By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Indian Springs resident and local surgeon Dr. Chad Mathis is looking to “kill Obamacare, balance (the nation’s) budget and control spending” if elected to the U.S. Congress, he announced during an Oct. 8 campaign kickoff in Pelham.

Mathis, who helped found the Alabama Bone and Joint Clinic, which has locations in Pelham, Hoover and Alabaster, is looking to succeed current Congressman Spencer Bachus in representing Alabama’s 6^th Congressional District.

Bachus recently announced he will not be seeking re-election to the seat in 2014.

“It’s time we send someone to Washington who will fight for Alabama families and not special interests,” Mathis told the crowd gathered at the Bone and Joint Clinic’s Pelham location off Cahaba Valley Parkway. “With the help of you, and with the help of God, we can restore the American dream.”

Mathis said he has become “fed up with a government that no longer represents us,” and said the American dream is in jeopardy.

“We are on the grounds of a small business. It’s fitting we are here today, because this is the culmination of a dream,” Mathis said. “That dream has become somewhat unobtainable to some.

“What has the government done to fix that? It has literally stopped working,” Mathis said, referencing the ongoing federal government shutdown.

Mathis said he is not “made from the same mold as a typical Republican,” and said he is “fed up with Washington.”

“We want a government that spends less, taxes less, protects our freedoms and stays out of our health care decisions,” Mathis said. “I’ve read Obamacare, and it is bad. It will smother the last flames of economic freedom in this country.”