Republican Senate hopeful wants a shot at reform

One thing David McCormick wants you to know about his campaign for U.S. Senate is that if he is elected, it will be his last Senate campaign.

Term limits for all elected officials in the federal government are among a slew of outside-the-beltway ideas and proposals being advanced by McCormick, who is vying for the Republican nomination for the seat that Senator Jim Webb will vacate in 2013.

Others who have announced they will stand for the nomination include George Allen, who had held the Senate seat for a term before losing it to Webb in 2006, and Jaime Radtke, a Tea Party activist from Richmond.

Still others could announce their intentions to compete for the nomination between now and the June 16, 2012, primary election.

During a visit to the Suffolk News-Herald on Wednesday, McCormick explained his plans if elected to what he promised would be a single term in office. And he took pains to set himself apart especially from the “George Allen Republicans.”

“Big government is a failure at the hands of both parties,” he said. “The mess we’re in — I blame both parties.”

Republicans in office during Allen’s Senate tenure, he said, unacceptably grew the federal government, and the nation’s debt crisis is a result of spending gone wild among legislators from both sides of the aisle.

For McCormick, whose Christian faith informs many of his opinions and proposals, there is a clear statement of values tied up in the nation’s fiscal situation.

“I think it is immoral to spend more than you receive, unless it’s in war,” he said. “I’m calling for an age of thriftiness.”

In fact, McCormick, who ran nine different business operations for United Parcel Service before leaving that company to earn a law degree and start a bankruptcy practice, touts his 15-page plan to balance the nation’s budget by 2017 and retire the federal debt within 20 years, while paying off the debt to the Social Security Trust Fund.

The plan, which is available on his website, www.senaterace2012.com, would reduce the size of the federal government by 20 to 25 percent in 10 years, he said, though the cuts would take place slowly.

Those cuts would take place across the board, with entire federal agencies eventually being repurposed or phased out and with America’s military being recalled from places where it’s deployed all over the world.

“We’re spread out in 120 nations,” he said, noting that his plan would “call one-third (of American troops) back to the U.S. I’m not in favor of nation-building.” American troops, he said, could be redeployed to provide direct American security here at home.

McCormick, a Virginia Beach resident and Regent University Law School graduate, said he believes government has grown beyond its constitutional boundaries.

“Our government has steered so far away from constitutional principals, founding principals,” he said. “Big government doesn’t work. The corruption, inefficiency and poor management … is appalling to me.”

Still, he said, he has high hopes for America.

“God gave us the gift of America, and He has a plan and a destiny for our nation,” he said. “The greatest days of America are in our future. It’s not too late.”