Government

One of my priorities in Congress is to improve the relationship that citizens have with their government. In many ways, government has gotten too big, too burdensome and is not efficient and responsive enough to fulfill the needs of the people.

I believe that a dynamic, progressive government can and should constantly be changing with the times to meet people's needs. We cannot solve the problems of today with the bureaucracies of yesterday. I support reviewing all existing programs and agencies and phasing out those that are no longer useful and are inefficient.

We must restore people's trust in government if it is to be a tool to improve people's lives. We need to utilize technology to bring government closer to people and make federal agencies more user-friendly. On a personal level, nothing is more important to me than listening to the people I represent, giving them straight answers about what I'm doing and where I'm coming from, and taking their opinions into consideration. While I won't agree with each and every one of the more than 650,000 people I represent on every issue, I can promise that I'll always listen and be straight-forward with you.