Matthew Dietz believes his life experiences make him the best person to represent Schuylkill County and the rest of the 17th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"What America needs right now are true middle-class citizens. I think it's being an average American husband and father," Dietz said Tuesday during an interview with The Republican-Herald Editorial Board.
Dietz, 37, of Wind Gap, is one of three men seeking the Republican nomination for Congress in Tuesday's primary election. He is facing Matt Connolly, a Northampton County businessman, and Schuylkill County Coroner Dr. David J. Moylan III.
The winner will take on incumbent U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Moosic Democrat serving his first term.
In redistricting following the 2010 Census, the 17th District was redrawn to include all of Schuylkill and parts of Carbon, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe and Northampton counties. Although Schuylkill is the only county entirely in the district, the largest segments of the population in the heavily Democratic district are in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties.
To Dietz, the 17th District needs someone who will fight against what he believes are the failed policies of the Obama administration.
"Cartwright has been a rubber stamp for this administration," Dietz said. "He has been against the coal industry."
He said one of the first necessary steps is to get rid of Obamacare, officially called the Affordable Care Act. He said he would support repeal of the act, or, if that could not be enacted, a provision that would allow states to opt out of it.
Getting rid of Obamacare would give a boost to the economy, the issue Dietz believes is the most important. Another measure that would help achieve that goal is tax reform, he said.
"Reducing the tax rate on every American and eliminate the loopholes" are crucial to improving the economy, he said. "The small businesses, the entrepreneurs, are the ones that really grow the economy."
An additional benefit of that would be reducing the power of the Internal Revenue Service, an organization that Dietz said has abused its power by, and should be held accountable for, harassing conservative political groups.
"If we simplify the tax code ... we really take away the control from the IRS," Dietz said.
Dietz said controlling illegal immigration also is needed before any discussion of whether to grant amnesty for people already in the United States.
"First of all, we need to secure the borders. We need to know who is coming in and out of the country," he said.
Dietz also said no one in the country illegally should jump ahead of anyone who went through proper immigration channels.
The House of Representatives soon will be conducting more hearings on the Sept. 11, 2012, incident in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died. Dietz said those need to bring out the truth about exactly what occurred, who knew what about it and what the paper trail says.
"We should have had aircraft en route. There should have been more done," he said. "Go after the facts."
He also criticized the handling of the situation in Ukraine, where Russia has seized the Crimea and encouraged unrest in the eastern section of the country.
Furthermore, the Obama administration also has not offered Israel sufficient support against countries and people that are determined to eliminate it, according to Dietz.
"We've kept getting in the way" of Israel, he said. "These are countries that are looking to take Israel off the map."
To Dietz, the most important issue in the 2014 elections is helping American families by improving the economy, and he said he is the candidate best suited to advance that goal.
"I'm really for fiscal responsibility," he said. Candidate: Matthew Dietz
Age: 37
Residence: Wind Gap
Office sought: U.S. representative, 17th District
Party: Republican
Employment: Airplane pilot, LR Services, Allentown
Education: Pen Argyl Area High School, diploma, 1995; Lehigh Carbon Community College, professional pilot certificate, 1998
Family: Wife, Lori; children, Brilynd, 12, Cade, 9, and Madison, 5