Los Angeles County, CA November 7, 2000 Election
Smart Voter

The issues

By David L. Cossak

Candidate for United States Representative; District 26

This information is provided by the candidate
foreign policy, campaign finance, citizenship, crime, economy, education, environment, reform, gun control, health care, revolving credit, social security, taxes, drugs, welfare.
  • FOREIGN POLICY

Our foreign policy is a mess. I don't know what I can do to correct it due to the special interests of foreign governments and corporations. They seem to have contaminated the judgments of our lawmakers.

  • CAMPAIGN FINANCE

In the past, Campaign finance has been a hot issue. I am for a restructuring that will include the so-called "soft" money donations. That part was deliberately left out of the campaign reform of years past because it left a giant loophole for corporations to funnel money into the candidates war chests and control those candidates. I am for a set amount to each candidate coming from a state or national fund. I am in favor of removing the tax deduction for contributions to political entities.

  • CITIZENSHIP FOR NEWBORNS OF NON AMERICANS

There is one thing you will begin to notice about me. I am not going to hide from the toughest topics as many incumbents do.

This is another emotional subject and will make many people angry.

It is my intention to create and be passed a constitutional amendment that creates a law that for a child to become a citizen of this country his parent(s) have to be one also.

There are too many people from other countries coming over to have their children born here just so they could be citizens so that they (the parents) would have reason to be here and collect some form of welfare or social security. It's time to stop it.

We need to start looking after are own resources and keep ourselves econimically strong so that we can continue to help others. However, at this moment, we are on the verge of being in serious trouble in several areas, and it is affecting our level of well being.

  • CRIME

Our system and the mentality of our society up to now has generally said "put more police officers on the street and that will curtail crime." We have thrown millions of dollars and hungreds if not thousands of new officers on the street. It has not helped. What has happened here is that the system has become unmanageable. We have police officers breaking the law so they can look good doing their job. Now criminals have been freed because of illegal proceedures by officers and what's worse, innocent citizens have gone to jail.

I have proven methods that will lower the crime rate in the district. Are you willing to take the chance that my programs will work? If they don't you can elect someone else in two years. It's that simple.

  • ECONOMY

The economy is moving right along quite nicely. I see no reason to interfere with it. Only in times of high unemployment should the government act. It is a congressman's job to bring in help and money to help people survive hardship. The incumbant has erased his comments on the subjects that I am raising here. He, as usual has kept very quiet. He has done very little to help our district over the years and in fact has voted for the NAFTA bill that cost our state a lot of jobs. I wonder what he personally got out of it by voting for that bill? Vote 4 change. Vote David L. Cossak

  • EDUCATION

Our educational system in this district stinks. There is no other way to describe it. Statistics show we are in the bottom 10% scholastically in the nation when it comes to our public schools. Our schools are in disarray. Change can be done quickly and efficiently if the right person is in office. If you look at the incumbents position you must ask yourself, Is that all he has done for our education in nearly 20 years of being in office? Much more can be done. my plans add substance to our educational system. I promise to work very closely with the state and the district so that our children can receive the best education available anywhere.

Do you want the same mentality as you we've had the last 20 years concerning our education? If not. Vote 4 change. Break the mold, make a difference. Vote for a candidate that offers leadership here at home and not for a party that doesn't listen.

  • Environment

This is one of the most important issues facing humanity today. Conservation includes much more than working on preserving some land and calling it consevation as our incumbent has recently done. (he erased that also)

As important as it is to protect our national forests there is more at stake that we are over looking and/or taking for granted. Conservation includes our water, our land, our garbage, our minerals, our workforce, our air, our children and much more.

At this moment I would like to focus on our power needs. There are technologies in existence that we could use that would give us an unlimited amount of power that is safe and far less expensive than what we are paying now.

I am proposing taking a community and making the technology available to show those savings and technologies. When it is shown to work and be safe, we can apply it to the rest of the district and eventually the state.

Let's put into effect the technologies that will allow us to be free of some of the utilities that control our lives and over charge us for what we need. All you have to do is vote for someone different to start these things up. I'll take it from there.

  • Gun Control

What a great issue. A perfect reason to keep people focused on reasons to be afraid (and controlled)and not get anything done. I personally do not own a gun and am very neutral on the subject. I do not think restricting people having guns is the way to enforce peace in the community. I put gun ownership into four catagories. 1) competition and sport 2) collecting 3) protection 4) crime and terrorism.

The issue of the 2nd ammendmentand, the right to bear arms have been greatly mis-interpreted. I will not go into that discussion at this time but will say that the argument has been been continually used by polititions to create a fearful reaction. They do that intentionally to keep us off balanced as to what they are really doing or not doing. Abolishing guns will not stop crime. Neither will arming everyone. What will stop crime, which is the real issue here, is to take the the anger out of our society. There are simple ways to do that. Maybe now you'd like to give something different a try? I certainly would.

  • HEALTH CARE

I'm particularly attached to this issue for the reasons that I took care of a terminally ill parent with cancer and Alzheimer's over the last seven years. I continually had to hight with the HMO's and medicare systems to get proper medical attention. that never happened so the burden fell on me alone. Our health care system is virtually non existant in many areas. It works very well if you never need it. When you do that is when it begins to break down.

I am in favor of a system that is a maintenance system for wellness. I am also in favor of alternative medicines and practices. I have seen to many people get better from many different illnesses not to support healing modalities of every kind. I believe with som preventative health care system we would not have to depend on insurance companies and their bottom line for our health needs. I have a program for our district that could be a model for the whole country when it's in place.

The answers to our problems arent that difficult. Are you willing to try a different approach?

  • INTEREST RATES AND REVOLVING CREDIT

There are many injustices going on in our society. I like to think that many of them are created to teach us how to overcome a particular difficulty. I think this is the case concerning interest on revolving credit. We can stop an injustice here.

The banks in their attempt to be as profitable as possible have taken advantage of the consumer in our most vulnerable way, they prey on our need to live a more comfortable lifestyle. They do this by the use of credit cards.

There are some banks that charge as much as 24% on the balance of what you owe. There are penalties on top of that if your payment comes late and the minimum payement doesn't even cover the interest at times. They have charges for going over your limit and keep charging you until you pay it down. This practice is done by thousands of banks world wide.

ATM's also is a problem. The charge is up to 15% percent on $20.00 just to withdraw your own money from a generic atm.

I think the time has come to make a constitutional ammendment following the usury laws for real estate loans. We need to place a limit of 10 - 12% on revolving credit and a 2% limit on ATM charges. If we work together we can accomplish that. If it doesn't pass the house and senate as I have written it then the measure will go to the ballot at the same time. We will accomplish this.

The trust we gave the banking industry has been abused. Let's stop it now.

  • SOCIAL SECURITY

The problems with social security are solvable. Everyone is throwing out solutions using negative terms and using fear tactics in order to cause panic thinking. This country has enough money to sustain social security until an investment plan is created to ensure the retirement of all at the appropriate time. The issue here is money management. Not private control or raising the eligibility age or reducing benefits. Removing all the different political agenda's on this issue will take some doing. It will not be an easy task. The first step is to remove the special interests out of the decision making processs and then making some common sense financial decisions.

  • TAXES

Our taxes are too high in all respects. How to lower them has been the battle ground for the two parties for decades. The most common sense solution that has been suggested is the we cut spending. But that is where the real battle begins. That battle of where to cut has stopped the process. So we can't cut spending, and we can't cut taxes to a satisfactory level. The passage of the balance budget ammendment hasn't helped.

Where do we get an extra 4 trillion dollars to pay off our national debt? The elected officials do not want to do anything for the reason it takes the blank check out of their hands if they do. We spend way to much on interest for the overspending we do. It keeps getting worse.

There are solutions that work. Let's get some new legislators voted in so that we can finally fix the problem.

  • DRUGS

The war on drugs keeps going on and on and getting bigger and more expensive each year. It is obvious what we are doing is not working. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot with our international drug policies, which contradict our national policies. We are wasting 10's of millions of dollars on a system of enforcement that just does not work.

There are several other options we could try. We have to try something. Anything. I frankly do not know which idea to use on a national level. Maybe all or them. Maybe something I'm not aware of as of yet. But, I have some ideas that will work for our district.

It is time to change things for the positive. In all area's we have to make decisive decisions to change things for the better. If you agree with this attitude then change your vote and vote for a candidate who will lead with new ideas.

  • WELFARE

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