Merrimack – Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback made a campaign stop yesterday on a dewy summer morning at Thomas More College, a private college built on a 17th century farm, to talk about plans for a flat tax and rebuilding the American family unit.

"We are a society that is moving fast and experiencing a lot of fragmentation," Brownback said. "To grow prosperous and sustain ourselves, we need foundational values and a rebuilding of the family structure."

The Republican candidate for president is calling for a return to traditional family values, applauding recent support for a partial-ban on abortion, and said that scaling back government spending and support systems would strengthen the family unit.

Brownback is calling for a flat tax, private and portable retirement accounts and a systemic elimination of government programs that are not a priority. He wants to set up a mechanism in the legislature to review government programs for elimination.

"We need to have annual reviews on spending and a program should be setup to decide the programs that should be eliminated," he said. "It is a culling process."

Brownback said that the flax tax could lead to economic growth and support the family unit, as consistent with the Catholic tradition.

Studies in Europe, a reporter noted, have shown that declining birth rates and weaker families are most directly impacted by increased economic stratification, and to a far lesser extent a departure from Catholic traditions.

Brownback countered that the implication that a flat tax could lead to more economic stratification and negatively impact families was not a stable argument. It would strengthen families, he said.

"The sixteen countries, mostly from the Soviet block, that have gone to a flat tax have seen economic growth and receipts have gone up," he said. "It will create a maximal yield and give people a choice to decide what is morally acceptable in the market."

President Jeffrey Nelson and former teacher John Keck commended Brownback for his support of local economic and family needs, and encouraged him to maintain concentration on core conservative values rather than pursue knightly crusades.

Nelson gave Brownback reading on the conservative Edmond Burke who warned that trying to champion abstract ideas such as "freedom" and "democratic capitalism" would only lead to armed ideological campaigns that ignore the realities of families and work.

"I talked to him briefly," Nelson said. "I understand that he sees it as a matter of walking around and being humble in this world."