Zelenik Campaigns for Congress in Smithville

Lou Ann Zelenik of Rutherford County, Republican candidate for Congress in the sixth district, campaigned in Smithville on Thursday.
Zelenik will be seeking her party’s nomination in the Tennessee Republican Primary on August 5th. “A little bit about me, I’m a graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Engineering. I built a heavy construction company during the ‘80s, and for twenty-three years I created jobs, balanced a budget, and met a payroll. And that’s kinda what it’s about here, and for citizens across the fifteen counties of the district. So many are worried about having a job, and so many business owners and those are the ones I’ve really been meeting and speaking a lot with, to hear their concerns and worries, and they’re worried about meeting that bottom line; they don’t know what Congress will be placing upon them next year or even this year, or what new regulation, or tax, or bill. So many people are very concerned about the health care bill that’s being debated back and forth. It seems like it’s become more about the buying of votes. It’s about so many in Congress and not about real people doing the real business for the people of their district. I just met with a mother who has a child that is critically ill and concerned that under these new bills that their child would not get the healthcare needed, because it’s cystic fibrosis, a very serious disease.”
“One of the problems that has gone on in Washington is those that we work really hard to get elected, they forget their roots and are more worried about winning the next time or getting their campaign coffers up. My campaign is about sending a real person to Washington, someone that has walked in the boots of so many in DeKalb County. You know, I put two nickels together to start a business and paid those taxes and created jobs. I’m not a career politician and anyone running for office becomes a politician but I’m going to Washington to bring that representation back. For too long it seems like people forget what’s important, and I’ve already built my career, I’m proud to have built it in business, and I’m privileged to represent Tennesseans and go to Washington to not build another career but to go up there and stand strong for our principles, our values, to join with others, and have our voice heard in a large number.”
” I am a fiscal conservative, a faith, family, and freedom conservative. I’ve also been in Rutherford County, the GOP party chair and Vice Chair. Last year in February I put my name on a national website to organize a Tea party on April 15th and almost three thousand showed up for the largest rally in Rutherford County history. We did it again in July and then we did a health care forum for our seniors after Bart Gordon voted for HR 3200 out of committee and for taxpayer funded abortions. We had over 750 senior citizens come to the square in August to find out more about HR 3200 and get involved to try and get the latest information. That’s what we’re seeing. People who have never been involved are getting involved.”
As for putting people back to work, Zelenik says “When you deregulate business, when you take away some of the restraints on business and you give them real tax breaks, that does give incentives to those businesses to hire and create jobs. That’s something that was done in the 1980’s and it worked. It was also done again with the Bush tax cuts on the first wave of tax cuts for businesses. I was a business owner at the time and I saw that I could depreciate more equipment so I bought more goods. When my tax bracket was lowered, we didn’t have to pay as much come April 15th so what we did instead, we gave it to our employees in the form of raises and hired new people. We gave a little bigger Christmas bonus. Those are the things you do to encourage that innovation and morale. Right now even though businesses may be holding their own, they don’t know where to look because they don’t know if Cap and Trade and job killing energy taxes will be placed upon them, which would really impact manufacturing and really hit hardest our farmers and family’s electric bills. They also don’t know what’s going to happen with this health care bill. I talked to one business owner who has 250 employees and he said, based on the U.S. House of Representatives version of the bill, it will cost him over $200,000 more next year if this bill is passed just based on additional penalties added to businesses. So give businesses something to base on for the future, give them tax breaks right now, and let our free market, free enterprise system work. That’s what has worked in the past and it’s a really great way to do it in the future.”