Monday, April 14, 2008

Jason Chaffetz - running for U.S. House

I was able to meet with Jason Chaffetz today. Here's what he had to say.

WHY RUNNING? He thinks that the reason so many democrats are getting elected into office is because our republican legislators have fallen from the core conservative values. He says that we need to clean house and elect representatives who make the change to return to core conservative values. These representatives are up for office every 24 months so that the people can look at their leadership to see if they are still being represented. He says it's ok to make a change.

FISCAL DISCIPLINE: He thinks that fiscal discipline is a priority. He believes how you run a campaign reflects how you will represent and vote when in office. He says the candidates should be fiscally conservative. He is doing this by having no paid staff (his staff is all volunteer), he isn't buying a vote through meals (no free meals), and he isn't polling (says he doesn't need a pollster to tell him how to vote). Along these lines he thinks that the president should be able to line item veto. He says that we need to curb the way to change earmarks. He says that he won't vote for a single earmark. He says that our government needs to have a business mindset. We need more transparency. He said that he would not cut the Department of Defense. 28% of federal programs are completely ineffective or don't produce results. See www.expectmore.gov.

EDUCATION: He would repeal No Child Left Behind. He would like to completely eliminate the Department of Education. He believes that the federal government should have nothing to do with our states education. He does think there is a role for the federal government in offering low interest student loans and grants, but that can be done through another program or department.

NATIONAL SECURITY: He thinks that we need to have a strong national security. This means that we should have the best equipment and intelligence (not on Americans, but the rest of the world). He says there are unacceptable parts of the Patriot Act that should be changed. He said that we should strengthen and have strong Special & Tactical Forces, but that we are overusing our National Guard. He says that we need to better care for the armed forces members.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: He says that current law is different than current policy. He thinks that they should be the same. We need to strengthen the laws, enforce the laws, and get the policy in line with the laws. He thinks that it is an immoral position to think it's ok to have 2nd class citizens, to say they are good for business. He says we need to first fix "legal" immigration. We need to reject Amnesty. We need to get rid of rewards and incentives. He opposes birthright citizenship. He says we need to give business the tools they need to hire safely. He says the technology is there. He says that business owners aren't immigration officers so they need these tools. Right now the federal prisons are overcrowded, if an illegal immigrant commits a crime they are often let go because the prisons are full. This is the same on a local level. A citizen will commit a crime and go to jail. An illegal immigrant will commit the same crime, they will be processed and let go. We need to fix this. He also says we need to insist on assimilation, English should be the official language. If you want to be a citizen you should learn English. He says not another dime should be spent on translating our government documents into different languages. He says we should lock down the borders. He says that we need a guest worker program that works. He says that less than 10% of visas are issued for agriculture work. 40% of people who are issued visas never leave.

CHRIS CANNON: He said that he has missed 500+ votes. He did not count the ones during the time that his daughter died. He is ranked in the bottom half of congressmen who have missed votes. 1 means you missed the least votes and 435 means you missed the most votes. The past 3 years Chris ranked 404, 395, 396. See www.govtrack.us or www.washingtonpost.com.

JON HUNTSMAN: He disagrees with Jon's position on global warming, immigration, and the soccer stadium.

DISTRICT 3: Someone had asked why running in this district when he lives in another. He said that he lives in Alpine. It was only a few years ago that some northern Utah county cities where put in the same district as Park City. When he decided to run there was that possibility that we might get another district. This obviously didn't happen. The constitution says that you must reside in the state that you represent not the boundaries of the district. I believe he is only a few miles from the boundary line. He really thinks that Cannon now needs to be replaced and that is why he has chosen to run against him.

CAMPAIGN MONEY: He set a budget for himself to only spend $100,000 through convention. By law you are required to report any donation over $200, but he has reported all of his donations. His campaign has been donated $90,000.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jason Chaffetz is, as usual, making up facts.

For the truth, go to:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=400059&tab=votes

Spike #1: Thie Birth of Congressman Cannon's last daughter
Spike #2: His daughter is diagnosed with Cancer and begins treatment
Spike #3: His daughter has a relapse
Spike #4: His daughter goes back into the hospital and dies
Spike #5: Re-election primary with John Jacob

You can tell from the graph that Congressman Cannon's missed votes (the red line) is nowhere near the 90th percentile as Jason alleges(the higher dotted line) except for the times listed above.

Jason is flat out lying. He should be ashamed of himself and go run in his HOME DISTRICT of Jim Matheson and defeat an actual liberal instead of a rock solid conservative like Chris Cannon.

christy said...

I should say that the number ranks he said where 371,234,404,395,396. I looked online at the govtrack site and couldn't find a numbered list, but I didn't look around very long, that site is great, it will be fun to spend more time on it. I did find a raw data list but I didn't want to count each person to see where he placed. The graph info on Cannon's page states the number of votes and the number of votes he missed, but not the rank number of each year. Jason did say that, over all Cannon's years, his missed vote average is 7%. There are approximately 500-600 votes in a calendar year.

Anonymous said...

When I went to Jason's meet-and-greet he talked about this issue, and he did indeed state that some of the time that Cannon missed was due to the illness and death of his daughter.

Anonymous said...

I think where Jason is lying is when he say's he took out all the votes when Chris' daughter was sick. He clearly did not.

Truth About Jason said...

Find out the truth about Jason:

www.thetruthaboutjason.com

Help us uncover his malicious, deceitful and opportunistic ways.

Guardsman64 said...

I also have met Jason Chaffetz and listened to him talk at length about himself, his ideas, and his campaign. Though he seemed like a nice enough guy, I was pretty disappointed in what he had to say and what I have learned about him since then.

First, he consistently used the terms GDP, GNP, and deficit interchangeably. He obviously had no idea what exactly these terms meant or that there are huge differences between them.

Second, his 'message' is almost word for word what Mitt Romney said about the same subjects. Thinly guised political plagiarism. It's as though he cut and paste whole paragraphs from Romney websites.

Third, even after making his ignorance of finance and economics plainly evident, he still was able to say that--if elected--he would seek seats on House Ruling committee, House Ways and Means Committee, and "anything that has to do with money and finance". This from a man who lost his job at NuSkin after using a company credit card to pay for exotic dancers in Australia (about 10 years after he and his wife had been married in an LDS temple btw).

This is just the man I want representing Utah in Washington.