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 want you to know that I am committed to making our federal government more efficient and responsive. I believe Americans deserve a government that constantly changes with the times to meet their needs, and that we cannot solve the problems of today while saddled with the bureaucracies of yesterday. To ensure this change, we must be willing to seriously examine existing programs and agencies, phase out programs and subsidies that are no longer useful, and eliminate waste and ineffectiveness from all areas of our government.

I am also committed to the highest ethical standards throughout our government.  I encourage the efforts Congress has made to develop a policymaking process as open and transparent as possible, and will continue to revise this process to ensure the strongest standards are enacted. I will continue to support initiatives that achieve these goals and remain open to any of your ideas and thoughts about how better to achieve these objectives.

Communication between the people I represent is vital to a strong and functioning democracy. 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 700,000 people I represent on every issue, I can promise that I'll always listen and be straight-forward with you.

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