




For West Virginia's 1st Congressional District

â€œAs West Virginiaâ€™s State Auditor, Iâ€™ve served as the stateâ€™s fiscal watchdog.Â  I brought Republicans and Democrats together to find common-sense solutions to cut wasteful spending, protect our tax dollars, and create the right environment for businesses to create jobs. Now Iâ€™m running for Congress to bring some West Virginia common-sense and values to Washingtonâ€

-Glen Gainer

Glen has served as West Virginiaâ€™s Auditor since 1992.Â  His focus on common-sense, bipartisan solutions saved West Virginia families hundreds of millions in tax dollars and upgraded the stateâ€™s bond rating during tough economic times.Â  He introduced a direct deposit payroll system that reduced costs and saved money; created accountability measures and training programs to ensure bills were paid on time; and cracked down on waste, fraud, and abuse in government programs to make sure tax dollars were spent wisely.

Glen was born and raised in West Virginia and he graduated from the University of Charleston.Â  He and his wife Susan live in Parkersburg and have two sons.Â  Glen is an avid hunter, firearm owner, and proud member of the NRA.

In Congress, Glen will fight for middle class families by working to create new jobs, reduce the deficit, protect Medicare and Social Security, and stand up for West Virginiaâ€™s coal economy.



West Virginia deserves better than our current leadership in Washington.Â  The last four years have seen Congress devolve to a state of perpetual bickering and laziness when it comes to getting work done on behalf of our citizens.Â  Time and time again, my opponent has been part of the problem as opposed to advancing solutions.Â  If elected to Congress I pledge to always put progress before politics.Â  Letâ€™s stop looking at things in terms of Republican ideas or Democratic ideas, but focus on West Virginia ideas and get back to the business of helping our state move forward.Â  To me, thats just common sense and if given the chance thatâ€™s the approach I will take every day in Congress.Â  Thank you for your support!




Congress needs to end their partisan bickering and pass a comprehensive jobs bill that benefits both businesses and workers alike.Â  Shutting the government down and creating one false debt crisis after another may make for great headlines â€“ but it hurts our standing around the world and it threatens our bond and credit rating.

U.S. corporations and manufacturers can compete with anyone if only given an equal playing field. Foreign manufactures must be held to the same product safety standards that we hold U.S. companies.Â  Thatâ€™s just common sense.

Additionally, we need to change the tax code to quit rewarding companies that move jobs overseas - or who move their headquarters to foreign countries to avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes.Â  The unfortunate result of billion dollar corporations that take advantage of this inversion is that the tax burden gets shifted downward.Â  Smaller, locally owned companies and their employees end up suffering as a result.

Finally, no jobs bill would be worthy of its name that doesnâ€™t guarantee a living wage for all workers and pay equity for women in the workplace.Â  Itâ€™s beyond time that we take action to increase the minimum wage in our country and promise equal pay for an equal days work.


As the son of a teacher I know very well the challenges faced by todayâ€™s educators and schools. Todayâ€™s teachers have more paper work, testing, curriculum and regulatory requirements to keep up with than ever before.Â  While many of these mandates are well intentioned the end result is that educators have less and less time to do the one thing that theyâ€™re supposed to do â€“ teach our children.

We need to free up teachers and schools from over burdensome and sometimes redundant reporting requirements so they can spend more time with students and less time filling out paperwork.Â  There needs to be greater flexibility in the education system than simply blindly following a â€œone size fits allâ€ mandate from Washington.

Along with greater flexibility we need a multi-year pay package that lifts our teachers to the regional average in teacher pay.Â  We canâ€™t expect to attract and retain the best and the brightest teachers for our schools if we donâ€™t pay them competitively.


Our nation needs a comprehensive energy plan that invests in domestic energy sources to decrease our reliance on foreign oil and increases our prosperity here at home.Â  As a state rich in abundant natural resources West Virginia stands to benefit greatly from such a policy.Â 

Coal has been the backbone of our economy for years and to this day 95% of the energy we use here in West Virginia is produced by coal.Â  We must fight to put an end to this administrations â€œwar on coalâ€.Â  However, letâ€™s not kid ourselves, the coal industry is under attack not just from an overreaching EPA but also from increased competition with other energy sources such as wind, solar, and natural gas. Instead of constantly picking fights with the coal industry, government should be partnering with them to find new and more efficient ways of utilizing this resource.Â  Government needs to get out of the business of picking winners and losers and get back to the business of creating an energy plan that makes best use of ALL our natural resources.Â  This means unwavering support for coal and for our emerging natural gas industry.

We need to make the necessary investments in infrastructure so that we can capitalize on West Virginiaâ€™s abundant natural gas resources.Â  The development of a single ethane cracker plant will mean thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of revenue for our state will lessening the nationâ€™s reliance on foreign energy sources.


When I was first elected Auditor I recognized that one of the ways to make the office more accountable we had to do two things.Â  First, as stewards of the taxpayerâ€™s dollars we had a responsibility to make the office work as efficiently as possible.Â  And second we needed to make sure the peopleâ€™s business was done in the most transparent way possible.Â  Towards those ends we implemented a system of electronic payments that does away with paper checks and invoices saving the state millions of dollars a year.Â  Next, we put every payment - including the salaries of state employees â€“ on-line so that people can see how there money is being spent.

Washington needs to what I have always tried to, borrowing best practices from the private sector to make government work more efficiently and to more transparently.Â  Not only will this save money â€“ but it will also increase the confidence level of people in their government.Â 


We need a common sense tax system that recognizes the importance of the middle class in this country.Â  Without a strong middle class markets for the goods American companies make and sell will evaporate â€“ as will the jobs that those companies presently provide.

For too long now the special interests have controlled this process carving out exceptions, credits and cuts for billionaires at the expense of the middle class.Â  We need to rectify those inequities so that working families are treated more fairly and equitably under our tax code.

We need to fix our broken tax system.Â  Too many times our current tax law acts an incentive for American businesses to move their operations to other countries.Â  Every time a major corporation takes advantage of this tax inversion, the loss in revenue has to be made up elsewhere.Â  That means less incentives to help smaller, locally and family owned business which create jobs right here at home and which are the backbone of our communities.Â Â