Kennita Watson's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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This candidate has responded to a Political Courage Test in a previous election. As a continued effort to provide the American public with factual information on candidates running for public office, these archived responses are made available here.
California Congressional Election 2018 Political Courage Test
| No | 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? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| I object to obfuscation of intentions. If there is to be a contribution, it should be a direct one whose source is identified. | |||
| 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? | ||
| I am ambivalent on this. I promote lowering taxes in general. but give priority to lowering personal taxes, and I do not consider corporations persons. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| There may be some minimum, but adopting federal standards may require some states to lower their standards. The Constitution supports states' rights. States can vote on their priorities. Higher standards may be a reason to live in one state or another. | |||
| No | 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? | ||
| Having the government support particular technologies distorts the market, and may actually stifle technologies that haven't jumped through whatever bureaucratic hoops have been set up. Greenhouse gases affect the entire planet, so they are one case in which an overarching rulle appears to be appropriate. | |||
| No | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| The legislation that is proposed is often knee-jerk response to the latest headline, and doesn't get at the root of the problem. Also, the aim too often seems to be to disarm the people, which is part of what we fought the American Revolution over and have a Second Amendment for. | |||
| Yes | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| It may need amending rather than repealing. It's not fair to make some people pay for others' health care, but it is heartless to leave the poor with none at all. However, federal government program is unlikely to be the best way to provide it. | |||
| 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 won't keep determined people out (they can go over, under, around, or through, as well as bribing, forging, or sweet-talking their way in, among other methods I haven't thought of), and is mostly a make-work program for immigration officials that deprives the US of workers willing to do work we don't want to do for wages we don't want to accept. If people are unlawfully present, make them lawfully present rather than sending them back. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes? | ||
| Marijuana should be legal for any peaceful purppse. | |||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Preventing hostile governments from possessing nuclear weapons can be considered self-defense. The difficulties arise in matters like propaganda-based definitions of terms like "hostile". Countries in the Middle East should be left to their own conflicts. We should be clear with allies that they are largely on their own if they start a fight. | |||
| Some of my top priorities would be to reduce administrative and regulatory burdens on organizatiobns, to simplify and reduce tax burdens, especially on individuals, and to simplify laws to make it more difficult to hide favoritism. Also, reduce the number of things that are under federal government control. Reducing the number of favors that government has to give out would reduce the incentive to play the system to take advantage of them. |
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