You and I have had a great conversation here in Minnesota for the better part of 25 years, so some of you may already know me as an independent voice, putting principle and policy ahead of partisan politics. But for those who don't, let me tell you why I believe I'm best suited to represent Minnesota's Second District in Congress.
I was raised in a small-business family, so I understand the struggles of meeting a payroll, balancing budgets and, frankly, wondering where the next customer might come from — and I understand the power of government.
You see, our family business was taken through the eminent domain process, so I, like so many of you, had to find a second career. I was fortunate enough to find one in broadcasting, and it worked out well.
But now I worry whether those types of opportunities will still be around for the next generation of Minnesotans — including my two daughters. Big government and special-interest policies have saddled our children with an unsustainable $19.5 trillion national debt, and in the process have priced them out of the health-care market, the housing market, the higher-education market and the good-paying-jobs market.
They have in many ways priced our children, my young daughters included, out of the American Dream.
Of course, if you like things the way they are — record high tax revenues but $600 billion federal budget deficits; the largest number of rules and regulations on the Federal Register since 1936; a disastrous health-care system that's imploding right here before our eyes in Minnesota; an overreaching Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that if unchecked will kill thousands of jobs right here in our state — putting farmers out of business and our energy sector on the fringe; and open borders and dangerous refugee admissions — you can vote for my opponent. She supports the policies that have given us all of these things.
However, if you want change, real change — a simpler tax code, less spending and fewer job-killing regulations, replacing Obamacare with insurance that's both affordable and portable, stopping EPA's overreach, and a federal government that does its job of controlling who gets into this country and who doesn't — well, I'm the independent leader who will fight for that kind of prosperous future.
But instead of talking about these legitimate differences in our respective campaigns, my opponent and her liberal surrogates, like Nancy Pelosi, George Soros and nearly every government union in Washington, have engaged in a scorched-earth negative campaign the likes of which the Second District has never seen.
