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'Roots' Author, Alex Haley, was once told by his grandmother, 'The only thing bigger than time is family, and the only thing bigger than family is God'
The instincts and memories in all of us testify that the
 culture begins and ends with family. A strong economy, a safe society and ultimately, the American dream are intrinsically dependent upon the success of the American family. However, if our culture continues to head in its present direction, our national character will be so damaged that it will be impossible for us to be competitive in a world economy.
I have been privileged to serve children and families in the capacity of Director of The Arizona Family Research Institute and, previously, as Director of the Arizona Governor's Office For Children, which is a cabinet level division of the Governor's office that oversees and coordinates state programs for children in Arizona. Prior to that, I served in the Arizona House Of Representatives as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Child Protection and Family Preservation.
If I have learned anything during those 9 years of service, it is that government is simply incapable of replacing the family. The family is still the best Department of Welfare, the best Department of Education, the best Department of Drug Enforcement, and the best Department of Public Safety that there will ever be.
The tax burden on most American families in 2002 usually forces both parents to work outside the home. In the last 50 years the tax burden on families with children has increased dramatically while taxes on other households remain fairly constant. In 1948, a family of four with a median family income paid 2% of its income to the federal government. Today, the same family pays roughly 24%. At the same time, the costs associated with raising children have risen markedly.
It is time to index the federal tax exemption for inflation, to provide child care tax credits for children and to reduce overall tax rates on families. This will help both traditional families and single parent families, and ultimately, lessen the burden on our country's social welfare system.
When parents divorce, children are 73% more likely than the general population to suffer from depression when they grow up. After divorce or separation, children are almost twice as likely to be living in poverty as they were before their parents separated.
Divorce is now the number one cause of poverty for children. More than 80% of all physically violent crime is perpetrated by men and boys who grow up without a functional father figure in their lives. Families really do matter.
It is crucial for government to recognize that the family is the most important institution in America. Government can best do this by relieving families of their crushing tax burden, by implementing economic policies which give the family the best opportunity to succeed, by recognizing parental rights, and by concentrating on the primary purpose of government which is to protect its citizens from crime and national security threats.
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The first and primary purpose of government is to protect its citizens.
One of the most compelling and enlightening bodies of research conducted on crime was by former Attorney General William Barr. His report was entitled 'Combating Violent Crime'. In it he said, there is no better way to reduce crime than to 'identify, target, and incapacitate those hardened criminals who commit staggering numbers of violent crimes whenever they are on the streets.' More than two thirds of all violent crimes are committed by just 6% of all criminals.
More than half of the criminals who are convicted of violent crime in the United States serve less than two years. Out of 20 criminals arrested for rape, only one will go to prison and he will be back out on the street in approximately two years or less. A kidnapper can expect to spend barely more than two years behind bars. A convicted murderer in America spends an average of only 6 years in prison.
I believe strongly in the three-time loser law that provides for life imprisonment for individuals convicted of a violent crime a third time. Those convicted for a second offense of criminal rape or child sexual abuse should face life imprisonment, for the sake of society and for the sake of the offender. Studies have shown consistently that those convicted a second time of a sexual crime have more than a 95% chance of continued recidivism.
The bottom line is that a very small group of criminal predators perpetrate most of the violent crime in this country. While the cost of maintaining them in prison is approximately $35,000 per year, the cost of allowing them to continue brutalizing society is over $150,000 per year. It is a moral disgrace and financial mismanagement when we fail to lock up repetitive, violent criminals. The violent career criminals should become career inmates.
All prisoners should be required to work, study, and pay restitution to their victims, and those with any type of alcohol or drug abuse problems should be forced to undergo treatment for drug abuse. For non-violent offenses, restitution should be preferred over incarceration. This ensures that there is room in prisons for violent offenders and also improves the victim's chances for actually receiving restitution. Non-violent offenders placed in prison with violent offenders often come out of prison as violent offenders themselves.
The crime problem is one that will take the efforts of all of us. The vast majority of all violent crime is perpetrated by young men who have never had a functional father figure in their lives. It is time we all recognized that strong families really do make a difference. It is also time for Hollywood to stop glamorizing violence and for the American people to rise up and reclaim their culture so that we can rid our streets and our neighborhoods from the specter of fear.
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I believe all laws passed by congress should apply to congress except in the extremely rare circumstance where national security is at stake. Inexplicably congress has exempted itself from many of the burdensome laws they place on the public. We must make congress more accountable by insisting that they live under the same laws they make for everyone else.
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Consistent economic growth and productivity is the substantive proof of sound economic policy. The best measure of productivity is the average per capita income adjusted for inflation. Therefore, it is absolutely imperative that American economic policy be geared to reward
 productivity. It has been said many times that we have more of what we subsidize and less of what we tax. Consequently the primary role of government in the economy is to combat fraud and price fixing practices, and simply get out of the way of free enterprise and let the people produce. This means less regulation, less taxes, and less intrusion into private markets and business. I believe abolishing the federal income tax in favor of value added tax would be a quantum leap in that direction.
Until then, I believe in allowing individuals the opportunity to have a tax- free savings account to save money for first time home purchase, for college education, or for medical expenses. We should eliminate the marriage penalty in the tax system and increase tax exemptions for children and continue to index them for inflation thereafter. We should completely remove the cap on mortgage interest rate deductions for homeowners.
I also support helping our inner cities rebuild themselves by creating tax free enterprise zones to encourage new small business and jobs.
FIVE ECONOMIC COMMON SENSE PROPOSALS
1) Workfare replacing welfare.
2) Requiring prisoners to work and study.
3) Cutting taxes to encourage work, savings and job creating investment.
4) Eliminating red tape and bureaucracy at all levels.
5) Abolishing federal income tax in favor of a value added tax
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We are fortunate in this country to have some of the finest teachers and administrators we could ever hope for, but our educational system itself is fatally flawed. It is time we commit to giving our children the best by empowering
 parents to choose the schools their children will attend, whether they be public, private, parochial, or home schools. I believe one of the best ways to do this is Scholarship Tax Credits. This approach will improve the entire public and private educational system, across the board and will finally place children and the quality of their education at the very top of the system's priority list.
In 1995, I wrote Arizona's Scholarship Tax Credit Legislation. This legislation was signed into law April 7th, 1997. It has since survived ACLU and NEA challenges to the Arizona Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. There are now more than 40 scholarship organizations operating under that legislation in Arizona. I now serve as president of the Arizona Hope Scholarship Association, which is an association for those organizations. Under the Scholarship Tax Credit legislation, approximately 20,000 children in Arizona will be given scholarships this year alone to attend the school of their parent' s choice.
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According to a 1990 report by Katherine Swartz of the Harvard School of Public Health, overall, only 3% - 4% of the United States population is uninsured on a long-term basis, that is, longer than 12 months. Most of the 14% of the total population that is uninsured at any one time are uninsured for a relatively short period of time. 86% of all Americans have health insurance.
I favor passing legislation that would allow individuals to have a Medical Savings Account (MSA). The MSA would be a tax-free personal account used to pay medical bills not covered by insurance. Employers or individuals who purchase their own insurance take the money that they presently spend on health insurance and redistribute it. Instead of buying a low dollar deductible policy for employees, employers or employees would be able to buy high deductible catastrophic policies and invest the savings into an MSA to be used for paying small medical bills while still having catastrophic insurance for the larger bills.
The average employer-provided family plan now costs about $4,500.00. That plan has a relatively low deductible. The catastrophic plan that covers medical expenses above $3,000.00 costs about $1,500.00 for a family plan. The $3,000.00 that would be left over could be placed in an MSA to use for medical care or to save. This would eliminate the 'use it or lose it' mentality.
The advantage of an MSA is that would trigger price competition in the medical community. Several studies indicate that when individuals are given a monetary incentive to control medical costs, their medical bills are reduced by as much as 1/4 without any measurable impact on health.
Another advantage is that employers who cannot afford low deductible insurance plans for their employees many times can afford the high deductible catastrophic policies. This applies to individuals as well.
It is estimated that 20 percent of all health care dollars are spent on administrative costs. We rely on 3 parties to pay for most medical expenses, which causes burdensome paperwork on doctors, insurers, and hospital administrators. An MSA dramatically reduces these costs because most individual patients are now paying for their smaller medical costs themselves out of their MSA.
Presently, every $50.00 bill sent to an insurance company can cost them $50.00 to process. Another advantage to the MSA is the incentive to be healthy because medical savings accounts accumulate from year to year over a lifetime with no tax on the interest. There is a major financial incentive for individuals to stay healthy. And of course, an MSA is completely portable and doesn't go away when you lose your job. MSA funds not spent during a person's working years would then be available for long term care also.
MSA patients also retain their right to select their own doctors and MSA patients would have the flexibility to purchase preventative health care not covered under many policies.
While it is true our health care system desperately needs improvement in some very important areas, it is also true that we have the finest health care system in the entire world. To place our health care system, which represents approximately 1/7 of our entire economy, under the bureaucratic control and management of government as was envisioned by Bill Clinton is spectacularly insane. It seems the fall of socialism across the world have taught many of our politicians nothing. It is hard to envision a plan that would hinder health care excellence and damage the doctor/patient relationship more than government run socialized medicine.
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I believe that Israel is a natural friend and ally to the United States and that we must never weaken our commitment to the sovereignty and security of the state of Israel. My vote will always reflect that commitment.
This small nation, the only democracy in the Middle East, has been forced to defend itself against terrorists like Yasser Arafat for decades. In the wake of cleaning up body parts of their innocent women and children murdered in pizza parlors by homicide bombers, Israel has often been called upon by American leaders to 'exercise restraint'. I often wonder how American leaders would respond if called upon to 'exercise restraint' toward Osama Bin Laden. I, for one, would be unspeakably outraged.
When innocent women and children of free and peace-loving nations anywhere are brutally slaughtered by terrorist murderers, the response everywhere of all who hold innocent human life sacred should be to militarily wipe out such terrorists to the last man.
I pray for a day when a free and secure Israel can live in peace alongside a free and secure Palestinian state, where terrorists and terrorism exist only in the silent memory of God. Until that day, let humanity stand united against terrorism, and let us all teach our children to fervently love their fellow human beings. To the end that, one day, they will take their place in a future where hate and violence are concepts unknown and unthinkable.
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I sincerely believe that a 5 trillion dollar national debt could ultimately crush this nation in a way that no mortal enemy has ever been able to do. Republicans have made profound progress in curtailing deficit spending. For the sake of this nation and the future of our children we must not relent until we can eliminate the national debt. We need a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget. We need a Presidential line-item veto and we need to permanently restrict federal spending to a specific percentage of our gross national product.
My own experience as the director of a state agency indelibly impressed upon me the fact that waste in government is no myth. I am unalterably committed to balancing the budget through a reduction in spending rather than increased taxes. We are not in danger because we are taxed too little. We are in danger because government spends too much. I will vote against all net increases in taxes and continue to work toward achieving future federal budgets that are balanced.
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It has been said that the only foreign territory that American soldiers have permanently occupied is that little green space of ground under a Cross or Star of David in some foreign
 battlefield cemetery. America has been blessed to have the bravest and most noble soldiers in the history of the world. We owe them all an unspeakable debt of gratitude.
If I am re-elected, I will continue to endeavor to see that American soldiers are the best trained, most well-equipped fighting force on earth. Our past commitment to 'peace through strength' presided over the fall of the Berlin wall. We must never forget that American military strength and readiness is the greatest single deterrent to war. We also must never forget the valiant men and women who have given their lives for this country. If they could, they would remind us all that freedom is never free.
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The evidence that hard-core pornography leads to violence against women and children is simply overwhelming. The sexual exploitation of women and children is not constitutionally protected, and it is the duty of government to enforce obscenity laws in the United States. Pornography is destroying American families. It is more than a 10 billion dollar a year industry based on greed and a total lack of respect for humanity.
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It is my deep conviction that whenever an abortion takes place, a mother is never quite the same. A nameless little baby dies a tragic and lonely death and all the gifts the child might have brought to humanity are lost forever.
As Americans, there is nothing that we love more on this earth than our children. We have always instinctively sought to protect the innocent and disenfranchised. Yet we have allowed a profit motivated abortion industry to exploit American women, desecrate unborn children, and warp our own love for freedom by performing nearly 4,000 birth control abortions every day.
Testifying before a Congressional Committee, the late Governor Robert Casey said, 'During the period beginning with the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, women have had virtually unlimited access' to abortion. 'Yet during that same period, more and more women have slipped into poverty,' 'Our infant mortality rates have increased. Child abuse has increased in frequency and severity. The feminization of poverty has only grown worse. The exploitation of women through pornography and rape has skyrocketed.'
Governor Casey went on to say, 'Abortion on demand has not brought freedom and security to women. Nearly half of the abortions in America are repeat abortions, I think it is obvious by now that either abortions don't solve women's problems or 4,400 a day are not enough. The truth is: America doesn't need any more abortions. We have already had 26 million, and it hasn't done a thing for our people.'
While there are many sincere people on both sides of this issue, all of us must ask the central question. Does abortion kill a baby? If it does not, then it is a non-issue. If abortion does kill a child, then you and I are living in the midst of the greatest human holocaust in the history of mankind. Ultimately, if we as a society cannot find the will or the courage to protect mothers and their unborn children, in the final analysis, we will never truly find the courage to protect any kind of liberty for anyone.
The Republican Party should never forget that the principle that gave it birth was a compassion for and commitment to protect a class of people the U.S. Supreme Court said was not human. The fervor of that commitment sustained us in the crucible of a horrible civil war. If, in the 21st century, the Republican Party should make the tragic mistake of forsaking the defenseless, no measure of success on other fronts can stop our slide into moral and political oblivion.
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I join those who are unable to understand how taking guns away from honest citizens makes them safer.
I strongly believe in the second amendment to the constitution, which guarantees law-abiding citizens the right to own and bear arms. Criminals have always preferred unarmed victims. Prison surveys indicate when a criminal considers breaking into a home, the greatest deterrent, in his mind, is the fear that his intended victims might be armed.
While I was in the Legislature, I was given an A+ rating for my voting record protecting the second amendment rights of Arizona citizens to own and bear arms. I will never waver in that commitment.
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The OASDI, that is, Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance portion of Social Security is now the largest single
 federal expenditure and continues to grow quickly. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law August 14, 1935. In 1945, for each one of the approximately 1 million beneficiaries collecting Social Security benefits, there were 46 workers contributing. By 1950, just five years later, the coverage was expanded to so many new categories that there were only 16 workers for every beneficiary. Today, there are only 3 workers for every beneficiary and in another 30 years there will only be 2 workers for every beneficiary.
Entitlement programs take approximately half of every federal tax dollar. That's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Compensation, and Veterans benefits. The Social Security fund is no longer an actuarial fund as it was originally purposed to be. Rather than individuals paying in money and receiving it back at retirement, the present benefits are being paid out of payroll taxes from current workers.
Therefore, there is almost no surplus being saved and invested. The part that is set aside is being 'invested' into special issue U.S. Treasury Bonds. These bonds are really just IOU's from the government and a part of the national debt.
By the time the baby boomers begin to retire, in approximately 20 years, they will find Social Security on the verge of bankruptcy. It is critical that we begin to phase in an optional private investment component to Social Security. The second thing we must do, as difficult as it is, is to begin raising the retirement age for those under 40 years old on a phased-in basis. Third, we should remove the earnings test. We should not reduce benefits to Social Security recipients that want to continue to work. If we remove the earnings test, Social Security would pay out more money, but it would be more than offset by the additional work related taxes the government would receive.
Ultimately, if we do not maintain a balanced federal budget, and begin to phase in some of these items, we risk bankrupting Social Security and breaking faith with Americans in their twilight years. I will fervently fight in Congress to protect Social Security for American senior citizens.
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Government is now America's 'biggest business'. Federal, state, and local taxes combined are now greater than the revenues of any single industry. For the first time in US history, the number of worker in the public sector, 18 1/2 million, surpasses the number in the entire manufacturing sector. It looks like we soon may have more people redistributing the wealth than are creating wealth.
I am absolutely committed to reducing the tax rate and the size of government. More than 40% of family income now goes to some level of government in the form of fees or taxes. History has shown that when nations have taxed their people beyond 30% of their income that government revenue is ultimately reduced and the nation itself experiences significant decline or ultimate economic disaster. I will vote against any and all bills that represent a net increase in the tax burden on American business and our citizens. I am unalterably convinced that the ultimate result of increased taxes is a reduction in overall American productivity and the standard of living for the average American.
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While it is very important that our citizens have access to their courts, frivolous law suits based many times on circumstances rather than negligence have become a way of life. Lawyers have exploited the 'deep pockets method' by seeking actual damage and punitive damage awards from individuals, employers, and institutions that may not have been negligent to any significant degree at all. Many times this is done because those actually at fault, plaintiffs, drunk drivers, etc., are financially incapable of sustaining a lawsuit themselves.
It is time that we balance the rights of plaintiffs and those being sued by defining what the word negligence really means. Those who are truly negligent and cause financial or physical injury should be liable because they are negligent not just because they have large insurance policies or significant financial capability.
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The story is told of a young man who went into the welfare office. They asked him why he needed financial assistance. He said, 'I'm having trouble with my eyes. I just can't see myself going to work'.
Primary indications are that the Republican led welfare reform of only a few years ago has been extremely successful. Welfare rolls have been reduced dramatically, and recent research shows that the poverty rates have also fallen significantly. Prior to this reform, if you were 19 years old, the welfare system offered you nothing unless you became pregnant. If you became pregnant, you were immediately eligible for $10,000 to $25,000 dollars worth of services provided that you did work and provided that you did not marry an employed male.
If there is anything we have learned about the economic betterment of the family it is that only work works. Unfortunately, the only way the welfare system can maintain its existence is to foster and expand failure.
In addition to victimizing the taxpayers, a burgeoning welfare system victimizes its recipients by keeping them perennially dependent on government without hope and tools for the future. Our Founding Fathers warned us of the danger of allowing government to waste the substance of its citizens under the pretense of taking care of them.
It is time for government to join hands with private business to form a partnership that will require and enable every able-bodied welfare recipient to work. A job still represents the greatest social program in America. Helping the poor find true independence from government is the truly compassionate thing to do.
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