Thank you for visiting my website and taking the time to read my views on the issues. I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know a little bit about myself and my background in order to give a little perspective as to why I believe what I do, and gather insights as to how I will vote on the issues that affect us all.
I am married with 2 sons and am fighting for low taxes and less government so that my children and their children will have the ability to find good paying jobs or even start a business of their own someday.
I have lived in Ohio all my life. I moved from Dayton to Cincinnati in 1986 to attend the University of Cincinnati, where I have remained for the last 30 years. My parents were both born and raised in Eaton Ohio and some of my earliest and best memories are of the time we spent in Preble county going to fairs, driving around looking at Christmas lights at Fort St. Clair or playing in the cornfield behind my grandparents home.
My parents were the first generation of their families to go to college and I remember my mother telling me how as a child she used to collect coke bottles to return for a refund so she could earn enough money to buy an egg to cook when she was hungry, and I never forgot the lesson of how important it is to work hard and try to get ahead so that someday your children can have a better life.
My grandfather on my mom’s side was at one time or another a farmer, a gas station owner, and the manager of Trotwood Bowl. My grandmother loved to bowl and worked at GM in Dayton for decades. My grandfather on my dads side was the band director at Eaton high school and passed on an appreciation of music and art to our family and my grandmother worked at the local library for many years.
My most distant American relative came from England and it is my understanding that he fought for the South until he was captured and imprisoned in Indiana. Upon his release and on his way back home to Virginia he ventured into Eaton Ohio where he would later make his home.
Some of my earliest recollections are of the few short years that we lived in Fairborn Ohio where we would walk to school, go to the park, sell lemonade at the end of the driveway and even put on magic shows for the neighborhood kids. I recall riding our bikes in the parade celebrating the 200th year of independence in 1976 and playing tee-ball at Patterson Park.
My family moved to Oakwood Ohio in the early 80’s where my mother worked as a dental hygienist for the next 30 years and my father was hired on at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to take part in one of the first computer programming classes. As a child I remember talk of punch cards, programming, discussions about the need to floss, and spending hours at the dentist office looking at the fish tank, reading Highlights for Kids magazine, and hoping to find a good toy in the Dr.’s treasure chest, while waiting for my mother to get off work.
When I was a kid we didn’t have home computers, we were forced to either read a book, play with each other or the neighbor kids or ride bikes up and down Schantz Avenue. I recall delivering newspapers, shoveling driveways, mowing lawns and where we lived it was about a mile from the school and we would walk that distance uphill both ways 4 times a day. Back then students would leave the school and walk home for lunch and I remember many a time scurrying back and forth to school in subzero temperatures.
While in college I studied economics and political science. I worked through college as a busboy at various fine dining restaurants down on the Ohio river and was a two-time winner of the Heimlich award (I worked at a steakhouse).
In 1987, I began listening to Rush Limbaugh and I discovered that I was a Conservative and what that meant. Since then I have vowed to fight the false beliefs of liberalism and spread the message of inspiration and hope that is Conservatism.
Since college I have worked at more jobs than I care to count, have been involved in numerous start-ups and am currently the CEO of DigitalUnderwriter.com. I am fighting to bring American mortgage and banking jobs back from overseas and reducing taxes and government regulations so that the entrepreneurs of tomorrow will not have to deal with the many challenges obstacles that exist today thanks to our oppressive government bureaucracy.
Americans have struggled mightily since the housing crash and the economy is terrible. We spent billions of dollars and there are barely any decent jobs available to the average person. The number of people becoming self-employed has declined dramatically and more Americans than ever are collecting food stamps, getting welfare, are on disability or otherwise just not working. It’s a sad state of affairs in America when living on welfare is actually an improvement in the standard of living for the average American theses days because of the poor job market, and that needs to turn around real quick.
I want to bring back the America where there were working opportunities for all and where my children and their children can someday find jobs in a field they like and make a decent living at it. We don’t create those kinds of jobs anymore, they go to India or somewhere else in the world. I believe the way bring jobs back is to cut the bureaucracy in half by disbanding several federal agencies, start penalizing companies that outsource American jobs, quit bringing in millions of people from all other the world, and start paying down our enormous debt.
We need to start putting American workers and their family’s first. My jobs plan does just that. It will create millions of jobs and encourages entrepreneurialism because it’s high time we make the American family, and America in general, financially strong again.
Matthew Ashworth
