On The Record

The voters of north Georgia deserve a voice in Congress that is clear and unwavering.  Detailed below are my positions on a wide range of the most pressing issues our country faces.  With your vote, I will bring our rock solid conservative to the House of Representatives and I will always stand strong for the values that have made our country strong.  

If an issue is important to you and I have not explained my position with the answers below, please email me.  I will get back to quickly with my specific positions and will post those answers on this website.

Thank you for your support.  Let’s stand strong for freedom together!




Defending Our 2nd Amendment Rights
The recent Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller held that the founding fathers created an individual right to self defense in the 2nd Amendment.  I agree.  I  believe that there is  a fundamental right for each individual to own and use arms under the Constitution of the United States.   

North Georgians will accept reasonable regulations on this right, for example keeping guns out of the hands of felons convicted of violent crimes.  But we will not accept Federal regulations that seem to only limit the ownership and use of arms by law-abiding citizens that would use these weapons for sport and safety.

Therefore, I will fight to protect your individual right that was afforded to us all by the founding fathers.  


Protecting the Sanctity of Human Life
Roe v. Wade was decided on erroneous constitutional grounds.  It will go down as one of the worst legal decisions in American history.  The right to abortion is not mentioned in the text of the Constitution, and the question the case answers is a political question and not one for the judiciary.  

Abortion is the most straightforward human rights problem of our age.  It boggles the mind how any liberal interest group could advocate for action in Darfur and yet support abortion on demand at home.  

I believe that life begins at conception and the government should protect that life.  My votes and my actions in Congress will always stand up for protecting the sanctity of human life.


Lower Taxes and Promoting the Fair Tax
Complex.  Frightening.  Intimidating.  Paperwork.  IRS.  April 15th.  For the American public these words conjure up images of one thing: the current US tax code.  We can do better.  We used to do better.

Our Founding Fathers set up tax system based on consumption because they believed taxing consumption made it more difficult for a tyrannical sovereign to impose the kinds of taxes against which they rebelled.  

Therefore, I support a return to the consumption tax (or what has become known as the Fair Tax).  As the name suggests, the tax comes up only when we consume and does not penalize work and savings like our current system.  This change would cause the American economy to boom, and incentivize American families at all income levels to save.  A consumption tax would grow the American economy and increase wealth in every home.       


Defending Traditional Values:  Prayer in School/Posting of the Ten Commandments
The Founding Fathers gave us freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.  Today’s liberals and many judicial decisions would have us believe otherwise.  But the American people understand that our rights as citizens do not come from a government or a court, but they are inalienable because they come from God.  

I believe that the Ten Commandments should be posted in every public building as they are the foundation of our modern legal system.  

I believe our school children have a right to prayer.  North Georgians represent many different religious backgrounds and faiths.  We should encourage our children to foster their relationship with their God in school, and not to present faith and religion as something that is antithetical to education.    


Keeping Terrorists Off American Soil and Utilizing Guantanamo
Before the smoke had even cleared over lower Manhattan after 9/11, the Bush administration realized that the US needed to incapacitate senior al Qaeda leadership, the Taliban, and all al Qaeda and affiliate members who posed a threat to the United States.  In order to do this, the Bush administration utilized a traditional wartime authority; one that has been used by every wartime president from Lincoln to FDR.  That is the power to detain captured enemy soldiers, without charge or trial, until the conflict is over.  Historically, there has been no dispute that a military commander in wartime can capture and detain the enemy until the cessation of hostilities.  Yet the Bush administration conceded that more protections were necessary for a protracted war like the War on Terror.  With Congressional support, a system of military commissions was set up in order to review the detention of enemy combatants.  

Although this system was called by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts as “the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants” in his dissent, the system was overturned by the Supreme Court in the case Boumediene v. Bush.  In Boumediene, five liberal justices of the Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of extending Constitutional protections to non-citizen enemy combatants held on non-U.S. soil.  I believe this decision is erroneous and dangerous.

I advocate for a return to the policies as agreed to by the political branches of our government as expressed in the Military Commissions Act of 2006.  The War on Terror is no different in that there will be a constant need to detain enemy combatants in order to remove them from the battlefield.  Guantanamo represents the best location for a prison of this nature.  


Winning the War on Terror
The name “The War on Terror” has fallen out of favor with the liberal Obama administration, but we must have the courage to say that we are at war.  We must have the courage to call this the War on Terror because Al Qaeda and its affiliates have left us no choice.  Their sole purpose is to destroy American ideals and as many American lives as they can.  In Bin Laden’s 1998 Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders he said, “We issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:  The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilian and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it . . . We call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it.”  Bin Laden’s perversion of the peaceful religion of Islam is nothing if not a declaration of war on a global scale.  

But this is not a war that will be won just on the battlefields.  It will be won by providing intelligence officers powerful tools to track terrorist movements, communications, and financing.  It will be won by securing our borders and ports.  It will not be won by a diplomacy of apologies, but by letting every nation know that we support any friend of democracy and liberty, and oppose any foe that props up the tyranny and terrorism of the past.             


Interrogate the Terrorists
The United States Code prohibits torture (18 U.S.C. §2340).  But American officials who detain Al Qaeda or other terrorist organization operatives are not hamstrung by the law to rely on traditional good cop/bad cop questioning.  Especially when American lives are at risk.  This is because not all forms of interrogation that go beyond mere questioning are torture.  Threats of poor treatment, incentives, and non-harmful physical contact are not torture.  If all harsh treatment is considered torture, the Obama Justice Department must be prepared to bring charges against all Sergeant Instructors that have operated basic training for our enlisted and officer class military personnel.   


Protecting Social Security for This Generation and the Next
Social Security was enacted in 1935 as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.  106 years later, in the year 2041, the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted.  This means that today’s workers in their 30s will reach retirement age with the understanding that Social Security, in its current form, will not be an option for them.  

One of Social Security’s main problems is its operation on a pay-as-you-go basis.  This means that the taxes from today’s workers are paid out to today’s retirees.  So the money that comes out of your paycheck is not saved and invested.  Therefore, Social Security is a redistribution system and not a savings and investment system.

I believe that Social Security should have a savings and investment option for all workers.  Today, the Social Security tax is 12.4%, applicable on the first 90,000 dollars worth of income.  American workers should be allowed to invest a certain percentage of that taxable income in personal accounts.  This change would allow today’s workers to save and invest, and could be done without affecting the benefits of today’s retirees.  


Common Sense, Free Market Based Medicare Reform
The long term financial health of Medicare is in critical condition.  There will be a shortfall in the Trust Fund in 2011, and it will be exhausted by 2019.  Moreover, Medicare is one of the largest and fastest growing federal programs.  By 2016, Medicare will be 20 percent of federal spending.  Medicare, combined with the costs of Social Security and Medicaid, represent a fiscal policy that is unsustainable (and this does not include the costs of ObamaCare).

With the first part of the 77 million baby boomers reaching retirement age, we can no longer afford to ignore the need to reform Medicare.  Any reform should leave Medicare as it is today for current beneficiaries.

Reforming Medicare should begin with giving incentives for those that have not reached retirement age to save money in health savings accounts.  We must also change the focus of Medicare from centering on sickness to centering on improving health.  As former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich points out, “Medicare must be strengthened to include a focus on outcomes-based healthcare.”  


Stopping Illegal Immigration
The Statue of Liberty reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddle masses yearning to breathe free.”  This inscription remains true today.  The world’s tired and poor still dream of reaching America’s shores and borders because this truly is the land of the free.  But our freedom is based on the power the people gave to the Constitution.  In short, we are a nation ruled by law.

And we must have the will to enforce the law in every part of our society.  Legal immigrants play an indispensible role in the success of our country.  This role is undermined by our lack of will to enforce the laws of immigration, and to deter illegal immigration.    

Controlling our nation’s border is also one of the foremost security measures we can take in order to protect ourselves from another terrorist attack.  We must take this duty seriously, and stop the millions of illegal aliens that cross our borders at will.  

If we are to ensure our safety, as well as our historical legacy as the world’s refuge where all may breathe free, we must have the courage to enforce the laws that allow the huddle masses to become a legal American citizen.  


Iran/North Korea
After World War II, the United States was thrust into the position as leader of the world’s democracies.  We accepted the responsibility for maintaining peace.  In this role as sheriff, the United States has kept the world town safe.  Major powers have maintained peace.  Communism was defeated.  After 9/11, the United States removed two tyrannical regimes that were brutally oppressing their own people.     

Yet, a new tenor is emerging in American foreign policy.  It seeks to apologize for our actions.  It believes our role in the world was not humbly accepted, but hubristically taken.  It believes that the breakdown in relations is a reflection on us, and not the common denominator between evil and despotic regimes.

Despite this new tenor, problem regimes are as discordant as ever.  They oppress and murder their own people.  They call for the destruction of neighboring democracies.  They deny historical fact.  They threaten peace with their cupidity for deadly weapons.  They remain irreconcilable to the world.   

We need to continue our role as sheriff of the world town and stand strong in the face of the nuclear threats posed by Iran and North Korea.  Now is not the time for apologies and appeasement.  

We must enforce international standards on these rogue regimes and remove their nuclear threat to the world.       


Global Warming/Cap and Trade
Conservatism and the environmental protection have a long history.  From the efforts of President Theodore Roosevelt in creating national parks to President Reagan’s support of the first Earth Day, conservatives have played a leading role in protecting the environment in smart and efficient ways.  

All north Georgians want clean air.  All north Georgians want clean rivers and streams.  All north Georgians want a cleaner environment.  But we do not want hysteria, bigger government, and more regulation.  And we certainly do not want the trillion dollar tax increase that is the Cap and Trade bill.  

Instead we must use American entrepreneurship to invent cars that get more miles to the gallon.  We must incentivize behavior (not punish behavior as the left would have us do) that is good for the environment.  I support reasonable, free market based incentives to encourage innovation and reduce threats to our environment.  The typical, liberal, big government “solutions” will only destroy jobs in America and further harm our economy.