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CONSUMER PROTECTION FROM HOME BUILDERS
Special
interests seem to keep any meaningful legislation from ever
getting passed. I received a ten year warranty on my home
when it was built that requires the State of Texas to
review any claim under this warranty and state whether the
builder was at fault (rebuttable in court). When I presented
my claim and it was approved by the State of Texas, the
builder was no longer in business and his company’s
liability insurance policy in force at the time of
construction failed to honor the claim. These ten year
warranties need to be backed by insurance or a bond to
protect the new homeowners. I am sure that I am not alone
with this horror story. Please visit my blog site at
ganohouse.blogspot.com
and tell me your story.
REFORM OF WINDSTORM INSURANCE REGULATIONS
How many people are happy with their
windstorm insurance? The Texas Windstorm does not have the
wherewithal to pay all of the claims from IKE. Changes need
to be made.
HEALTH INSURANCE
Eliminating or reducing the mandates
associated with group policies and allowing competition by
letting out of state health insurers into Texas and allowing
more groups and/or associations to form to negotiate better
rates would reduce the costs of health care.
Also, simple changes to the delivery of
health care can go a long way to reduce health care costs.
Allowing doctors to work for corporations other than
hospital and/or clinics would allow large companies to have
a doctor on staff. Allowing neighborhood clinics to be
operated by nurse practitioners could also reduce health
care costs.
JOBS
The only way to create jobs is to reduce
taxes on businesses. This encourages businesses to move to
Texas. The new franchise tax must go away forever. The new
businesses and the new jobs will create the extra tax
revenue that will more than offset the tax reductions.
IMMIGRATION
There is great need to document the influx of illegal
immigrants. One way to accomplish this is to make it cheaper
and easier to immigrate to Texas with the proper
documentation. This would include the cooperation of Mexico
and the U.S. as the cost of the proper documentation is too
great for the immigrants from Mexico to pay. I believe that
the immigrants from Mexico help our economy in Texas,
especially our agricultural and housing economy. The money
that they return to Mexico helps the Mexican economy. I
believe that the tradeoff is beneficial to both sides. I
would like to share with you an
open letter from the
Independent Institute to George Bush and Congress which I
have in both English and Spanish. Our country is a nation of
immigrants.
EDUCATION
Teachers are the most
important aspect of a student’s education. We need a better
pay system for teachers. We need to attract the brighter men
and women to teaching with higher beginning salaries and
reward the teachers when the students excel and improve.
School choice is also viable. In San Antonio, where school
choice was applied creating competition between private
schools and public schools, grades improved in both private
and public schools. More mobility between schools within a
district would provide competition between the schools
within the district.
Everyone should urge their
congressmen to overturn the retirement rules and allow
teachers to receive their social security and teacher’s
retirement. This would attract very qualified retired and/or
laid off businessmen and women to the teaching profession.
MY DEMOCRATIC OPPONENT
The Young Conservatives of Texas (www.yct.org)
rate all of the state legislators on a scale of 0 to 100
based upon their voting record. Jessica Farrar, in the last
legislative session, had a rating of zero (0), the lowest
conservative rating in the last legislative session. She is
the most liberal legislator in the house. Her rating for all
of her six terms in the House is 7.7 out of 100. In
the last session, she voted against reasonably controlling
property tax increases and/or rate increases. It is time for
a change in representation in our district. I need
your support.
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