POLICY POSITIONS

Richard “Chip” Peterson , Candidate for Texas District 19 Congress

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND PERSONAL FREEDOMS 1. For the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution’s Bill of Rights–including rights of freedom of religion, speech, the press, and peaceable assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; the right of people to be secure in their homes, papers, and personal possessions unless a proper search warrant is authorized based on probable cause; the right to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process; the right to trial by jury and to confront their accusers and to not be forced to testify against oneself, and to not have property taken for public use without just compensation; the right to not be subjected to excessive bail or to cruel or unusual punishments. In addition, I support the Constitution’s provision that the powers of the federal government are limited to those specifically given to it by the constitution and that all other rights are reserved to the people or to the states unless the constitution expressly prohibits them.

2. Against a mandatory “National Service” requirement for young people or resumption of the draft.

3. Against a National ID card or its equivalent, that could be used to limit personal travel or access to financial services, as occurs in some Communist countries.

4. Against the provisions of the misnamed “Patriot Act” that violate our constitutional rights by (i) bypassing regular courts and standards of “probable cause” before obtaining search warrants, (ii) allow law enforcement agents to “sneak” into a person’s home or business, “and peak” at all their computer and personal records and personal effects and not have to let people know they were there for up to 90 days, (iii) can send librarians and financial service providers to jail for talking about investigations into their records, etc.. This act will come up for renewal next year and the ACLU has identified numerous unconstitutional provisions that should be eliminated.

5. Against “forfeiture laws” that allow a person’s property to be seized without “due process’” as required by our Constitution’s fourth amendment.

6. Against violations of states rights under the Tenth Amendment to establish their own laws without the Federal government prosecuting people who have complied with the states law in that state.

TAXES 1. For simpler taxes with lower marginal tax rates. A flat income tax rate of 20% or less with a large exemption–possibly as much as $30,000 or more for a family if all special interest tax breaks were deleted.

2. Against renewal of the estate tax once it expires–as the estate tax implicitly assumes that all property belongs to the government, so the government therefore has the right to seize nearly half of what someone has just because they died. That policy is not appropriate since our country guarantees its citizens the right to own private property.

3. Against a national sales tax as it would just be added to an income tax and would have too many exemptions, so rates would be too high and evasion rife.

SPENDING AND REGULATION 1. Against wasteful spending

2. Against “earmarked” spending and other spending that breaks budget constraints without justification.

3. For proposals advanced by “Citizens Against Government Waste” to cut unnecessary or wasteful government spending. Also, for “zero-based budgeting” where  every expenditure must be justified each year and not automatically reauthorized–just because it was authorized in previous years. In addition, for sunset provisions to eliminate government programs and bureaucracies periodically unless they are specifically reauthorized.

4. For less extensive and heavy-handed government regulation. For limiting the number of regulations that can be written by each agency either in number or to the amount of previous regulations eliminated.

5. For limiting the number of new laws passed in a session to the number of old laws cancelled, and the number of new agencies established to the number of old agencies cancelled.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE 1. For an honest approach to solving the nations’s social security problem–which will involve personal security accounts and future increases in normal (not “early”) retirement ages.

2. For adoption of uniform posted prices for medical services, with insurance or Medicare paying a percentage of that price, but not 100%, so people will have an incentive to shop for cost efficient healthcare.

3. For allowing people to buy prescription drugs from any country that ensures their safety (That would effectively eliminate price discrimination between countries so drug prices would tend to equalize between countries and  U.S. citizens would not have to bear the full costs of drug research and development needed to insure drug safety). In fact, people should also be allowed to buy nonprescription drugs that have no safety guarantees, provided that they know that they are doing  so at their own risk.

Email Chip with any questions.

Richard Peterson Campaign, Richard Peterson treasurer