Justin Smoak's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
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Justin Smoak has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2020 Political Courage Test.
Washington Congressional Election 2020 Political Courage Test
| Pro-life | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| While I am personally opposed to abortion I believe that Roe vs Wade is the law and a woman's bodily autonomy is important. I believe most Americans would like to see less abortions in our world. If abortion becanme illegal tonight, the demand would still exist tomorrow, which is the real problem. I want to see demand for abortion reduced via better access to contraceptives and support structures for mothers which should lead to less abortions. | |||
| No | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| No | Do you support expanding federal funding to support entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| These programs are inefficient and bloated. We need to make them more efficient before we consider expanding them. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| Special interest money is one of the leading reasons of why our government no longer represents the people anymore. | |||
| No | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| We need to be smart in how we spend on defense, recognizing what the wars of the future will look like and how and where they will be fought. The military procurement process is also very inefficient and could be streamlined to save money. | |||
| No | 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? | ||
| Businesses that were shut down due to government overreach and those impacted by border closings should be entitled to some compensation. Corporations that were poorly run and did not have sufficient resources to manage the shutdown should be looked at differently. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| Local communities should be the ones in charge of education | |||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| No | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| Government grants to promote innovation and R&D should certainly be applied to improving the efficiency and minimizing the impact of our energy sources. We do not need to add another federal bureaucracy and regulatory burden on our businesses. | |||
| No | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| The 2nd amendment is just as important as all the others. The ATF should be defunded. | |||
| Yes | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| No | Do you support requiring businesses to provide paid medical leave during public health crises, such as COVID-19? | ||
| The ACA is incomplete legislation that looks after insurance companies, lawyers and the other special interests that wrote it, and has done little to meaningfully improve the cost and quality of health care in the US. We should replace the employer mandate with a payroll tax that is refudned to all citizens into an HSA account which they can use to purchase their own health care. | |||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Big business and their bought and paid for politicians have allowed a situation of immigration lawlessness to go on for far too long. Forcing unlawfully present immigrants to leave the country after allowing them here for so long would not be a practical solution. Unlawful immigrants that have committed crimes should be immediately deported. There should be strict criminal and financial punishments for companies that employ unlawful workers or abuse H1-B visa workers. | |||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Any country that really wanted democracy has fought for it. The middle east does not want democracy and we should stop trying to force it on them. Continuing grow US poil and gas production and alternative energy will limit the influence of the middle east in world affairs. | |||
| No | Do you generally support removing barriers to international trade (for example: tariffs, quotas, etc.)? | ||
| Big business has used bad trade deals to harm American workers while increasing their profits. These practices have also made us dependent on countries like China who are bad actors on the international level. | |||
| Universal health care for all American children under the age of 18 funded through existing government spending and a payroll tax to capture existing children's health insurance spending by private companies Lower the cost of college in exchange for pushing the social security age back for those that benefit. Simplify the US tx code and increase rates on the highest earners to offset an increase in the minimum income required to pay taxes. |
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