Jason Chaffetz

Jason Chaffetz has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 3rd district of the State of Utah, since 2009 (map).

Abortion
Chaffetz would support making abortions illegal except for circumstances when the woman is endangered.

Spending
Chaffetz would support slightly increased defense, homeland security, and federal law enforcement spending. He supports maintaining current spending levels for the environment, FEMA, state law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health services, scientific research, welfare, and transportation and highway infrastructure. He would support decreased spending for agriculture, arts, international aid, space exploration programs and the elimination of spending towards the United Nations.

Taxes
Chaffetz would vote to maintain the Bush tax cuts but calls for driving down spending to be in line with revenue. He supports the elimination of the capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, inhertiance taxes. He would support maintaining the current taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and gasoline.

Campaign Finance and Government Reform
Chaffetz supports increasing the the amount individuals are permitted to contribute to federal campaigns and also removing all contribution limits on federal campaigns and parties. He supports allowing unregulated soft money campaign contributions to political parties or committees.

Education Issues
Chaffetz supports allowing parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public, private, or religious school. He would support tax incentives to help families save for college and would seek to eliminate federal education standards and testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act.

Employment
Chaffetz supports reducing government regulation of the private sector and would encourage employers to offer child care services, flex-time scheduleing, comp-time and unpaid leave for family emergencies.

Environment and Energy
Chaffetz supports increased development of traditional energy sources such as coal, oil, gas as well as alternative fuels including nuclear reactors. He would strengthen emissions controls on all gasoline and diesel-powered engines. He supports domestic oil exploration in areas currently off-limits.

Health
He supports expanding eligibility for tax-free medical savings accounts and tax credits to individuals and small businesses to offset the cost of insurance coverage. He believes that providing healthcare is not the responsibility of the federal government.

Immigration
Chaffetz believes illegal immigrants should have to return to their countries of origin before being considered for citizenship. He does support temporary worker programs and harsher financial punishments to those who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. He would support making English the official national language.

International Policy
While Chaffetz supports the United States granting aid to countries in cases of disaster, threat to civilian lives, or when it is in the security interests of the United States, he believes U.S. aid should be scaled back and eventually eliminated. In regards to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he supports U.S. leadership in the process and the creation of a Palestinian state. He does not support financial aid but does believe in military support for Afghanistan. He is willing go consider sanctions against North Korea (nuclear), China (economic)and Iran (nuclear) if the situation warranted such action. He also believes the U.S. should be involved in bringing an end to violence in Darfur, Congo and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

Iraq War
Withdrawing troops from Iraq is right, but at the right time. I do not support a random timetable.

National Security
Chaffetz he does not support greater discretion for law enforcement agencies to monitor domestic communications to prevent future terrorist attacks. He is also does not support a federal identification card system. He would hold foreign states accountable for terrorists operating in their countries and is also willing to use preemptive military strikes against countries deemed to be a threat to the United States' national security. He supports the expansion of a missile defense shield.

Social Issues
Chaffetz does not support same-sex couples from marrying and would support a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. He does not support federal funding of stem cell research on new or existing stem cell lines. He believes the federal government should not continue affirmative action programs. He would support abolishing all federal welfare programs but would support the continuation of giving states and local governments flexibility in and responsibility for welfare programs through federal block grants.

Bio
Currently sole owner of Maxtera Utah, Inc., a corporate communications and marketing company.

2008 elections
Chaffetz became the Republican nominee after defeating incumbent Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) in primary elections which took place on June 24, 2008. He went on to defeat Democratic nominee Bennion L. Spencer in the November 2008 general election.

{|

Campaign contributions
cid=N00028958&cycle=2008
 * }

Committees
Chaffetz will be assigned committees if and when he is elected to Congress.

Campaign Contact Information
Friends of Jason Chaffetz 175 S. West Temple #650 Salt Lake City, UT 84101 Jennifer Scott Campaign Manager [mailto:jennifer@chaffetz.com jennifer@chaffetz.com]

Twitter
 Jason Chaffetz posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jasoninthehouse/

Latest posts: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/jasoninthehouse.rss|title=none| max=3| short See all the members of Congress who Twitter

Related SourceWatch articles

 * 2008 U.S. congressional elections
 * 2008 U.S. congressional election dates
 * Portal:Utah and the U.S. Congress

External resources

 * 2008 Race Tracker page on Utah’s 3rd Congressional District
 * Official Jason Chaffetz for Congress Website