I have a proven track record of fighting debt and wasteful spending from my time in the Maine Legislature.

However, those debates seem like small potatoes compared to the massive debt that has been created in Washington, because Maine must constitutionally balance our budget and the federal government does not.

We must pass a Balanced Budget Amendment so that the federal government is required to balance its budget just like Maine and most states.  We must change the culture in Washington that rewards big spending politicians at the expense of taxpayers who must pick up the bill.

We have been deluded by sovereign debt failures and financial collapses elsewhere in the world to think that low interest rates will last forever.  But this cannot be expected to last.  And there is legitimate concern that the U.S. dollar may be replaced within the next decade as the world’s reserve currency.

Our levels of debt present a real and present danger to the security of our children.

So we need to set priorities and make some tough choices.  We Mainers do it every day, and Congress could learn a lot by sitting around the kitchen tables of working Maine families.  All spending needs to be reviewed: defense, entitlements, discretionary spending, overseas entanglements.  Everything should be on the table.