Family Values • Business Experience • Common Sense

• I support reforming the federal tax  system, either by a fair tax or  flat tax.  It will not be in  my jurisdiction as a State Representative to make those changes, but that is  my position.  I do support strongly the elimination  of the STATE income tax and replacing it with a sales tax, or fair  tax, just as Florida and Texas and several other  states have done.  That IS in my jurisdiction and I  will fight for that to happen.  To say that I am opposed to the fair  tax is a complete distortion of the truth.  
• I support elimination of  the Ad Valorem Tax.  My objective  is to reduce taxes in any way,  shape or form.  That  position will never change.   
• I support exempting  Seniors from the state portion of property taxes.  I have been clear on this point our  entire campaign.
• As for my involvement in  the local Republican Party, I have  been involved since the Reagan revolution.  I was a delegate for the Bibb County  Republican Party in the early 1980’s.   I was intimately involved with  my good friend Ed Gochenour’s initial campaign for the State Senate.  And then kids and a demanding career  came along, and I chose to have my political involvement be behind the scenes  – contributing financially, making recommendations by word of mouth, and  voting in every general election since 1980 (except one, which I blame on  Delta airlines!) for candidates that  share our conservative family values.  Any volunteer time I had was invested  in serving on the boards of FPD and Sav-A-Life, causes that are near and dear  to both Betsy and I.  Again, to say that I have never been  involved with the local party is a complete manipulation of the truth.   

As for the letter to the editor from a former RMS employee, David Sheffield, here are the facts:

• RMS was owned by a  financial institution based in Chicago – I was a minority shareholder.  
• They, as the majority  owner, made the decision to sell all the restaurants in 2000.   
• My current business  partner, Mike Chumbley, and I attempted to purchase all the  restaurants, but were outbid.  We  did purchase the Captain D’s after outbidding several groups.  
• RMS never closed one single  restaurant during the sale of these restaurants.  Once they were sold to the outside  groups, the restaurants were the responsibility of the new owners.  
• We gave substantial notice to employees about  the sale and offered very generous  severance packages to those that stayed through the transition.   To say that hundreds of  employees were “placed on unemployment” is an absolute lie and a complete disservice to the  commitment of the management of RMS who worked incredibly hard to make sure  that all our employees were treated fairly.  
• Mike Chumbley and I never made a dollar on our  initial investment as minority shareholders.  We never received any profit  at all from our initial equity.