Kathi Thomas' Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Kathi Thomas has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2018 Political Courage Test.
Texas Congressional Election 2018 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| We need to bring down the number of abortions, by teaching medically accurate, age appropriate sex-education, making contraceptives available and free. Unwanted pregnancies are the biggest reason for abortion, so let's help stop unwanted pregnancies. "Plan B" should be readily available, especially for rape victims. We need more research into birth defects, to help those with wanted pregnancies have healthy children. | |||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending? | ||
| When the top money folks got a 2% tax cut, the those lower down got a 1%, it exacerbated wealth inequality. Change it back. Large businesses should either have tax loopholes/subsidies removed, or should have their taxes raised. Small C corps with taxable incomes less than $50,000 got a tax hike form 15% to 21%. This is bad for small businesses, and needs to be reversed. On Defense- we buy weapons military doesn't want/need, because weapons are manufactured in many CDs. If the military doesn't need them, CUT them! Retool those factories to manufacture solar panels or wind turbines. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| We should know the names of every donor to every committee. Citizens United is an abomination, and has subverted our election process. It must be overturned. | |||
| Yes | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | Do you support lowering corporate taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Lowering corporate taxes doesn't necessarily put more money in the hands of workers, it usually puts more in the hands of shareholders. Corps have been reporting record profits for years, but they've not been moving that money to workers, just to shareholders, because dividends are how they're judged by Wall Street. Give larger tax cuts to those lower in the economic scale, and watch the economy grow. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| I don't know that we can do that Constitutionally, but we can incentivize them with election funds. | |||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, thermal)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| I support this because we've subsidized the fossil fuel industry for decades. It only seems fair (not to mention prudent) to move these subsidies/tax breaks to renewables. Even the military recognizes climate change as one of our greatest threats. I support regulation in the form of a Carbon Fee & Dividend, like proposed by the Climate Change Lobby. This way, the fossil fuel companies will eventually pay the full cost of creating pollution, and will be encouraged to move to renewables. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| gun safety: Our founders were very clear when they said wrote of "a well-regulated militia"- clearly, they never envisioned that we've had weapons of war capable of slaughtering hundreds of people in minutes. We can argue if they meant that only militias should have weapons or what, but weapons of war should never be in the hands of civilians as personal weapons. I grew up with a Daddy who hunted. We were taught that guns weren't toys, and that we weren't to touch them. Parents need to be more careful with guns, because too many children die from gun accidents. | |||
| No | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| It isn't the best we could have, but it was the best we could get at the time. We need to protect it for now, but move to Medicare-for-all opt in as I explained elsewhere in this questionnaire. | |||
| No | Do you support the construction of a wall along the Mexican border? | ||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| A wall will enrich only the smugglers and possibly some government officials on our side who are unethical. People have come here for basically 2 reasons: 1. They want to work, and know there are jobs here than Americans won't do, or 2. They're fleeing extreme violence, in which we had a hand in creating, through our support of murderous dictators in the past, and our antiquated drug laws now. I believe since we had a hand in creating the problems, we have a responsibility to help them now. With legalization or worker's permits, they should be treated more fairly. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes? | ||
| Cannabis is not nearly as bad for the body as alcohol. I believe we should legalize recreational drugs, then regulate and tax them as we do alcohol. That way, with the tax revenue, we'll have more money for drug rehab beds for those who want/need them, and tax dollars for education and other much needed areas. | |||
| No | Should the United States use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the U.S. from possessing a nuclear weapon? | ||
| No | Do you support increased American intervention in Middle Eastern conflicts beyond air support? | ||
| This is tough one, and I know you're taking mostly about North Korea. The problem there is that they've got one, and if we go in, millions in South Korea, and possibly Japan are likely to die, and the nuclear fallout will hurt China, too. We need to look at the big picture here and understand all the dynamics. Blow-hard tweeting accomplishes nothing other than making the world more dangerous. Middle East, we're seen more as invaders, and that feeds into the extremists' propaganda. We shouldn't put our troops on the ground, and those who're there should be brought home. | |||
| 1. Protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Raise the salary cap to $250,000 to bring in additional funds. Allow options buy-in, starting at 55, then dropping age every year or two til all can opt to buy in. 2. Comprehensive Immigration Reform and NO WALL! No wall immediately saves at lest $18 billion. CIR will require a fee to apply for legal status, something similar to DACA, so should be revenue neutral. 3. Moving tax cuts and subsidies from fossil fuels to renewables, should be revenue neutral. |
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