Lauren Ashcraft's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
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Lauren Ashcraft has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2020 Political Courage Test.
New York Congressional Election 2020 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| I am pro-choice. I believe in bodily autonomy for all individuals. As it relates to abortion, I believe it should be made safe and accessible to all who need. I also support comprehensive sexual and reproductive education in public schools and the decriminalization of sex work which I believe infringes on the bodily autonomy of individuals of all genders and especially members of the LGBTQIA+ community. | |||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| Yes | Do you support expanding federal funding to support entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| Balancing the budget is a false premise. The federal budget is a list of our representatives? priorities and a balanced budget does not make macroeconomic sense for a monetarily sovereign nation like ours. We can pay for everything we need and deserve including M4A, cancelling student debt, a Green New Deal and a Homes Guarantee while we have fiscal space and are not at full capacity through Congressional appropriations. Nevertheless we should raise taxes on billionaires and large corporations because it's the right thing to do. We should also cut our military budget and end corporate handouts. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| Social Security and Medicare are critical and deeply popular programs to our nation's well being that have been under constant attack on both sides of the aisle. Rather than concede to the pressure of budget hawks, we need to insist on the funding and expansion of such programs to improve the lives of working families. | |||
| No | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| No, in fact, I believe we should reduce defense spending. I am a pro-peace and anti-war candidate and will only approve military interventions staged in defense of Americans or American allies under attack. | |||
| 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? | ||
| Yes | Do you support providing financial relief to businesses AND/OR corporations negatively impacted by the state of national emergency for COVID-19? | ||
| Small businesses should be granted pandemic relief on the condition that no workers are laid off and no paychecks are cut or lost. Bigger corporations should receive neither financial relief nor tax benefits. Trickle down economics does not work. Instead, dollars should be allocated to hazard pay for essential workers, unemployment benefits, and regular stimulus checks to every single person in this country. More broadly, to support fair and equitable economic growth, the federal government must invest in public services like education, healthcare, and public infrastructure in frontline communities and elsewhere to give every individual a fighting chance to succeed. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| I believe that public schools alone should receive public funding. There should be no tax incentives or government assistance provided for families who send their children to private schools, including charter schools. What's more, to support fairness and equity in our public schools, educational funding should be allocated on the basis of head count versus test performance or zip code. Well balanced breakfasts and lunches should be provided free of charge on a year round basis and student lunch debt should be eliminated for good. | |||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| I support a Green New Deal to improve upon or replace aging public infrastructure, provide secure and equitable jobs to working people and support a just transition to a carbon-neutral economy. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| I support universal background checks for all gun and ammunition sales regardless of model or venue. Assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks should be banned as these weapons are designed for war, not recreation. | |||
| No | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| Yes | Do you support requiring businesses to provide paid medical leave during public health crises, such as COVID-19? | ||
| I am a champion for Single Payer Medicare for All because it takes the profit out of public healthcare and ensures that all people, regardless of employment status, can access the care they need. It also includes provisions for free vision, dental, hearing, and mental healthcare as well as prescription drug coverage on life saving medication including coronavirus and flu vaccines and PrEP to eradicate HIV/AIDS in the United States. | |||
| 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? | ||
| If elected, I would commit to defunding and abolishing ICE, create a fair and equitable pathway to citizenship for all hardworking immigrants, endorse and expand upon the DREAM Act, to keep immigrant families together and grant citizenship to thousands of productive and patriotic individuals and set into motion comprehensive immigration reform to ensure that no immigrant is treated like a criminal. | |||
| No | Should the United States use military force to prevent governments hostile to the U.S. from possessing a weapon of mass destruction (for example: nuclear, biological, chemical)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support reducing military intervention in Middle East conflicts? | ||
| We should work to prevent any government from creating such weapons and work to denuclearize the globe. | |||
| No | Do you generally support removing barriers to international trade (for example: tariffs, quotas, etc.)? | ||
| Affordable Housing: I will continue to champion the Homes Guarantee to ensure that everyone in my district has safe, accessible, and affordable housing, and the Green New Deal for Public Housing, to ensure its carbon neutrality. Climate action: I support a Green New Deal to support a just transition to renewable energy, end government subsidies to factory farms; expand and upgrade public transportation and ban single-use plastics. Medicare for All: There are 23K uninsured people in NY-12. Under a Single Payer Medicare for All plan, our government will save billions in administrative costs, and millions of lives in the process. |
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