I'm Dan Osborn: This is why I want Nebraska's vote for Senate

Across Nebraska, working people aren’t getting a fair shake. Costs are too high, the border’s a mess, and career politicians spend their time enriching themselves and serving their donors instead of doing anything about it. The U.S. Senate is just a country club of millionaires who work for billionaires and have no idea what it’s like to work for a living and are spending this country into bankruptcy. 

It’s time we tried something else.

I joined the Navy out of high school, then the Nebraska National Guard. For the past 20 years I’ve worked fifty, sixty, seventy-hour weeks on the factory floor to provide for my family. When corporate greed and reckless government spending drive up the price of groceries, my family feels it in our pocketbooks – just like yours. 

REPUBLICAN INCUMBENTS CRUZ, FISCHER HOLD NARROW LEADS IN TEXAS, NEBRASKA SENATE RACES: POLLS

My opponent – incumbent Republican Sen. Deb Fischer – doesn't understand what we’re going through. Since getting to Washington, Deb’s gotten ten times richer while the national debt has more than doubled. She sold out Nebraska and lined her pockets while we paid the price.

During her time in Washington, she enabled wasteful and reckless spending that led to our $35 trillion national debt. That’s why she was censured by three Republican county parties here in Nebraska. As the Hitchcock County GOP memorably put it, Fischer "violated the basic tenets of her publicly-asserted conservative principles." Just recently, she failed to pass a farm bill, leaving Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers – the backbone of our state’s communities and economy – out to dry. 

But it gets worse. Just this year, our Senator, Deb Fischer, voted with Democrats in the Senate to kill a Republican immigration plan that would have added 1,500 border agents and $20 billion for border security. That is simply inexcusable – if we don’t have a border, we don't have a country. But Deb would rather do the bidding of her corporate donors who benefit from exploiting cheap labor.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Worst of all, my opponent acts like she is entitled to her Senate seat. When she first ran for office, she pledged to abide by a two-term limit, and then shamelessly broke her promise to Nebraskans by running for a third term. 

She also just flatly refuses to talk to the people of Nebraska. Instead of holding town halls here in Nebraska, she spends her time with her corporate donors in Washington. She refuses to debate me, where she’d be forced to explain her record to the people of our state. Throughout this campaign, she hasn’t held a single public event in Nebraska where the public could ask her questions. Meanwhile, I’ve held more than 180 public events across the state. 

My word means something to me. It means something to my family. And it means something to Nebraskans. Deb Fischer has shown us that her word means nothing. She’s sold Nerbaskans out time and again. She cares about herself. She cares about her donors. She doesn’t care about us.

Because this is now one of the closest Senate races in the country, Deb and her corporate buddies have gotten nervous, and now they’re spreading lies about me. The truth is, I agree with President Trump on many of the most important issues facing the country, whether it’s the need to drain the swamp and take on corruption or standing up to China – I am right there with him. If he needs someone to help him build the wall, well, I’m pretty handy.

In the Senate, I will always put Nebraska first. I won’t roll over to big corporate interests and their checkbooks. I won’t be bullied by China and Big Tech. Unlike Deb, I won't put a price tag on Nebraskans. I’ll work with, or take on, anyone in either party to implement effective policy that will actually benefit hard-working Nebraskans – supporting small, family businesses, lowering inflation and putting more money in your pockets, lowering crime and closing our borders.

I’m not on the ballot thanks to a political party – I’m on the ballot thanks to the people of my state. Twelve thousand Nebraskans from all 93 counties signed petitions so that I could run for Senate, and I built support for my campaign through one-on-one interactions with the people of this state. The people here know that Washington politicians are failing them. It’s time for Nebraskans have a senator who actually represents us. The people who can’t buy senators.