Restoring Honor to Olympia
August 7th, 2010Human Life
August 7th, 2010Because of my belief that human life should be protected from its very beginning to its natural end, I am the only candidate in this race to be endorsed by the Human Life PAC and the Washington Values Alliance.
NW Digest: ONE-ON-ONE with Mark Hargrove
July 11th, 2010Recently, I was interviewed by blogger Tom Forbes from NW Digest:
As part of 47th Legislative District Week, today we meet Mark Hargrove, who is running for a second time against Rep. Geoff Simpson (D-Covington), who is in the news again for domestic violence. Hargrove lost by less than 3,000 votes to Simpson in 2008.
Hargrove is an Air Force Academy graduate and veteran Air Force pilot. He has lived in the Covington area for the last 21 years. Mark currently works for Boeing as an instructor pilot, teaching from around the world how to fly their new 777’s and 747’s.
Save the Sun Break Café!
July 6th, 2010On Father’s Day, my family and I had a late breakfast at the Sun Break Café in Auburn, just a couple of blocks from City Hall and the train station. After a great meal, the owner, Bruce, told me that his charming restaurant had been declared “blighted.” With that designation, with 60 days notice, by the power of eminent domain, the city of Auburn could force him to sell his restaurant to the city for the price of the land only to allow a developer to tear down the restaurant and build an apartment building.
Because we’ve seen this type of abuse of the power of eminent domain in other states, during the most recent legislative session, State Attorney General Rob McKenna proposed bills to limit eminent domain as a tool of economic development and limit the power to define blight. However, these bills never received hearings, because the chairman of the Local Government and Housing Committee said his hearing schedule had filled up. And he faulted the Attorney General for not providing the argument that the law changes are necessary.
That committee chairman happens to be our current state representative. For the sake of the Sun Break Café, I am more passionate than ever in my commitment to being elected to replace him.
Solving the Legislature’s Spending Problem
March 10th, 2010The Problem
In 2008, long before the economic crisis hit, the state legislature had spent away the largest surplus in state history and had a projected $9 billion deficit. They were only able to reach a constitutionally mandated balanced 2009 budget by accepting billions in stimulus money, not funding pension accounts and playing shell games with other money. Any reasonable person can see that when 2010 came around, we could not maintain that level of spending with no more stimulus money coming, the debt we already owed to pension accounts and the $710 million that was cut from the education budget. And yet our budget in 2010 is greater than in 2009!
The Legislature’s Proposed Solution
A plethora of tax increases are being considered, and we are certain to get several of them. No matter which ones they choose, analysts predict significant job losses as a result. Small businesses as a group are the largest employer in the state. We make profitability so difficult for them that tax increases will force many of them to lay off workers and in many cases, close up shop. And when businesses suffer and layoff employees or close, state revenues will drop. The legislature’s solution is leading us down the wrong path.
The Right Solution
We can and must make three common sense steps to get us back on the right path.
First, the legislature needs to reign in out of control spending. We should start with reviewing what we have added over the past several years and eliminate those items that aren’t absolutely essential. We lived without them before. Many of them we can probably do without now.
Second, acting on performance audit recommendations by our Democrat State Auditor Brian Sonntag would save millions. He’s already done the work to find the possible savings. We just need to act on them!
And third, most importantly, we are killing our state’s largest source of revenue, small business. We need to eliminate burdensome regulations that inhibit productivity. We need to replace the B&O tax that unfairly taxes revenue even if a business actually lost money. And we need to eliminate health insurance mandates that drive competition out of state, raising prices. Thriving businesses mean more employment and more revenue for the state.
Despite the economic crisis we are in, there is no reason our state should be in this mess. I am disgusted with the choices our state legislature made to get us here. But all is not lost. I’ve laid out straightforward, common sense solutions. Unfortunately the current legislature will surely not heed these recommendations. Therefore, the voters need to get us on the right path by voting in legislators this November who will.
Property Rights
March 3rd, 2010In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison and others listed the protection of property rights as the primary reason for instituting government. Daniel Webster said, “No other rights are safe where property is not safe.” And John Jay, the first Chief of Justice of the Supreme Court, said, “The supreme purpose of government is to protect private property rights.”
Of course the government might protect me and my property by keeping my next door neighbor from running a landfill in his back yard. But the founding fathers would roll over in their graves if they saw how our private property rights are being taken away. I am for the return of property rights over government rights.
Scope of Government
February 27th, 2010In a one party government, i.e. our current state government with a large Democrat majority in both houses and the governor’s office, some bills are hardly even debated. Imprudent laws are passed simply because opposition to the bill is dismissed out of hand. If the sponsor has a D behind his name, his fellow party members vote for it without debate. I am for both parties being well represented, just to keep each other in check.
A University of Washington study found that government regulations drive up Seattle home prices by an average of $200,000 per home, which of course also results in higher property taxes. Sometimes I think Ronald Reagan may have been right when he said, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
When Mr. Simpson sponsored legislation allowing felons the right to vote before they have paid their required restitution, or another bill banning the sale of novelty lighters, he was well beyond the scope of government our founders intended.
Government’s purpose is to protect our lives and liberty, so we can be free to run our own lives; its purpose is not to run our lives for us. Government is notoriously not good at business and, for the most part, should stay out of it. The government needs to focus on the real priorities of government.
Illegal Immigration
February 22nd, 2010The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 277,000 illegal aliens reside in Washington State, requiring an annual taxpayer subsidy of $800 million.
While I-1043, the Respect for Law initiative, failed to gather enough signatures to be on our ballot, I support the requirement that employers electronically verify that each employee’s social security matches his/her name. If the name and number do not match, the employee should be given a reasonable time to resolve the discrepancy before his/her employment is terminated or the employer is fined. Laws of this nature have proven effective in 12 states and the city of Lakewood, Washington, and should be state law.
Same Sex Marriage
February 15th, 2010Mr. Simpson was a co-sponsor of HB 1727 to grant equal status to homosexual partners as legitimately married couples. The senate version of this bill, SB 5688, was signed into law, but I am for the reversal of this legislation.
Mr. Simpson was particularly caustic in his responses to citizens who wrote him to express their desire that this bill not go forward:
Education
February 9th, 2010We spend almost $11,500 per child per year on education. That’s over a quarter of a million dollars for a classroom of 25. And yet most of the high schools in our district have had trouble finding enough qualified math teachers to start the school year. Meanwhile, in an international student assessment of 29 nations, America ranked 24th. Isn’t that embarrassing? I am for both making it a priority to find out where that huge sum of money is being spent and to use more of it to attract, motivate, train and equip teachers who achieve results.
In 2008, when multimillion dollar grants were offered to seven states to fund Advanced Placement programs in math and science, Washington was the only state to decline the $13.2 million, because Washington law so rigidly insists that teachers’ pay must only be negotiated by the WEA. Teachers can not be rewarded for extra work, and students won’t have the extra opportunities that the grant would allow. How can we expect to improve our education system when we can’t even accept free money to make improvements?
The Washington State Constitution states, “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. . . . ” And yet, because the 2009 legislature found itself facing a $9 billion deficit they created, teachers did not receive a voter approved Cost of Living (COLA) raise, and $710 million was cut from the education budget, resulting in teachers across the state being laid off and class size increasing.
The free market, capitalistic system that made this country the greatest on earth has proven that human beings will work harder and achieve more when they see that they are able to earn rewards for their efforts. When the teachers at Pateros Elementary School near Wenatchee showed that a school with low income families and large populations of minority students can achieve great results, their only reward was the satisfaction in a job well done. I am for rewarding their efforts, encouraging other schools to try creative ways to improve their students’ performance.
I am for following the recommendations of performance audits by our State Auditor which have identified millions of dollars that could be saved by improving processes and eliminating waste in our educational system.
Because the Kent School District, the fourth largest district in the state, receives $800 less per student each year than the Seattle and Bellevue School Districts, I am for the legislature re-examining whether state funds are being equitably distributed among the school districts.
I am for sending the money that we waste in unneeded bureaucracy, far removed from the classrooms, directly to the schools, where they can make the decisions at the local level on how best to spend it. Instead of micromanaging their curricula, I am for showing faith that, like at Pateros Elementary, the teachers got into their profession because they are intelligent enough and are willing to work hard enough for their students to succeed.
I agree with General George S. Patton, who was an immensely successful leader in WWII, who said, “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”
The rigid, top-heavy and expensive control of our education system prevents the money making it’s way down to the actual classroom level, where decisions can be made by the our competent educators, rather that dictated from the upper, far-removed levels of our education system administration. We need to trust our educators to use the money wisely at their local level and reward them for improved results.
