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Fixing a flawed welfare system is the first step

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I hope you'll take a few minutes today on this Columbus Day weekend to discover a new type of candidate for the Maine House of Representatives.

I am Harrison Thorp and I am a fiscal conservative, social moderate Reagan Republican who wants to help Maine find a solution to its flawed welfare system.

Yes, welfare rightly is designed to provide a safety net to individuals having a rough time, but too often I hear about the abuses:

Folks food shopping with EBT cards who don't even look at the prices, then going out and getting in Escalades for the drive home.

Businessmen who complain they lose a part-time worker because their welfare worker told them if they quit they make out better with more food stamps.

Rick Towle of Salmon Falls Café had an ad for a waitress in the paper six months before someone applied for the job.

The Lebanon Voice has had a part-time sales position advertised for more than a year. Not one person has called to even inquire.

The job market is upside down. A new welfare generation is taking hold. I talked to someone the other day who said, "I'm not voting for you. You're a Republican. What has that party ever done for me?"

The person was in their 30s, so they probably don't remember that great American who said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." That was President John F. Kennedy by the way, a Democrat.

Since our schools are broken, they were probably never taught that.

Common Core wants to dumb our schools down even more. Instead of Race to the Top it should be called Race to the Bottom. Educational control belongs at the local level.

Every time the federal government gets into the act, watch your wallet. They took a few hundred million from Obama's reinvestment act, gave it to a bunch of bureaucrats and told them to design an educational model WITH NO TEACHERS ON THE PANEL. Then they dangle more millions of dollars in front of financially strapped schools to get them on the same page. They've basically kidnapped our educational system.

If you look at history books today they are a shell of what we used growing up, skewed to the politically correct liberal left, and designed to dumb down our history so that it is unrecognizable to us, and largely abhorrent to our parents and grandparents, the Greatest Generation, who preserved our freedoms in World War II.

In Common Core there are provisions for those who don't want to read, like listening to the classics of literature on a recording instead of reading and listening to cliff notes instead of listening to the whole book. What??? Even developmental psychologists will tell you a person's ability to read is directly correlative to their success in life and earnings potential.

Meanwhile, there are still many questions about where the information on students in the Common Core model ends up. Folks fear it will find its way to some big-government data base a la Big Brother. The sad thing is they're probably right.

More of our basic freedoms seem to be imploding all around us.

But while I am a fiscal conservative I am also a social moderate. I believe in a woman's right to choose. My Republican opponent does not. I don't understand how a modern woman could vote for her.

I believe issues concerning a woman's body should be made by the woman, her family, her doctor and her God. Not by the government.

I also believe that same-sex marriage has its place in this society. First, in Maine, it's the law. Lesbians and gays joined in union deserve the same protections as men and women who are married do now.

And, may I say on a lighter note, why shouldn't they have to go through the agony and expense of divorce like the rest of us? It's only fair.

As a fiscal conservative and social moderate with a smidgeon of libertarian, I also rail at the aspect of any government that gets too far into social issues. Our forefathers who founded this country did not intend for government to decide such personal and moral questions.

So, like Henry David Thoreau, I believe that government is best which governs least.

My time in Augusta will be all about job creation, welfare reform and helping families improve their lives and find success. And when it comes to these two issues, those left-of-center Democrats are not your friends.

They want to give entitlements to illegals and have you pay for it.

Here's what I say. We're all one big family. And we need more of our family members working. We can't keep supporting y'all.

And by the way, the American Dream is not sitting at home on the couch collecting a welfare check.

So I will work with the Democrats to craft a plan that will give incentives - and obligations - to welfare recipients.

Here's the plan. Each week they would have to apply for three jobs. If they get a job, they have to take it, even if it's just 10 hours a week.

If they make $100 at that job, they get to keep $80. Their spendable cash goes up. The state's burden is lowered.

If they don't take the job, they lose their benefits. If they get fired their benefits are lowered or cut altogether.

Now to a radical Democrat that will sound Draconian, but that's only because they're a radical Democrat. Besides, it's pretty much the model for those on unemployment, so it should work here, too.

Until we fix welfare, the job market is upside down, with no one taking the lower-paying jobs. That's why illegals come here in the first place. So our own welfare system is to blame for that, too!

Ever try to figure out what the annualized cost of food stamps, free housing, free medical, free education for your kids, free school lunch, free school breakfast adds up to? I shudder to guess.

I'll also advocate for random drug testing for welfare recipients convicted of drug crimes.

I will do my best to end the gridlock in Augusta, roll up my sleeves and work with Independents, Democrats and Republicans to enact reforms.

We're hemorrhaging our children's future with these kinds of entitlements and threatening the fiscal well-being of our entire country. It has to stop. It must stop.

Another issue I feel passionate about is the labeling of all foods that contain genetically modified organisms. The Obama administration, so far, has allowed the use of these dangerous micro-organisms while testing on their safety continues. We want all foods to be labeled NOW before it's too late.

Please join me in this battle on Nov. 4 and give me your write-in vote for the people of Acton, Lebanon and Shapleigh. Check out http://harrisonforrepseat20.com and Facebook at harrisonforrepseat20.

Together, we can get it done!

- Harrison Thorp

write-in candidate for House 20

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