Summary of political beliefs

[heatcharger]

Mine is kinda long so I'll break it into three parts...

[heatcharger]

Following SATW's format:

Economic Issues: Fiscal Liberal/Economic Neoliberal/Political Pragmatist
Taxes:
- In favor of a more progressive tax policy with higher tax brackets, but not across the board increases.
- In favor of increasing the estate tax from 40% to 45%.
- In favor of implementing a carbon tax and other sin/luxury taxes.

Healthcare:
- Support the Affordable Care Act
- In favor of a public insurance option.
- Supporting raising the Medicare age to 67 and implementing necessary reforms to save the program.
- Support minor to modest cuts in Medicare, if needed, but opposed to Ryan-esque measures.

Social Security:
- Supporting raising the retirement age to either 67 or 69.
- Support a partial privatization at a very modest rate.

Minimum Wage:
- Oppose granting a $15 minimum wage.
- Support a federal minimum wage indexed to inflation yearly to end this matter for good hopefully. States would still have the ability to increase their minimum wage if they feel necessary.

Welfare and Unemployment Benefits:
- Support the current state of welfare.
- Interested in the idea of a universal basic income, but needs more time to become politically salient.

Education:
- Strongly against voucher programs.
- Strongly in favor of universal pre-K education. Not only is early education vital for the development of kids of all socioeconomic backgrounds, but parents who work have one less thing to worry about, which can be a godsend for many.
- Strongly support after-school programs.
- Somewhat opposed to teacher's unions. There's a little too much room for foul play.
- Support raising teacher's salaries via federal or state funding. Teachers play a pivotal role in making sure our young people are ready adults.
- Support Common Core standards, but some measures need to be tweaked.
- Skeptical of charter schools and mostly against, but see the value of some of them especially in inner cities where public schools are neglected.
- Opposed to the idea of free college, but support initatives seeking to reduce the student debt burden (basically Hillary Clinton's plan).
- In favor of making community college tuition-free.

Free Trade:
- Strong supporter of free trade policies and oppose protectionism. "Buy American, Hire American" would hurt the middle-class the most, as they spend a larger proportion of their income on consumer goods.
- Strong supporter of NAFTA and TPP.
- Support job retraining programs for former manufacturing workers and others affected by globalization, and these programs should be funded both through federal funding and by private companies who would be given incentives to do so. However, this is ultimately a futile endeavor in the long-run. This is why a UBI may eventually become necessary.
- Want to make sure that the United States stays the dominant trade superpower in the world. By leaving the TPP, we are allowing China to gain foothold in global trade and potentially surpass us.

Immigration:
- Amnesty should be given to undocumented immigrants already living in the United States.
- Support a less draconian e-Verify system.
- Against a stupid and wasteful border wall.
- Support deporting illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes.
- Support the DREAM Act.
- Support slight tweaks to the VISA system.
- Opposed to an unconstitutional Muslim ban.
- Understand that we already have extreme vetting for immigrants and refugees.

Deficits and Budgets:
- Balancing the budget should be a goal, but not a requirement.
- Support cuts to national defense spending.
- Support cuts to Social Security, and Medicare, as reducing the debt is vital if not for the growing interest we pay on it.

Environmental and Energy Issues:
- Support the idea of a carbon tax, although would be fine with cap-and-trade as well. I'm willing to hear the arguments for both, but ultimately I favor a carbon tax more as generating government revenue from this would be a boon.
- Support Obama and his EPA's tyrannical war on coal. The advent of natural gas is the reason coal is dying, not the EPA.
- In favor of phasing out fossil fuel as the main energy source.
- However, I seek American energy independence in the short-term, which is why I'm not completely against the Keystone XL pipeline, mostly for geopolitical reasons in the Middle East.
- In the long-term though, clean energy should take precedence, and am in favor of public funding of solar and wind energy.
- Climate change is obviously real, and the issue of climate refugees, particularly in Bangladesh, Florida, Netherlands, etc., will become a major crisis soon enough. Fighting climate change will require global cooperation, and that starts with maintaining the Paris Agreement.

Other:
- Against auditing the Federal Reserve. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have no business being involved in that.
- Support reinstating Glass-Steagal. I'm generally in favor of regulating Wall Street but not to a detrimental level.
- Economic populism is a threat, especially when delivered by charlatans like Donald Trump and to a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders.

I'll post social and foreign policy issues later.

[heatcharger]

Social Issues: Progressive

Abortion:
- Pro-choice. I probably would be fine with a third-trimester ban, but otherwise, women have the right to do what they want. I don't want mothers raising children when they're miserable doing it.
- Also, whether a fetus is alive or not is all semantics. Women will get abortions anyway, so let's work to make sure they're safe.
- Support maintaining Planned Parenthood.
- Support repealing the Hyde Amendment.
- Opposed to how Republicans use abortion as a wedge issue. I'm also fine with personally-pro-life politicians but not if they actively make it harder for women to get abortions.

LGBT Equality:
- Tolerant of same-sex marriage.
- Support the ENDA.
- Highly skeptical of transgenderism and believe there is no such thing as gender fluidity, but ultimately, "bathroom" laws are a giant smokescreen by Republicans to distract from things that actually matter, and so people should use whatever bathroom they are comfortable with. However, I have many concerns about the logistical problems that arise by allowing people to identify with either gender.

Drugs:
- The War on Drugs has been a failure, unless of course, the goal is to incarcerate more minorities.
- Marijuana should be rescheduled and made no longer a federal crime whether it be the use of or distribution of the plant.
- Support the legalization of medicinal marijuana and support the further research of the drug.

Voter ID Laws:
- Against voter ID laws simply because it's a waste of time and money. Voter fraud is not a real problem.

Gerrymandering:
- Support switching to a parliamentary system with proportional representation. Geographic representation was an issue in 1789, but in our highly interconnected world, politics is not that local anymore.
- More realistically, I support switching to nonpartisan, software-generated districts based on average distance to the center of their district. Basically this guy's proposal.

Congressional Term Limits:
- I'd be fine with a 4-term limit on Senators and a 12-term limit on Congressmen just to get fresh blood.

2nd Amendment:
- In favor of universal background checks.
- Support bans on suspects listed on a terror watch list.
- Support an assault weapons ban.
- Opposed to how Republicans use guns as a wedge issue. The NRA has way too much influence. However, Democrats should be a little more ambivalent on this because there are many people who agree with their policies except for the rhetoric on guns.


Vaccines:
- Anti-vaxxers are a threat to society.

Death Penalty:
- Support the death penalty in only the most severe cases.

Law and Order Issues/National Security:
- Strongly opposed to stop-and-frisk.
- NSA does some good things and doesn't get any credit for it, but they should attempt to be a little more transparent although not to a fault.
- Police need new hiring protocols to weed out bad apples.
- Support body cameras.
- Support ending for-profit policing.
- Strongly against private prisons.
- Support our nation's law enforcement, but not when they are actively breaking down communities. However, people need to learn to respect the rule of law, and when injustices are committed, they should work within the system to prevent further incidents.

Affirmative Action:
- Could use modifications, but still a good policy on balance.

Civil Rights Issues:
- Black lives matter. Whether the movement is an annoyance or not, the message should be universally supported.

Freedom of Speech and Political Correctness:
- Political correctness is a made-up issue.
- Don't care if anyone burns the flag because it doesn't matter.