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What Are Your Big Three Issues?
Too many voters choose candidates for stupid reasons. “Which candidate would I rather have a beer with?” Or, “I want to be part of history and elect the Historic First Woman/African-American/Transgender-Atheist-Vegan-Differently-Abled-Muslim-Illegal-Immigrant™.” Or, “He’s angry for the same reasons I’m angry!” But there a few of us left who care about philosophy, policy, and other stuff that isn’t cool. And while there’s a broad range of issues to consider, one can usually boil it down to three issues of paramount importance.
What follows are mine. What are yours?
- Immigration: I want current law enforced until such time as the law is reformed. The law should be reformed to make illegal immigration as difficult as possible, and limit legal immigration to a level that is socially and economically sustainable.
- Constitutional and Human Rights: I want uncompromising support for Constitutional Rights. In a candidate, I want a commitment to appoint and fight for strict Constitutionalist judges.
- Regulatory and Agency Reform: The Regulatory Apparatus of the Federal Government should be pared down severely and future major regulations subject to Congressional approval.
In no particular order:
Eric Hines
I kid. Even just typing that drivel in jest made my soul quake, my stomach queasy and my brain question.
Entitlement reform. How many trillions are we going to have to pay out in the next few years? It’s astronomical. With many pensions going bankrupt and lack of savings more and more people are going to be relying on SS and medicare. Just a sad fact.
Americas use of power. I really have no answer for this. On one hand I’m Rand Paulish in being reticent about meddling in scuffles and affairs around the world yet I also want the rest of the world to bend to our will. I just “feel” since the end of the cold war we really have no idea how to effectively use our power internationally. I could be wrong, but how we use our power will be important.
Simplify our tax codes both corporate and individual. So much abuse and Cayman Island accounts is because our tax codes are either complex, promote favoritism of certain industries and donors or are just plain stupid.
Honorable mentions:
Abolish the penny and daylight savings.
Make International Bacon Day a federal holiday. I say 2nd Sunday in January. Nothing better than more than a pound of bacon on a cold crisp Sunday in January. It will be mandated that all Americans (except for our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters) will have to consume at least a pound of bacon on International Bacon Day. Everybody will be given Monday off due to bacon hangovers. All cardiologist will be on call.
1 – Get the government out of my face.
2 – Get the government out of my face.
3 – Get the government out of my face.
AMEN. And this is the only way I could ‘vote’ twice. (W/o being a dead Democrat from Chicago)
Even the Constitution is expendable if it fails to keep the hordes at bay.
These are the issues that are primarily driving my anger toward government.
I don’t believe I’ve seen a Rubio speech or debate in which he hasn’t addressed it, and his second book focuses on it pretty heavily.
I was pleased by the similarity of our answers.
According to the presto-change-o protocol, that triggers the chew bubblegum & kick ass procedure as per the annex of the minutes of the regular meeting of the relevant coordinate boards & commissions. See below.
1. National security/defense – We need to rebuild our military and reset our foreign policy.
2. Entitlement reform – There can be no dealing with our debt without fundamentally reforming Social Security and Medicare.
3. Judges – Not only the Supreme Court but district and circuit courts need 8+ years of having vacancies filled by principled constitutionalist judges.
Regulatory reform is a very close fourth.
I’m feeling the Bern!
While I love the post and am enjoying the discussion I’d like to challenge the premise.
“Which candidate would I rather have a beer with?” is a far more sensible way to pick a president than analyzing a candidate’s positions on specific policies that are important to me.
If I knew that my most important issue was also the most important issue and I knew that this issue would actually be dealt with in the next four years then I should consider who might be the closest match. But there will be many issues that may or may not be addressed during the next term. Some of those issues may not be issues today. So I think one has to go with one’s gut.
Who is the candidate I’d like to have handle any issue?
This is a great point. In the 2000 election, Islamic Terrorism was not the most important issue in the election. In 2001 that issue made itself important.
Truth is, we do not know what will be the biggest issue a year from now so “who do you trust to do the right thing” is a better question than “who is the better policy wonk”.
For this election, but not necessary in the big picture, my priorities are:
Honorable mention: reducing the power of the executive relative to Congress.
I agree as strongly as it is possible to agree. I have an ongoing debate with one of my coworkers about this.
1- Fighting the culture of death. All of the social issues can be grouped together as part of the desire of government to control who is allowed to come into the world and who is allowed to stay in it and under what circumstances, the form of marriage along with the rest. This is at the heart of life and citizenship. When they control the little platoons, there is no hope.
2- Supreme Court appointments.
3- Fiscal sanity, which includes entitlements and out of control debt and regulation.
I love what I’ve been hearing from Paul Ryan in the past few days. He and his fellow Republicans, including the most conservative ones from the Freedom Caucus, are coming up with a plan for the future that they will release in the spring so that voters know where we stand and that we represent a far different vision than the socialists. If they can present it along with the stories about how conservatism works in people’s lives, and we can get rid of Trump, we will win and I think it will be Morning in America.
1. The police state
2. War
3. National debt
I went back and forth in the third one. But it’s those three things that’ll really end up destroying freedom.
National Security. No one wants an insanely interventionist foreign policy, but we need a vibrant policy that treats red lines as red lines, and that will secure our victories (failing to secure an agreement whereby we left troops on the ground in Iraq was a colossal mistake). Quit treating Iran like Canada.
Pro-growth Economic Policies. Tax reform, getting a handle on entitlements, national debt, and shrinking the administrative state.
Life. The older I get the more this matters. Two prongs: (1) do everything we can in Congress and in the state legislatures to place limits on abortions, defunding Planned Parenthood, and the like; (2) appoint more and more conservative judges at all levels (but especially at the Supreme Court)–this is the only way to win the battle long-term (and stop the insane propensity of the courts to grant group rights not contemplated by the Constitution).
Great minds in handsome bodies think alike.
And us, too, apparently. ;)
Wait, I was wrong. My actual big three are:
Cue the Basil Poledouris
Now, we’re talking!