Posted by Sir Four at 12:18pm Sep 25 '12The math is simple: Federal spending must be cut not by millions or billions, but by trillions. And it must be done today. Submit a Balanced Budget to Congress, not five or ten years down the road, but in 2013.
No. It'd be catastrophic to eliminate 43% of federal spending in a single year. This alone disqualifies Johnson from the presidency.
Identify and implement common-sense cost savings to place Medicare on a path toward long-term solvency.
Obamacare found $750 billion in common-sense savings in Medicare; Paul Ryan's plan included the same savings. What additional savings beyond the $750 billion does Johnson know about, and why hasn't he told anyone?
Repeal President Obama's healthcare plan, as well as the failed Medicare prescription drug benefit.
Of course I don't support the former, and in the case of the latter...all we need to do is negotiate lower prices.
Fix Social Security by changing the escalator from being based on wage growth to inflation. It's time for Social Security to reflect today's realities without breaking trust with retirees.
That's going to make it cost more money.
Establish clear Congressional oversight [of the Federal Reserve].
The Fed should retain its independence from the political trends Congress represents.
Eliminate the costly and ineffective military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan; limit defense spending to actions that truly protect the United States.
I agree.
Abolish the Internal Revenue Service. Establish Fair Tax.
Radical change to the tax code is not going to happen. But if it were to, it'd better retain some progressivity.
Reduce or eliminate federal involvement in education
My concern would be state and local levels doing more stupid shit like teaching creationism instead of science.
Legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, rather than wasting money on an expensive and futile prohibition.
Yes.
Eliminate needless barriers to free trade and make it easier for would-be legal immigrants to apply for work visas.
Free trade needs to be fair trade, which I doubt Johnson supports. More work visas is a tough sell with unemployment being high.
All parents should have an opportunity to choose which school their children attend.
AKA tax dollars funding religious schools.
The PATRIOT Act should be repealed
Yes.
The TSA should take a risk-based approach to airport security.
Just get rid of the goddamn naked scanners.
A woman should be allowed to make her own decisions during pregnancy until the point of viability of a fetus.
Yes.
Stem cell research should only be completed by private laboratories that operate without federal funding.
No. The federal government plays an important role in funding basic research, which commercial entities later build off of to bring products and services to market. This synergistic approach between government and industry is essential to retaining our technological edge.
marriage equality, including gay marriage. It should also protect the rights of religious organizations to follow their beliefs.
Yes.
Decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, American troops remain scattered throughout Europe. It is time to reevaluate these deployments.
The U.S. must make better use of military alliances which allow greater sharing of the human and financial burdens at less cost of protecting national interests.
Yes, a foreign base restructuring/closing is way overdue. And while the US provides an umbrella of military protection over our allies, we ought to expect others to pull their weight more.
No criminal or terrorist suspect captured by the U.S. should be subject to physical or psychological torture.
Yes.
Individuals detained by the U.S., whether it be at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere, must be given due process via the courts or military tribunals, and must not be held indefinitely without regard to those fundamental processes.
Yes.
Abuse of hard drugs is a health problem that should be dealt with by health experts, not a problem that should be clogging up our courts, jails, and prisons with addicts. Instead of continuing to arrest and incarcerate drug users, we should seriously consider the examples of countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands, and we should ultimately choose to adopt policies which aim to reduce death, disease, violence, and crime associated with dangerous drugs.
Pure common sense.
'Net Neutrality' leads to a government role in the Internet that can only lead to unwanted regulation.
Nope. ISPs should be considered telecoms under the law.
Internet 'kill switch' legislation should be scrapped completely.
Of course. That's the stuff of tyrannical middle east regimes.
less regulation will allow innovation and competition to make health care more affordable and more accessible to all Americans.
No, it will make health care more affordable to some people and inaccessible to others. That's the only possible outcome of unregulated insurance underwriting.
Removing arbitrary obstacles to interstate competition among health insurance providers will reduce costs.
In the absence of regulation, insurers would locate in the most permissive states and engage in the worst practices.
Cap and Trade schemes, tax subsidies, and government efforts to steer us to one energy source over another are inherently inefficient, disrupt the market, and ultimately impose costs we cannot afford.
Yeah, the idea is to price into the market costs which are externalities: "If there exist external costs such as pollution, the good will be overproduced by a competitive market, as the producer does not take into account the external costs when producing the good."
So Johnson is wrong on this one.
Insisting on a basic cost-benefit analysis for regulations will restore an appropriate balance and common sense to environmental policy.
In the abstract, that's a reasonable notion.
Picking Through Gary Johnson's Positions - Sir Four