22 May Fix the mess by sending an outsider to Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. is completely dysfunctional. Out-of-touch politicians have proven themselves incapable of solving (or even understanding) our country’s problems. I recently announced that I am running for Congress in New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District for one reason: We need leaders with real world experience who can fix this mess.
I am the son of immigrants who sought freedom and opportunity in the United States. I have lived the American Dream, going from pumping gas at my father’s gas station to serving in the boardrooms of some of the largest companies in the world. My business career has taken me to more than 75 countries, and my travels have made it clear that America is still that shining city on a hill that drew my parents here decades ago.
But it’s obvious that something’s not quite right. Rampant inflation. Open borders. Surging crime. And anti-Americanism and antisemitism are spreading across our campuses. Our children and grandchildren are going to inherit an America that isn’t as free or prosperous as the one our parents and grandparents left us. They’ll inherit one in which patriotism has been replaced with defeatist beliefs about an increasingly less perfect union.
Identifying the cause of the problem isn’t very hard: Washington, D.C. is filled with career politicians who spend their lives running for office and career bureaucrats bouncing from one government job to another. Having spent their lives in the D.C. bubble, they are completely detached from the lives of ordinary Americans. They don’t want to solve our problems; they think we are the problem.
If you want an example, look no further than the economy. Inflation remains out of control and a recession looms. Again, the problem is obvious. The politicians and bureaucrats printed, borrowed, and spent too much money. If any of them had ever spent some time running a business, they would understand basic economics and have known inflation would follow.
Worse, they deny there is even a problem. The economy is doing great, they insist, exasperated; they assume you just don’t understand. Sure, the economy is great, for them. As a matter of fact, some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country are in the D.C. area. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans everywhere are suffering from a rising cost of living that’s pinching budgets. One parent I recently met talked about the difficulty of explaining to her kids that she couldn’t afford summer camp for them this year.
Enough is enough. We need to live within our means. Yes, that means tough choices, but don’t we all do that with our monthly budgets? We need accountability and we need to stop handing out blank checks. We need more people in Congress who have signed the front of a paycheck as well as the back.
Our open borders are another sign Washington, D.C. is broken. The uncontrolled flow of people and drugs across our borders is a national security disaster and it is wreaking havoc in our neighborhoods. As the son of legal immigrants, I wholeheartedly believe immigration is good for our country. I support a “Tall Wall and a Wide Gate” — a secure border and a welcoming legal immigration system. But our leaders continue to ignore the problem as the situation worsens. Shockingly, they cannot even bring themselves to say the word “illegal” to describe the rampant law-breaking behavior.
It is clear that our leaders in Washington have also made a mess of the wider world. The disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal telegraphed weakness, and soon our enemies were advancing on multiple fronts. Russia invaded Ukraine. Hamas and Iran attacked Israel. And China is now salivating at the prospect of “reintegrating” Taiwan and Venezuela is preparing to annex neighboring Guyana’s gigantic oil fields.
Politicians and career bureaucrats have forgotten (if they ever knew) that when America is strong, our adversaries take notice; when America is weak, they take advantage.
We don’t need to send another career politician or career bureaucrat to Congress who doesn’t understand how the world works. We don’t need another D.C. insider who is going to go along to get along, checking career boxes in a never-ending quest for ever greater titles. We need a conservative outsider with real world experience who wants to shake things up in D.C. to help the people of New Hampshire. We need someone who can fix this mess, not someone who helped create it.
Despite our country’s problems, I am an optimist. It’s time to restore American strength at home and abroad, making it crystal clear that the United State remains a land of opportunity for all. It’s time to revive the American Dream, assuring that our children and grandchildren have the same opportunities we did. And most importantly, it’s time to evict career bureaucrats and politicians and return Washington to a government of, by, and for the people..