that is not as harmful as the proposed site.