Ten Questions: Carmen Amedori
Name: Carmen Amedori
Office Sought: U.S. Senator
Hometown: Carroll County
Website: http://www.amedoriforsenate.com
1. It’s been six years since you have served in elective office; why now? Why the U.S. Senate?
Holding elected office should not be a career, but rather it should be a point in a person’s life that, together with their work in the private sector and the community, creates a fabric upon which sound and rational choices can be made. I am not running for the Senate so that I can build a political resume, I have one. I am not seeking this office so I can leave and move to a private sector job. I am running because I believe that my background and experience in the private sector and government, have well prepared me to help solve the problems we are facing.
I have a deep and abiding love for our state, nation and for the people of Maryland and everyday I am saddened to watch as we come closer and closer to the brink of the abyss.
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Maryland’s next Senator must know and understand our great state. It must be someone with the wisdom to recognize the underlying problems we face, and with the maturity to end the partisan bickering the Senate constantly engages in, and bring together people of our state, Democrats, Republicans, unaffiliated, to solve the problems of national security, the growing debt, a deep recession, and increasing health care costs.
2. Barbara Mikulski has been in the Senate for twenty-four years. What are your biggest criticisms of her job performance?
Bailout Barb has only one mission in the Senate and that is to support the Democrat agenda. We need a new Senator who will look beyond party lines and do what is right for the people of Maryland and our nation. For example, according to Americans for Tax Reform, Bailout Barb never votes in favor of the taxpayer. She has a record of voting Zero percent of the time to support us taxpayers. That is a record of an extremist liberal who does not compromise.
Moreover, during this recession we need a Senator who will work with the small business community so that we can create more jobs. Three out of every four new jobs in Maryland are generated by small business. Yet our Senator has a life time rating of 35% from the United States Chamber of Commerce. That means she votes against our job creators 65% of the time. How can we ever restore our economy with a Senator like that?
3. You served six years on the Maryland Parole Commission; what insights about government were you able to learn from your time on the Commission?
There is a failure on two fronts –education and personal responsibility. There are many people who were not properly educated and so a life of crime is their only alternative. Our educational system and their parents dropped the ball. I met many people who could not read until they were incarcerated. It is a terrible shame that due to a poor educational system, these young people lacked the knowledge to become productive members of society; instead becoming street thugs who only knew crime for survival. One way to help resolve our education system failures is to create more competition to the system by allowing for school choice and allowing more Charter schools to be established.
I am also a strong believer of personal responsibility. We have to stop being a nation of victims and encourage our children to take responsibility and to take pride in themselves.
4. You served six years in the House of Delegates representing Carroll County; what do you think was your most significant accomplishment from your time in the House?
At the time I left office, in 2004, I had a 100 percent rating with Maryland Business for Responsive Government (MBRG) achieving MBRG’s highest cumulative business vote rating of 96 % for a 4-year period. I always voted on the side of The People and will continue to do so as Maryland’s next US Senator.
5. Of all the issues facing our country, what would your priorities be as a U.S. Senator?
My first would be to revive the economy with controlled spending. Bailout Barb has never met a spending program she didn’t like. For instance, the Federal government spent $2.5 million for a Census Ad during the Super Bowl. Those were our tax dollars being used on a television ad. As the your next Senator, I will work to establish a Sunset Committee. This committee will scrutinize federal programs to determine if they are necessary and where they can be cut. This committee will investigate duplication of services and to make sure programs are still necessary. It will allow for greater accountability in tax dollars. On Capitol Hill, we have hundreds of committees devoted to spending our tax dollars. We need at least one committee looking for ways to cut spending.
Furthermore, we need to free ourselves from burdensome taxes and regulations on businesses. And, we need to make sure hard-working Americans are keeping their legal tender. I support a flat tax. I’ve always been a fan of Steve Forbes and continue to support a tax system where we pay for what we use.
We also need to aggressively address the issue of illegal immigration. These illegal residents have placed such a strain on our system and taken jobs from our legal citizens. Illegals comprise 6% of our population. We need to enforce our laws to deport them upon arrival. We are a country of laws and must not support amnesty like the incumbent Senator and her support for the creation of a Path to Citizenship which is nothing more than granting amnesty.
6. Do you support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
Yes, but I will not allow it to be used to raise taxes, but instead to cut spending. We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.
7. We know that with the election of Scott Brown, Obamacare as we know it is dead; what ideas do you have for improving health care for average Americans?
Unfortunately, Obamacare is not dead! Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are still threatening to use the nuclear option to pass it. With that being said, real health care reforms starts with controlling costs. We need to cap medical liability so people are not using the system as a get rich quick scheme and doctors are not over spending by implementing so much defensive medicine. The next step is to allow more competition into the health insurance industry by allowing small businesses to band together to buy health insurance across state lines. Finally, we need to address the issue of portability and pre-existing conditions. These issues have been neglected for far too long.
8. What is your position on cap and trade?
Cap and trade should actually be called cap and tax. This legislation will burden every family with another $3200 costs in taxes. I am opposed.
9. Many Republicans are concerned about the bloated size of the federal government; what government programs or agencies (if any) would you cut, reduce, or eliminate?
I am in favor of creating a Sunset Committee. This committee will scrutinize federal programs to determine if they are necessary and where they can be cut. This committee will investigate duplication of services and to make sure programs are still necessary. It will allow for greater accountability in tax dollars. On Capitol Hill, we have hundreds of committees devoted to spending our tax dollars. We need at least one committee looking for ways to cut spending.
More specifically, recent banking legislation passed creates an agency to protect consumers from unfair credit card practices. That is a very noble cause, but we already had an agency to do that. Also we should not have a new layer of government with these so-called czars who have no accountability to the Senate.
10. How will you use social networking during your campaign, and if you win would you continue to use social networking to be accessible to your constituents? I have a Face Book page, Twitter and a website www.amedoriforsenate.com. As a State Delegate I earned a good reputation of always being a listener and accessible to my constituents. I will continue that tradition. Yes, I would continue to employ the social networking tools for communication on all levels.
