Gary Swing's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Gary Swing is currently being tested through the 2020 Political Courage Test.
This candidate has responded to a Political Courage Test in a previous election. As a continued effort to provide the American public with factual information on candidates running for public office, these archived responses are made available here.
Arizona Congressional Election 2016 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| The anti-abortion position is absurd and irrelevant to reality. Abortion should not be a political issue. The real issue today concerning human reproduction is overpopulation. Human overpopulation and over-consumption threaten the sustainability of life on Earth. World human population has grown from one billion people in 1803 to two billion in 1927 and 7.4 billion now. Biological carrying capacity studies show that we would need the resources of 1.6 Earths to sustain current human ecological impacts. If the average person on Earth consumed as much as the average American, the world could not sustain more than 1.5 billion people. | |||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending? | ||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
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| The US military budget should be cut by 90% and all foreign military aid should be eliminated. The CIA, the NSA, and the Selective Service System should also be eliminated. Corporate welfare programs should be eliminated. Congress should be required to balance the budget. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| I support a ban on corporate campaign contributions. The Supreme Court's determinations that money equals speech and that corporations are people need to be overturned or repealed by constitutional amendment. The outrageous cost of elections corrupts politicians who are deeply indebted to their largest campaign contributors. I support campaign spending limits, public campaign financing, open debates, and fair media access for all candidates on the ballot. I advocate an open party list system of proportional representation for legislative elections to establish fair representation for all parties, and range voting to elect the most popular candidates in elections for executive offices. | |||
| No | Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | Do you support alternatives to incarceration for certain non-violent offenders such as mandatory counseling or substance abuse treatment? | ||
| No | Do you support mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders? | ||
| I strongly oppose term limits for US presidents and members of Congress. I believe that they should be required to serve the full length of the prison terms that are appropriate for the crimes they commit while in office. Mark Twain's observation that there there is no truly criminal class in the United States except for Congress remains true today. With a re-election rate that typically exceeds 90% for members of Congress, it would be make sense to convert the US Capitol Building into a maximum security prison to prevent any of the current members of Congress from escaping. | |||
| No | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | Do you support lowering taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | Do you support providing tax incentives to businesses for the purpose of job creation? | ||
| Growth is unsustainable. The global economy has grown far beyond sustainable limits. We must greatly reduce per capita ecological impact and reduce birth rates well below the replacement level until we can establish an environmentally sustainable (steady state) economy. Carbon taxes should include environmental impacts in true cost pricing of new goods and services. Tax consumption, not income. Minimize carbon footprint to arrest climate change. | |||
| No | Do you generally support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| I oppose Common Core requirements. The cost of college tuition should be federally subsidized for US citizens. Student loan debt should be forgiven. | |||
| No | Do you support building the Keystone XL pipeline? | ||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, thermal)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support increased regulations on the hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") industry? | ||
| Without the environment, there is no economy. Perpetual growth cannot continue within a finite environment. We must reduce energy consumption at least 50% by 2030. Eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy. No oil from tar sands or shale. Ban fracking. Conserve energy. Improve efficiency. Convert to solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal power. Localize energy production. Promote alternative transportation. | |||
| Yes | Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| Climate change is happening now as a result of human industrial activity. We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions at least 40% by 2020 and 95% by 2050. | |||
| No | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| When the Second Amendment was written, guns were primitive, the United States had no standing army and no weapons of mass destruction. Thomas Jefferson believed the Constitution could only be binding upon his generation. He wrote that: "every generation needs a new revolution." He believed that each generation should create its own Constitution. The Second Amendment should be reconsidered during a new Constitutional Convention. I am more concerned with taking dangerous weapons away from the government than with restricting private gun ownership. US military imperialism and domestic police brutality have run rampant. Weapons of mass destruction should be abolished. | |||
| Yes | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| I support a single payer "Medicare for All" national health insurance system. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| I oppose the racist scapegoating of immigrants. We must address the real causes of high immigration levels: an unsustainable, high consumption lifestyle in the United States; economic globalization policies that exploit Third World nations for the benefit of transnational corporations; and labor policies designed to drive down wages. We must reform international trade policies to protect labor, human rights, and the environment. Fair trade should promote local self-reliance, not foreign corporate domination. I support international work permits that are not tied to a specific employer. | |||
| Yes | Do you support same-sex marriage? | ||
| Marriage is a private relationship between two or more consenting adults and their online video subscribers. I'm not a big proponent of same sex marriage. It could get boring after a while to always have the same sex. Why not spice it up with a bit of variety? Try different positions. Set up the harness and trapeze. Bring out the honey, whipped cream, and strawberry sauce. Take turns being the one who gets tied up. Try out some role playing. Invite friends and neighbors to join in once in a while. Go to Swing parties. Make it more interesting. | |||
| No | Do you support increased American intervention in Iraq and Syria beyond air support? | ||
| No | Should the U.S use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the United States from possessing a nuclear weapon? | ||
| Uphold the Kellogg Briand Pact outlawing war. All weapons of mass destruction should be abolished. The US government possesses more of these weapons than the rest of the world combined. The US has no legal or moral authority to commit acts of military aggression against the people of other nations. The US military and the CIA have committed war crimes against at least 69 foreign nations since the end of World War Two, killing an estimated twenty to thirty million people in illegal, immoral acts of aggression. American war criminals should be convicted and imprisoned for their crimes against humanity. | |||
SpendingIndicate what federal spending levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category; you can use a number more than once.TaxesIndicate what federal tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one number per category; you can use a number more than once.
| a) Agriculture | |||
| Maintain Status | b) Arts | ||
| Eliminate | c) Defense | ||
| Slightly Increase | d) Education | ||
| Greatly Increase | e) Environment | ||
| Greatly Decrease | f) Homeland Security | ||
| Greatly Increase | g) International aid | ||
| Maintain Status | h) Medical Research | ||
| Maintain Status | i) Scientific Research | ||
| j) Space exploration | |||
| Slightly Increase | k) United Nations | ||
| l) Welfare | |||
| a) Capital gains taxes | |||
| Greatly Increase | b) Corporate taxes | ||
| c) Small business taxes | |||
| d) Excise taxes (alcohol) | |||
| e) Excise taxes (cigarettes) | |||
| Greatly Increase | f) Excise taxes (transportation fuel) | ||
| Eliminate | g) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | h) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Greatly Decrease | i) Income taxes (high-income families) | ||
| j) Inheritance taxes | |||
| k) Payroll taxes | |||
| Many of these programs should be fundamentally changed. It's not just about increasing or decreasing spending. The military is used for imperialism and genocide, not defense. End all foreign wars, shut down foreign military bases, and restrict the military to non-offensive defense of US territory. Eliminate foreign military aid. Greatly increase humanitarian foreign aid. Eliminate subsidies for petrochemical agriculture, factory farming, and animal farming. Increase subsidies for permaculture (sustainable agriculture), organic farming, and urban forming. Provide federal subsidies for college tuition. Secure a guaranteed baseline income with either a negative income tax or pre-bate on a national sales tax. | |||
| Replace the federal income tax with a "Fair Tax" national sales tax on consumption of new goods. Provide a guaranteed minimum income for all US citizens. Enact true cost pricing to include external environmental impacts in the price of new goods. Create a "steady state economy" founded upon principles of environmental sustainability. | |||
| Human overpopulation is the most critical problem facing our planet. I support public funding for birth control and family planning programs at all levels, as well as public education efforts concerning the seriousness of the overpopulation crisis. US military imperialism must be stopped. The United States' undeclared wars of aggression are always sold to the public on a foundation of lies. We have seen this recently with the fake "war on terror." 9/11 was "false flag" psychological warfare attack by the US government against its own people. The two party system doesn't work. We need proportional representation for legislative elections. |
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