Campaign Pillars

My campaign is based on the following message.

The current United States Congress has become a “kick-the-can-down-the-road” organization. With mounting national debt, both major parties squabble over every possible budget cut. If a budget cut is proposed out of FUTURE spending, it is decried as extreme and heartless. The system, as is, is completely unsustainable.

We need true fiscal leadership in Washington. We need representatives willing to make the hard decisions over what the true role of the federal government is supposed to be, and funding it accordingly. Families sit down and compare their income with their needs and wants and budget and save for them so why shouldn’t the federal government?

Economic reality is coming to the United States whether we want it to or not. The question is, whose terms will it be on? Our representatives thoughtfully returning us to a government that lives within its means? Or a government in crisis, making wholesale budget cuts just to prevent calamity? (Greece, anyone?)

As your Congressman, I will focus my efforts on raising the tough questions. We will thoughtfully consider a realistic budget and move to a government that respects its taxpayer’s dollars instead of taking them for granted. A good example of what a Caleb Trotter budget proposal would look like can be found here, courtesy of Nick Gillespie and Veronique de Rugy. To sum it up, we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. The answer does not lie in raising taxes during a recession, it is in returning to affordable spending.

Another major issue affecting Louisianans is our astronomically high incarceration rate. If you missed the incredibly eye opening 8-part series in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in May, please do yourself a favor and read it. As your representative, I will work immediately to reform two major problems within our criminal justice system from the federal level.

First, I promise to do everything within my power to get a vote  to legalize marijuana to the floor of the House of Representatives. Not only will this save government at all levels tremendous amounts of money, but it will also stop pointlessly ruining countless lives and allow law enforcement to focus on actual crimes.

Second, our federal Department of Justice is long overdue in addressing the increasing militarization of United States police forces. Do police departments in rural Georgia need tanks and body armor? Should we just accept wrong door raids in the middle of the night against innocent families as the “cost of keeping us safe?” I say NO. We need to return our police forces to community policing duties and to ones that fully respect our citizen’s 4th Amendment rights.

Lastly, it is time for this country to fully address a grave civil rights injustice. It is time to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and recognize gay marriage. Decades from now we will look at this period of our history with similar shame as we feel for racially based injustices. It is time to stop relegating citizens to second class status based solely on sexual orientation. If the government insists in being in the business of licensing marriage (which it shouldn’t be) then it should not discriminate. Currently proposed legislation, like the Respect For Marriage Act, is a decent start and as your representative I will push to bring marriage equality to all Americans regardless of their orientation or what state they live in.

Please join me in voting for freedom for all this November. Thank you.