League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Riverside County, CA March 2, 2004 Election
	Dennis Lockhart Answers Questions Candidate for United States Representative; District 45; Democratic Party

Read the answers from all candidates.

Questions & Answers

1. What can be done to ensure that California gets its fair share of federal resources?

We need an aggressive and coordinated effort by California's federal incumbents to pursue any and all federal resources available to California. The lack of such an effort, for example, was the main reason that an earthquake study institute was awarded not to California but, of all places, upstate New York. It is unconscionable that this happened, but, unfortunately, not surprising. I would make certain California's needs are always in the forefront.

2. What are your foreign policy priorities for the United States?

It was Woodrow Wilson, I believe, who said that the United States needed to make the world "safe for democracy". That was a different time, and the world--Wilson undoubtedly meant Europe when he said "world"--is now a different place. My main foreign policy priority would be, first, to the make the world safe for America; second, to make the world safe for everyone else; and, thirdly, to make the world safe for democracy. To be blunt, if America is not safe, the world is not safe. Only then can democracy, which cannot exist in a vacuum, be introduced to parts of the world where the culture and the mindset are totalitarian both in spirit and practice.

3. What are your priorities for the federal budget?

Above all, the federal budget must be fair. It must put people first. What does not strive to help peoples' lives must be corrected. People are more important than numbers. Numbers can be manipulated, but people must never be treated as a commodity. What is true in the houses of America is also true in the House of Congress: the budget serves the people, the people do not serve the budget. Money is a means to an end, in your house and in our House. And that end is to help the people. And it was ever thus.