This was from a conversation I had on Facebook. This is how I answered questions like “What will you do?” and “Who are you?”
A little about me. I am a husband, father of four, small business owner, and spend much of my personal time studying philosophy, economics, and finance. I don’t have a lot of formal training in finance nor economics. I have a degree in Business. I took finance and economic classes, and did well, but they weren’t my focus at the time. I don’t come from a wealthy family, I don’t have big donors, a powerful political party, or even a campaign manager. I’m running for Treasurer because I want to see the Utah state government become more transparent and accountable to the people of Utah. The majority of the duties of the office are written by the legislature into the Utah Code or come through Executvie direction. The grey area is where the personal political philosophy of the treasurer will shine through. In those areas, like how reports are written and who they are written for, I want to massively increase transparency and accountability through access, understanding and outreach. It’s difficult to understand what the treasurer and the dept is actually accomplishing if everything is shrouded in jargon and a cloud of seemingly incomprehensible charts. This results in the people of Utah being forced to trust and hope that the treasurer and the dept are acting in good faith, instead of being able to see the results and judge for themselves. Politically, I focus on individual liberty first. I believe that all people were created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights. That the purpose of governments is to secure the rights of the people against fraud, abuse and attack.