Having parents who were hard working, blue collar, and staunchly independent, neither political party's positioning really impressed me.

Discovering various economists, economic works, reading financial periodicals and keeping up on current events in geopolitics and economics around the world opened my eyes to many facets of how the extended order works.

In Minnesota, we hold our leaders to a higher standard. We demand that the men and women we send to Washington stand above reproach and steer clear of the web of corruption, kickbacks and special favors.

It's time to take Economics 101 to Washington. We believe in liberty, we believe in limited government, we believe in free enterprise, we believe in family values and the sanctity of human life, and we all believe Washington needs a good dose of Economics 101.

My hope is that people begin to understand what the fiscal realities are - how economic virtue differs from political virtue - and develop a realization of their individual economic philosophy in comparison to their perceived political ideology.

Since scarcity is the basic economic problem, if it does not exist then there is no reason for my economics course. Devoting time to the study of how people use limited resources to fulfill unlimited wants and needs should help us to discover how to best utilize the resources we have at our disposal.

The reality is that we are all economists. We all deal with scarcity as we make choices and calculate how to ration various items and resources that we consume, produce and utilize.

The young people I teach now know they are being sold down the river before we even start studying the trends and numbers. That's the toughest part of being a high school economics teacher... being a witness when our children realize that the greatest deficit of all is a deficit of leadership.