Dave Lay's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Missouri Congressional Election 2010 Political Courage Test
| Pro-life | a) Do you consider yourself pro-choice or pro-life? | ||
| No | b) Should abortion be legal only within the first trimester of pregnancy? | ||
| No | c) Should abortion be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape? | ||
| No | d) Should abortion be legal when the life of the woman is endangered? | ||
| Yes | e) Should federal subsidies be prohibited from being used for abortion procedures? | ||
| I believe abortion to be the murder of God's defenseless, innocent creation. As far as true immediate, endangerment of a mother's life, doctors have always practiced triage, which is neither abortion or murder, but a necessary choice in life saving treatment. There is no need for any abortion language to cover such an exigency. | |||
1) SpendingIndicate what federal funding levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category- you can use a number more than once.2) TaxesIndicate what federal tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category- you can use a number more than once.
| Eliminate | a) Agriculture | ||
| Eliminate | b) Arts | ||
| Maintain Status | c) Defense | ||
| Maintain Status | 1) Intelligence operations | ||
| Maintain Status | 2) Military hardware | ||
| Slightly Increase | 3) National missile defense | ||
| Maintain Status | 4) Salary and benefits for active duty personnel | ||
| Maintain Status | 5) Programs to improve troop retention rates | ||
| Maintain Status | 6) Research and development of new weapons | ||
| Eliminate | d) Education | ||
| Eliminate | e) Environment | ||
| Eliminate | f) Homeland security | ||
| Eliminate | g) International aid | ||
| Eliminate | h) Medical research | ||
| Eliminate | i) Scientific research | ||
| Greatly Decrease | j) Space exploration | ||
| Eliminate | k) United Nations | ||
| Eliminate | l) Welfare | ||
| Maintain Status | a) Alcohol taxes | ||
| Eliminate | b) Capital gains taxes | ||
| Maintain Status | c) Cigarette taxes | ||
| Greatly Decrease | d) Corporate taxes | ||
| Maintain Status | e) Gasoline taxes | ||
| Eliminate | f) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | g) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | h) Income taxes (high-income families) | ||
| Yes | 3) Do you support the elimination of the federal estate tax? | ||
| Yes | 4) Do you support requiring the federal budget to be balanced each year? | ||
| No | 5) Do you support using government funds in an effort to stimulate and improve the economy? | ||
| All of the programs I have indicated the need to eliminate, are those for which there is no legitimate function under the Constitution. The commerce clause of Article 1 Section 8 has been greatly misinterpreted and abused for the sole purpose of power. The Constitution was designed to protect the rights of American citizens, not to enhance the power of our elected representatives. | |||
| A reading of the Constitution makes it clear that the federal government was to receive its taxes from excise, tariffs and directly from the states. It was never intended for the federal government to directly tax individuals in any fashion. The taxes I indicated be left in place are excise taxes and while the levels may be debated, they are legal. As to income taxes my party and myself personally stand for a repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment. This would end the practice of buying rather than earning votes, and would give the true government, the people adequate funding. | |||
| Economic stimulation can occur only with investment and growth. Wealth redistribution is simply the shuffling around of funds which can produce nothing. In addition it is time for us to remember that there is no such thing as government funds in any true economic sense. Those are the people's funds taken from them under duress and misspent by those who have no problem throwing around money that belongs to others. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support privatizing elements of Social Security? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support reducing government regulations on the private sector? | ||
| No | c) Do you support increasing the federal minimum wage? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support the ability of workers to unionize? | ||
| No | e) Do you support federal funding for job-training programs that retrain displaced workers? | ||
| I support moving current Social Security obligations out of the hands of unscrupulous elected and appointed officials and at some point ending it entirely. It was unconstitutional to begin with and its failure at the hands of government demonstrates effectively, why we don't want such programs. Having forcibly taken money from the citizenry the government has an obligation to fulfill its debt to those it took the money from. We need to pick a certain age and say after this point there will be no Social Security, but neither will you have 15% of your income taken weekly. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support increasing the amount individuals are permitted to contribute to federal campaigns? | ||
| No | b) Should Congress regulate indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support removing all contribution limits on federal campaigns? | ||
| No | d) Should candidates for federal office be encouraged to meet voluntary spending limits? | ||
| No | e) Do you support giving the President the power of the line item veto for items concerning appropriations? | ||
| Yes | f) Do you support limiting the President's ability to define how legislation is applied through the use of signing statements? | ||
| As for campaign contributions, they are part of the freedom of speech as applied to the political arena, as such there is no constitutional basis for limiting them. Under Article 2 Section 2 which defines the powers of the President, there is nothing giving the power of Executive orders, or defining legislation, that is a violation of the separation of powers. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support programs that provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related training and job-placement assistance when released? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support programs that provide prison inmates with substance abuse treatment? | ||
| No | d) Do you support reduced prison sentences for non-violent offenders? | ||
| No | e) Do you support mandatory prison sentences for selling illegal drugs? | ||
| I support job training for inmates, so long as we eliminate the weight lifting, cable TV, etc. that has no pertinent part in either punishment or rehabilitation. The same for substance abuse. While I am unhappy with the decisions made by many judges, taking away their discretion from the bench is not the answer, appointing better judges is. | |||
| No | a) Do you support federal education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students? | ||
| No | b) Do you support federal funding for universal pre-K programs? | ||
| No | c) Do you support federal funding for charter schools? | ||
| No | d) Do you support federal funding for K-12 school vouchers? | ||
| No | e) Do you support the federal government providing college students with financial aid? | ||
| Education should be solely administered at the State level. The only thing the federal government brings to the table concerning education is a completely unnecessary level of bureaucracy that wastes funding on federal programs and employees that would better serve the students by staying in the states to begin with. | |||
| No | a) Do you support enacting environmental regulations aimed at reducing the effects of climate change? | ||
| No | b) Do you support international emissions targets aimed at reducing the effects of climate change? | ||
| No | c) Do you support allowing energy producers to trade carbon credits under a "cap and trade" system? | ||
| No | d) Do you support strengthening fuel efficiency standards on all gasoline and diesel-powered engines, including cars, trucks, and sport utility vehicles? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support domestic oil exploration in federally-protected areas? | ||
| No | f) Do you support federal funding for the development of alternative energy? | ||
| Yes | g) Do you support the development of nuclear reactors? | ||
| First off the climate change theory is as questionable as it was in the seventies when the same science predicted a man made Ice Age. Many of the same players are now predicting dire heat problems again man made. What I want is for the federal government to get out of private industry. If they had not stymied research into hydrogen, at the behest of the oil industry, we would be energy independent by burning hydrogen in all of our transportation. It is the only fuel we can produce 100% domestically and it burns 100% clean. | |||
| No | a) Do you support restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you believe that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of individual citizens to own guns? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support allowing individuals to carry concealed guns? | ||
| No | d) Do you support a ban on assault rifles? | ||
| The words the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, are self explanatory. | |||
| No | a) Do you support a publicly-administered health insurance option? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support expanding access to health care through commercial health insurance reform? | ||
| No | c) Should the federal government expand eligibility for tax-free medical savings accounts? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support monetary limits on damages that can be collected in malpractice lawsuits? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support relaxing regulations on the importation of prescription drugs? | ||
| Once again the federal government has no constitutional authority in this area. | |||
| No | a) Do you support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants? | ||
| No | b) Do you support decreasing the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support establishing English as the official national language? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support the enforcement of federal immigration laws by state and local police? | ||
| The federal government does not tell state and local police they can't enforce federal drug, arms, or smuggling laws. In fact once the laws have been written it is the duty of police at all levels to enforce the law. There can be no pathway to citizenship except that provided already. A person must enter this country with a legal visa and meet all other requirements for citizenship. | |||
| No | a) Do you support United States military action in Afghanistan? | ||
| No | b) Do you support increasing military assistance for Afghanistan? | ||
| No | c) Do you support increasing economic development assistance for Afghanistan? | ||
| No | d) Should the United States continue to strike suspected terrorist targets in Pakistan? | ||
| No | e) Do you support granting aid to countries when it is in the security interests of the United States? | ||
| No | f) Should the United States support the creation of a Palestinian state? | ||
| Yes | g) Do you support increasing sanctions on Iran if it continues to defy United Nations mandates? | ||
| Yes | h) Do you support the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq? | ||
| No | i) Do you support the United States' involvement in free trade agreements? | ||
| I don't believe American troops should ever be in combat without a formal declaration of war from Congress. Having been in the Navy during the debacle of Viet Nam I know what can happen to the troops when Congress fails in its duty to make such a declaration. Since free trade is an oxymoron, and since we must rely on other nations to play fair, the agreements we enter into wind up binding only the U.S. | |||
| Yes | a) Should marriage only be between one man and one woman? | ||
| No | b) Do you support allowing openly-gay men and women to serve in the United States military? | ||
| No | c) Do you support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research? | ||
| Yes | d) Should the federal government end affirmative action programs? | ||
| e) Other or expanded principles | |||
| It is absolutely imperative that we pass legislation prohibiting the introduction of riders to bills when such riders have nothing to do with the bill itself. We must end the practice of our elected representatives exempting themselves from the laws they enact. We must make our representatives remember that they work for the people, and that honor and integrity are necessary to true representation. |
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