Government is not the solution to our problems. It has become the problem. It is time to right-size it and live within our means.
Every program government runs is paid for by somebody, and run by force of law whether you use it or not.
So the first question is never “can government do this?” The first question is “should government be doing this at all, and did anybody ask the people paying for it?”
What that means in LaGrange County
Live within our means
The county should budget from its actual local revenues, not spend money it does not have and not pile up obligations for the next generation to pay.
If a family in Topeka or Shipshewana has to balance its books, the county can balance its books too.
Cut waste and duplication
I will fight to cut wasteful spending and eliminate duplicative programs that deliver little results.
Every line in the budget should have to justify itself, every year, not just ride along because it was funded last year.
Follow the outside money
Any office taking state or federal money should be able to say, in public, how much outside money is involved and what strings are attached to it.
Grant money is never free. It is how Indianapolis and Washington buy control of local decisions without ever winning a local vote. I want a public accounting of it.
Shift toward voluntary funding
The destination is government funded by consent instead of coercion. You cannot jump from 100 to -100 overnight, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
But you can build the road: fund what can be funded voluntarily, by the people who use it and value it, through donations, events, and fundraising, and shrink the part that runs on force a piece at a time.
What I will do on the Council
The County Council is the county’s fiscal body. It holds the purse strings: budgets, appropriations, and the tax levy. That is exactly where limited government gets enforced:
- Challenge every budget line with two questions: what must be funded, and what ought to be chopped
- Oppose new taxes and fight levy increases
- Demand accountability and transparency for every taxpayer dollar, including outside money and the strings on it
- Refuse appropriations that grow government into areas where it does not belong
The goal
I want to leave government smaller, more accountable, and less expensive than I found it. Not louder. Not bigger.
Smaller, on purpose, a little more every budget cycle, until what is left only does what only it should do.
No coercion. No extortion.