Flora lays out ‘Roadmap to Restoring America’
The winding path of the campaign trail in Colorado’s Congressional District 4 — from suburban areas to the far reaches of the Eastern Plains and all places in between — can offer the chance to identify many problems.
That’s only part of the job of the next member of Congress, Deborah Flora says. She created a “Roadmap to Restoring America”, which attempts to identify both problems and solutions.
“We can talk about the problems all day long, but what are the solutions?” Flora asked during a campaign stop in Fort Morgan. “It is easy to identify the problems. I wanted to put out a roadmap for the solutions.”
Her five-point plan addresses securing the border, decreasing regulation and unleashing the economy, protecting parental rights and enabling educational freedom, a return to energy independence and strengthening of agriculture, and a defense of values to restore America, according to the plan.
“I’m accountable to this plan, and I want to be,” Flora said. “The people want to hire someone to work on these solutions.”
In order to secure the border, Flora’s plan would resume construction of a border wall, return U.S. Border Patrol to a patrol capacity, increase ICE funding, speed deportation, end “Catch and Release”, address cartels, support state’s rights in the 10th Amendment to secure their borders, empower DEA agents to suppress fentanyl crossing the southern border and end federal subsidies to sanctuary cities.
The plan also addresses the successful recruitment and retention of police officers, supporting victims and deterring criminals and penalizing cities for “defunding the police”. She would additionally address “woke” policies in the U.S. armed forces, strengthen and enforce sanctions on Iran and other state-sponsors of terrorism, increase support of Israel, eliminate Chinese espionage and purchase of American land, and prioritize national security funding, the plan reads.
“Long before I got into this race, I was traveling the district and listening,” Flora said. “It shouldn’t be Boulder and Denver deciding everything for Colorado.”
During those conversations she came to a conclusion on many is
sues those in the district would wish to have addressed.
“Government only really has a couple of jobs, but one is actually infrastructure. Water rights are important, so are property rights,” Flora said. “The death tax is unfair.”
She recalls meeting a farmer concerned a farm in the family for four generations could be lost because of a death tax for the next generation, which could cost $30 million.
“We need someone who can listen to the Eastern Plains,” Flora said. “We also need someone who can represent the hybrid of the district — 73 percent is suburban.”
Her plan would would call for a balanced budget amendment to begin reigning in the national debt and single-subject appropriation, while encouraging energy exploration to create lower costs and end inflation. She would support permanency of the Trump tax cuts and further tax reduction, end student debt bailouts and limit federal regulatory authority, the plan reads.
The plan also addresses girls’ privacy in bathrooms and locker rooms, and on the playing field. It would promote school choice, encourage education absent of ideology, and return local control to education.
Flora’s plan also would repeal electric vehicle mandates, pursue an “all of the above” energy policy and support replenishing the national strategic petroleum reserves. The plan also includes a variety of initiatives from deregulation, landowner rights, an end to taxing or regulating carbon emissions on agricultural land, an end of the Waters of the U.S. rule and an involvement of agricultural producers in trade talks.
“I would work with the experts,” Flora said. “What would be a better solution? Why can’t we do that?”
Among the other elements of the plan is promoting election integrity, 2nd Amendment rights, supporting religious liberties and freedom of expression, restricting Big Tech’s assault on free speech and addressing a two-tiered justice system, the plan reads. Further, the plan would call to hold the Biden administration accountable for failures, overreaches and corruption, embrace term limits in Congress, increase transparency and apply all laws equally to the government and the governed.
“Washington, D.C., is where I will work, it is not where I will live,” Flora said, adding she would place district offices in all geographic regions of the district to best serve constituents. “The 4th Congressional District with the right person running it is the kind of seat that could fight for all of Colorado and turn the state around.”