Edward Wright's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
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Edward Wright has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2014 Political Courage Test.
Iowa Congressional Election 2014 Political Courage Test
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending? | ||
| No | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| All Federal programs and agencies should be subject to "zero-base" budgeting, with each program, project, and agency funded based on well-defined successful outcomes, not merely intent. I would seek elimination of the Energy Dept. and the Education Dept. If either can demonstrate that a particular program currently pursued is successful, that program may transfer to a continuing appropriate department. | |||
| No | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| Every campaign finance restriction has, without exception, been an "incumbent protection act". | |||
| Yes | Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Exclusively those with insurmountable evidence that murder was intentional, heinous, unrepentant and repeated. No Other Capital punishment. | |||
| No | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support lowering taxes as a way of promoting growth in the economy? | ||
| No | Do you support providing tax incentives to businesses for the purpose of job creation? | ||
| Federal government should not manipulate the tax system to create winners and losers among businesses or industries. let markets work, less federal interference is better. Jobs will be created by those businesses whose products and services best serve their customers/consumers. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring states to implement education reforms in order to be eligible for competitive federal grants? | ||
| I would sponsor and support laws to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education- student success has consistently deteriorated throughout its existence. There should be no federal involvement in education. | |||
| No | Do you support building the Keystone XL pipeline? | ||
| Yes | Do you support reducing restrictions on offshore energy production? | ||
| Federal energy policy must be moved toward freeing those markets. There should be no bias from the federal government favoring one energy source over another. Free markets are best at allocating rescources. I would sponsor and support laws to eliminate the U.S. Dept. of Energy, whose failed policies have wasted valuable resources massively, tolerated/ caused immense pollution, and cost US citizens enormously more of their earnings. | |||
| No | Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change? | ||
| No | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| Climate science is far from "settled", however, we do know that there have been numerous hemispheric warming and cooling cycles before the industrial age of humans. Astronomers and geophysicists can serve up a litany of orbital, rotational, solar-flare & sun-spot variations of overlapping periodicity explaning quite a lot of earthly temperature cycles. Politicians, on the other hand, have a millennial history of fearmongering to grab power, often creating economic and social disadvantage for their political opponents, "we must satisfy the Volcano God..throw in my opponent's children!" | |||
| No | Do you support restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns? | ||
| We have a Right to our life, therefore a Right to defend that life by the most effective means. Our Constitution clearly protects that Right. | |||
| Yes | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act? | ||
| To achieve more effective and affordable health care services and products we must increase the number and competitiveness of service and product providers. the 2010 ACA is highly destructive of these processes! Reduce regulation and reduce monopoly among hospitals and insurers. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| Honestly identify and disclose what characteristics we want in immigrants, what we do not want and create realistic policy to achieve those objectives. Our current policy is badly disarrayed. Without substantial immigration, US population growth will likely stagnate, we need and want the right immigrants. Grant current illegals a path to legality, not full citizenship. Get our policy right ! | |||
| Yes | Do you support same-sex marriage? | ||
| Marriage in the US did not, usually, involve government or licensing until the racial and religious discriminations following our Civil War...Government, especially Federal government, has no appropriate role defining or regulating the kind of personal relationships consenting cognitive adults may or should engage in. Marriage is a religious, cultural, ethnic, familial, and personal issue..get the government out of this ! | |||
| No | Do you support targeting suspected terrorists outside of official theaters of conflict? | ||
| No | Should the U.S use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the United States from possessing a nuclear weapon? | ||
| Free trade with all nations,entangling alliances with none..Advice from our Founders we should seek to emulate. We have entanglements, militarily, with far too many other nations. We should bring most of or troops home and focus on Defense, not pushing around other nations. Demonstrating the benefits of Freedom will help our own citizens and set a great example to the world. | |||
| Yes | Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts? | ||
| We should allow all current and immediately soon retirees to continue something very very like their current plan. Trusting future politicians to "take care" of our Seniors retirement is a plan for problems, we must set a future date, after which all workforce newcomers will own and have full responsibility for their own retirement savings. As a transition, we should give those age 50+ an option to put up to half of their Social Security withholdings into private plans. those age 40-50 should be required to put a third with an option to put another third into private plans. | |||
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 Decrease | c) Defense | ||
| Eliminate | d) Education | ||
| Greatly Decrease | e) Environment | ||
| Slightly Decrease | f) Homeland Security | ||
| Greatly Decrease | g) International aid | ||
| Greatly Decrease | h) Medical Research | ||
| Greatly Decrease | i) Scientific Research | ||
| Greatly Decrease | j) Space exploration | ||
| Eliminate | k) United Nations | ||
| Slightly Decrease | l) Welfare | ||
| m) Other or expanded categories | |||
| Eliminate | a) Capital gains taxes | ||
| Greatly Decrease | b) Corporate taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | c) Excise taxes (alcohol) | ||
| Slightly Decrease | d) Excise taxes (cigarettes) | ||
| Slightly Decrease | e) Excise taxes (transportation fuel) | ||
| Maintain Status | f) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Greatly Decrease | g) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Slightly Decrease | h) Income taxes (high-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | i) Inheritance taxes | ||
| Slightly Decrease | j) Payroll taxes | ||
| I very much prefer elimination of taxes on income, shifting instead to taxes on consumption. This rewards savings and productivity. The "Fair Tax" including the proposed "prebate" of the tax on up to$50,000 of consumption together with a repeal of our 16th Amendment (authorizing the income tax). | |||
| I would be constantly alert to oppose any legislative effort to further reduce the freedom of Americans, bad ideas are best stopped early. I would sponsor and support legislation to eliminate the Department of Energy and The Department of Education..Energy and Education are both far too important to keep trapped in these destructive bureaucracies. I would sponsor and support laws to end the "War on Drugs". This unconstitutional massive boondoggle creates vastly more problems and bigger problems than it solves (mostly it solves nothing). We should have learned from the Alcohol prohibition-at least that mistake was correct constitutionally. |
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