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Dan McGuire's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)

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Official Position: Candidate addressed this issue directly by taking the Political Courage Test.
Inferred Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, but Vote Smart inferred this issue based on the candidate's public record, including statements, voting record, and special interest group endorsements.
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Additional Information: Click on this icon to reveal more information about this candidate's position, from their answers or Vote Smart's research.
Other or Expanded Principles & Legislative Priorities are entered exactly as candidates submit them. Vote Smart does not edit for misspelled words, punctuation or grammar.

Dan McGuire did not provide voters with positions on key issues covered by the 2022 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests from Vote Smart and voters like you.

What is the 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.

New Hampshire State Legislative Election 2008 Political Courage Test

The Political Courage Test asks candidates which items they will support if elected. It does not ask them to indicate which items they will oppose. Through extensive research of public polling data, we discovered that voters are more concerned with what candidates would support when elected to office, not what they oppose. If a candidate does not select a response to any part or all of any question, it does not necessarily indicate that the candidate is opposed to that particular item.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding abortion.

a) Abortions should always be illegal.
b) Abortions should always be legal.
c) Abortions should be legal only within the first trimester of pregnancy.
d) Abortions should be legal when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape.
X e) Abortions should be legal when the life of the woman is endangered.
f) Abortions should be subject to a mandatory waiting period.
X g) Require clinics to give parental notification before performing abortions on minors.
Simply put, abortion is murder since life begins at conception (if not then, when?). Killing is only justified in self-defense, not to avoid nine months of pregnancy. Adoption is the best solution to unwanted pregnancies.

State Budget: Indicate what state funding levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.State Taxes: Indicate what state tax levels (#1-6) you support for the following general categories. Select one level per category, you can use a number more than once.

Eliminate a) Education (Higher)
Greatly Decrease b) Education (K-12)
c) Emergency preparedness
Greatly Decrease d) Environment
Eliminate e) Health care
Greatly Decrease f) Law enforcement
Maintain Status g) Transportation and highway infrastructure
Eliminate h) Welfare
Eliminate a) Alcohol taxes
Eliminate b) Cigarette taxes
Greatly Decrease c) Corporate taxes
Maintain Status d) Gasoline taxes
Greatly Decrease e) Property taxes
Greatly Decrease f) Vehicle taxes
Yes 1) Should accounts such as a "rainy day" fund be used to balance the state budget?
No 2) Should fee increases be used to balance the state budget?
If we wish to get significant state personal and business tax relief, we need to make significant cuts. These should come in areas not suited for state government: health and charity should be private, education should ideally be private, but local is preferable to the current situation, prisons could be greatly reduced without the war on drugs. In general, regulatory bureaucracies should be largely reduced, as well as government pensions that are much more generous than those of the taxpayers. Occupational licensing should be eliminated.
Tolls should be eliminated as it costs 50 cents to collect a dollar.
State revenue is at an all time high, and yet it is somehow too little. Outrageous spending needs to be coralled.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding campaign finance and government reform.c) Do you support limiting the following types of contributions to state legislative candidates?

Yes a) Do you support limiting the number of terms for New Hampshire governors?
Yes b) Do you support limiting the number of terms for New Hampshire state senators and representatives?
No 1) Individual
No 2) PAC
No 3) Corporate
No 4) Political Parties
Yes d) Do you support requiring full and timely disclosure of campaign finance information?
No e) Do you support imposing spending limits on state-level political campaigns?
No f) Should New Hampshire participate in the federal REAL ID program?
Freedom of speech and freedom of association are the key principles violated by campaign restrictions.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding crime.

a) Increase state funds for construction of state prisons and hiring of additional prison staff.
X b) Support the death penalty in New Hampshire.
c) Support programs to provide prison inmates with vocational and job-related skills and job-placement assistance when released.
X d) Implement penalties other than incarceration for certain non-violent offenders.
X e) Decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
X f) Minors accused of a violent crime should be prosecuted as adults.
X g) Support state and local law enforcement officials enforcing federal immigration laws.
h) Support hate crime legislation.
Decriminalize all drug use for adults. Adults should be treated as such and allowed to pursue happiness as they see fit. "Hate crimes" attempt to criminalize a person's state of mind rather than their actions. State of mind is unknowable, actions are not. While not a state issue, the immigration system clearly allows too few legal immigrants per year, thus creating enormous incentives for illegal immigration. My mother's grandparents and my father immigrated to this country.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding education.

a) Support state funding of universal pre-K programs.
b) Support federal education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students (No Child Left Behind).
c) Support state education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students.
d) Support requiring public schools to administer high school exit exams.
X e) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public school.
X f) Allow parents to use vouchers to send their children to any private or religious school.
g) Provide state funding to increase teacher salaries.
X h) Support using a merit pay system for teachers.
i) Provide state funding for tax incentives and financial aid to help make college more affordable.
j) Support allowing illegal immigrant high school graduates of New Hampshire to pay in-state tuition at public universities.
There is only one way to get high quality goods or services (such as education) at low prices: competition. The problem is that our schools are a near-monopoly, which perversely get more funds when they fail, than when they succeed. We need to give parents choice.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding employment.

a) Increase funding for state job-training programs that re-train displaced workers and teach skills needed in today's job market.
X b) Reduce state government regulations on the private sector.
c) Provide low interest loans and tax credits for starting, expanding, or relocating businesses.
X d) Provide tax credits for businesses that provide child care for children in low-income working families.
e) Increase state funds to provide child care for children in low-income working families.
f) Include gender identity in New Hampshire's anti-discrimination laws.
g) Increase the state minimum wage.
h) Support laws that prevent employers from dismissing employees at will.
X i) Support financial punishments for those who knowingly employ illegal immigrants.
j) Support increased work requirements for able-bodied welfare recipients.
k) Increase funding for employment and job training programs for welfare recipients.
New Hampshire is known for its freedom philosophy, but in the area of occupational licensing, we are one of the worst offenders. One should not need the permission of the government to pursue an occupation. This contributes to high business and labor costs in our state, and would be an anathema to our state's founders. Minimum wage should be eliminated. It hurts the very people at the bottom of the ladder that it purports to help. Right to work should be instituted, although ideally federal law would be changed to allow true freedom of association.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding the environment and energy.

a) Promote increased use of alternative fuel technology.
b) Support increased production of traditional domestic energy sources (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil, etc).
c) Support providing financial incentives to farms that produce biofuel crops.
d) Use state funds to clean up former industrial and commercial sites that are contaminated, unused, or abandoned.
e) Support funding for improvements to New Hampshire's power generating and transmission facilities.
f) Support funding for open space preservation.
g) Limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
h) Enact environmental regulations even if they are stricter than federal law.
Government need not concern itself with energy technologies or production. The market is best at determining the optimal kinds of energy to use and supplying it.

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding guns.

No a) Should background checks be required on gun sales between private citizens at gun shows?
Yes b) Should citizens be allowed to carry concealed guns?
No c) Should a license be required for gun possession?
Undecided d) Do you support current levels of enforcement of existing state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns?
Undecided e) Do you support current state restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns?
I'm unaware that the state restricts the purchase or possession of guns. The feds (unfortunately) do that. There are a few areas that the state could liberalize: adopt the "castle doctrine" and "Alaska carry".

Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding health.

a) Ensure that citizens have access to basic health care through managed care, insurance reforms, or state-funded care where necessary.
X b) Guaranteed medical care to all citizens is not a responsibility of state government.
X c) Limit the amount of damages that can be awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits.
X d) Allow patients to sue their HMOs.
X e) Require hospitals and labs to release reports on infections that are a risk to public health, while not compromising patient confidentiality.
X f) Legalize physician assisted suicide in New Hampshire.
X g) Support allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to their patients for medicinal purposes.
The state and federal governments have so invaded the health care industry that costs have skyrocketed, quality declined, and waits lengthened. They need to back off and let the market work.

['Indicate which principles you support (if any) regarding social issues.', 'Legislative Priorities']

a) Should New Hampshire continue to recognize civil unions between same-sex couples?
b) Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?
c) Should New Hampshire provide state-level spousal rights to same-sex couples?
d) Do you support a moment of silence in public schools?
e) Do you support voluntary prayer in public schools?
f) Do you support sexual education programs that include information on abstinence, contraceptives, and HIV/STD prevention methods?
g) Do you support abstinence-only sexual education programs?
h) Should the state government consider race and gender in state government contracting and hiring decisions?
i) Do you support affirmative action in public college admissions?
j) Should New Hampshire continue affirmative action programs?
k) Do you support state funding of stem cell research?
l) Do you support state funding of embryonic stem cell research?
m) Do you support allowing pharmacists who conscientiously object to emergency contraception to refuse to dispense it?
All of these questions illustrate how the state has trespassed into areas it doesn't belong. For example, the questions about the nature of sex education in schools. This is only relevant because schools are a monopoly. If parents could decide where they school their children, they would pick the school with the sex education and other aspects that seem best to them. This would become a non-issue.
Vouchers for schools. This is an intermediate step towards a free market in education. Unfortunately, the courts would require a constitutional amendment for this that currently has little chance of passing. Eliminate tolls and replace lost revenue with the gas tax. This is a quick way to give the public a $50M tax cut. Replace state defined benefit pensions with defined contribution pensions. This puts the true burden of today's government on today's taxpayers, where it belongs. The result would be that state workers would get pensions in line with private pensions, not the gold-plated ones they have now.

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