From the Union Leader: To Carol Shea-Porter, it's Big Government or Nothing

Thanks to the Union Leader for printing my Op-ed on the difference between myself and Carol Shea-Porter on how we view government. The choice on November 2nd is clear.

Recently I had the opportunity to participate in the first of what will be many candidate debates with my opponent, Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. These events serve as a valuable outlet to provide information on where we as candidates stand on the most important issues facing New Hampshire and the nation and to have a dialogue on the different views we have on policy.

At the debate on Monday, we saw a clear difference between me and Rep. Shea-Porter on how large government should be, and what the role of government should be.

Carol Shea-Porter is a proud advocate for bigger government solutions on virtually every issue. No matter what the question is, to Rep. Shea-Porter, the answer is always bigger government. She is a staunch supporter of the federal stimulus package, a trillion-dollar waste which has failed to produce job growth in America. Obama Administration officials promised the stimulus would keep unemployment no higher than 8%. Instead, unemployment has been above that figure for 19 consecutive months. The stimulus wasted billions in unnecessary pork projects, gave millions in bonuses to Wall Street executives, and gave billions to companies that ship jobs overseas. It’s a big-government effort, and it has failed.

Shea-Porter also voted for the trillion-dollar takeover of the health insurance industry. Obamacare cut $500 billion from Medicare, raises numerous taxes and has done nothing to lower health care costs. The law also contains a provision that requires small business owners to fill out a 1099 tax form with the IRS any time they spend more than $600 with a vendor in a year. The White House says this will raise $17 billion over the next ten years. It is yet another tax on small businesses that will do absolutely nothing to improve health care.

Instead of focusing on free-market solutions to tackle the rising cost of health care and health insurance, Congresswoman Shea-Porter again went with the big-government approach. Once again, this approach has failed.

I offer a different approach to answering these challenges. On job growth, I want to lower taxes on individuals and small businesses, and reduce the regulatory red tape small business owners must cut through. I want to provide small business owners with a tax break by allowing them to fully write off the cost of equipment purchases in the year they make the purchase. I want to cut both the payroll tax and corporate tax rate on all businesses, so they have more money available to their employees, and have an increased ability to hire. These are small government solutions that will keep businesses thriving, and put people back to work.

I am proud of my record of leadership as Mayor of Manchester. I was able to produce the city’s first tax cut in nearly a decade, and help put a Spending Cap on the ballot, because I held true to a philosophy of limited government and trust in the taxpayers. I helped make Manchester run better and more efficiently because I held true to those core principles. I was lauded for demonstrating “competent, responsible, fiscally conservative governance”. I will bring that style of governance to Congress if given the chance.

Rep. Shea-Porter knows her big-government approach will not win out among voters when compared to my small-government approach, so she is trying to distort it. She is falsely labeling me as an “extremist”, playing straight out of the Democratic Party handbook. In her mind, if you do not believe in a big-government solution for every challenge facing this country, then you are for no government at all.

Carol Shea-Porter doesn’t believe in good government. To her, it’s either big government or no government. To her, it’s either a complete adoption of Nancy Pelosi’s big-government agenda, or anarchy. We cannot allow this falsehood to go unchallenged.

There is a significant difference between the Pelosi-led big government agenda Shea-Porter advocates, and my plan to bring smaller government and fiscal responsibility back to Congress. The voters of New Hampshire have a clear choice when they go to the polls on Nov. 2: big government, or good government. I know the difference between the two. It’s unfortunate that Rep. Shea-Porter does not.