Jobs & Job Creation in the 6th District

The private sector is the great job creation engine, not government. After nearly 30 years full-time in the private sector - in small start-ups as well as mid-size and larger businesses, Chris understands business, planning, and job creation.

As your Congressman, Chris Stockwell will create a district-wide jobs and business competitiveness coalition called the 6th District Economic Transformation Council (The 6D-ETC), a fully transparent private entity using minimal to no public funding. Together, we will review existing area plans and develop a comprehensive District-wide plan to identify, package and promote our region's strengths and advantages with a mission to attract new companies and new jobs to the 6th District. We will gather stakeholders around a larger round table, create our strategies, goals, and actions, and move forward without waiting for Washington DC to turn things around for us. We don't need another government program. We need is a strategic plan to package and promote our region, a plan that we carry out together.

Balancing Budgets and Reducing Long Term Debt

It’s going to take three things to balance our federal budget and significantly reduce our nation's long term debt: (1) a far stronger economic recovery that will only be sparked by bipartisan policies and legislation that reduce market uncertainty and risk so that free enterprise can flourish again, (2) reduced expenses (e.g., smaller government) and (3) increased revenue (e.g., nominal new revenue flow) with receipts sent directly to a Debt Reduction Act trust fund used to pay down our debt. Those three tactics will resolve this mess. Choosing or focusing on just one assures continued failure.

The most important thing that we can do to reduce our national debt is to reduce business and market uncertainty and risk. American industry has kept trillions in cash on the sidelines – rather than investing in new jobs, plants, and equipment - because Washington DC has created a risky, uncertain business environment – for years now. Certainly there were other factors involved - corporate and personal greed, inadequate regulatory and government oversight, ratings companies that lost their moral compass, ill-informed consumers, and of course, two costly wars. But the major root cause of our continued weak jobs growth and economic performance is gridlock. Fix that, and we will unleash the free market to do what it does best. One of the first signs of bipartisanship will be legislating comprehensive tax reform. As long voters support support partisan candidates, comprehensive tax reform will not come about. 

Energy Supply

A sustainable and rational energy policy recognizes the essential role of energy production for our country, our quality of life and our long-term global competitiveness.

• Chris advocates a national energy policy that focuses on meeting long-term energy demand while at the same time reducing dependence on harmful fossil fuel now and in the coming years. Leading the way in cleaner and clean energy production won't destroy our fragile economy. We must lead where others do not. Our creativity, ingenuity, technology leadership, education systems, political system, judiciary, and freer markets provide ample protection for our ongoing and sustainable economic leadership.

• A national energy policy requires that a rational mix of cleaner (natural gas), base load clean (nuclear), and renewables (wind, solar, hydro) be employed as power providers retire aging coal fired power plants while at the same time meeting energy demand.

• Greater production levels of natural gas reduce harmful carbon emissions, which is great, but should be carefully regulated to ensure minimal negative impact to our environment. It does offer a better bridge to a cleaner future.

• Implementing such new policy and strategies takes years to plan, permit and construct. While we do this we must all do our part to sensibly reduce our own energy consumption. Doing so saves families and businesses money, and benefits the whole world.

Fraud and abuse in Finance, Industry and Government Programs. 

I support greater oversight and stiff sentences for financial crimes, particularly when legions of innocent employees or investors are harmed. We have seen time and again that the free market cannot correct for greed and lack of moral compass until it is too late. The larger the organization or instrument, the more careful should be the oversight and more harsh the penalties for illegal activities, as they pose the greatest risk to the greatest number.

Our local community banks should be empowered to invest in our communities, our local businesses, families and citizens, and freed of undue regulation.

We should re-double efforts to remove fraud and abuse in numerous government programs, from welfare and healthcare to entitlements. Hard working tax payers should not be supporting those who cheat the system.