Tom Horne's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
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Tom Horne has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2016 Political Courage Test.
Washington Congressional Election 2016 Political Courage Test
| No | In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending? | ||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| 47% pay no income taxes. Tax everyone at least a little bit so everyone has skin in the game. We must raise revenue to pay for all the stuff we expect, rather than pass the costs on to our children and grandchildren. To get this new revenue we need economic growth and rising wages rather than minimal growth and stagnant wages. To get economic growth we should lower business taxes, remove loopholes and reduce regulations. That would be the ideas driving me on the economic front. | |||
| No | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| I believe that the Citizens United decision was properly decided. Prior to Citizens United, unions and non-media corporations were restricted on what they could say 30 days prior to an election, while Media Corporations could say anything they wanted, any time they wanted. Citizens United brought back fairness of access to media, sort of. At least you could buy time to make your point any time you wanted. Too much money in politics is a problem that cannot be fixed without restricting our rights. The best that can be done is full disclosure of donors. | |||
| Yes | Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | Do you support alternatives to incarceration for certain non-violent offenders such as mandatory counseling or substance abuse treatment? | ||
| No | Do you support mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders? | ||
| Yes | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support lowering taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support providing tax incentives to businesses for the purpose of job creation? | ||
| These things could be seen as not consistent with wanting to reduce government and cut taxes. The key here is economic growth. I support any proven scheme to promote economic growth. All of these schemes, when properly applied, have promoted economic growth. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring states to implement education reforms in order to be eligible for competitive federal grants? | ||
| I am for elimination of 95% of the department of education. The remaining 5% would be a bunch of people evaluating performance of states and apportioning money to the high performers, with the idea that the low performers would take action to catch up. This Department of Education skeleton would provide incentives based on performance, not directives. | |||
| Yes | Do you support building the Keystone XL pipeline? | ||
| No | Do you support funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, thermal)? | ||
| No | Do you support increased regulations on the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") industry? | ||
| There is no method to store electricity on a utility scale other than the few places suitable for pumped hydro storage. Since you can't store electricity on the required scale, intermittent generators like wind and solar must be 100% backed up by hydro or fossil fuel plants in hot running back up mode. For fossil fuel plants this is not the most efficient mode of operation so fuel energy is being wasted. Wind and solar generation would not exist but for subsidies and mandates - obvious evidence that they are not economic. | |||
| Yes | Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change? | ||
| No | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| I think human activity is contributing to warming the earth a little, but I am not too worried about it. Black roofs, pavement, irrigation and our contribution to CO2 increase all act to warm the earth a little. But remember, we are coming out of a 500 year period called THE LITTLE ICE AGE. There were warm periods before that and there will be cold periods after our era. Any reduction in CO2 emissions in the US is more than offset by the vastly increasing CO2 production in China and India. | |||
| No | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| The Assult weapons ban of 1994 to 2004 was stupid feel good legislation, an insult. If you weren't a gun nut you would not have noticed. The definition of an assault weapon was stupid. A semi auto with a quick change magazine and two or more of these four features 1. Pistol Grip 2. Collapsible stock 3. Flash Hider 4. Bayonet lug. Eliminating three of these features was no problem and had no effect on the utility or function of the weapon. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| I support enforcing existing immigration law to the letter, deporting millions. These laws have been ignored for over 20 years. That is not an accident, it is a dishonest policy of both parties. Our labor markets are flooded with millions of desperate illegals and now about a million "high tech" workers on H1B visas who are effectively indentured to the employer who sponsored their visa. The net result is to hold down wages for the benefit of big donors for both parties and to provide an incubator for future Democrat voters. | |||
| No | Do you support same-sex marriage? | ||
| What consenting adults do in private is none of my business. I don't like gay marriage but I am not worried about this aspect of the gay issue. What I am concerned about is persecution of organizations like the Boy Scouts for "discriminating" against gays for not letting them be scout leaders. Homosexual men should not be Boy Scout leaders for they same reason straight men should not be Girl Scout leaders. It is not wise to put people in positions of trust over children who may have a sexual attraction to those children. Catholic Priests prove the point. | |||
| Yes | Do you support targeting suspected terrorists outside of official theaters of conflict? | ||
| Yes | Should the U.S use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the United States from possessing a nuclear weapon? | ||
| When we intervene in another country we are making war on them. We must succeed. It takes a commitment of a generation of effort. Obama abandoning Iraq set up ISIS and the refugee crisis we see now. The successful model to look at is Germany and Japan after WW2, we are still there. Anything short of that commitment is a waste of our young. The irresolute, too little, too late Obama interventions in Lybia, Syria and now back in Iraq are exactly what we should not do. We must prevent Iran and North Korea from having deliverable nukes. | |||
| No | Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts? | ||
| I am for a gradual transition to personal retirement accounts, ONLY AFTER THE STOCK MARKET HAS BEEN REFORMED. The Stock market is the only "store of value" large enough and liquid enough to be used for our retirement funds, but it is being run like a casino. Program trading, where algorithms trade stocks by the millions of shares automatically holding the shares for minutes. Trading derivatives and other poorly understood financial engineering products enriches a few and put many at risk they don't know about. The way to fix this is to put Congress's retirement funds in the market. | |||
SpendingIndicate what federal spending levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category; you can use a number more than once.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.
| Slightly Decrease | a) Agriculture | ||
| Greatly Decrease | b) Arts | ||
| Slightly Increase | c) Defense | ||
| Slightly Decrease | d) Education | ||
| Greatly Decrease | e) Environment | ||
| Maintain Status | f) Homeland Security | ||
| Greatly Decrease | g) International aid | ||
| Slightly Increase | h) Medical Research | ||
| Slightly Increase | i) Scientific Research | ||
| Greatly Decrease | j) Space exploration | ||
| Eliminate | k) United Nations | ||
| Greatly Decrease | l) Welfare | ||
| m) Other or expanded categories | |||
| Slightly Decrease | a) Capital gains taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | b) Corporate taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | c) Small business taxes | ||
| Maintain Status | d) Excise taxes (alcohol) | ||
| Maintain Status | e) Excise taxes (cigarettes) | ||
| Slightly Decrease | f) Excise taxes (transportation fuel) | ||
| Slightly Increase | g) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Slightly Decrease | h) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Slightly Decrease | i) Income taxes (high-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | j) Inheritance taxes | ||
| Maintain Status | k) Payroll taxes | ||
| l) Other or expanded categories | |||
| Nuclear proliferation. We must stop Iran and North Korea from getting Nukes and the ICBMs to deliver them. They hate us and are not reliably deterable. Regime change by internal upheaval is my first choice, second would be sanctions, third would be direct attack on the facilities and the leadership, going to war. Immigration. We must enforce our immigration laws. We need interior enforcement, deporting millions of illegals. That will convince people that we are serious about this problem. We need to turn off the magnet of jobs and social support for illegals. |
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