With the presidential election coming up in November, there’s
been a lot of talk about the candidates. Turn on any news network and you’ll see
political analysts talking about Romney’s most recent speech or Obama’s fiscal
policy. With all this talk about the Democratic and Republican nominees, people
have seem to forgotten that there are other candidates from other parties
running in this election. In this blog post, I will talk about the Libertarian
Party candidate, Gary Johnson.
Gary
Johnson served as Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 as a Republican. During
his tenure as governor, Johnson adhered to a stringent anti-tax and
anti-bureaucracy policy driven by a cost–benefit analysis rationale, setting
state and national records for his use of veto powers: more than the other 49
contemporary governors put together [1]. Also, as governor, Johnson fulfilled his campaign promise to reduce
the 10% annual growth of the state budget, pushed for a school voucher
program, and argued in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. After leaving
office, Johnson founded the non-profit Our America Initiative in 2009, a
political advocacy committee seeking to promote policies such as free
enterprise, foreign non-interventionism, limited government and privatization.
On
May 11, 2011, Johnson decided to run for president under the Republican Party.
After two successful debates and aggressive campaigning, Johnson still couldn’t
muster up the popularity required to win a Republican primary. So, on December
28, 2011, Johnson withdrew his candidacy for the Republican Party and declared
that he was running for the Libertarian Party.
As
a Libertarian candidate, Johnson holds fiscally conservative, socially liberal
views, and a philosophy of limited government and military noninterventionism. Here
are his positions on the major issues [2]:
·
Foreign Policy: Bring home all of the troops and
strive for military noninterventionism.
·
Education: End the Department of Education and
give local areas authority over the schools.
·
Spending/Deficit: Balance the budget, reform
costly entitlement programs, and audit the Federal Reserve.
·
Economy/Taxes: Replace the IRS with the ‘Fair Tax’
and eliminate government involvement in the economy.
·
Civil Liberties: End the assault on individual
privacy and create a neutral government that does not promote specific beliefs.
·
Immigration: Simplify the legal immigration
process and create policies that will hinder illegal immigration.
·
Energy/Environment: Eliminate government
subsidies for energy programs and apply a cost-benefit analysis approach to
environmental regulations.
As you
can see, Gary Johnson stands in the middle of the Democrats and Republicans.
Socially he is liberal while economically he is conservative. While the
Libertarian Party still doesn’t stand a chance against the two major parties,
it’s always nice to know that there are other options out there.
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