Summary of political beliefs

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Social Issues:

Abortion: Pro-choice: keep abortion safe, legal, and rare.  Opposed to partial birth abortion, except for the health/life of the mother.  Supportive of parental notification (with Judicial override).

Gay Rights: Support across the board.  Lukewarm on support for hate crimes legislation, however.

Separation of Church and State: Keep 'em separate, boys.

Affirmative Action: Strongly oppose quotas.  Affirmative action should be phased out, but the government should still continue periodic checks to make sure race-based discrimination is not happening in the workplace.

Gun Control: I support a ban on assault weapons.  Mandatory background checks.  Lukewarm support of the Brady Bill -- a waiting period is a good idea, but likely to be ineffective.

Death Penalty: Support only for the most heinous of crimes where guilt can be proven without a shadow of doubt.

Censorship: First Amendment supporter, though there should be common-sense controls on television (e.g., no profanity in kids programs, no graphic sex acts on network TV, etc.).

Flag burning: Protected by the First Amendment, and should stay that way.

Hate crimes: See above.  The government should not be in the business of punishing thought.

Hate speech: First Amendment, within reason, so long as said speech does not lead to actual, physical violence (as it sometimes does).

Smoking: In general, I'm fine with indoor smoking bans.

Alcohol consumption: Ultimately supportive of reducing the drinking age to 18 on principle, but certainly not a crusader: the streets are safer with alcohol being available only to those over 21.

Euthanasia: Should be legal.

Drugs: Legalize marijuana.  Hard drugs are a key contributor to violent and property crime, and should stay illegal, but punishments should be fair and equitable.

Gambling: An issue best left for towns and states to decide.  I do not support the massive Indian Casino tax breaks.

Prostitution: Legalize and heavily regulate.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Strongly support.  Public funding should indeed be made available.

Immigration: Guest worker/amnesty programs are duds.  We should severely punish employers of illegal aliens, but ultimately increase the level of legal immigraton into the country.

Environment: Create a carbon trading market.  Push increases in CAFE.  Global warming IS real, and oil WILL run out, so it is important to research alternative, low-impact energy sources now.  Fuel cell technology looks like a poor option: push hybrids in the short term, electric in the long term (powered, ultimately, by clean fuel).  Bring existing but dormant nuclear plants back online, but don't build new ones...the (essentially) permanent waste is too dangerous.

Patriot Act: Dangerous affront to our freedoms.  It should be gutted, with only the most vital of anti-terrorism aspects allowed to stand.

Economic Issues

Taxes: Keep a progressive structure, and do not allow deficit spending for the purposes of pushing a tax cut.  Work towards eliminating property taxes.  Keep sales taxes to a minimum, and exempt clothing and food.  Keep taxes as low as spending levels will allow.  Strongly supportive of Massachusetts' Proposition 2 1/2, which requires public approval of any property tax increase greater than 2.5% per year.

Unions: Supportive, though Unions are quickly losing their influence nationwide.  I oppose card check, however.

Free trade: Somewhat supportive of free trade, so long as it is FAIR trade.  That puts countries like China, who do not trade "fairly," on the hot seat.  Trade sanctions should be imposed for human rights violations.

Spending: Balanced budgets are key, and deficit spending should only be allowed in crisis and wartime situations.  Limit growth in times of surplus, and keep a rainy-day fund.

Social Security: Privatization in full is a bad idea, but minimal privatization may work.  Workers should be able to invest up to 5% of their Social Security deduction in private accounts, with the caviat that they must accept a later retirement age or a 95% benefit level for the privledge.

Space Program: Stay the course.  Humans will need the ability to seek out other planets if the continuation of the species is to be guaranteed, but this should not quite be a top priority at this point.

Welfare: More reform.  Welfare should focus on providing child care and getting parents who are able to work back to work.

Health-care: I'm starting to lean towards Universal coverage.  At the very least, the state should band together and provide benefit assistance coverage to the middle-class who are not offered insurance by their employers; these employers should be charged a penalty fee for this.
The Massachusetts system is doomed to be a costly failure, where people who can ill afford it will be forced into buying "junk" insurance coverage just to comply with a poorly-thought out state law.  It should be repealed.

Education: No Child Left Behind was well meaning, but poorly executed.  Urban schools can benefit through vouchers and charter schools, and should be given more leeway to hire and fire teachers based on performance.  The real solution to poor inner city standards remains fixing the cultural problems, where those who strive to achieve are looked down on as "acting white."

Foreign Policy Issues:

Democracy and Trade: Restore limited trade to Cuba.  Use trade sanctions to punish human rights violations, but cut off trade only in the most extreme (wartime) situations.

Anti (fill in the blank) Treaty: Work to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide.

United Nations: It's a disasterous combination of anti-Israel interests.  The U.S. needs to stay heavily involved to minimize the impact of extremist countries.

Iraq: Giant clusterf***.  The US should begin to plan for troop withdrawls, and should work with other countries in the region to minimize the post-war fallout.

Israel: There's so much hate going on in the region, I don't know where to begin.  The Israelis have a right to exist, but so too do the Palestinians.  Israel needs to work and be more accomodating to its neighbors, and its neighbors need to do the same.  Realistically, though...not much we can do here.  We cannot up and abandon Israel.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I suppose I should point out that I support universal health care, and, once it is implemented, social security becomes more or less redundant (as the vast majority of expenses incurred by the elderly are health-related anyway).

Uh, no.  Social Security won't be redundant, and the VAST majority of seniors' out of pocket expenses are not health related.

Seniors already have universal health care.  It's called Medicare.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Health-care: I support the Massachuettes plan. We need to allow people to work by what is good by them, but allow them to be able to afford the plan they need. However, for one to be eligible for MediAssist(insurance subsidies for middle income individuals), MedicAid or MediCare, they must be able to show that they are taking preventative steps in order to lower their costs. Also, medical programs should make it easier to buy vocational prosthesis such as cybernetic implants and gene therapies as they become available.

I have no idea why anyone would want to support the Massachusetts plan.  Do you think most HMOs do a good job now?  Do you think everyone should be forced to be on them under penalty of law?

Are you familiar with the idea of "junk coverage"?  Essentially, that's what you're getting with the Massachusetts plan: astronomically high deductables that make the health insurance virtually useless for all but the most extended of hospital stays.  And even for that, you'll be paying at least $150 a month.

There's no reason to force 25-year-olds to buy HMO coverage.  Over the past year, I've had one emergency room visit, five doctors visits (specialist and primary care), one elective surgical operation, and a number of different non-refilled prescriptions.

Total cost of all my health care without any insurance?  Approximately $5,000.   Total cost with one of the Massachusetts "junk plans"?  Approximately $4,000, plus another $1,800 in yearly premiums.  The high deductable makes these HMO plans absolutely useless for 98% of common problems 25-year-olds face.  (They do cover simple doctor visits, but you'd need a lot of visits to your PC physician to make up the $1,800 in premiums.)

That's how sh**tty these Massachusetts plans are.  And the income cutoffs for free/subsidized care aren't as high as you think: somewhere around $30,000.

It's a disasterous program that I completely resent being forced into under penalty of law.