User:Neevle/Brent Benedict

Brent Benedict is the Democratic candidate running for U.S. Congress, TN District 3, vs. Zack Wamp

Brent's Upbringing

Brent was raised in the mountains of Western North Carolina around Asheville. His was an average working family. His father was an accountant and his mother was a teacher. He has one older sister. The Benedict children were raised to have strong conservative values, and to value God, family, and country.

Schooling

Brent attended Andrews University in the late 1980s, graduatng with majors in electrical engineering and business.

Mission

After graduating Brent traveled to Asia to do mission work. He worked as a teacher to pay expenses. He also worked in soup kitchens and local orphanages in his free time, spending a lot of time fund-raising for UNICEF and ADRA(Adventist Development and Relief Association). Brent considered himself privileged to be able to go on several disaster-relief projects to organize the delivery of relief supplies and aid. He returned to the United States in 1995, and settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Work

After returning to America, Brent worked in computer networking and software development. Starting small, he worked his way up to managing large software development and implementation projects. He worked on the tax systems for the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as on DMV systems for Texas. He also worked on insurance systems for Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, The Travelers, Cigna Healthcare, The Anthem Alliance, and many other public and private organizations. Brent became known as a team player who would work with everyone to streamline the systems to work better and more efficiently for the customer. It was important to him to bring projects in on time and on budget. As a Systems Analyst, Programmer, Project Manager, and Team Leader he was always using technology to make the systems more user friendly, and to save money for the company or state government he was working with.

Commitment to East Tennessee

"I will use my knowledge of technology to push for the streamlining of government spending, and make government use the existing technology to save our tax dollars everywhere possible."

Views on the Issues (as published on www.brentbenedict.com

We can all see things about our country that need some work. This is a list of issues I will work to work on first.

Spending and Earmark Reform

Washington is in an uncontrolled spending spree. You might have heard that you, your children, and all Americans owe almost $30,000 each in national debt. However, that is just the beginning. If you include all the I.O.U.s for Social Security, Medicare, and all the other unfunded and under-funded mandates, the number is really $156,000.

For a family of four, such as mine, that comes out to more than half-a-million dollars. The politicians in Washington are bankrupting this country! We are spending our children’s future. This is fiscal irresponsibility to an immoral level.

I will vote to hold spending to the rate of inflation. I will not vote for any new earmarks or other wasteful spending. I will vote to implement technology to cut costs while making government more user friendly. Read my editorial about the deficit here.

Energy Reform

We are in the war on terror because of our past and current energy policies. We are funding the regimes of the Middle East with our oil money, and they turn around and support the radicals that commit terrorism. If you don’t include the revenue derived from oil in Middle Eastern countries, the GDP of the whole area is about the same as Finland. We are paying for our own destruction with our dependence on foreign oil!

I will support the development of Ethanol and Bio-diesel from our farms. As part of this goal I will co-sponsor the “BIOFUEL Act”, HR 5372. We are paying farmers not to farm their land. I will support paying them to farm for national energy by growing crops that produce Ethanol and Bio-diesel. I will support legislation that will make engines more energy efficient. I support research to develop pollution-free vehicles for the future. I support research into the extraction of oil from oil shale. We have the largest deposits of oil shale in the world. I consider this a top economic and national security issue.

Immigration Reform

Our government is not enforcing our immigration laws or protecting our borders. Our Immigration Service in the country is broken. Document fraud is rampant and, according to a 2002 GAO report, the Immigration Service has no method for catching and preventing it. It uses only a hit or miss system to identify phony documents.

I will support increasing the number of Border Patrol as well as the number of immigration enforcement officers, so the law will be enforced at the border and in the workplace. This will reduce the supply and demand for illegal immigration at the same time. I will support the complete reformation of the immigration services to use bio-metrics, electronic document management, and other high technology to stop fraud and increase efficiency.

Tax Reform

GE filed a tax return this year of more than 24,000 pages. The company has an army of accountants and tax lawyers to help it keep every penny it can according to the tax code. It also has lobbyists to try to get the tax code changed in its favor.

I don't have any of these things to help me with my taxes. Do you? I have to spend a week with Turbo Tax software to get my tax return finished every year. Americans as a whole spend more than $200,000,000,000 (200 billion dollars!) completing their tax returns while trying to comply with more than 64,000 pages of tax regulations and rules. The rules have been changed and amended more than 15,000 times since the mid-1980s alone. The working poor must pay FICA, Medicaid, Gas Taxes, and many other embeded taxes in addition to the income tax of 10%-15%. We need to completely reform and simplify our tax system to be more fair and to reduce it's negative impact on the economy.

I will support requiring a super-majority to raise taxes. A progressive national sales tax option that exempted or rebated the basic necessities of life is one option I would support. That Tax would be -- instead of rather than in addition to --FICA, Medicaid, Gas Tax, and Income Taxes. For example, that could make a family of four like mine exempt from ALL taxes on their first $24,000.

Electoral Reform

George Washington interrupted the Constitutional Convention only one time, and that was to insist that one congressional representative per 40,000 people was too little representation. He thought a smaller number would make a more responsible legislature. The Convention agreed on 30,000 per representative. We now have an average of 675,000 people per representative. That means that, by Washington's recommendation, the area covered by the Third District in Tennessee alone should have about 22 representatives.

James Madison states in The Federalist Papers number 55 that the larger the district the greater will be the temptation for graft and corruption. In fact, some states have legislatures larger than the U.S. Congress.

I support increasing the number of representatives to at least 594, to restore control back to the American people and reduce the effect of money in congressional campaigns. I support requiring a verifiable, recountable paper trail for all federal elections. Also, we need I.R.V. (Instant Runoff Voting) to solve problems with close elections and to improve voter choices and thereby voter involvement in the election process.

Ethics Reform

We have the best congress money can buy. Lobbyists and PACs have more control over our representatives and what laws get changed than we do.

I will vote to require at least two years “cooling-off period” before a member of congress or the executive branch or their staff works for a lobbying firm. I will support requiring lobbyist to disclose all funds spent, what they were spent for, and on whom they were spent. I will support a ten year cooling-off period for any trade negotiator before he or she can lobby for a foreign interest.

Other Positions

I support strong family values and the traditional family.

I am pro life.

I support the whole Bill of Rights.

I am for gun rights and the strong defense of the Second Amendment to our Constitution.

I support our troops serving around the world. I wish a speedy and safe return to them all upon the completion of their respective missions.

I support a constitutional amendment for term limits for members of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and for federal judges.

I am a strong supporter of religious liberty. I support the separation of church and state but not the removal of religious expression in the public square.