WHAT ELECTED OFFICIALS SHOULD BE DOING FOR US

We need our representatives to openly affirm our tradition and values;

• Open Meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance

• A moment of silence or prayer should follow

It is the DUTY of every elected representative to act decisively;

• Reduce/eliminate duplication

• Take control of the bureaucracy

• Honestly address all problems and issues

• Remember, citizens are not customers, they are government owners

We need our elected officials to lead by example;

• Do not accept per diem payments

• Do not accept cars or other perks

• Health Insurance and other benefits if available, same as all employees 

Promote citizen involvement;

• Schedule Meetings in the evenings or on a Saturday

• English is our national language and should be spoken plainly

• Stop Governments use of acronyms to cause confusion

• Allow for citizen input at all meetings and hearings

Constitutional Government, regardless of Local, State or National;

• Create smaller and less intrusive

• Guarantee the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

• To fulfill the needs of the citizens while holding the line on taxes

The rights of individuals and corporations to hold and own property;

• All have the unalienable right to secure in their homes or business

• Those planning and passing ordinances should keep property rights in mind

• Property ownership is the wealth of our nation

• Government should not take citizens property against their wishes
  

Elected representatives need to embrace economic development;

• Simple, buisness friendly approval processes

• Eliminate useless regulation, become a beacon for compatible business

• Lower property and corporation taxes by reducing spending and operating more efficinet manner using best practice models

Fiscal Responsibility;

• All expenditures need to be scrutinized thoroughly

• Capitol projects need to have a life-cycle cost projection done

• Every expenditure needs financial review for justification

GOVERNMENT'S ROLE

Lincoln said,'"Government should only do for the people what they can not do as individuals or collectively as a group."

Thomas Paine wrote this about government in Common Sense more than 200 years ago:  

"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them;whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other distinctions. The first is a patron the last is a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its beat state is necessary evil: in its worst state an intolerable one, for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."