Erwin Haas' Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Erwin Haas has failed to provide voters with positions on key issues covered by the 2018 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart and voters like you.
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.
Michigan Congressional Election 2016 Political Courage Test
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending? | ||
| No | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| I would work to eliminate the IRS, work for a "Fair Tax" which is a national sales tax. It would force the wealthy to pay taxes, tax imports so that foreign manufacturers pay their fair share, and allow people to know how much their government costs them. | |||
| No | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| There may not enough money in political campaigns. Incumbents get funding from the powers that they can reward and, fossilized, stay forever. Challengers have trouble collecting money to research and publicize the corruption. Anonymous contributions must continue. Incumbents can use their power to destroy their critics, so silencing dissent. The Federalist, Antifederalist, Paine�s Common Sense were all anonymous so protecting the authors from ruin. | |||
| No | Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | Do you support alternatives to incarceration for certain non-violent offenders such as mandatory counseling or substance abuse treatment? | ||
| No | Do you support mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders? | ||
| No | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support lowering taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | Do you support providing tax incentives to businesses for the purpose of job creation? | ||
| The Great Leap Forward in China didn't work either; why would our government function any more effectively? | |||
| No | Do you generally support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought. Von mises And the more we have "federal education standards," the fewer new and creative ideas we will likely generate. | |||
| Yes | Do you support building the Keystone XL pipeline? | ||
| No | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, thermal)? | ||
| No | Do you support increased regulations on the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") industry? | ||
| No | Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change? | ||
| No | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| It was military and political "scientists" who sent me and 3 million other young men to Vietnam, not a smart thing to do. And it's climate "scientists" who are paid to peddle this global warming scam. There are two satellites in polar orbit that have measured global temperatures since 1979; there has been no warming in 18 years now. (One of our sons is an engineer who works around this more credible science.) | |||
| No | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| The unspoken "existential phenomenology" in the USA is that we'll let and foreigners whine and fantasize about how they'll take away 300 million small arms. The truth on the ground is that US politicians are terrified of the civil unrest that such a foolish move would unleash. Gun control measures will continue to be head trips for the gullible. Arms in the hands of the people leads to occasional tragedies. An unarmed people suffered WWI, WWII, the unpleasantnesses of the Cultural Revolution and the killing fields, poor unarmed individuals led the slaughter, helplessly, by armed men. | |||
| Yes | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| Obamacare, created by the insurance companies, hospitals and drug makers did not make medical care �affordable.� It's not even more available; many insureds can�t afford the copays. Get rid of it. Competition lowers costs. Insurance companies, MDs, RNs, medications need to be able to cross state and international borders more easily. The FDA serves only the big drug companies. Research and "medical miracles" cause most of increasing medical costs but do nothing for most patients. We MDs have a technological imperative to use "hi tech" but haven't evolved a moral language for when we merely prolong dying. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| 1) My parents were legal immigrants, became citizens, and contributed mightily to our country. That goal needs to be retained. 2) Illegals have no civil rights, no claim on our courts or US jobs, so are abused, don�t fit in, another country within ours. 3) A Roman emperor, Caracalla needed more taxes and soldiers, so made all freemen in the empire citizens. Roman citizenship became worthless, the end was near. 4) Mexicans come here to work, not for citizenship. Going back and forth is dangerous, so they stay, trapped. 5) Exclude dodgy refugees and non producers. | |||
| Yes | Do you support same-sex marriage? | ||
| Christians once defined marriage, but in the late 1800s encouraged the state to redefine marriage among Mormons, forbid marriages between blacks and whites, allowed the state to �license� (give people permission) and tax advantage marriage. Christians have lost moral and legal power to control and criticize the state unless they cease cooperating and return to recognizing only marriages that they and the community sanction and stop filing them with the state. | |||
| No | Do you support increased American intervention in Iraq and Syria beyond air support? | ||
| No | Should the U.S use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the United States from possessing a nuclear weapon? | ||
| Our Government has interfered with governments, created discord, arranged the starvation of babies, and encouraged the murder, rape, displacement and disenfranchisement of Christians in the mideast since the second world war. Both parties vote for endless peace by fomenting endless wars. The ordinary people in the Mideast are infuriated over the continuous attacks on their families and way of lives. Fringe groups arise that promise protection, revenge, or at least a return to a feeling of human dignity. So it is that Al Qaeda and ISIS are able to recruit young men to the cause of righting wrongs. | |||
| Yes | Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts? | ||
SpendingIndicate what federal spending levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category; you can use a number more than once.TaxesIndicate what federal tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category; you can use a number more than once.
| Eliminate | a) Agriculture | ||
| Eliminate | b) Arts | ||
| Greatly Decrease | c) Defense | ||
| Eliminate | d) Education | ||
| Eliminate | e) Environment | ||
| Greatly Decrease | f) Homeland Security | ||
| Eliminate | g) International aid | ||
| Greatly Decrease | h) Medical Research | ||
| Eliminate | i) Scientific Research | ||
| Eliminate | j) Space exploration | ||
| Eliminate | k) United Nations | ||
| Eliminate | l) Welfare | ||
| Eliminate | a) Capital gains taxes | ||
| Eliminate | b) Corporate taxes | ||
| Eliminate | c) Small business taxes | ||
| Eliminate | d) Excise taxes (alcohol) | ||
| Eliminate | e) Excise taxes (cigarettes) | ||
| Eliminate | f) Excise taxes (transportation fuel) | ||
| Eliminate | g) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | h) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | i) Income taxes (high-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | j) Inheritance taxes | ||
| Eliminate | k) Payroll taxes | ||
| All of these programs have been governmental failures, costly, dysfunctional, they interfere with the flourishing of our people, their gradual impoverishment. | |||
| All of these taxes would be replaced by a single, easily understood and administered Fair Tax, a national sales tax. | |||
| 1) Cut the military down and configure it to defend America. Our constitution specifies that congress maintain a navy and "raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years...." It basically forbids keeping a standing army. Besides, our armed forces continue to lose wars, what's the point? 2) Get rid of the departments of the IRS, commerce, education, HUD and energy as above. |
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