John Wood, Jr.'s Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
Key
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.
Unknown Position: Candidate refused to address this issue, or we could not infer an answer for this candidate despite exhaustive research of their public record.
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John Wood, Jr. has refused to provide voters with positions on key issues covered by the 2014 Political Courage Test, despite repeated requests.
Issue Positions
For Presidential and Congressional candidates who refuse to provide voters with their positions, Vote Smart has researched their public records to determine their likely responses. These issue positions are from 2014.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- "Lowering the tax burden on the middle and working class, lowering the tax burden on business's and investors, while flattening and simplifying the tax code will stimulate the vital forces of demand and supply that together will reinvigorate our economy." (votesmart.org)
- "The U.S. economy can thrive again, but it will require practical economic solutions that can survive politically in our polarized government. The Wood Plan calls for several measures to ensure a return to aggressive growth in our economy, increased employment, and the reduction of our debt and deficit to manageable levels.Step 1. Tax Reform: Lowering the tax burden on the middle and working class, lowering the tax burden on business's and investors, while flattening and simplifying the tax code will stimulate the vital forces of demand and supply that together will reinvigorate our economy. Rather than the current 7 rates (which call upon Americans paying between $9,000 and $33,000 to pay 15%, and Americans making between roughly $183,000 and $400,000 to pay 33%) my reform package consolidates these to only three:40% for all those earning 1 million dollars and more a year.20% for those making between $250,000 and $1 million.10% for all those making less than 250 thousand dollars a year.These adjustments will unleash demand in our economy, without which there is no incentive for businesses to hire.The above income tax decreases will also encourage small business hiring. But to make it easier for companies to hire and take advantage of this demand, we cannot have non-competitive corporate and investment rates which stifle growth. Additionally then, the Wood Plan calls for:7.5% long term capital gains rate (down from 20%).20% corporate tax rate (down from 35%).Limiting loopholes and deductions to help manage the deficit and simplify the tax code.Step 2. Welfare and unemployment reform: With poverty and unemployment high in the United States, and epidemic in the inner cities of the 43rd district, it would make neither moral or economic sense to eliminate or reduce unemployment and welfare aid to people living in hard hit cities such as Inglewood and Los Angeles. Yet funding an unemployment and welfare system that does too little to incentivize hiring and achievement is just as wrong. Successful reform in this area, perhaps more than anything else, can serve to radically transform the economic outlook of the urban poor in America. It is part of helping to move us from a social safety net, to a social spring board. It includes:Linking every dollar given to the long term, able-bodied unemployed to a vocational, an educational, company training or otherwise skill based program that will ensure that the monies spent on aid to those in need and unable to find work in a languishing economy will have attractive skills to make them desirable in the labor marketplace, giving them foundation from which to spring upwards through society.Incentivizing the hiring of individuals coming through such programs via various tax credits.Ensuring as much as possible the guaranteed hiring of individuals coming through such programs via the establishment of public-private partnerships with business's large and small meeting certain preset criteria to develop specific retraining programs around the symbiotic labor needs and requirements of particular companies." (votesmart.org)
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- "Recent reforms to the health care system has eased some problems while worsening others. For many on the lower end of the income scale the subsidies made available by the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.) will and are allowing them to purchase quality health insurance where in the past they might not have been able to. Also for those with preexisting conditions, the new regulations put in place by the A.C.A. are allowing them to buy insurance whereas before they were locked out of the market with terrible ramifications. These are positive developments. But the price at which they come is an increasing cost of premiums for many working and most middle class Americans and what is projected to be a massive new burden on the federal budget as a consequence of the reforms, as well as many other problems remaining to be solved.The A.C.A. is designed to hold down the premium cost increases anticipated to come as a result of mandating that health insurance companies cover people with preexisting conditions by facilitating competition through health insurance market exchanges and by mandating that all Americans purchase health insurance (thus insuring that younger Americans who bring little financial risk to insurers would enter the insurance pool, thereby lowering costs for everyone). The evidence thus far seems to indicate that these measures are not able to hold costs down as much as expanding coverage to high risk consumers tend to drive costs up. Even so, there are some simple reforms that can be implemented to help reduce current premiums." (votesmart.org)
- "For most undocumented immigrants, while it is unnecessary to grant them citizenship, it is in the interests of our nation to see to it that they become registered as legal residents without fear of deportation and allowed to work so long as they have not committed serious additional crimes." (votesmart.org)
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- Despite exhaustive research, Vote Smart was unable to find information about this candidate's position.
- "The Wood Plan for Entitlements calls for a fundamental transformation of our entitlement system, but one that would grant the growth potential called for by conservatives through privatization while ensuring the stability and guarantees of the programs demanded by liberals." (votesmart.org)
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