The Federal government has accumulated over $30 trillion in debt, and this keeps growing every year. This is over $241,000 per taxpayer! They continue to find reasons to borrow money and spend it frivolously instead of investing in the creation of wealth for our nation.

Congress has no way to pay it back, so they raise taxes and shake us down so they can pay just enough interest to keep borrowing more. This has to stop. The Federal Reserve Central Bank needs to cut the credit and stop lending money to Congress.

Taxpayer dollars should go to investing in productive areas of society that create wealth, like research and development, innovation, manufacturing, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. This would lead to more jobs, more competition, and better living standards. Without wealth creation, Congress will have to borrow money forever, spending our taxes on interest payments, while Americans struggle to pay their own bills.

The last two years have been a very clear message that we need to do better for businesses and economic development. Attracting tech companies, innovative startups and top talent with financial incentives and low regulations make it less costly to be competitive. CNBS's 2021 study "Top States For Business", ranked Nevada 40th in the nation for its lack of technology, innovation, and access to capital.

Nevada has more than 70 years of experience with nuclear research and experimentation. The ongoing national push for renewable energies has forgotten to include nuclear energy completely. Nevada could easily obtain its own energy independence with renewable energies but it must include nuclear energy production. Nevada is the ideal location for nuclear and we have known this for decades. Our vast desert landscapes give us the room to innovate and build the needed infrastructure. The Yucca Mountain project which has been stonewalled for political reasons with unjustified fears must be allowed to continue and begin recycling the nation's spent nuclear fuel here.  Our energy needs should be first and foremost in our desire to build out our economic future.

Under the Biden administration, the cost of gasoline has doubled. This is hurting businesses and this is hurting many of you. This was caused by a combination of policies implemented at the worst possible time - waging war on the oil & gas industry as the country's demand for energy increased coming out of the pandemic. Transitioning from fossil fuels without building energy infrastructure has destroyed America's energy independence. I propose the intelligent use of our resources, including the build out of nuclear energy infrastructure to build an energy independent future for America.

Nevada has no gas, oil or coal but has abundant sunlight, geothermal energy and wind. In 2021, Nevada enacted energy infrastructure bills paving the way for a Bitcoin mining boom by allowing access to federal lands and offering tax abatement to build renewable energy plants and energy storage facilities. Lucrative Bitcoin mining farms incentivize power providers to build more infrastructure for energy generation, strengthening Nevada's energy grid while promoting the growth of renewable energy resources.  A framework of transmission lines connecting with surrounding states would lead to energy independence, job creation and tax revenue.

Nevada has some of the world’s largest deposits of lithium, which is used in batteries for electric vehicles and power grid storage. Mining lithium is critical for a transition away from fossil fuels and combating climate change. It would create jobs because we currently have a shortage of miners. Minimizing impact to local environments can be done by mining the highest-grade resources with sustainable practices. 

Source: Reuters, Miners face talent crunch 

Traditional finance and  Bitcoin education needs to start early in the classroom. Various industry research found that 2 in 3 families lack any type of  emergency savings, 78% of adults live paycheck to paycheck, and 3 in 5 adults do not maintain a monthly budget. Far too few students — particularly those from low-income backgrounds —  receive any personal finance education yet they are expected to make big financial decisions about student loans and  budgeting for living expenses. It is key to financial stability and economic mobility, and essential if we are going to help people to move ahead in their lives.

A point of great concern is the Federal Reserve Central Bank's research and development of a potential United States CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), while pushing to restrict or ban privately issued digital currency.  Citizens would use government-controlled digital wallets giving access to personal financial data. The government could even decide who currency is distributed to. This can't be allowed to happen.

"The issuing power of currency should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

Nevada is the #1 gold producing state in the nation. While I am proud of Nevada's past, it's time to make Nevada and our nation a leader in mining digital gold - Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows online payments to be made directly from one party to another without the need for a central third-party intermediary like a bank. Bitcoin is not issued by any central bank or government and is not legal tender in the US. Like physical gold, Bitcoin’s value stems from scarcity, making it a hedge against inflation.

Bitcoin offers hope to hard-working Americans who want to make life better for their families and their children , since unlike the US dollar, it is deflationary and increases in value over time. Bitcoin can be a means of resisting financial censorship when authoritarian governments collude with financial institutions to squash dissenters, like with the freedom convoy. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that Bitcoin is a fast and cheap solution to sending money in times of uncertainty. The US government should embrace Bitcoin and shouldn't stifle innovation through over regulation.

The biggest problem awaiting us in the near future is the emergence of cyber terrorists who want to attack critical infrastructure. Cyber-criminals use internet networks to hack into computer systems and intentionally cause harm for political advantage. Hackers are constantly creating new capabilities and cyber-crime has become a new Arms Race. 

The United States has over 82,000 critical infrastructure sites exposed to the internet including banks, energy, water systems, chemical facilities, and nuclear weapons. Congress needs to dedicate more resources to deal with cyber threats, create new countermeasures, and compel nations to create a unified system to fight cyber-crime.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a technology with extraordinary benefits. Smart phones translate languages in real time, Netflix gives recommendations, and Siri makes calls for you. Advanced AI lets weapons operate without human oversight and robots replace soldiers at war. 

However, when computers are designed to reprogram and improve themselves, AI will be more intelligent than humans and pose a threat to humankind. 

The late physicist Stephen Hawking explained, “Unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks, AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization.” 

Congress needs to ensure that AI technology is developed responsibly with proper vision and oversight. It should also create technology that would give humankind an advantage in a possible AI catastrophe. 

The “Big Five” tech giants, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, provide valuable free services like Google search, Facebook messaging and Amazon’s free shipping. However, they also collect and secretly sell our data, abuse social media algorithms to market to minors, have no effective measures in place to protect children from obscene and harmful content, use selective censorship to manipulate public opinion, and apply unethical tactics to drive out competitors. 

Big Tech controls information, giving them power over our economy, society and democracy. Congress can better regulate Big Tech’s loophole non-compliance to protect consumer privacy. Predatory marketing, collection of children’s data, exposure of minors to dangerous material, selling user data to foreign governments and suppressing competitors should be restricted, and reinforced with painful penalties.

Being a multi-planet species is important for the long term survival of humanity. Space exploration also makes people excited about the future. Satellites are essential to national security’s military and intelligence operations. Congress should fund NASA and expand collaborations with talent from other government agencies so the United States can lead in human space exploration.

Las Vegas is a major distribution hub for illicit drugs smuggled through the Mexico-United States border because of Interstate routes linking to every major city in the US. Mexican cartels are manufacturing and trafficking massive quantities of the powerful synthetic drugs meth and fentanyl. Protecting our border should not be politicized as a racial issue. Drugs kill regardless of race.

Just a few grains of fentanyl are enough to kill a person. It is used in counterfeit pharmaceuticals and being combined with street drugs. Last year, the United States had 100,000 overdose deaths in a single 12- month period. Congress needs to  increase border security and prevent drugs from crossing over.

Sex trafficking is the business of rape and kidnapping. Nevada has the highest rate of sex trafficking in the United States. Most victims come from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Each year, an estimated 20,000 women and children are trafficked into the US and brought to Las Vegas to be sold. 

The FBI has identified Las Vegas as one of America’s 13 high intensity child prostitution areas. 

Human traffickers at the Mexico–United States border pose as parents of unaccompanied minors who are then sold into prostitution. These helpless children are victims of a faulty immigration system that fails to verify a person’s identity and criminal history before entry. Congress has an obligation to increase security at our borders to ensure a safe and humane immigration process. 

Our border crisis is caused by many factors, primarily the deregulated gun trafficking from U.S. dealers to Mexican drug mafias and Central American gangs. US gun dealers now sell 250,000 guns per year south of the border and count on trafficking for a substantial share of their annual income. Corrupt police across Mexico and Central America further the problem.  The resulting violence causes families to flee north. Additionally, trade agreements imposed by the US put millions of Central American farmers out of work, so they come to the US seeking employment. Broken Central American economies, due to decades of civil war and the US overturned democratic elections in Honduras caused the nation to become a failed state with unchecked violence and economic collapse.

Both parties in the United States, and the governments of Mexico and Central America, all caused these problems. People will cross the border in ever-larger numbers until our governments acknowledge their responsibility and reverse their mistakes. We need to provide due process to persons approaching the border, offering asylum to those who can prove a case of persecution, and temporary tracked refuge to those who can prove that they have no criminal record and that they cannot return to Central America until the U.S. and the other national governments fix the mess that they made.