Candidate Biography (submitted by campaign):

Howard A. Staley, a doctor of podiatric medicine and surgery, has lived and practiced podiatric medicine and surgery in Lee, Wake, Chatham and Moore counties.

He graduated in 1981 from the Pennsylvania College of Podiatric Medicine -- now Temple University in Pennsylvania, Pa. -- with a Doctorate of Podiatric Medicine degree (D.P.M.).

Staley is a 1977 graduate of Rutgers University in Camden, N.J., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry.  Dr. Staley’s early childhood years were spent in Moorestown, N.J., where he graduated from Moorestown High School in 1973.

He was born March 23rd, 1955 and raised in a close-knit family with two sisters and one brother.  Dr. Staley is the third child of the late Milton Carlton and Marie Staley.  He is married and has three sons ages fifteen, thirteen and three.

The “change” we hear from the presidential candidates does not need to be disruptive but merely directional.

Instead of this Nation bolstering corporate profit, we need to be concerned with the genuine needs of American people.  We need to encourage pride in a United States that rewards its citizens with a guarantee of basic needs -- specifically good jobs, affordable housing, unadulterated food and water, and worriless healthcare.

I see three big issues that are decreasing the quality of the lives of average Americans.  One is the uninsured in a healthcare system based on fictitiously excessive charges submitted to a handful of insurance companies, which are reimbursed at unsustainable reduced levels.  This means unless you have paid insurance company premiums, you are being over charged because insurance companies reduce the fee.  The free market no longer has any function in the healthcare system.  Luckily, many healthcare providers still have a sense of charity.

I feel we need to develop a system that includes everyone throughout their lifetime with a balance between insurance, patients, and the government.

Secondly, I believe well-touted tax cuts of the Bush administration have been a windfall for the wealthy, and have actually caused more total taxes to be paid by the less wealthy in the form of regressive local taxes.

Thirdly, our unquenchable thirst for energy has turned us into a debtor nation.  Unlike the last one hundred years, the twenty-first century is no longer a period of cheap energy from third-world nations.  These foreign nations now have returned these dollars by owning our children’s national debt, as well as much of our land and assets.  Cheap energy has caused many of our other problems, such as urban sprawl, traffic congestion, pollution and human isolation by limiting interaction in communities.  We need to develop technology, lifestyles changes, and native energy sources to release us from imported petroleum.