Brooklet resident Tom McElwee isn't a member of the TEA Party, but he said he supports their views in that there is too much government. Big government is taking money from family budgets, and he hopes if he is elected to the District 158 Georgia House of Representatives seat, he can make changes in that area.
    The Southeast Bulloch High School Junior ROTC Coach will be retiring June 30 from that position and hopes to devote his time to serving the public, if elected. Both he and former Bulloch County Commissioner Jan Tankersley, who resigned from that position to run for office, are from Brooklet, and both seek to fill the seat left vacant by the resignation of state Rep. Bob Lane, who served in that capacity for 30 years.
    In a recent released statement, McElwee said “I am the Conservative Republican in this race. I want to be the voice of everyone living in the 158th District (covering most of Bulloch County and Bryan County to include Pembroke).
    “I will work hard to protect your family budget from over-taxation caused by excess government spending and Federal mandates you, your children, and grandchildren will have to pay for, like the recent Health Care Bill. These policies endlessly chip away at family budgets until families are at their breaking point.”
McElwee said he will follow Conservative principles, including supporting “smaller government to keep taxes low … self reliance and individualism …  using  the power of the free market to meet the needs of the people and government solutions only as a last choice, not the first choice; and government that supports the free market to help create more private sector jobs and gets the economy going again.”
    He told the Statesboro Herald he has noticed nationwide and state “situations where government has grown so much to the point it's taking so much out of the family budget. It's a crisis - (people) can't make ends meet. We need to make our government more constitutionally responsible.”
    McElwee calls for an end to “funding special interest projects,” and support only things that are state government's “Constitutional responsibility … public schools. Teachers who have dedicated their lives and careers to educating our children should not be in fear of losing their jobs because government is spending money in areas it should not be involved in.
    He said the state needs “new Conservative Republican leadership to reverse what has happened.”
    Lower taxes are the “the only way to help improve Georgia's economy and return people to jobs instead of unemployment,” he said. “As a career teacher, I will focus our governmental efforts on improving education standards so our children can compete in a national and world economy. I will work to find ways to lower school drop-out rates that cost the state millions of tax dollars.” 
    McElwee said “ Everything the government does, ultimately it has to be paid for… and unfortunately, it comes out of the family budget.”
He urges voters to come to the polls July 20 and for those not registered to vote, to do so.
    A retired Army officer with assignments in Germany, Korea, and peace-keeping on the Israel, Egyptian border, McElwee later served as an associate professor of Military Science (ROTC) at Georgia Southern University. He returned to active duty during Desert Storm, First Gulf War with the 24th Infantry Division. IN addition to Junior ROTC, he has been teaching Government and Civics at Southeast Bulloch High School for the past seventeen years.     

McElwee holds a Bachelor's Degree in U.S. History Education, and a Master's Degree in Business Management.
    He is married to wife Patricia and has four adult daughters and eight grandchildren.