America has almost always been a country where hard working people could expect to provide decent housing, education and health care for their families.   But shrinking salaries, increased taxes, and the rising cost of housing, gas, food and health care are making that more and more difficult.

I'm not an economist, but I have been a management consultant to business, government and nonprofits for over 30 years.  I know when things are out of balance within a system or an organization and our economy is dramatically out of balance.  This is about working together to find solutions to complex problems. 

We are in tough times economically:   the sub-prime mortgage crisis, soft home sales, rising unemployment, an unstable stock market, high oil prices (and the associated rise in prices for everything from food to utilities because of that), the cost of the war in Iraq, a turndown in retail sales, too much inventory, a weak dollar, tighter credit, rising health care costs, and a national debt approaching $10 trillion dollars. South Carolina families feel the results in what it takes to fill up our gas tanks and our grocery carts; what it takes to sell our homes; and, what it takes to keep our homes warm or cool and ourselves and our children in good health. 

If we take the same old path, with the same old people, we can expect the same old difficulties we are experiencing today.     We need Congressional representation with sounder, more fiscally responisble thinking and longer term solutions. 

What do we do now?

Fair Taxation, Invest in Education and Retraining, Accelerate the Minimum Wage

• Cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families making $50,000 or less to offset increasing payroll taxes.
• Eliminate last minute "pork barrel" spending with no review process.   Let's compete on a level playing field on the merits of our projects.  South Carolina will do fine and there will be no more "bridges to nowhere."
• Maintain the current rate for capital gains to encourage economic investment and jobs. 
• Return Pell Grants to their former level of funding because to compete in this economy, we must have more education.
• Introduce Pell Grant like programs for retraining workers in growth industry skill sets.
• Accelerate minimum wage to reach $7.25 by November 2008.

Increase Policy and Oversight For Consumer Financial Products

• Establish a Financial Products Review Commission to protect against misleading or imprudent consumer financial products.
• Make financial products more transparent by requiring annual payment figures for the life of a loan, clear information about points, fees and penalties during the application process.
• Make credit card charges transparent and curb excessive and extraordinary charges.
• Regulate predatory lenders and set interest caps on that industry.
• South Carolina is second in the nation for mortgage fraud. Implement penalties for perpetrators of mortgage fraud.

Government Accountability

• Attack the over $375 billion a year waste of our tax dollars by the federal governmnet.  Boomers are currently paying taxes which are three times as much of our income in real dollars as our parents did in 1950.  Poor fiscal management, redundancy and inefficincy are costing us all.  Restoring budgetary discipline and being a steward of taxpayer money is a non-partisan issue and should be a prioirty for every Congressional representative. 

  Invest in 21^st Century Economies and Jobs

• Require American made cars to meet a standard of 40 mpg by 2015. This will save families money, help American automakers be competitive, secure jobs and cut down on CO₂ emissions.
• Increase the speed of the Renewable Energy Sector with tax incentives to create more jobs of the future.
• Offer incentives for energy independent technologies that are safe, have no negative impact on the environment and don't impact the price of food.