I am seriously considering running for US Congress. Attached is my biography and a draft of my positions. Before I formally declare my candidacy, I am asking for a critique and recommendations on other issues to address.

James E. Vaughn
14416 168th Street East
Orting,WA 98360
(253) 241-9634

Three Major Reasons As To Why I Am A Democrat

1. To support our military and to care for our Veterans. To be aligned with Veterans running for office that are committed correcting the damages that the Bush administration has created.

2. To work with an organization that has a united concern for small business owners.

3. To correct the serious health care issues that plague or citizens. I am convinced that this will never occur in a Republican Environment.

Biography
I began my military career as a Navy Corpsman during the Vietnam Era and served with the Marine Corps on a variety of occasions. Via military schooling, I was qualified to take and passed the California Licensed Nurses Exam. Between the GI Bill and working as a Licensed Nurse, I was able to complete my Bachelor of Arts at California State University at Fresno. I then spent a year in theological studies at the Graduate Theological Seminary in Berkley, CA.
I returned to active duty as an Armor Officer in the United States Army. During my tour of duty, I attended the Combined Arms Service and Service Staff College (instruction focused on policies and procedures necessary to be a high-level staff officer). I then completed a graduate program, entitled Operations Research and Systems Analysis, at Fort Lee, Virginia. I completed my active duty career, working as an analyst at TRADOC Studies Directorate. One of my major accomplishments was the creation of a Prioritized List of Capital Expenditures that I briefed to Senior Officers at the Pentagon. This program focused on optimizing resources in a scare environment and became the cornerstone for the US Army Long Range Budget Planning.
During the first Gulf War/Operation Desert Storm, Senior Army Officers knew that there were going to be significant budget and personnel cuts after the war. This was a tough time and serious issues had to be addressed. For example, do we fund trucks to replace a worn out fleet of equipment that had been in action since the Korean War? Do we fund research for synthetic skin and synthetic plasma? Do we continue R&D for anti-aircraft weapons? The ability to prioritize expenditures across a broad spectrum is a complex task. My analysis covered the $300 billion dollar budget and provided senior officers with the information need to prioritize expenditures.
I reside in Orting with my fiancée, Sally Daugherty. We are in the process of developing a small 16 acre farm. In addition, we created a staffing service to assist veterans in obtaining full time employment. The first priority is to assist our service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Given my experience in budgeting at the Federal Level; years of military service; the fact that government impacts my life in agriculture, business and assisting our Veterans, I believe it is time for me to run for office.

Major Concerns
Economic Concerns: With the eventual withdrawal from Iraq, the budget deficit, and possible recession looming overhead, we are again faced with the same issues. I am concerned about the condition of our economy. The federal tax rebates instituted by the Bush administration are designed to be a quick fix and make everyone feel good prior to the elections. Unfortunately, the less monies coming in at the Federal Level will mean less money that trickles down to the state level. During a recession there will be a greater need for governmental assistance with less resource.

We need to create an environment that encourages new business and supports manufacturing at home. In addition to large corporations sending jobs overseas, I am alarmed that the large investment firms are focusing on overseas investments. We cannot allow the current trend to continue, it is virtually gutting our economy. We need to protect our economy and our labor force.

Healthcare is a disaster. This topic has impacted me on a personal basis. Because my fiancé has a rare form of arthritis, she was repeated denied medical coverage. We recently started our own staffing service and were able to get medical coverage through the business, at a cost of $950 per month for the two of us. In the late 1990’s health care cost me approximately, $125 per month for a single person and around $180 per month for a family. Now my fiancé and I have to pay $950 per month and something does not add up. This goes beyond inflation and the insurance companies are obviously getting rich. It is time that we as citizens come together in each state and create/fund our own health care insurance that is similar to the program where we pay into Workers Compensation.

From a business perspective, we have had repeated cases where we have employed individuals that worked one day and claim an injury that in fact was pre-existing . We know that the injury is not job related but cannot prove otherwise. We understand that individuals make these claims because they do not have health care insurance. As a result, we as employers are penalized for every Labor and Industry Claim that is submitted (L&I rates increase).

Military and Our Veterans. War is a last resort and only when all political avenues are exhausted are we justified in placing our service members in harms way. In the current Iraq War, this did not happen. We did not exhaust all political avenues. We ignored the United Nation Inspectors and jumped into Iraq. For this reason, I have been adamantly opposed to the war from day one. However, I adamantly support our service members.

Our country created this disaster that has cost thousands of lives and crippled many more thousands. We are spending billions to rebuild Iraq and at the same time shuffling the disabled veterans to the bottom of the deck. Currently, we have over 700 seriously disable service members at Fort Lewis and I am committed to assisting them. Specifically, in retraining so they can achieve a productive and meaningful life. With today’s technology and the internet, there is no reason we cannot provide our disabled Veterans with a home office and the training so they can work from home in a meaningful profession.

Agriculture – we need to stop unnecessary development. We continue to loose farm land to residential and commercial development. Homeland Security and the melamine scare have shown an area where we are vulnerable. Their needs to be a focus on producing as much of our food sources at home much as possible.
We need to not only stop regulating farmland but remove current regulations that impact our agricultural community.

Department of Corrections – This system is a disaster. It is equivalent to the military-industrial complex. Once an individual is in the system, it is extremely difficult to get out. I see two categories of felons. Those involved in crimes of violence and non-violent crimes (typically drug related). For the individuals that are involved in crimes of violence, they need to be treated on a case by case basis. For the non-violent crimes they are typically sent back to the same environment from which they came. My position is that upon release, the felons are not allowed to return to the same county for a determined number of years. We need to break the hamster wheel or revolving door where felons are in and out of prison.

As a veteran of the Vietnam Era, I saw many individuals that had a choice of going to jail or Vietnam. Obviously, they chose Vietnam and the majority made excellent soldiers. I would like to take this one step further and offer the non-violent felons the opportunity to serve in the military. This could serve to provide them with the pride and values of being a citizen, and training that could be transferred to a civilian occupation. After six years of successful service to our country their record would be erased.

Education is a paramount. During a tour in Germany, I discovered that a high school education in Europe is equivalent to a college education in the United States. As tax payers we fund our public universities and community colleges. If we are paying for these institutions, it is only right that they should be made available to everyone at no cost. Corporations are continually seeking professionals from other countries to fill technical positions, due to the shortage of talent in our country. We desperately need to educate and train our work force at a much higher level in order to be competitive in a global economy.

Foster Care I am concerned about sexual and physical abuse within the foster care system. I do not trust our government’s current ability to control/monitor the situations. There are too many cases where children go back and forth between their home and foster care. Obviously, the children were returned to a dysfunctional home. To add to this the children often times do not express the problems at home for fear of being returned to a foster home where the abuse is often times worse. I believe we have ignored this problem for too long. I also believe it is time to overhaul the entire system. I am of the position that it is time to create boarding schools or a Boy’s Town environment. We as a society have turned a blind eye to this issue for too long and it is time for change.

Judicial System I am of the opinion that our judicial system has lost its focus. Our court systems are not about seeking truth and justice. We have all heard and know of circumstances where evidence was not admissible. As a result, innocent people have been convicted and guilty people, particularly if they have a lot of money go free. My position is that everything should be admissible. Our courts need to seek the truth. Let’s get all in the information on the table and let the jury- of-our-peers make informed decisions. We also need to remove loop holes that allow individuals to go free on technicalities.

One of my biggest pet peeves’ is the Supreme Court Ruling on Initiative 872 which was sponsored by the Washington State Grange, a non-partisan non-profit group that opposes partisan primary elections. This initiative was passed by a 60% majority and later declared unconstitutional. What happened to democracy? I am of the position that as a democracy, what ever the majority of the voters choose becomes law. End of discussion.

No More Free Rides On a daily basis, I offer individuals employment and they turn down the job opportunity. They prefer to stay at home and continue to draw a welfare or unemployment check. According to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago. Why should we go to work each day to pay for someone to sit at home?

Predators- Where do I begin? As parents, it is our solemn duty to protect our children from predators. When an individual has been convicted of child molestation, we need to be able to easily identify that individual. If I were in a large department store, it would be nice to know if the person next to me or down the aisle were a threat to my children/grandchildren. It would also be nice for our children to know that if a stranger with a specific tattoo approaches them to run. As a result, I believe that the rights of the victims and the safety of the general population should be paramount. I would like to see legislation that requires these individuals to have a prominent tattoo or be required to wear a prominent item (i.e. permanent necklace) that identifies them as a threat. I would be inclined to allow the sex offenders to forgo this public display if they volunteered for a surgical procedure that eliminates the predatory urges. There are actual cases where the surgical procedures were successful in eliminating the predatory urges.

Vietnam and Iraq Brotherhood Alliance – Due to our active role in assisting Veterans, Sally Daughtery, my fiancée and business partner, discovered a pattern of behavior amongst service members returning from Iraq.

Scenario: service members come to us for job assistance. Once employed, we often talk to them 2-3 times a week on the telephone. In addition, we see them when they come to the farm for their pay check or when we deliver their weekly pay check to their job site. Since our intent is to assist Veterans in obtaining full time employment, they are on our payroll for the typical 90 day probationary period. After that time, they are hired on permanent basis. However, once they are hired on a full time basis and that connection is broken these individuals crash. Without notice, the veterans fail to show up for work and in some cases disappear altogether. Previously they appeared to have made a successful transition from the military to the civilian sector.

Solution: I believe that we need to connect our Veterans returning from Iraq, with Vietnam Veterans. Specifically, we need model Veterans - Citizens in a functional family that have over come the adversity of war that are active and successful in the community. At the very least, we need to listen to them and let them educate us. My solution is to create a link between the two generations of Veterans on the lines of the Big Brother concept. Since our Vietnam Veterans have wrestled with similar issues, it could be emotionally rewarding for them to help a young service member that recently returned.

I would like to see the Big Brother have access to the Veteran’s Administration’s Case Worker and the Mental Health specialist. The Big Brother would be part of the team. If a service member were to having an extremely difficult time and regresses, this scenario might serve to provide an early warning. Hopefully, this would prevent service members from harming themselves or someone in the local community.