Matt Funiciello's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
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Matt Funiciello has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2016 Political Courage Test.
New York Congressional Election 2016 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| Whether one is against abortion or not, choice is the law of the land. And, there has been no real measurable change in the number of abortions performed since Roe v. Wade. So, why would we want to make abortions unsanitary or dangerous? Let's ensure the safety of the women who decide to have them and lets' get to work on creating a world at peace where people see raising a baby not as a chore or an obligation but as a joy and the greatest learning experience one can ever embark upon. | |||
| Yes | In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing defense spending? | ||
| No | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| I believe in a massive reduction in military spending. The F35 boondoggle, 800 military bases, $4.5 Trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan so far. We need to stop being the empire and start looking at other options besides regime change and the occupation of sovereign nations. We spend more than the next 9 biggest global military forces (57% of our discretionary budget). That's not sustainable. Time for peace. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| I am for much shorter, publicly-funded, elections. If we can arrive at publicly-funded elections, I would then be for banning all campaign contributions; private, corporate or union. | |||
| 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? | ||
| End the Drug War. End mass incarceration. It is so much cheaper and more efficient to decriminalize and treat addiction as a disease not a crime. We are wasting far too much money imprisoning people for drug-related crimes that are non-violent in nature. | |||
| No | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | 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? | ||
| Corporate Welfare does not work. GE is allowed to borrow without interest from the Federal Reserve. They are a staunch member of the Military Industrial Complex. With all that money flowing their way, you'd imagine they would create jobs. They don't. They downsize and move jobs offshore. Tax incentives (don't) work in the same way. With fake "free trade", we will never rebuild our manufacturing base. We need a national sales tax (10%) to replace all other forms of taxation and a wealth tax (1.2 - 1.3 % on all assets over $1 million dollars). | |||
| No | Do you generally support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
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| Every student should receive the same opportunity for education. Funding would come from the national sales tax I am in favor of. And it would cover the loss of all of the unconstitutional property and income taxes assessed currently. | |||
| 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? | ||
| I support banning hydraulic fracturing. | |||
| Yes | Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| Livestock agriculture is the single biggest cause of methane emissions (over 50%) that cause Climate Change. We need to wake people up to this fact and stop taking down forests to raise more feed for cattle and hogs. A vegan diet has been shown to be, at least, 6 times less demanding on our resource base than our current North American diet is. The government should be extolling the vegan diet in PSAs that run every day on all channels. | |||
| No | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| I am a proud supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Reasonable gun control laws are few and far between but I can support them if they focus on all of the handgun homicides and suicides (97% of all American gun deaths) with far less focus on mass shootings which are a statistical anomale comprising fewer than 0.3% of all gun deaths. | |||
| No | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| The ACA is one of the cruelest anti-worker bills in my lifetime and I wish to make it completely irrelevant by passing a single-payer health care bill (HR676 - Improved Medicare for All). Single-Payer would cost about $4,000 per citizen and cover everyone. This would be a SAVINGS of approximately $2,000 per person over what is ALREADY spent in public money by the Federal government who are mostly propping up big pharma, the insurance lobbies and the "economic development" end of our healthcare puzzle by reducing all the redundancies. | |||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
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| I am for amnesty and a real and meaningful path to citizenship. If you're not a native American, what right do you have to set immigration policy? | |||
| Yes | Should the U.S use military force in order to prevent governments hostile to the United States from possessing a nuclear weapon? | ||
| No | Do you support increased American intervention in Iraq and Syria beyond air support? | ||
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| If congress actually declares war, then yes, but after every other attempt has been made to come to peaceful resolution. We need to remember that the USA is the primary proponent of weapons of mass destruction and we are also the primary state that sponsors terrorism. So, I believe we need to rein ourselves in before we continue nosing into everybody else' business. | |||
| No | Do you support allowing individuals to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into personal retirement accounts? | ||
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.
| Maintain Status | a) Agriculture | ||
| Greatly Increase | b) Arts | ||
| Greatly Decrease | c) Defense | ||
| Maintain Status | d) Education | ||
| Greatly Increase | e) Environment | ||
| Greatly Decrease | f) Homeland Security | ||
| Greatly Increase | g) International aid | ||
| Slightly Increase | h) Medical Research | ||
| Slightly Increase | i) Scientific Research | ||
| Maintain Status | j) Space exploration | ||
| Greatly Increase | k) United Nations | ||
| Slightly Decrease | l) Welfare | ||
| Eliminate | a) Capital gains taxes | ||
| Eliminate | b) Corporate taxes | ||
| Eliminate | c) Small business taxes | ||
| Eliminate | d) Excise taxes (alcohol) | ||
| Eliminate | e) Excise taxes (cigarettes) | ||
| Eliminate | f) Excise taxes (transportation fuel) | ||
| Eliminate | g) Income taxes (low-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | h) Income taxes (middle-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | i) Income taxes (high-income families) | ||
| Eliminate | j) Inheritance taxes | ||
| Eliminate | k) Payroll taxes | ||
| Agriculture - Shift away from factory farms and corporate subsidies and begin supporting small family farms. Homeland Security - Domestic Spying is unconstitutional. Eliminate the NSA and all other Stazi-like programs. Welfare will be almost eliminated with a $15 living wage and Single-Payer health care. | |||
| A National Consumption tax would replace all other forms of taxation. It would start at 10% with a Wealth Tax of roughly 1.3% on all assets over $1 million dollars. | |||
| The Green New Deal - A jobs program for 25 million unemployed Americans. Like the WPA, it will focus on the rebuilding of infrastructure and, unlike the WPA, it will focus on clean renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro, geo-thermal) and removing fossil fuels from our grid forever. |
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