Major Issues
My Positions and Reasoning
This Election’s Top Issues
New Hampshire voters face many issues this year: local, national, and Earth-wide. I do have positions on all of them. See below. If I've missed one important to you, please let me know and I will add my thoughts here.
Project 2025 is a major concern.
At the bottom of this page you can review a BBC July 12th report on its major features.
First, a list of the scrollable issues below
State Income, Sales & Biz Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Interest and Dividends Tax, Abortion, School Curriculum, Education Freedom Accounts vs Public Education, Per-pupil School Funding, Special Education Funding, Climate Change, Gun Regulation, Drugs/Borders - Immigration, Election Ballot Control / Right to Vote, Gender Issues, Minimum Wage, Marijuana, Affordable Housing, Childcare, Foreign Policy
State Income Tax
Against!
Against!
The State needs revenue. If it is not through a sales or income tax, then it needs to come from somewhere. I am willing to discuss methods with legislators. We need to support essential services, but with a balanced budget. Nobody likes taxes. The next few years will see less federal dollars, so we either need to have less services or get new revenue streams. The biz tax cannot be reduced now.
Capital Gains Tax
Capital Gains taxes are an option for an increase in revenue stream for essential services. If not here, then elsewhere. Gun registration, like automobile registration makes a whole lot of sense as one method. See below under Guns. Other means could include increased visitor fees for use of State Parks. Ways that tax vacationers at sites of interest and not local businesses makes sense.
These taxes are slated to disappear in a year or so. This should not happen. Those effected want relief from services that might benefit the general public. I believe that voters who have achieved success in the marketplace owe a bit of their accrued wealth to those who paid up front for the services or products they received. If you love Scandinavia, as some do, investigate their system.
Reproductive Rights
My position is simple. All of these decisions should be made between patients, their families, and their health care providers. The government should stay out these issues entirely. Doctors do not kill birthed infants. Our laws must only apply to viable born infants and the persons they become. For a government to propose to enter the mother's womb with law is an outrage.
I believe that our teachers, degreed educators at our accredited institutions, are able to choose the best curriculums for our students. I am proudly WOKE, awake, not asleep. Families must teach their children right and wrong. After that, it is the responsibility of our educators to expose students to the real world in all its good vs evil reality. They need to battle ready.
Public schools are the bulwark of a common educational environment for all its citizens, regardless of income level. Private and home schooling distorts the body politic, creating class divisions that lead to increased polarization among peoples of varied backgrounds. Removing the 'melting pot' that creates America's "more perfect union" will instead produce a fragmented and insular society.
I support this idea of giving poorer communities a boot-strap lifeline in education, helping those in marginalized and rural towns compete head-to-head with the wealthier towns. Smart and determined students should have a chance for a quality education no matter where they come from.
Although almost 20% of New Hampshire students require some level of special needs, less than 20% of the cost is covered by state and federal funding, leaving the bulk of the cost to be covered by local property taxes. This is another area where rich towns can provide more than poor towns, an issue similar to the per-pupil funding concept above. I support it, even though this might not be popular.
Climate change mitigation? Not only is it getting hotter every year, but rising seas will make many in large coastal cities flee for higher ground, i.e., the higher ground plentiful in New Hampshire. Wind energy will not be seen as a negative by tourists. Visitors from nearby liberal states are already supporting renewables. Ski areas and maple syrup production are already being affected.
Guns and automobiles are both potentially lethal weapons. Guns should be regulated just as cars are. Licenses, testing for license approval, even inspections, should be the law of the land. And, as a gun can do a lot more human damage in a short period of time than a drunk driver can, background checks should also be required. This licensing procedure would be another income source for the state.
The original bipartisan immigration bill was killed by Trump. However, Sens. Ossoff, Cornyn, Lankford, and Sinema recently introduced the bipartisan Detection Equipment and Technology Evaluation to Counter the Threat of (DETECT) Fentanyl and Xylazine Act to strengthen our capacity to detect, identify, and disrupt illicit substances being trafficked across the border. I support any bill like this.
Borders - Immigration
White America's birth rate has fallen below replacement levels, meaning there are now more deaths than births. Without immigrants America will fall victim to the same plight than has affected other industrialized nations. Less people, less tax base, weaker military, weaker economy. The United States needs immigrants from all countries to enable America to retain its pre-eminent world position.
I support any bill that would safely expand the right to vote and make voting easier, while at the same time making identification of a constituent tight and secure
I support the right of every individual to achieve the gender they experience in their heart of hearts. On every level in society, from voting, to public discourse, to marriage, personal gender choice for me is a human right.
No one can live on the current minimum wage. It can be set and updated periodically to match prevailing starting wages offered by larger corporations operating in our state. This minimum wage would only apply to companies with more than 10 employees.
You can bottle your own beer at home, buy it at stores and only sell the 'hard stuff' through state-run stores. Cannabis should be set up using the same business model. If your 'home brew' reaches commercial levels, then it should fall under commercial licensing programs. Certain high resin content products would fall under state control.
Young adults in our town cannot afford the type of million-dollar stand-alone homes held in such high regard by the people of Windham. Condos, and smaller apartment complexes are needed. I would work with the Planning Board to encourage development, however I believe the town should retain final jurisdiction over location and code requirements for multi-family housing.
Child care often costs more than the minimum wage. State-level funding here will permit a reduction in costs that will liberate home care givers to pursue careers of their own choosing. This will result in more income, more local spending, and an improved lifestyle for affected families. The money spent here will come back to the state through this increase in economic activity.
While not a state issue, my stance on our foreign policy is important to you. I support Ukraine. Voters should understand that dollars for Ukraine go primarily to US workers who manufacture the defensive weapons used to repel the Russian advance. I support a Ceasefire in Gaza. I support a two-state solution. I support the reshoring of industry to reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturing.
We have always been a cat family, taking animals on the verge of becoming homeless, or from SPCA shelters. I will support animal protection legislation for both wild and domesticated animals.
If I have forgotten an issue that you care about, jump to my Contact page and send me a message. I will reply, and if it makes sense I can add the issue to the list on this page. Thanks!
Project 2025: A wish list for a Trump Presidency - I have highlighted the key positions in the second half of the article.
12 July 2024 Mike Wendling BBC News
A proposed Republican Party platform is expected to be approved at the party’s national convention next week, but a much more detailed think-tank proposal has drawn attention for some of its suggestions. Project 2025 was created by the Heritage Foundation think-tank and runs for nearly 900 pages. Led by former Trump administration officials, it calls for the sacking of thousands of civil servants, expanding the power of the president, dismantling the Department of Education, sweeping tax cuts, a ban on pornography, halting sales of the abortion pill, and a whole lot more. There is substantial agreement between many parts of the official Republican Party platform and Project 2025, although the think-tank document is much more detailed and in some policy areas and goes much farther than the party line. There is a sharper contrast between the two when it comes to the issue of abortion, with Heritage urging much more aggressive anti-abortion policies.
Democrats have highlighted Project 2025's more controversial proposals, and called the document a blueprint for a second Trump term in office. However, Trump and his campaign have denied or downplayed its influence.
What links Project 2025 and the Trump campaign?
It is common for Washington think-tanks of all political stripes to propose policy wishlists for potential governments-in-waiting. The conservative Heritage Foundation first produced policy plans for future Republican administrations in 1981, when Ronald Reagan was about to take office. It has produced similar documents in connection with subsequent presidential elections, including in 2016, when Trump won the presidency. A year into his term, the think-tank boasted that the Trump White House had adopted nearly two-thirds of its proposals.
The Project 2025 report was unveiled in April 2023, but liberal opposition to the document has ramped up now that Trump has extended his polling lead. Recent US Supreme Court decisions that have strengthened presidential immunity and curtailed the power of federal agencies have further worried Democrats about what Trump might achieve if he returned to the White House. Mr Biden recently said would "destroy America". In response, Trump has disavowed the document.
"I know nothing about Project 2025," Trump posted on his social media website, Truth Social. "I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal."
But the team that created the project is chock full of former Trump advisers, including director Paul Dans, who was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management while Trump was president. Russell Vought, another former Trump administration official, wrote a key chapter in the document and also serves as the Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform policy director. More than 100 conservative organisations contributed to the document, Heritage says, including many that would be hugely influential in Washington if Republicans take back the White House.
In early July, Heritage president Kevin Roberts further stoked the ire around Project 25 by raising the prospect of political violence during a podcast interview. "We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," Mr Roberts told the War Room podcast, founded by Trump adviser Steve Bannon. In response, the Biden campaign accused Trump and his allies of "dreaming of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America".
The Project 2025 document sets out four main policy aims: restore the family as the centrepiece of American life; dismantle the administrative state; defend the nation's sovereignty and borders; and secure God-given individual rights to live freely. Here's an outline of several of its key proposals.
Government
Project 2025 proposes that the entire federal bureaucracy, including independent agencies such as the Department of Justice, be placed under direct presidential control - a controversial idea known as "unitary executive theory".
In practice, that would streamline decision-making, allowing the president to directly implement policies in a number of areas. The proposals also call for eliminating job protections for thousands of government employees, who could then be replaced by political appointees. The document labels the FBI a "bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization". It calls for drastic overhauls of this and several other federal agencies, as well as the complete elimination of the Department of Education.
The Republican Party platform includes a proposal to "declassify government records, root out wrongdoers, and fire corrupt employees", pledges to slash regulation and government spending, and also suggests eliminating the Department of Education. But it stops short of proposing a sweeping overhaul of federal agencies as outlined in Project 2025.
Immigration
Increased funding for a wall on the US-Mexico border - one of Trump's signature proposals in 2016 - is proposed in the document. Project 2025 also proposes dismantling the Department of Homeland Security and combining it with other immigration enforcement units in other agencies, creating a much larger and more powerful border policing operation. Other proposals include eliminating visa categories for crime and human trafficking victims, increasing fees on immigrants and allowing fast-tracked applications for migrants who pay a premium.
Not all of those details are repeated in the Republican platform document, but the overall headlines are similar - the party is promising to implement the "largest deportation programme in American history".
What a Trump second term would look like
Climate and Economy
The document proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy, and calls for the next president to "stop the war on oil and natural gas". Carbon-reduction goals would be replaced by efforts to increase energy production and energy security. The paper sets out two competing visions on tariffs, and is divided on whether the next president should try to boost free trade or raise barriers to imports. But the economic advisers suggest that a second Trump administration should slash corporate and income taxes, abolish the Federal Reserve and even consider a return to gold-backed currency. On this and many other topics, Project 2025 is more detailed and goes further than the official Republican platform, which talks of bringing down inflation and drilling for oil to reduce energy costs, but is thin on specific policy proposals.
Abortion and Family
Project 2025 does not call outright for a nationwide abortion ban. However, it proposes withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, and using existing but little-enforced laws to stop the drug being sent through the post. The document suggests that the department of Health and Human Services should "maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family". On this issue at least, the document differs fairly substantially from the Republican platform, which only mentions the word "abortion" once. The platform says abortion laws should be left to individual states and that late-term abortions (which it does not define) should be banned. It adds that that access to prenatal care, birth control and in-vitro fertilisation should be protected. The party platform makes no mention of cracking down on the distribution of mifepristone.
Tech and Education
Under the proposals, pornography would be banned, and tech and telecoms companies that allow access would be shut down. The document calls for school choice and parental control over schools, and takes aim at what it calls "woke propaganda". It proposes to eliminate a long list of terms from all laws and federal regulations, including "sexual orientation", "gender equality", "abortion" and "reproductive rights". Project 2025 aims to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools and government departments as part of what it describes as a wider crackdown on "woke" ideology. Its proposals are broadly reflected in the Republican platform, which in addition to calling for the abolishing the Department of Education, aims to boost school choice and parental control over education and criticises what the party calls the "inappropriate political indoctrination of our children".
The Plan's Future
Project 2025 is backed by a $22m (£17m) budget and includes strategies for implementing policies immediately after the presidential inauguration in January 2025. Heritage is also creating a database of conservative loyalists to fill government positions, and a programme to train those new workers. Democrats led by Jared Huffman, a congressman from California, have launched a Stop Project 2025 Task Force. And many of the proposals would likely face immediate legal challenges from Trump's opponents if implemented.