ABOUT ME
FIGHTING FOR CHANGE FOR ALL AMERICANS
My name is Joseph Lehman. I'm a blue collar worker, a proud father of 3 and husband to a wonderful woman. Make no mistake, I am not a career politician. Instead, I'm a simple family man that is fed up watching as our politicians on both sides of the aisle plunge our nation into turmoil. In times like these we need strong leadership, fair representation of ALL people and unity. Stand with me and join the fight to get our nation back on track!
-THE ISSUES-
Immigration
This is the only issue I tend to fall out of line with my own parties values on. Every great nation with inadequate border/immigration policy in history has either fallen to invading forces or been silently overtaken from within. We must have strong and effective border policy and strict immigration policy in place to stay a free and prosperous nation. I will fight alongside other members of congress for effective border/immigration policy. That being said, every American citizens freedom and liberties need to to be respected and adhered to. This means there can be no mistakes when ICE agents are conducting deportations. We cannot have US citizens being mistaken for illegal immigrants and therefore I propose internal policy change for the IDing process when apprehending suspected individuals.
Taxation
Most modern day taxes were originally intended to be temporary, especially at the federal level. Taxation is theft of the American taxpayer and holds each and every American citizen back from living a truly free lifestyle. If people want to pay for certain things, they should do it. But to forcefully take it from the pockets of hard working Americans goes against everything our founding fathers stood for. We had a phenomenal upkeep of our country before taxes were ever implemented at the federal level and we can absolutely have that again without them. If elected, I want to create legislation at the federal level that ends federal income taxes completely and a separate piece of legislation that prohibits counties from charging property taxes on owner occupied housing.
Political Integrity
For far too long members of congress have not been held to the professional standard that they once were. They fight amongst each other like school children while the American people suffer. My belief is that we have glued ourselves so tightly to political parties, that we've been blinded to how our politics were created to work. That's why if elected, one of the bills I plan to immediately get to work on is a bill that would strengthen our election system by removing party affiliations from all ballots and informative candidate websites. Barring political party affiliation would force congress to work along side one another for viable solutions that match the needs of all Americans, not just the ones that voted for them. In a separate piece of legislation, I would propose ALL members of congress go without pay during each day the government is shutdown from congress not agreeing. This would prohibit backpay as well. No exceptions.
Abortion
It is my belief that no government of any level within the United States of America has the right to regulate medical decisions for any individual. That being said, there has to be some point during pregnancy where the fetus is regarded as a human life and therefore a US citizen if the mother resides within the US. At that point in time its rights and liberties must be protected just as the mothers, so it would be unlawful to abort at that point in the pregnancy. We must agree upon a point in pregnancy for this collectively as one people.
2A/Gun Control
The constitution provides very clear guidelines for the peoples right to possess firearms; "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". The answer to reducing the amount of gun deaths in our country is to simply allow for better access to mental health treatment for individuals at will. A staggering 100% of all mass shootings nationwide have been carried out by individuals with unstable or poor mental health. One major step forward in preventing school shootings specifically, would be to allow for teachers to conceal carry in the classroom in all 50 states, and to make sure each and every school in the country has well trained resource officers on site.
National Debt
Its no secret how bad our national debt has gotten. Our nations debt is a ticking time bomb, waiting to detonate on the American people. Why do we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to endless other countries while our debt is in the trillions, our people are going hungry and many veterans are sleeping on the streets? Because we have a very unbalanced budget. Yet, members of congress from both of the two major political parties continue to add in more and more of the same excess spending that they claim to want to cut. This is an unacceptable process that we must put an immediate halt to. I've successfully balanced my household's budget year after year in the most expensive economy our nation has ever seen, in a time where the cost of living to wage gap has never been larger. I'm ready to hold congress to the same standard.