Ross Shales' Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Ross Shales has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2024 Political Courage Test.
Louisiana Congressional Election 2024 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| No | Do you support the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade? | ||
| I believe life starts at conception. I believe women should have the right to abortions through about week 21 with a continued right to abortion after that period in cases where the mother's life is threatened or the fetus is not viable. | |||
| Yes | Do you support expanding federal funding to support social safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| No | Do you support a decrease in income taxes in order to balance the budget? | ||
| Yes | Do you support a wealth tax in order to pay for public programs? | ||
| All of these questions on taxes are rather simplistic. The question about expanded federal funding for supporting Social Security or Medicare, did you mean to keep the current status going? That would be one thing. If you mean to expand the programs for new candidates for new situations, that measure would involve strong scrutiny. Concerning decreasing income taxes to balance the budget, I'm not seeing the math. Concerning the wealth tax matter, there may be places where this step is valid. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations, unions, and individuals? | ||
| I am concerned that "Dark Money" is unfairly swaying our national debates. | |||
| No | Do you support protecting government officials, including law enforcement officers, from personal liability in civil lawsuits concerning alleged misconduct? | ||
| This matter is absolutely more complicated than the question. I can easily conceive of cases whereby I would support this step and those for which I wouldn't. What if an elections official is sued for some obvious falsehood? Wouldn't that case merit public support. What is that same person committed a gross impropriety? | |||
| No | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| I believe that if we want to balance our budget, we need to strategically be working hard to find a deep peace with Russia to allow ourselves the opportunity to begin cutting back our defense spending, which would, in turn, help us to balance the budget. I believe we have the opportunity to achieve this peace, now. | |||
| Yes | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth (e.g. grants, tax incentives)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal government increasing funding for affordable housing programs? | ||
| No | Do you support the federal government taking action, beyond those of the Federal Reserve, to alleviate inflation? | ||
| Strategically, there are areas of business and social/environmental circumstances where the federal government can best help the country or groups of our peoples. If there are sound reasons for these actions, I can find myself in a position to support federal financial support. Concerning inflation, it is clear that the American people simply can't stand inflation, even when there are sound reasons why it is occurring, such as the Covid payments to the public and increase inflationary pressures from tariffs. I generally support the actions of the Federal Reserve to bring down inflation. I don't know what other steps the government my take beyond those of the Federal Reserve. If the suggestion is price caps, I have found these actions to be gimicky and counter-business. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the forgiveness of federal student loan debt? | ||
| In certain cases I can support forgiveness of federal student loans. I would much more support extended work/volunteer opportunities, whereby graduates can work in areas of need, such as has been done in teaching and the military to gain loan forgiveness. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring a government-issued identification in order to vote at the polls? | ||
| I support this requirement as long as states do not create further onerous sub-requirements to gain the government-issued I.D.s. | |||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| Do you support the federal government allowing permits for drilling on public lands? | |||
| Yes, global warming is placing us in more peril, for our environment, our homes, our jobs, our ways of life and sometimes for our lives. We must take a responsibility for the part we play in global warming and the resulting challenges we are incurring in our world. We need to move to counter this warming is greener energies. The government can facilitate these efforts with financial emphasis. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support gun-control legislation (e.g. red flag laws, boyfriend loopholes)? | ||
| I really believe that we need to move to rewrite the Second Amendment. Otherwise, for the foreseeable future, I think our courts will create contradicting finds on countless gun questions that will result in a general paralysis on the entire matter. I suggest that we need to relook this matter from scratch, as our polling data shows that the majority of us support some key positions on this matter. Reworking the amendment would allow us to specifically address those common ground areas. | |||
| Yes | Do you support a government-run (e.g. single-payer) healthcare program, such as Medicare-for-All? | ||
| Yes | Do you support expanding paid family AND/OR medical leave benefits (e.g. maternity leave)? | ||
| Yes | Should the government be able to regulate the cost of prescription drugs? | ||
| For business purposes, to create a healthier workforce and a fairer playing field for big business, I think it's time we adopt a single-payer plan. We are the only first-world country to not have it, and the amount of money we are paying for healthcare is astronomical. These costs are exacerbated with our prescription drugs. Within reason, I would support regulations that bring our prices more in line with those of other countries. Concerning medical leaves, I could support limited expansion of this program, especially for the one person most caring for the infant. | |||
| Yes | Do you support increasing security along the southern US border? | ||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship, regardless of their immigration status? | ||
| I think that the President and key members of Congress should set up camp in Texas, with the governor's invitation and not leave the area until they have hammered out a program that addresses our immigration challenge. I'm serious. I am tired of the posturing, especially by my Republican Party. We need to admit that immigration, legal and illegal, is helping to grow our population, where as the populations of other key nations such as China, Russia, Japan and Europe are decreasing. Growing populations are a key means to grow an economy. Furthermore, our nation needs younger people paying into our tax systems. That being said, after developing a comprehensive a plan for immigration to citizenship, we would then need to ascertain how much security would be necessary on the Southern border. Keeping immigrants from crossing into our borders, no matter what, is a challenge, to include a cost challenge. Illegal immigrants repeatedly prove that they are able to avoid our restrictions and barriers. I could support a reasonable strategy for limiting illegal immigration. I do not support a blanket repatriating of all immigrants and would expect a comprehensive plan to have parceled out paths for immigrants of different circumstances. | |||
| Yes | Do you support economic intervention as a means of resolving international conflicts? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the US providing increased offensive military aid to Ukraine? | ||
| Concerning economic interventions, we had Saddam Hussein bottled up with embargos and a few fighter jets. We never needed to attack Iraq in the second war, what an absolute waste of lives and money. Concerning military aid to Ukraine, Russia's attack on Ukraine is our Czechoslovakia before World War II. I believe that had we not supported Ukraine, Russia could now be in Latvia, Estonia, Poland or other nations. Much as Reagan outspent the Russians to bring down the wall, I believe that Biden has worn out the Russians to the point that we can seek that deeper peace I am seeking with them. It is my belief that we can, with certain conditions, bring the Russians into NATO and gain a strategic peace in the West. Doing so would allow us to turn our resources more toward our people. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support increased regulations on social media companies (e.g. Tik Tok, Facebook, etc.)? | ||
| Yes, understanding that free speech is a key right for our nation, in areas of public safety I support focused, limited limitations and interventions to countermand gross disinformation. Concerning the U.S.' current stance against Tik Tok, I do not support our efforts to force the sale of the company, as I believe Tik Tok has taken proper steps to keep China separate from our citizens. | |||
| 1. Term Limits for Congress and the Supreme Court. On a bi-partisan level I believe the American people want term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court. When the founders of our nation drew up the Constitution, they likely were not anticipating office incumbents living so long they could affect more than one generation. I would propose a limit of 4 terms for U.S. Senators and 6 terms for Representatives. At the same time, I would seek to increase the congressional term periods from 2 years to 4 years, thereby moving that office out of the current situation where members of Congress are perpetually running for re-election. I would also seek to term limit Supreme Court justices to 25 years. On these issues, all existing members of Congress and Supreme Court Justices would be grandfathered out of these new term limits because, pragmatically, it would be much harder to get current members of Congress to support these measures if they were applied to themselves. There is a key reason why I consider this measure to be so important, I believe too many Americans think that they cannot affect government. I want our citizens to understand that they are the key to our nation?s success, and their voice is important. Coming together to create an amendment would go far in proving this fact to ourselves. 2. A set immigration program that leads to citizenship. 5. The largest challenges facing China, Russia and Japan are their declining populations. China is forecasted to lose more than half of its population by the end of the century. Japan has been losing people since 2008. Russia is slated to lose population, too, as is Europe despite many immigrants entering that continent. Capitalism generally performs best with a growing population, and the only reason the United States? population is slated to grow will be because of immigrants entering the country. We need an immigration program that seeks to create a viable border control plan while formalizing a process to include processing people, over time, into pathways for citizenship. Creating more citizens means creating more individuals, who are further invested in our nation, who are taxpayers, and who are contributing to our social security system. Right now, our governor is sending Louisiana National Guard troops to the Texas border to stop people from crossing the border. Meanwhile, Louisiana is the number two state in the country for population loss. We need a growing number of people who want to be Louisianians. We need entry-level employees. We need younger people coming in who may one day purchase our homes. |
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