Every child must have access to quality education. The youth are our future, and in order to compete globally we must keep pace with educational systems around the world. Sadly, we are falling behind.

The surest way to take back control and to advance our educational system is to reduce government involvement while empowering parents at the same time. Parents have been guiding the education of their children for thousands of years. They are more responsive and better equipped to understand the needs of their own. The federal government has slowly replaced the key role of parents, and this trend must be recognized, stopped and reversed.

By restoring control to parents, we can:

Return federal education money to the states and allow parents to decide the best educational system for their children. This is the only way to foster competition, recognize and reward successful programs, cut administrative waste and improve results without arbitrary government mandates;
Streamline current federal programs to make them more responsive and efficient;
Provide incentives to schools that emphasize science and math proficiency;
Explore the means to promote academic excellence without bureaucratic restrictions; and
Increase federal scholarships for degrees in science, math, engineering and other emerging areas of world competition.

FAA Flight Paths over Delaware County for example

Local, state and federal government actions affect our everyday lives. Oftentimes, it seems that the larger the government becomes, the less concern it has for the people it serves. Your elected officials are charged with the responsibility of making sure that government, at all levels, is responsive and is not overbearing.

The 7th District recently felt the tangible, negative impact of big government when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) unilaterally decided to redirect flight routes over Delaware County (and our homes). With total disregard for the impact of this decision on homeowners and taxpayers in this, the Cradle of Liberty, big government showed how recklessly these decisions can be made and how out of touch these decisions can be with the well-being of the citizenry. Frankly, it is scandalous that we taxpayers, who bailed out the failing airlines after 9/11, should now be treated with such disregard.

The Delaware County Council did its part and appropriately filed a federal law suit to stop the FAA from implementing its new flight-paths, but the federal courts denied any injunctive relief. The appropriate strategy to address our concerns should be spearheaded by our representative in Congress, rather than waiting for other lawmakers or the County Council to solve the problem.

One fact is clear: the longer we wait, the harder it will be to resolve this issue. We must find our voice and demand to be heard. And we need a representative who is willing to do that.

American health care is on life-support and needs a radical new treatment. We all want affordable, quality health care that travels with us, and I believe the answer lies in the free market. In every other industry, the free market has proven its ability to produce the highest quality and lowest cost. So, why not for health care?

Advocates of big government controls on health care believe that only they are smart enough to decide what is necessary for our well-being. I disagree. Health care is very personal - one size does not fit all. This Congress, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, has a prescription for universal health care that ignores the individual in favor of a sweeping approach to managing your health.

I support a health care system that accomplishes the following:

Provides transparency and clarity about affordable health care choices, empowering patients to address their own specific needs;
Provides prescription drugs for senior citizens at an affordable cost;
Emphasizes the critical components of personal responsibility and effective preventive medicine;
Encourages free-market principles to reduce waste and increase efficiencies for employers as well as patients; and
Puts an end to the most inflationary practice in medicine: frivolous lawsuits.

I have enormous respect and compassion for individuals seeking a better life in our great nation by way of legal immigration. This is part of our proud heritage, and it certainly will be part of our lasting legacy. Conversely, I feel equally passionate about the need to secure our borders and put an end to illegal immigration.

We are a nation rooted in the rule of law. We are compassionate and just. We, however, injure ourselves when we ignore or disregard the rule of law by tolerating, harboring and even employing illegal immigrants. We need to reclaim control of our borders with surveillance and steel. Illegal immigrants who remain in the United States must be subject to the consequences of the laws they have broken.

We must accomplish the following:

Secure the border first, using every asset available and all the manpower required at the federal level;
Oppose amnesty in any of its currently proposed forms;
Welcome legal immigration and extend the privilege of United States citizenship by assisting applicants in the learning of English;
Reward those applicants who demonstrate a willingness to assimilate into our communities and become productive, law-abiding citizens; and
Enforce the rule of law and prosecute illegal aliens, making their path to citizenship secondary to those pursuing the proper path.

Energy costs have risen to become a major part of our monthly budget. In homes across America, energy bills have replaced the luxury of a second family car or modest vacation with the family.

We as a nation should be leading the world in alternative energy solutions - and yet, we pay ransom for our own stagnation at the gasoline pump. We have all the resources necessary right here to become energy independent - yet we choose to live with the economics of foreign supply and institutional guilt of the environmental lobby.

Once again, there is a solution:

Inspire and support our great industries to meet this challenge, through dedicated legislation and meaningful policy;
Encourage new and re-engineered alternatives that will provide new, high technology jobs vital to economic recovery;
Demonstrate global leadership by promoting the production of cleaner, more efficient energy in an environmentally sensitive way;
Protect our most needy and at-risk populations from price gouging during hard times; and
Send a message to countries who would monopolize the world's petroleum interests that they will no longer have sway over our foreign policy or economic vitality and independence.

There are a few very basic principles that define fiscal conservatism: decreasing taxation and decreasing spending. Simply put, your money is better managed and more efficiently spent when left in your hands. Conversely, governments tend to be too large and unresponsive to adapt quickly to changing conditions. This drives a need for a smaller, more efficient federal government. The momentum to grow government must be checked constantly. It is no different than a family budget, and that's exactly the perspective that I will take to Washington. The way I see it, you are sending me to Congress not to spend your money, but to keep the government from spending it and asking for more.

I am committed to accomplishing the following:

Reduce taxes by making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent;
Eliminate the marriage penalty;
Repeal the "death tax";
Simplify the tax code;
Evaluate and overhaul waste in government spending; and
Illuminate earmarks to public scrutiny, thereby ending the practice of spending money without full debate.

Make no mistake - our nation is at war with extreme Islamic fundamentalists who want to end our way of life. Especially considering what we endured as a nation on September 11th, we have no choice but to win the war on terror - decisively. And our successes are measurable: General Patreas is a superb commander; the "surge" is working; troop levels are being reduced this year; many provinces of Iraq have been returned to the control of the Government of Iraq; the Prime Minister of Iraq has indicated that the United Nations authorization for the Multi-National Force in Iraq may not be necessary after this year; and terrorist organizations have been deeply crippled.

This is no time for defeatist talk. Political rhetoric that this war is lost and that its mission is pointless serves only to empower and embolden the terrorists, and also to deeply and powerfully harm the morale of our troops, impairing their ability to accomplish their mission. This rhetoric is irresponsible and does not reflect the voice of the citizens of the 7th District.

My plan for dealing with the war and the terrorist threat includes:

Supporting the Iraqi people in their quest for democracy;
Rooting out terrorist activity wherever it exists;
Standing tall with our men and women in the military and making certain that they have the means and support necessary to accomplish their mission;
Re-establishing our dominance in the world intelligence community; and
Making realistic adjustments to troop deployment - taking our guidance from our top military advisors first and politicians last.

Crime is one of the most devastating issues in our daily lives. Unlike natural disasters, crime involves malicious human intent. In my work as a federal prosecutor, I saw the traumatizing effect of crime on victims, as a sense of personal security and dignity was vanquished and hope was poisoned.

As an Assistant United States Attorney with the Department of Justice, I worked against these dehumanizing effects of crime. I fought organized heroin-distribution organizations; I fought organized gangs involved in murder; I fought fraud artists who defrauded senior citizens and the government; I fought child pornographers. Simply put, I fought to make our community safer.

Together we can bring hope and safety back to our neighborhoods. As your Congressman, I will continue my efforts from the Department of Justice by arming our law-enforcement organizations with the weapons they need to continue the fight against crime.

My ongoing fight against crime includes:

Relentlessly pursuing drug traffickers, which is in turn a major cause for violent crime;
Increase the severity of punishment for identity theft, which primarily targets our seniors; and
Increase federal funding for local law enforcement manpower and technology, which brings national resources to bear on crime prevention as well as homeland security.