Mark Harmon's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
Inferred Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, but Vote Smart inferred this issue based on the candidate's public record, including statements, voting record, and special interest group endorsements.
Unknown Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, or we could not infer an answer for this candidate despite exhaustive research of their public record.
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Mark Harmon has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2022 Political Courage Test.
Tennessee Congressional Election 2022 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| I trust women. I will put no level of government between a pregnant person and reproductive care. I would support and co-sponsor legislation to make federal law of the principles of Roe v Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood. | |||
| Yes | Do you support expanding federal funding to support social safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| We need to change tax law to wipe out corporate welfare, and to make certain billionaires pay their fair share. I support rolling back tax rates to pre-Trump levels to achieve this goal. We've had a 40-year pattern of shifting tax burdens from the wealthy and corporations to working class families. I want to reverse that trend. The savings can be used both to reduce deficits and for needed programs such as expanded college and other post-secondary grants. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations,unions, and individuals? | ||
| Dark money is a serious problem in our elections. The higher on the political food chain you go, the worse it gets. Our representatives aren't bought and paid for, but the public needs to know which ones are being rented. | |||
| No | Do you support the protection of government officials, including law enforcement officers, from personal liability in civil lawsuits concerning alleged misconduct? | ||
| We all must be held accountable for our actions. Criminal misconduct, in particular, cannot be hidden behind laws intended to stop officials from being harassed by nonsense lawsuits from the routine conduct of public business. | |||
| No | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| Our military total spending overall is adequate to our needs. We need to weed out favoritism and no-bid contracts that drive up costs with no overall benefit to our troops. Contracting reforms will help pay for needed actions such as Ukraine aid. | |||
| Yes | Do you support federal spending 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? | ||
| Unknown Position | Do you support the federal government taking action, beyond those of the Federal Reserve, to alleviate inflation? | ||
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| The COVID relief bill was necessary, but also a lesson in the importance of targeting and oversight. Corporations already get enough tax breaks, many amount to corporate welfare. True economic growth comes from improved wages, low unemployment, and social/economic mobility for people. Some spending programs, such as infrastructure bills, are necessary both to the economy and general well being of our communities. | |||
| Unknown Position | Do you support the forgiveness of federal student loan debt? | ||
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| Education primarily is a state and local matter, and should remain so. The federal government has a role to play in addressing matters of discrimination and injustice. At the post-secondary level, it needs to play a larger role in providing more post-secondary grant money to students at colleges and technical schools. | |||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Our insufficient attention to climate change (global warming) is a shameful example of short-sighted decisions making life tougher for future generations. We need to move quickly and substantially on measures to combat climate change. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| I support a broad range of gun safety measures: expanded background checks, bans on assault weapons, protection orders, reduced magazine/clip maximums, and safe storage laws. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| Unknown Position | Do you support increasing security along the southern US border? | ||
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| Walls are inferior to other methods of border enforcement. We need to remember we are a nation of immigrants, and that many of the people seeking the freedom and opportunity of our country have good reasons to flee their homelands. I support the John McCain bipartisan bills (that unfortunately were not passed) that had a balance of border enforcement, rules on employers, humanitarian assistance, and pathways to citizenship, especially for young people known as dreamers. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support removing barriers to international trade (for example: tariffs, quotas, etc.)? | ||
| Trade overall can be a good thing, but the process cannot be hijacked by huge corporations to reduce or eliminate hard-won principles on labor law or environmental protections. Further, nation-states should not unfairly drain away US jobs with anti-competitive subsidies to businesses. | |||
| 1) Protect abortion rights by codifying those rights into federal law. 2) Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. 3) Expand social and economic mobility by greatly expanding the amount and number of federal grants for higher education (and all post-secondary education). This can be paid for by rolling back some of the corporate and billionaire tax breaks of the Trump era. |
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