JOBS

15.7 million American workers are unemployed. The number of under-employed is most likely much greater. Most likely, some of your friends, neighbors, or family are in one of these groups. Why are we still bringing in 150,000 foreign workers into the country every MONTH? I will speak up for the American worker by proposing a moratorium on foreign work visas.

EDUCATION

After teaching in public schools at both the elementary and middle school levels, Dan has seen the problems facing America’s school-children and he believes there is a solution to those problems: Too many students can only read at a 5th grade level when they graduate from public high schools. Many graduates cannot comprehend simple mathematics. Elementary teachers are saddled with teaching science, social studies, responsibility, character - and the list continues. The solution I endorse would give elementary teachers the responsibilities of teaching only reading, writing and math skills. It replaces the labels of Grades K – 3 with the Levels 1 – 12 and provides a better school system. Each student progresses by levels instead of grades. Once Level 1 is accomplished the student moves on to Level 2. This would apply to all three skill sets. This program not only provides remedial work for students who need it, it also allows those who can excel to not be held back just because of their age.

THE BEST GOVERNMENT MONEY CAN BUY

The multinational corporations have taken control of the two major parties with the billions they funnel into their campaigns. In return, the corporations have had legislation passed to increase their profits at the expense of the American worker. I along with the other Green Party candidates have pledged not to take campaign contributions from corporations or special interest groups. The voters need to send a message to the "big" boys that money is not the determining factor in their votes.

ENERGY POLICY

In order to end our dependence on foreign oil, we need to take bold steps as a nation: Every year we import $220 Billion worth of foreign oil. To put that into perspective, we could pave 100,000 miles of 4 lane roads or purchase 10 million $20,000 cars with that amount of money. That’s how much of American worker’s wealth is leaving our economy every year. We need a truly bold group effort to stop this. One of the first steps would be to use our abundance of NG (Natural Gas) to reduce the flight of worker’s wealth. We have enough of our own NG to provide for this nation’s energy needs for decades to come. A next step towards reducing our use of foreign oil would be converting as many vehicles and electric generating plants as possible to NG. During this conversion process, we also should start producing more electric generating wind and solar equipment while upgrading our electric grid. We can then start producing more plug-in hybrid and electric cars, further reducing our reliance on foreign oil.

MILITARY INVOLVEMENT

The United States spends more on military defense than all the rest of the world combined. This nation spent over $600 Billion Dollars for military defense in Fiscal Year 2008 alone.  No Declaration of War was ever made by Congress regarding our ongoing war with Iraq. Congress gave former President Bush the “authorization” for war and by doing so violated their constitutional duty. Now we’ve lost more than 2,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan and continue to pour billions upon billions of dollars into that bloody quagmire too. For these reasons alone, we should bring home the troops. Also, we are trillions of dollars in debt but still have a military presence in too many countries to list. We need to bring all the rest of our troops home. We cannot afford to protect the rest of the world.

PAPER BALLOTS

Our election process has been compromised by the use of electronic voting machines. In many instances there is no paper trail to physically determine the outcome of some elections. I support the use of paper ballots to ensure proper elections.

TERM LIMITS

The one guarantee I CAN make to the citizens of the 14th district is that I will serve no more than two terms.