The right formula is to cut individual and business tax rates, end expensive government mandates on businesses, enact sensible regulatory reform, establish fair trade agreements, and end the inheritance tax. We must implement an energy policy that lowers cost while protecting the environment.

We need to stabilize Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Health Administration. The recent health care act puts Medicare and Medicaid patients at risk; this must be fixed and the act repealed. Cost-control can occur by putting patients, providers, and employers on equal footing with insurers; by using insurance for catastrophic events and health savings accounts (HSAs) for routine care; by allowing insurance to be purchased across state lines; by tort reform; and by emphasizing evidence-based practices and disease prevention.

Our military and intelligence force must be the world’s finest. We need a robust missile defense shield, built here in Washington. We must be confidently pro-America and pro-liberty, enforce our borders, and take care of those who serve. We must treat friends like Israel with respect while being firm with enemies. Military force should only be used when our vital interests are at stake.

Leadership is about serving others, and it requires understanding, vision, and determination. It is based upon sound principles and wisdom, it conforms to the Constitution and it puts the people first. It values civility, unity, and the common good over special interest, excessive partisanship, the politics of division, political careers, and financial gain.

Voting rights, property rights (the United Nations should not determine land use in the United States), the right to keep and bear arms, the right to life, due process, and your other constitutional rights must be protected. Per the Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted to secure your unalienable rights.

Congress must cut spending, balance the budget, pay our national debt, stabilize the dollar by ending hyperinflation, audit government spending and performance, and audit the Federal Reserve.

Government must become smaller, less expensive, more effective and more accountable to you. The critical first step is for Congress to cut its own pay, a prime example of what I mean by leadership.