Richard Winfield's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Richard Winfield has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2020 Political Courage Test.
Georgia Congressional Special Election, District Jr, 2020 Political Courage Test
| Pro-choice | Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| I support reducing abortions to the humanly possible minimum by: 1) allowing women the right to abortion, with costs completely covered by Medicare for All; 2) supplying, fully covered by Medicare for All, all needing contraceptives, day after pills, and other medical care for reproductive health; 3) providing all parents with the economic independence and flexibility to be able to have the children they want without interfering with their economic and political opportunitites thanks to guaranteed jobs at fair wages, paid family leave, paid 9 month parental leave, free public child and elder care, and $900 monthly child allowances. | |||
| No | In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| Yes | Do you support expanding federal funding to support entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare? | ||
| We must raise all Social Security benefits for the disabled and retirees to the level of a fair minimum wage of $20/hr ($41,600 annually). We must fund these benefits and Medicare for All (covering everyone's necessary physical, mental, dental, and long term care), not through payroll taxes, but by levying highly graduated income and wealth taxes upon the top 10% of income and wealth. Medicare for All will allow us to negotiate in strength to cut drugs and health care costs in half and save $1.7 trillion dollars annually. | |||
| Yes | Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| We must pass a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United and prohibit Superpac political contributions, all "dark" money political contributioins, and all funding of campaigns by candidates themselves. Instead, we must have publicly funded campaigns that give all candidates the resources to inform the whole voting public about themselves and their poltical platform. Also, to enable employees to run for office, all candidates who go on unpaid leave to run for office must receive replacement income equal to a fair minimum wage during the race, retain their work related benefits, and have their job back afterwards. | |||
| No | Do you support the protection of government officials, including law enforcement officers, from personal liability in civil lawsuits concerning alleged misconduct? | ||
| All public employees who violate the rights of others must be liable in civil lawsuits for the harms they cause. They, like all persons, should be provide legal representation in civil cases with a Legal Care for All program, that covers everyone's personal legal expenses in both criminal and civil cases with a government funded legal insurance. | |||
| No | Do you support increasing defense spending? | ||
| We vastly outspend all other nations on the planet in defense spending, much of it on unnecessary refurbishing of our nuclear weapons arsenal and on weapons systems that are no longer needed. We do not need to keep more than 800 overseas military bases when the rest of the world has no more than 60. We need to engage in negotiations to vastly reduce our nuclear weapons, to keep space de-militarized, and to halt the onslaught of a new arms race with Russia and China. | |||
| Yes | Do you support federal spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support lowering corporate taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | Do you support providing financial relief to businesses AND/OR corporations negatively impacted by the state of national emergency for COVID-19? | ||
| We need to make the public investment to end unemployment and poverty income with a Federal Job Guarantee, provide fair empowerment to employees, guarantee all residents equal access to decent housing, education at all levels, medical care, and legal care, all of which will enhance our economic growth by securing equal economic opportunity. We also need to have a fair tax policy, using highly graduated income and wealth taxation on individuals to reduce wealth inequality, which is a drag on our economic growth and a threat to our democracy. We can then eliminate payroll and corporate taxes entirely. | |||
| Yes | Do you support requiring states to adopt federal education standards? | ||
| We need to ensure that students in every state have equal resources, including equally paid and trained faculty and staff, sufficiently small class size, and sufficiently demanding academic curriculum to provide them with the general education a citizen needs. This includes at least two years of study of philosophy, as well as studies in all the arts and sports in both school classes and in free public after school programs. This requires national equitable funding of public schools, raising teacher's salaries, and increasing the academic qualifications of teachers. We also need free tuition and stipends at all public colleges. | |||
| Yes | Do you support government funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| We need to make a transition by 2030 to 100% green energy production and consumption with a Green New Deal that also guarantees employment at fair wages to anyone who loses work in the fossil fuel industry. We can use the Federal Job Guarantee to help build and operate massive solar, wind, biofuel, and generation IV nuclear power installations. The fossil fuel industry, the most wealthy in human history, must be required to transform itself by the end of this decade to mitigate our climate emergency. Our foreign policy must aim to implement a Global Green New Deal as well. | |||
| Yes | Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| Our irresponsible proliferation of guns has reached the point of threatening public health and our democracy. We must ban all large capacity magazine guns, keep privately held guns out of public places except for firing ranges and animal hunting grounds, and require gun owners to purchase liability insurance covering the costs of the 40,000 killings and 250,000 woundings that gun carnage produces each year. All gun purchases must be subject to background checks and gun manufacturers and gun sellers must be held liable for producing and selling guns, ammunition, and gun accessories that threaten public safety. | |||
| No | Do you support repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")? | ||
| Yes | Do you support requiring businesses to provide paid medical leave during public health crises, such as COVID-19? | ||
| The ACA is better than what existed before, but it fails to cover everyone, fails to end copays, deductibles, and premiums, and fails to lower our medical costs in line with those of the rest of the developed world. We need to replace it with Medicare for All, covering all necessary physical, mental, dental, and long term care with no copays, no deductibles and no premiums, and able to negotiate to cut our health care costs in half. All employees should have paid medical leave as needed, as well as 9 month paid parental leave when a birth occurs. | |||
| No | Do you support the construction of a wall along the Mexican border? | ||
| No | Do you support requiring immigrants who are unlawfully present to return to their country of origin before they are eligible for citizenship? | ||
| We have failed to enforce our immigration laws and to provide sufficient immigration officers and courts to process asylum seekers and others tired of waiting inordinantly for timely processing. We should give legal status with a path to citizenship to all undocumented persons who have been here more than a year and present no threat to our public safety. Instead of building a wall, we should vastly increase the number of asylum processing officials and judges, shut down all our for-profit immigration prisons, and increase the number of visas available for family reunification, employment, and diversity. | |||
| No | Should the United States use military force to prevent governments hostile to the U.S. from possessing a weapon of mass destruction (for example: nuclear, biological, chemical)? | ||
| Yes | Do you support reducing military intervention in Middle East conflicts? | ||
| We should rely on negotiation to get nations to give up their WMD programs in exchange for assurances for their security, while still using peaceful pressure to curtail violations of right around the world. We should reduce our military intervention in the Middle East and promote economic development, including massive measures to mitigate climate heating, which is devastating much of the Middle East and North Africa. We should support nuclear non-proliferation agreements and engage all nuclear powers in negotiations to drastically reduce their nuclear arsenals. Trump's Space Force should be disbanded and space should remain demilitarized. | |||
| No | Do you generally support removing barriers to international trade (for example: tariffs, quotas, etc.)? | ||
| Free trade without regulations is a threat to economic welfare and climate change mitigation. We must have all trade agreements promote green energy production and consumption, guaranteed employment at fair wages, and international protections against pandemics. Tariffs and quotas may be useful, provided they are not introduced unilaterally without proper negotiation. | |||
| I will fight to abolish unemployment and poverty income with a Federal Job Guarantee tied to a fair minimum wage starting at $20/hr and keeping pace with inflation and national productivity, and providing equivalent replacement income to those who are unable to work. I also support Medicare for All and a Green New Deal achieving 100% Green Energy by 2030. I support fair employee empowerment with automatic union elections at all enterprises with multiple employees and 50% of corporate board seats filled by employees. - All paid for by fair graduated income and wealth taxes on the top 10%. |
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