As a founding board member of Employment Means Success, I am keenly aware of the hurdles facing unemployed workers in our community. We must put renewed emphasis on vocational training in our high schools. Our young people should have the opportunity to learn practical skills that earn high wages. But real prosperity will only be realized if businesses can afford to hire people.

Terrorism has once again come ashore in America, this time in our own backyard. The protection of American citizens at home must be the highest priority in Washington. National intelligence agencies must work closely with local law enforcement to protect our communities. Fighting terrorism on the home front is crucial—but we must do more to defeat it abroad, before it crosses our borders.

Our current healthcare system—Obamacare—is costly, inefficient, and unfair. The solution is to offer high-deductible health insurance plans that are coupled with employer-funded health savings deposits that are large enough to fully cover annual deductibles. These plans massively reduce health insurance costs by encouraging competition and reducing waste. The cost savings will allow local businesses to hire more employees, raise take-home pay, and compete aggressively against foreign competition.

Training workers for twenty-first century jobs begins with high-quality public schools. A generation ago, California had the best schools in the world, but short-term thinking has caused governments to slash education budgets. We must work with parents and teachers at the local level to ensure that schools are teaching the communication, computation, and critical thinking skills that our children need to succeed in the highly competitive global economy.

The federal government’s student loan program has trapped an entire generation. A generation that should be buying homes, starting families, and launching new businesses is instead stuck living at home with mom and dad. We must lift the burden of student loan debt and return to the policies that provided affordable higher education and vocational training during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

An incomplete patchwork of immigration policies has left the Inland Empire vulnerable to terrorists, drug cartels, and human trafficking. The primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to protect American jobs and improve American competitiveness. Securing our borders is not only a matter of immigration but of National Security as well.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms. That right is essential to preserving the liberty of a free people because it guarantees that the populace will always have a fighting chance against any government that is tending toward tyranny and oppression. But freedom comes with responsibility. When the people have the right to bear arms, the people must act prudently with respect to gun laws and public safety.