Robert Shapiro's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Massachusetts 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? | ||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Abortion should be legal only if the woman's life is in danger, and even here, procedures which keep the baby alive should be the first choice. | |||
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 | ||
| Slightly Decrease | c) Defense | ||
| Maintain Status | 1) Intelligence operations | ||
| Maintain Status | 2) Military hardware | ||
| Maintain Status | 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 | ||
| Greatly Decrease | f) Homeland security | ||
| Eliminate | g) International aid | ||
| Eliminate | h) Medical research | ||
| Eliminate | i) Scientific research | ||
| Eliminate | j) Space exploration | ||
| Greatly Decrease | k) United Nations | ||
| Eliminate | l) Welfare | ||
| Eliminate | a) Alcohol taxes | ||
| Eliminate | b) Capital gains taxes | ||
| Eliminate | c) Cigarette taxes | ||
| Eliminate | d) Corporate taxes | ||
| Eliminate | e) Gasoline taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | f) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Greatly Decrease | g) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Greatly Decrease | 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? | ||
| If it's not in the US Constitution, the federal government shouldn't be doing it. | |||
| The tax burden shouldn't be hidden by the multiplicity of taxes, and should be shared more evenly by everyone. Everyone should have a reason to support lowering taxes. | |||
| The budget should be in surplus until the national debt is paid off, and then it should be in balance. | |||
| 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? | ||
| People have a right to form unions, but federal rules giving coercive powers to unions should be removed, so that workers and employers may bargain on an even footing. | |||
| 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? | ||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Unless a law is Unconstitutional, the President should enforce the law. | |||
| 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? | ||
| f) Other or expanded principles | |||
| 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 is not enumerated in the Constitution as being allowable for the federal government to control. | |||
| 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? | ||
| From my studies, I find Anthropogenic Global Warming to be a political fraud. I see temperature records too imprecise or biased by UHI to use, misconduct in "adjusting" the raw data to look "better," the bright lights (Mann, Briffa, Jones, Gore, Stieg, Hansen, Pacchauri, IPCC, etc) effectively lying in their analyses, vilification of dissenters from the AGW religion, a shortterm CO2/temperature record that shows temperature first followed by CO2, a longterm record showing no relationship between CO2 and temperature, AGW ignoring of natural processes, and models masquerading as fact. | |||
| 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? | ||
| e) Other or expanded principles | |||
| No | a) Do you support a publicly-administered health insurance option? | ||
| No | b) Do you support expanding access to health care through commercial health insurance reform? | ||
| Yes | c) Should the federal government expand eligibility for tax-free medical savings accounts? | ||
| No | 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? | ||
| Tort reform can be good, but it can't just restrict awards; some injured people really deserve big awards. I don't know the answer here. Healthcare is not mentioned in the US Constitution, so the government should exit this area (except for general laws against fraud, etc). | |||
| 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? | ||
| I'm against blanket amnesty, however deportation is only one possible penalty. There may be a small percentage of illegals for whom fines or jail time may be a better choice (followed by going to the end of the line for citizenship). I don't know what the right level of legal immigration should be, but I would exclude people from groups that hate the US or who can't accept the US Constitution as the highest law of the land. | |||
| 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? | ||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| No | 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? | ||
| Yes | i) Do you support the United States' involvement in free trade agreements? | ||
| The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan look more and more like Vietnam: in 9th year, unreliable governments, can't tell friend from foe, almost daily terrorist type attacks killing our troops, foreign sanctuaries for our enemies, and no end in sight. What we're doing isn't working, so we need to regroup and decide how to respond to the Jihadist threat, rather than fight wars that Osama bin Laden "invited" us into on 9/11. | |||
| No | a) Should marriage only be between one man and one woman? | ||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Gays are Americans and should have all the rights and responsibilities that Americans have. I oppose any kind of affirmative action, whether for gays, women, minorities, or other groups. | |||
| Federal spending is threatening our country by crowding out the private productive economy (higher unemployment), by leveraging up our national debt to banana republic levels, and by "justifying" money printing by the FED. High inflation is coming, and the only question for me is if it will go into hyperinflation. My legislative initiatives: Balanced Budget Amendment, Amendment setting a dollar limit on spending, limit on Congressional Bills to no more than 100 pages, requirement for Congressmen to certify they have read a Bill before a yes vote, a Constitution Committee to detail where every Bill is authorized in the Constitution. |
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