Congressman Salud Carbajal proudly represents the 24th Congressional District of California. The District includes the entirety of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties, and a portion of Ventura County.
Prior to representing the Central Coast in Congress, Salud served as Santa Barbara County’s First District Supervisor for twelve years. As County Supervisor, Salud championed the development of the Blue Ribbon Budget Task Force to examine our county operations and budget process. He has also advocated for health and social service safety net programs for our most vulnerable residents, co-sponsoring an initiative to provide health insurance for all the County's children and spearheading the creation of a job skills and mentorship program for at-risk youth throughout the County.
As a veteran of the United States Marines, I have maintained my strong sense of duty and pride that I was able to serve in America’s Armed Forces. As your Congressman I was selected to be part of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) as well as serve on the Subcommittee of Tactical Air and Land and the Subcommittee on Readiness. This committee is responsible in appropriating over for $650 billion for the Department of Defense and sets forth policies, programs, and activities for the military worldwide.
A major piece of legislation I participated in drafting, amending, debating, and passing in the House of Representatives was the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018 (NDAA). After participating in this legislative process, I remain concerned about the size of the defense budget and support commonsense solutions to find efficiencies and reduce wasteful spending that can occur. I supported the NDAA because it included many measures that address issues of importance for Central Coast families such as an increase in pay for our service members, efforts to combat climate change, promote infrastructure improvements, and support local programs like our National Guard Youth Grizzly Challenge Program.
As we consider additional policy relating to the security of the United States I remain committed to working to balance our national security requirements and the needs of our service men and women with other budgetary priorities.