Fiscal Restraint

I am concerned that the Obama administration’s budget plan which would double our $11 trillion federal debt in five years and triple it in ten years will bankrupt our country. What is your stand on deficit spending?

  • President Obama’s $1.4 trillion federal budget deficits are unsustainable and threaten not only to severely undermine the value of our currency, but potentially to bankrupt our country and collapse the economy. I will work to drastically reduce wasteful and unnecessary deficit spending. I will also introduce and fight for passage of mandates for spending reductions to abolish the federal budget deficit and prohibit tax increases.

What is your position on the Obama stimulus bill and his nationalization of many US companies?

  • I will fight Obama’s attempt to socialize our economy starting by introducing legislation to repeal Obama’s $1.2 trillion socialist stimulus package and return all of the remaining money to either the Treasury or to the American Taxpayer. I will also support efforts to return all companies nationalized by the Obama administration to private control.

Do you believe in lower taxes?

  • I The Founders did not employ a direct tax. They considered it an immoral practice and a confiscation of private property. They preferred tariffs, imposts and duties to raise revenues, and included it in the Constitution Article I Section 8.I recommend an indirect tax managed by the state, raised as it chooses best. A fair tax or consumption tax would be an improvement and would promote a savings society. If managed on the state level, access to our natural resources could even provide an excellent revenue base to pay a state’s fair share to underwrite Congress’ limited enumerated powers.

Limited Government

What is your stand on earmarks?

  • I will support legislation and amendments attached to individual bills that require the separation of earmarks from legislation that is not germane to the bill and which should be considered on their own merits.  No earmark should be considered that violates the Constitution in “promoting the common welfare” and that only benefits residents of a single state or congressional district.

Do you support states’ rights, Federalism?

  • If elected, I will use the Tenth Amendment as a blueprint to restore the proper and constitutional role of the Federal Government. I will introduce legislation to revoke all unconstitutional federal mandates thus eliminate the increasing financial burden posed by them upon the states. As Utah’s Senator, I will support the efforts of the Patrick Henry Caucus to compel the federal government to end its usurpation of the power of the states.

What is your stand on public lands?

  • I will work with our state legislature to request that Federal lands seized by Executive Order be returned to Utah.  I will also fight to return all public lands to the states and allow each individual state and its citizens, to decide on their own how to best utilize their public lands, without interference from Washington. In addition, I will support the sale of millions of acres of federally-owned lands to private citizens and businesses thereby providing trillions of dollars which can be used to retire federal and state debts.

Do you support the proposed bill to audit the Federal Reserve?

  • The Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies are primarily to blame not only for the Great Depression of the 1930’s but for the economic downturn as well and along with Obama’s socialist policies threaten America with the collapse of our currency and our economy. I will fight efforts to strengthen the unconstitutional power of the Federal Reserve and support legislation to audit it and ultimately abolish it with a viable exit strategy and return complete operational authority to the Department of the Treasury while ensuring full and honest congressional oversight. I also support a return to a sound money system based on a valued monetary commodity standard to restore our economic stability, prevent rampant inflation and forestall the collapse of our currency.

What is your stand on our First Amendment right to free speech?

  • I will fight implementation of the so-called Fairness Doctrine which seeks to silence critics of the Obama administration. I will also introduce legislation to repeal McCain-Feingold to restore our First Amendment rights for campaign advertising. 

Do you believe in a strict or open-ended interpretation of the US Constitution?

  • The federal government must return to a strict interpretation of our God-given Constitution. I support Senator Tom Coburn’s and Congressman John Shadegg’s Enumerated Powers Act, a measure to require the constitutionality of a bill to be defined.  I also support measures which would require a constitutional test for each and every law proposed in Congress citing where in the Constitution authority is derived. I believe that applying such a constitutional test would serve to greatly reduce the expansion of government spending.

I am concerned that President Obama is amassing too much power and control over our country. What do you propose we do to return power to the people?

  • Over the past few decades US Presidents have engaged in a far-reaching usurpation of the legislative powers reserved by the US Constitution to Congress through administrative agencies, executive orders and signing statements establishing what has come to be known as the Imperial Presidency. I will fight to stop and reverse those unconstitutional usurpations of power by the Executive Branch and restore the proper constitutional balance of power as intended by our Founding Fathers.

Electing ethical leaders is important to me. What is your stand on ethics in government?

  • Our elected leaders should be held to the highest possible ethical standards. I will fight to restore ethics, honest budget practices and accountability to Washington.  I support transparency in government.  I have Memorandum of Understanding when I accept campaign funds, which stipulates that my acceptance of the contribution will not influence the way I vote. My Vote cannot be bought, sold or traded!

Free Market Solutions

The Democrats claim that our economic crisis occurred due to too few government regulations. What do you believe?

  • Reducing the regulatory burden on the private sector is key to growing our economy and increasing the prosperity of our citizens. Accordingly, I will fight to repeal all onerous and unnecessary regulations, environmental and otherwise, which limit our economic growth and productivity and unduly inhibit the creation of new jobs to help ensure America realizes its full economic potential.

Ensuring my kids get a quality education is important to me. How do you propose improving education?

  • I strongly support the rights of parents who wish to send their children to private schools or utilize home schooling to provide their children with a higher quality education. I will fight to increase local control by the parents to give them greater say in what their children are taught starting with repealing federal initiatives such as No Child Left Behind which have unconstitutionally transferred control of education to the federal government.  I also support Ronald Reagan’s pledge to dismantle the Department of Education.  Education is a matter enumerated to the various states, not a federal or international responsibility.

Obama’s socialized health care plan scares me. How do you propose to reform health care to reduce costs?

  • I have pledged to fight the socialized health care that Obama has rammed through Congress. I believe that it is this kind of federal intervention in health care which has been responsible for the massive increase in health care costs. The solution to this crisis is to implement free market solutions including health savings accounts, tax credits to cover the costs of rising insurance premiums, cash-only doctors, catastrophic insurance, portable insurance plans, and limiting medical malpractice awards to decrease health care costs. Then we can repeal the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, which represents a gigantic $16 trillion unfunded liability.

Senator Bennett also says he has a plan to reform health care. What is your opinion of his plan?

  • I oppose the Wyden-Bennett Healthy Americans Act which has been estimated to be far more costly than even the Obama health care plan and would effectively allow the federal government to take over the entire health insurance industry.  It is a federally-managed plan that will require all Americans to buy insurance whether they can afford to or not. It requires employers to cover all employees and it determines which kinds of insurance will be approved.  It requires non-church owned insurance companies to pay for elective abortions and provides grants to establish school-based health centers to offer contraceptive and abortion counseling services. Premiums would be taken directly out of employee paychecks and collected by the IRS.

Energy Independence

Energy costs have increased drastically during the past year or two. How do you propose to make energy more affordable?

  • Implementing a strong energy policy is critical to ensure a strong economy and that restoring America’s energy independence must be the cornerstone of such a policy.  The key to resolving our present energy crisis is to remove all legal barriers to fully developing and utilizing our own plentiful natural resources including clean-burning coal, oil, and natural gas, along with promising alternate energy sources such as water, hydrogen and most importantly nuclear power.

What is your stand on Obama’s “Cap and Trade” Tax?

  • I will oppose all attempts by Obama and the Democrats to increase taxes on our citizens starting with the so-called “Cap & Trade” National Energy Tax Increase which by Obama’s own admission would cause energy costs to “necessarily skyrocket.” Passage of this legislation would massively increase the tax burden on the average American family by thousands of dollars each and every year and, at an estimated $1.9 trillion, would constitute the largest tax increase by far in American history.

Strong National Defense

Do you support a strong military?

  • In furtherance of Ronald Reagan’s motto of ‘peace through strength’, I will fight to rebuild our overstretched and underfunded military forces to ensure their ability to fight and win.  I will work to refocus the mission of our armed forces to protecting and defending our nation from attack rather than nation building, global policing and exporting European democracy to the nations of the world by direct military force.

Obama campaigned on abolishing all nuclear weapons including the US nuclear deterrent. Do you support that objective?

  • I will oppose any and all measures and policies which serve to unilaterally disarm our country of its nuclear arsenal and conventional military might such as the NEW START Treaty Obama recently signed with Russia. This dangerous treaty would force the US to dismantle over 58% of our nuclear deterrent that Obama inherited from the Bush administration putting us far below the minimum deterrence levels necessary to deter potential nuclear blackmail or attack without ensuring Russia follows suit. Senate ratification and implementation of this treaty would bring a complete and final end to America’s superpower status.

Do you support the deployment of a national missile defense system?

  • I believe that the US should set as one of its highest national defense priorities the deployment of a comprehensive, yet affordable national missile defense system as envisioned by Ronald Reagan in order to make nuclear weapons obsolete.  I will also work to implement the recommendations of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and greatly increase funding to defend against a potential EMP attack.

I am very concerned about illegal immigration. What do you propose we do to solve this problem?

  • I have the toughest plan to fight illegal immigration and secure our borders of all the candidates running for US Senate. Click here to see my immigration reform plan.

What do you propose we do to prevent future terrorist attacks against the US?

  • The best way to defend ourselves against Islamic terrorists is to defend America’s porous ports and borders from illegal immigration and continuing terrorist infiltration. We must also step up our intelligence efforts to identify and apprehend the hundreds of terrorist cells already here to ensure that the terrorists who attacked us on September 11, 2001 are never able to attack our homeland again. An essential element of any strategy aimed at preventing future terrorist attacks on our country is to pursue a more non-interventionist, non-provocative foreign policy that follows the sound and wise advice of former President Thomas Jefferson who counseled that we should be friendly to all but avoid entangling alliances.

What would you do to support our veterans?

  • I believe that America owes a debt of gratitude to our brave servicemen and servicewomen who have risked life and limb in the service of their country and that we can and must do more to take care of those who have sacrificed to serve their country in uniform. Most importantly, I will fight to ensure that ‘the walking wounded’ who have incurred severe injuries in the service of our great country as well as the families of our fallen heroes will be taken care of. I will also work to ensure that our war veterans who return home suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) will receive the treatment they need.

Do you believe America should do more to defend human rights abroad?

  • I support legislation to end US taxpayer subsidized Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with the world’s worst human rights offender–Communist China. I also support legislation to ban the transfer of all dual-use military technology including supercomputers to China, ban PLA owned companies from doing business in our country and invalidate the recent agreement for US companies to provide Beijing with eight billion dollars worth of new US-built nuclear reactors. I support efforts to protect and defend our fellow Christians from persecution in Iraq, Sudan and elsewhere throughout the world. Finally, I support using all peaceful means to support the efforts of the oppressed peoples of the world to liberate themselves from tyrannical regimes.

Do you support continued US involvement in the United Nations?

  • I support the American Sovereignty Restoration Act which would realize Ronald Reagan’s desire to withdraw from the United Nations over a four-year timetable.  In the meantime, I will sponsor legislation to halt all US funding of the United Nations and its affiliates. I will also fight to end US involvement in UN peacemaking missions, which do nothing to further US national security interests.  We must be willing to work together to achieve friendly relations, but avoid a regulatory body that seeks to police and regulate the globe with treaties and agreements that are not in the best interest of the United States and which usurp our sovereign legal authority–the United States Constitution.

America is becoming dangerously reliant on other countries most notably Communist China for its economic needs. What do you believe we should do to become economically self-sufficient again?

  • I believe America needs a new declaration of economic independence to liberate our economy from foreign control and excessive foreign influence. I oppose current US trade policies which have been responsible for the loss of our manufacturing base which is so vital to maintaining our independence. I will work to rebuild America’s shrinking industrial base to increase economic growth, create new jobs and increase productivity. Finally, I will support legislation which serves to make America independent once again in terms of its industrial and manufacturing might and most importantly restores our ability to provide for our own defense requirements to ensure that we cannot be held hostage by a foreign power which refuses to supply internationally-produced weapon components in time of war.

Do you support managed trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT/WTO?

  • I oppose continued US adherence to one-sided internationally-regulated trade agreements most notably NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT/WTO that puts our national and economic sovereignty at risk. US observance of these unfair treaties has drained our national wealth, resulted in a flight of capital abroad, undermined the value of our currency, caused real wages to plummet and resulted in the loss of 5.3 million high-paying manufacturing jobs over the past decade. I also oppose US entry into a North American Union or Free Trade Area of the America’s (FTAA) which would cede even more of our economic independence and national sovereignty to international commissions and foreign bureaucrats.

Unemployment has more than doubled in Utah since the recession began nearly two years ago. What do you propose we do to restore lost jobs?

  • I believe that one of the best ways to restore lost jobs is to promote fair trade. While I support free and fair trade, free trade should not be a one-way street. I support Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of free trade with nations that undertake free trade with us. For nations that refuse to lift their high tariffs against US exports such as Communist China and Japan, just as Reagan did I would support the implementation of moderate revenue-based tariffs to incentivize them to lower their tariffs and to give American workers a more level playing field and thereby begin to restore millions of lost high-paying manufacturing jobs. I will also introduce legislation designed to eliminate our trillion dollar annual trade deficit which has resulted in a tremendous drain of wealth, capitol, jobs and industries from our country at a time we can least afford it.

Do you support traditional marriage between a man and a woman?

  • I support all efforts to defend traditional marriage between a man and a woman and will fight any and all attempts by any party or administration to undermine it.

Do you support the right to life?

  • I support the Sanctity of Life Act which would declare each and every unborn child a person and accord them all the protections which our laws accord to American citizens most importantly the right to life. I also oppose cloning and embryonic stem cell research as science has already determined that adult stem cells are better suited for such research. I promise to fight any attempt to pass the FACE Act which would overturn all state laws restricting abortions, ban abortion protests and potentially legalize infanticide.

Do you support our Second Amendment right to own a firearm?

  • I strongly support the God-given right of individual American citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense purposes and will fight all attempts to ban guns or to otherwise infringe on this fundamental right.