Issue Positions: [overview]

Issue Position

I believe, as our founding fathers did, that the purpose of the government is to protect our freedom and liberty from the tyranny of the majority as well as from the tyranny of the government. That incumbent with this premise is allowing us the freedom to succeed as well as the freedom to fail.

Redistributive change assumes there are limits to our ability to grow and achieve. "Spreading the wealth around" achieves no long term results. Both the receiver of the wealth and the taking away of it from those who earned it, lose their incentive to seek a better life. As a moral society our obligation is to insure opportunity, not to guarantee results.

The federal government is directed to:

- Provide for the common defense (army, navy etc.)

- Regulate interstate commerce (not run our own GM)

- Promote the general welfare (to promote means to encourage)

We must encourage job growth by...

- Simplifying regulations

- Get rid of Corporate special interest exceptions

- lower the corporate tax rate to make us competitive with other industrialized countries.

We also must acknowledge the need for the social safety net for those who cannot help themselves. (disabled etc.)

We must protect Social Security while redesigning for the future.

Embrace Life and Liberty. Pursue Happiness.

This election your vote can make a difference. A vote for Stephen Smith means you are choosing: 1. The schools you want for your children's education. 2 The doctors you want for your family's health care and 3. A simple tax system, free from special interests. 4. A culture of opportunity. That is what American Liberty looks like.

To help business, increase tax revenues, promote job growth and invigorate the free market, we must dramatically improve education, especially in the areas of technical skills and the 3 R's. We can help business by simplifying and reducing regulations, eliminating special interest deductions and lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%. It will make us competitive with the rest of the world. Canada just reduced its corporate taxes and tax revenues went up.

We can fix many of our problems. Social Security is not a trust, it is a tax. It has no money of its own - it is a collection of IOU's. Today benefits paid are close to the amount borrowed by the treasury. Medicare is poorly monitored and is burdened by millions in fraud. We cannot continue to spend more than we are taking in. It is time to fix it.

I am a graduate of UCLA, was born and raised in Los Angeles, and worked 30 years in retail business in locations ranging from South Central to Bel-Air. Los Angeles is important to me and will always be my home.

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