Dr. Brad Allen
| Candidate Name | Dr. Brad Allen |
| Position Sought | U.S. Congress. 24th District |
| Website / Social Media | www.drbradallen.com Facebook: Dr. Brad Allen Twitter: @drbradallen Instagram: @drbradallen |
| Why are you running for office? | As a pediatric heart surgeon, I’ve trained my entire life in the art and science of solving problems to help people live better lives. This same problem-solving approach is needed in Washington. In less than 2 years, this Congress and administration has worsened California’s daily lives in more ways than I can count. The worse inflation in 40 years, rising gas and food prices, the surge in crime, the attacks on police, homelessness, illegal immigration and fentanyl streaming through open borders, the war in Ukraine caused by a poor foreign policy, the attempt to shut out parents from making decisions about their kids’ education, being more concerned about teaching 1st and 2nd graders about gender instead of math or science, runaway government spending, enormous deficits and federal debt, rising interest rates, ongoing limits on our freedoms over COVID and the damage it caused our children, encroachments on the Second Amendment, the list just goes on and on. I have never seen our country change so quickly, or have so many problems. As a doctor, I just couldn’t sit by and watch this mismanagement any longer. We need solutions, not more politics. After 40 years as a surgeon and medical researcher I know the best way to solve problems is to first gather the data and then formulate a solution, making sure to avoid unintended consequences. It’s a simple and effective process, but one that Washington rarely follows. My goal is to use the pragmatic problem-solving approach I learned as a doctor to improve American’s daily lives. We need to bring common sense back to Congress, instead of more politics, or a particular ideology. |
| What makes you qualified for the job? | I have decades of experience. I have been a surgeon for 40 years specializing in pediatric heart surgery, a former Professor of surgery, and have run surgical programs. I am a medical researcher with almost 100 scientific papers and 7 book chapters, a member of the medical honor society, won numerous teaching and research awards, and have been invited to give lectures all over the world. I have spent my life solving complex problems using data and not politics to find solutions. Hope and change don’t work very well in the operating room. I have worked at major universities in the U.S. and Canada, private practice, and veteran’s hospitals so I understand how to improve our healthcare and how to interpret research data to deal with problems like Covid-19. I have set up surgery centers, ECMO programs, nursing units, intensive care units, and research laboratories all from scratch, so I know how to work with people and bring complex ideas to completion. As a small business owner, I understand the problems small businesses face, and how best to fix them so they can succeed. Most important, I will bring “real” life experience to Washington. The problem in Washington is not that we don’t have enough politicians, it's that we have too many. And most have forgotten why they went there. So, if you have finally “had enough,” then vote for someone who brings life experience and a pragmatic problem-solving approach to Washington instead of a bureaucrat. |
| What are your two main priorities if you win? | My first priorities would be to reduce inflation and improve our economy with particular attention to small businesses, which have been devastated by the pandemic. Inflation is at a 40-year high, with surging gas, food and housing costs. Supply chain issues have led to shortages in just about everything. We have gone from energy independent, to begging other countries to produce more oil. The growing federal bureaucracy and over-regulation is punishing small businesses. We need people in Washington to remember Government works for us, not against us. Politicians always talk about the money they bring back to the district or their success in passing bills without any regard to what these bills cost. Last year the government spent almost $7 trillion while collecting only $4 trillion in taxes. Democrats are still trying to pass “Build Back Better” at a cost of $5 trillion, and forgive student loans that could cost of up to $1.5 trillion. Printing all this money has huge consequences. Excess spending is one of the major drivers of inflation, and it increases the national debt, which has ballooned to over $30 trillion. My goal in congress would be to cut inflation and restore financial sanity. We need to stop spending money we don’t have by just printing more. And Congress should try to rescind as much money that is in the pipeline as possible. Like American families, Congress needs to be financially responsible to get inflation under control. The Spending Spree must stop. We have enough on our credit card. We also need to stop punishing small businesses, individuals, and homeowners with federal over-regulation. As a small business owner, I understand how deleterious this can be. But the Democrats have done the opposite. In the current administrations first year, they put in place more than $200 billion in new regulatory costs and 131 million hours in new annual paperwork. This puts it far ahead of the two preceding administrations’ first years by a wide margin. My goal would be to cut the regulatory and licensing burden on individuals and businesses. This will allow them to flourish, and help reduce supply chain problems by letting businesses and essential workers be more productive. And by lowering business costs, it reduces inflation and helps create jobs. And no new corporate taxes as the Democrats now propose. Corporate tax increases will increase inflation as the higher costs will simply be passed on to consumers, and it can drive jobs overseas. We have a spending problem, not a taxing problem. |
| How will you collaborate with other governments? | One of the main functions of a congressional representative is to represent and help the people and businesses of their district. To do this effectively requires communicating and working in concert with the local, county, state and federal governments. Everyone, and every agency, is important, and needs to have a seat at the table and their voice heard. This type of coordination and partnership is exactly what I did for years working at multiple state-run universities with many bureaucratic layers. To be successful in this environment, you need to learn to work with people with different ideas and backgrounds. As chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and director of a surgical institute I had to coordinate and work with hospital and nursing administrations, laboratory and ancillary staff, as well as state and local governments in order to assure the division ran smoothly and provided the optimal service. I have developed and refined these skills over 40 years, which has allowed me to bring people together to build numerous centers of excellence. I will use these same skills and expertise in Congress to help the people I represent. |
| What are the next two issues that are most important to you? | With so many problems facing our country it is extremely difficult to pick only two, but Law Enforcement (Crime) and Education would be my next two. However, issues like Immigration, Homelessness, Healthcare and Covid-19, along with local issues are just as important. I believe we need to support our police, not defund them. Our streets and homes need to be safe—that is one of the primary roles of government. I will give law enforcement a powerful voice in Washington. They have a hard enough job and they shouldn’t have to fend off calls to “defund” them. I will support efforts to ensure law enforcement always have the resources they need to do their job. I am opposed to “anti-law” proposals like “cashless bail” that just put criminals back on the street. I would support creating federal penalties for people that deliberately target law enforcement officers with violence. I would also consider federalizing certain crimes that local governments either can’t or won’t control. For example, trafficking Fentanyl, since the U.S. just surpassed a record 100,000 Fentanyl overdose deaths in 2021, making it the number one killer of adults 18-45 years old. I believe that a good education is essential to a better future, and that parents have the right to be part of their children’s education. Our children should have the same opportunities that we had when we grew up. We need to get back to being more concerned about their education in terms of math, science, and literature, rather than gender identity and critical race theory. And we need to allow parents more school choice, as parents know what is best for their children. This means expanding vouchers, scholarship tax credit programs, education savings account programs, charter schools, and public-school open enrollment. And stop closing schools in favor of remote learning. Research has conclusively shown this is unnecessary, and that it causes severe mental and social harm to children. We can’t make the cure worse than the disease. A good education is the most important thing we can give our children. |
