Chicago: Indian-American Manju Goel has announced her bid to seek Republican party nomination to run for a seat in the US Congress, focussing on divisive issues like “Obamacare” and the growing national debt.
Goel, an Aurora resident and conservative who was born in India, hopes to win the Republican primary in March and then take on incumbent Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth for the 8th district congressional seat.
Goel outlined her campaign platform on Sunday during the Northwest Suburban Republican Family Picnic at Busse Woods Forest Preserve in Elk Grove Village.
She is being backed by a national group of Republicans, including Texas congressman Pete Sessions, who accompanied Goel to Sunday's picnic.
This will be Goel's first run for public office, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections website.
“America is on the wrong track,” Goel said during the event, her first public comments since announcing her candidacy.
“We are spending USD 1.60 for every dollar we bring in. We are discouraging rather than encouraging entrepreneurs and job creators with burdensome regulations.” Goel took particular aim at “Obamacare,” which she called the “biggest of all job killers.”
After working more than five years in the health care industry as a process improvement specialist, Goel said neither patients nor doctors like the Affordable Health Care Act, which she, like many Republicans, refer to as “Obamacare.”
“Obamacare has to go, and Tammy Duckworth must go,” Goel said was quoted as saying by Daily Herald newspaper.
She also said America must rid itself of debt, and she would support a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget. “Washington spends our hard earned money like there is no tomorrow,” she said.
Since the global economic crisis in 2008, US federal debt has increased from USD 5 trillion to an estimated USD 12 trillion in 2013, according to media reports.
In her campaign literature, Goel said she grew up in a middle-class family in northern India and came to the US at the age of 21.
