TOP PRIORITIES
Control our Borders to Protect our Community
Today, criminal cartels and human traffickers are pushing illegal immigrants into our country by the millions with astute marketing that rivals the best advertisements we see on TV and social media. The result is that we have more than 2 million got-aways and over 10 million military-aged men patrolling our neighborhoods unnoticed.
Mexican and Chinese drug traffickers and organized gangs, such as MS 13 and the Mara’s, are peddling illegal poisonous drugs, including fentanyl, meth, and cocaine, and terrorizing our school children and vulnerable neighborhoods with vicious and violent crime. And they are intimidating us right here in Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, Fairfax, Falls Church, and Mount Vernon, among others - Our own Northern Virginia community.
​
We must now protect our nation’s borders against illegal immigration for our personal safety, and for the safety of our family, friends, schools, neighborhoods, and communities. We must enforce immigration law and make certain that all immigrants enter our nation legally, just as the 50 million legal immigrants did who now call the United States of America their home.
Protect and Give our Children World-Class Education
Today, the United States invests more money per student for education than any other nation in the world except one, and from a system perspective, our educational architecture is ranked at the very top! But with all these investments in education, half of our students are one full academic year behind their peers in the 80 most developed countries in the world and worsening.
Changes in the focus on student-classroom time from academic to social and gender indoctrination is a primary reason for deteriorating our students’ ability to learn, putting them further behind their counterparts around the globe. Incidents of bullying in schools have tripled over the past three years. Indoctrination and bullying have caused school absenteeism to increase by nearly 30% in the past three years. Now, these students stay at home or roam the streets rather than go to school.
​
In short, our schools in Northern Virginia are not protecting our students, placing too much emphasis on an indoctrination agenda, and not genuinely meaningful schoolwork such as math, science, language comprehension, technology, health, social studies, and more. Bullying, CRT, and gender indoctrination are only serving to divide, confuse, and cause mistrust between students of different races, religions, ethnicities, cultures, and communities, and the complex combinations thereof, who share the same learning environment day-by-day for two-thirds of 12 years.
Increase Safety and Reduce Crime in Our Community
Our Northern Virginia community was once among the safest and Arlington was once the safest of similar communities throughout our entire nation. In fact, we were known as the best place to walk, recreate, and call home because of our safe and friendly neighborhoods.
Unfortunately, our community is experiencing record increases in serious and violent crimes, including assault, aggravated assault, sexual assault, rape larceny, carjackings, robbery and burglary. In fact, serious crimes in Arlington tripled and doubled in Alexandria and Fairfax during the past three years. And we are on pace for more record-breaking crime increases in 2024.
​
One of my first priorities is to reverse the increase in all crime and return our homes to the time when personal and community safety was certain and our neighborhoods were among the safest in our country. We will achieve low crime through community outreach and policing, comprehensive training focused on cultural and neighborhood awareness, and by elevating the prosperity of all, so we reduce anxiety, fear, and frustration over high prices that prevent our ability to achieve our dreams and reach our aspirations.
Make Living Affordable and Prosperity Certain for All
Northern Virginia is historically among the most economically stable communities in our nation, with sustained and reliable annual personal income growth, giving our citizens the unique ability to prosper and achieve their financial goals. Today, however, we are suffering from the highest sustained inflation and prices in our nation’s history for everything we need to survive, much less to prosper. For example, the prices for food, gas, electricity, home, and shelter increased from 22% to 29% each in just the past three years, with few signs of relenting.
​
Inflation and prices have gone up so much that our pay only covers about 60% of our living costs compared to just three years ago, even with cost-of-living increases given by employers. These conditions are making it impossible for most of us to achieve our dreams and for many of us just to survive.
​
Our community and nation are also painfully enduring persistently high interest rates with double the foreclosures over the past three years. This is making it impossible for our young citizens to afford to buy their first homes, for our elderly to keep and maintain their last homes, and for many of us to pay down the highest credit card and personal debt in our nation’s history.
​
Meanwhile, the declining purchasing power of the US dollar is worsening the effects of already high prices and interest rates, making it even harder for our tax-paying citizens to meet their daily survival demands, much less to save for retirement and save the unknown and unexpected rainy day.
​
My priority is to rapidly greatly decrease high prices and high interest rates and increase the purchasing power of our dollar. The most practical and efficient way to rapidly achieve economic and financial growth, stability, and prosperity is to increase our energy production; the oil and natural gas that powers our nation. We will achieve this responsibly and in a manner that protects nature and our environment, land, water, air, wildlife, and plant life alike.
Increase Pay for Underpaid Government Employees
Our federal government employees are among the lowest paid in the United States and, in fact, are paid 22 percent less than their private sector counterparts doing the same job. For example, the average federal employee living in our community earns just over $63 thousand annually, while private sector employees earn well over $77 thousand. To add insult to injury, illegal immigrant construction workers also earn more than our federal, state, county, and city employees in every corner of Northern Virginia. For example, these migrants earn $250 per day or $65 thousand annually, and they don’t pay federal, state, or local taxes. At their current pay, our government employees certainly can’t afford to buy a home and can barely afford the high rents throughout our community.
​
To make matters worse, prices for food, gas, electricity, and home and shelter increased from 22% to 29% each in just the past three years with few signs of letting up, while increases in federal employee pay are dragging way behind. This is forcing our nation’s servants to cut corners just to buy the basics needed to meet their daily survival demands, much less to save for the unknown and unexpected rainy day.
One of my priorities in Congress will be to increase pay for federal employees that equals the pay of our community’s private sector employees so we retain the best public servants that serve our taxpayers. Our federal employees need reassurance that we appreciate their service to our nation, and they need the breathing room to grow and prosper.
Create a Business-Friendly Environment so Businesses Thrive
The United States has among the highest regulated business environments compared to all other Western nations, and the number of regulations affecting start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses increased exponentially in 2024. This is when five federal agencies unloaded a slew of new regulations affecting nearly every business type throughout the United States, including our community. Most of the regulations were created by government agencies or presidential executive orders and not by our congress, surprising the vast majority of business owners and partners.
The sheer volume of new business regulations is requiring existing small- and medium-sized businesses to pay thousands for legal assessments with money they don’t have. Just as bad, newly motivated entrepreneurs must consider the thousands of pages of regulations before launching their visions to achieve their dreams.
Responsibly Protect Our Environment
Land, Air, Water, Wildlife and Plantlife Alike
The vast majority of American citizens profoundly revere and want deeply to protect our natural environment, land, air, water, wildlife, and plant life alike. We all have the genuine desire to leave a better, cleaner, and healthier natural environment for our children, for our future generations of Americans, and all humankind. And it is, in fact, our responsibility to protect our earth as it has given light and life to us.
The rapid increases in the population in our nation and around the world, combined with decreases in values and personal responsibility, are causing many to ignore the gifts given by our planet. Instead, many thoughtlessly and relentlessly abuse every aspect of our environment that is so rich in wonder.
We all must responsibly protect our environment and, at the same time, help our fellow citizens and communities across our nation to grow and prosper. We must, for now, extract oil and natural gas while technology grows to provide workable alternative energy solutions that make fossil fuels unnecessary and obsolete. It takes time to solve the many technical aspects of energy generation, distribution, storage, and renewal and to assemble the resources to build the corresponding infrastructure.
One of my top priorities will be to ensure that our nation takes positive steps to protect our environment and to reverse the damage done to every aspect of our Earth. I will help create and lead energy programs that will result in the creation and expansion of clean energy infrastructures that are feasible, realistic, and certain. I will work to help fund and transition workers from current fossil-based employment to advanced alternative energy employment so they may live with confidence that their future is certain and our planet is protected.
Deliver for our Nation’s Veterans and Law Enforcement and First Response Professionals
Jerry, who is a veteran of the US Army and close friend to dozens of troops who served in hazardous and hardship conditions around the world, understands the unique challenges our Veterans face. Veterans serve our nation far away from their homes during holidays, birthdays, and the loss of family members and close friends, yet they endure these separations for all American citizens. And they serve wholeheartedly for all Democrats, Republicans and Independents and for our citizens of every race, religion, ethnicity, culture and community. Veterans are simply faithful servants who give their bodies, minds and lives for all American citizens.
​
Even before retiring from the US Army Special Forces—the Green Berets—Jerry helped Veterans whenever there was a need. He rented homes for Veterans without a place to stay, donated to a dozen Veteran support organizations, and organized an annual Veteran’s event—the 22 KM Road March—that continues today on a Joint US-NATO-KFOR base in Kosovo.
Jerry hired over 600 Veterans of the armed forces and former law enforcement and first response professionals when he was President and CEO of his former company, Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, headquartered in Arlington and Falls Church, Virginia. These Veterans deployed around the world to manage and lead security and cyber security forces at over 40 US Embassies, Consulates and Joint Forward Operating Bases, and over 30 US military bases on four continents.
Jerry’s Veterans also delivered high technology services to US government and armed forces customers from application development to satellite communications, border and airborne sensor implementation, cyber intelligence and investigation systems and more. The Veterans delivered and performed just as expected! Today, Jerry continues to have fun with his fellow Veteran friends traveling around the country, inspiring others to join the Armed Forces explaining the honor felt when performing duties for our nation.
​
One of Jerry’s top priorities is to deliver to Veterans what has been taken away by our government and Congress and given to illegal immigrants and non-working healthy American citizens. We will re-engineer and transform the Veterans Administration (VA) to streamline the delivery of benefits and services owed to our Veterans at VA support and health center locations. We will put into law that taxpayer money apportioned to Veterans cannot be diverted for any other purpose. We will in short, put Veterans first as they did for us.
​
I will ensure that our Law Enforcement and First Response Professionals have continuous Federal Government support after their days serving our Northern Virginia communities. I will make certain that those professionals who were injured, wounded or who suffer from illness from their times serving our communities have resources to live in safety and comfort. This is the least we can do for our public servants who took care of us.