Gregory Thorne's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
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Gregory Thorne has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2022 Political Courage Test.
Texas Congressional Election 2022 Political Courage Test
| Pro-life | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| I believe life begins at conception and that we should protect the unborn in all circumstances. | |||
| 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? | ||
| I will never increase taxes without a balanced budget amendment, but a balanced budget (including ensuring the solvency of social programs) could entail a tax increase. I would advocate for the smallest federal government and the lowest tax rates possible with a balanced budget. If there is no balanced budget, then I would advocate for tax decreases, since the government is not being responsible with our tax dollars - it is an immoral Ponzi Scheme at this point. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| I believe there should be consistency between money donated directly to candidates from individuals and money donated indirectly to PACs. The more money in politics there is, the larger appearance of favoring corporate/union interest over the individual citizens. Even if there is no corruption it gives the appearance of corruption in politicians. There should be reasonable limits on the amount of donations a PAC can receive from 3rd parties. Anyone can put an unlimited amount of their own money in their own PAC. Donors should not be required to be disclosed. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the protection of government officials, including law enforcement officers, from personal liability in civil lawsuits concerning alleged misconduct? | ||
| There are extreme circumstances when this protection should be waived, but this is a crucial protection for our law enforcement officers. | |||
| Yes | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| Defense spending is extremely important, but we cannot continually increase spending and the debt without risking economic collapse and failure. I believe we need a balanced budget amendment, and that may require cuts in defense spending to achieve (along with spending cuts in all phases of government) or increases in revenue. | |||
| No | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Government needs a balanced budget, we cannot tax and deficit spend our way into prosperity. Lowering taxes helps spur economic growth and investment. Without a balanced budget I would advocate for lowering all taxes and fees - our government is not responsible with our money as is. If there is a balanced budget, then taxes may need to be increased to fully fund our social programs, defense, and other priorities. The government response caused the majority of the harm associated with COVID, so they are responsible for mitigating the harm they caused. A different initial response would have been better. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| The federal government shouldn't be involved in these standards - state taxes pay for the majority of the education costs and so they should retain authority. In addition, states are more responsive to the citizens and can better set the standards they want their communities to have. Federal intervention like with Common Core did not result in any increase in our student's scores when compared to the rest of the world. | |||
| No | 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? | ||
| We need a balanced budget and so that needs to be a constraint on our funding. In addition, I believe that we need to prioritize nuclear over typical green projects like solar, wind, etc. Some federal regulation is needed, but we need to ensure that the regulations are passed by Congress and not unelected agencies like the EPA, and that they do not harm our standard of living. | |||
| 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? | ||
| I believe that Obamacare is too invasive and has been one of the reasons that medical costs are continuing to skyrocket. Not all businesses can afford to pay the costs of medical leave during the pandemic; the government should just ensure that these employees are not fired for taking a medical leave. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the construction of a wall along the Mexican border? | ||
| Yes | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| We need to deter illegal immigration and both of these policies do that. | |||
| 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 are not the world police and until we are directly threatened we should not sacrifice our soldiers. Plenty of rival nations have WMDs and they haven't targeted us, so we shouldn't be scared of new hostile governments having them. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support removing barriers to international trade (for example: tariffs, quotas, etc.)? | ||
| There are good trade agreements that do not harm the US and we should pursue those; however we need to be more aggressive towards globalism and China in general. Too often we are sacrificing our citizens and our jobs to move production overseas to China, who is our biggest geo-political rival. The cheap materials and labor come at too high of a cost - genocide, human rights abuses, environmental destruction, the control of our supply chain, the theft of our IP, rising suicides and an opioid epidemic in our hollowed out communities are just some of the costs. | |||
| My main priorities are a balanced budget amendment, ensuring the solvency of our social programs, an embargo on China, and prioritizing the individual liberty of our citizens. The government is increasing in size and scope each year so basic restraints like a balanced budget amendment and requiring new agency rules with a broad legislative scope to be voted on by Congress (Vaccine mandates, eviction moratoriums, EPA regulations, etc). Lastly, we cannot sacrifice our soldiers without a declaration of war from Congress, and we are not the world police - we have too many domestic issues to focus on. |
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