Summary of political beliefs

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Social Issues

Abortion: Preferably safe, legal, and rare. Keep abortion legal up to 20 weeks. Require parental, spousal notification, as well as counseling and ultrasounds. No federal funding for planned parenthood.

Gay Rights: Oppose DADT. Support the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. Personally extremely morally opposed to homosexual marriage, but I'm not really going to complain about other people getting them. However, I do not want my children to be integrated into a pro-homosexual discourse (like what public education system is moving towards).

Sex and Prostitution: Prostitution should be legal.

First Amendment: Protect and defend the Citizens United decision and the right to free speech.

Second Amendment: Pretty happy with the status quo.  

Crime: I oppose the death penalty as well as three-strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentences.

Drug War: We can probably pull back a little. Decriminalize marijuana. Reform drug sentencing. But continue our "drug war" efforts abroad.

Economic issues

Education: Discourage colleges, both private and public. It's a bubble and parasite on society that preys on people. We should be sending less people to 4-year institutions and sending them more to vocational schools. As a result, financially support our community colleges and other vocational schools. Support school vouchers, charter schools, and everything that weakens the grip of the public school unions. Though in all fairness, my children will probably be sent to religious schools.

Tax Code: Heavily cut corporate taxes. Simplify the tax codes and kill most tax deductions (besides charity and the earned income tax deduction), especially the mortgage deduction. Lower the income tax rates and maybe institute a national sales tax to make up for the difference.

Entitlement programs: Support the Ryan Plan tentatively. Enthusiastically support whatever highly-watered down version of the Ryan Plan actually makes it through Congress.

Health care: Opposed to Obamacare due to lack of actual cost control measures. Total waste of effort. Support partial repeal. Institute rationing boards for all public healthcare systems (medicare, medicaid), similar to how NHS rations based on QALY. Try to move towards universal catastrophic health insurance.

Labor Unions: Federal right-to-work law. Ban public unions from striking or collective bargaining. Ban unions from collecting mandatory dues. We need to destroy union power.

Minimum Wage: I'd preferably the abolish the minimum wage, but barring that, I'm okay with keeping it where it is right now.

Free Trade: Seek to tear down all trade barriers through mutually beneficial bilateral negotiation. Support the TPP.

Immigration Reform: Create a very large guest-worker program. Generally reform the legal immigration system on Canadian lines (more legal immigrants, preference toward skilled immigrants). Oppose English as the official language. Stop deportation. End birthright citizenship.

Energy Independence and the Environment: Eh. All-of-the-above approach, etc. Pursue coal, natural gas, shale, wind, solar, nuclear, and everything. Environmental concerns should not be taken seriously.

Transportation: Privatize Amtrak. It's a failure. Besides that, we're doing a pretty fine job already.

Space Exploration: Scrap all further space exploration.
 
Foreign Policy

My foreign policy views and goals are perfectly aligned with those of the United States government.

Electoral Issues

District of Columbia: Status-quo

Puerto Rico: Up to the Puerto Rican People

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When I mean environmental concerns, I'm referring to the environmental concerns around our energy policy. I do not find the environmental concerns around fracking, mountain-top mining, the keystone pipeline, nuclear power, or any of these convincing.

Of course, climate adaptation is an issue, but that is largely an agricultural, infrastructure (levees, etc.), and foreign policy problem (participation in global climate adaptation programs). I find the idea that we should curb industry in order to halt emissions non-serious because every 10% cut in US emissions is offset by roughly 6 months of Chinese industrial growth. Let alone Indian, Brazilian, etc.

And there is no good argument in favor of space program besides "voters like sci-fi".

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I don't mean to suggest that the format that's been followed is an entirely vapid exercise. It's just that it seems to consist of people listing positions and the occasional critical comment about one or two items from the list. I suppose that can be useful, but I've never seen much engagement in this thread. Which is unfortunate! Many of these posts (including yours) are obviously the product of consideration and possibly hours of effort. People would be better off posting their own "Issue Positions" threads, each provoking a separate set of discussions.

The problem is that not all of us are ideological people with "ideal governments". I don't view myself as ideological and I don't have an "ideal" government. I just have the government we have today, and I have things I think it does well, and from my studies in economics and history, as well as my experience in public service, I also have things I think should be run in slightly different ways. That's really it. If you gave me four years of absolute dictatorial power, I wouldn't fundamentally alter the way our government works. Maybe its policy on a few issues, but it'd be essentially the same government.