Major Campaign Themes

By Duane Roberts

I support driving private health insurance companies out of business and replacing them with a single-payer "Medicare-for-all" type health care system, ending overseas wars to pay for tuition-free higher education for all students, oppose nuclear power, and back the legalization of marijuana and hemp for medicinal, recreational, and industrial purposes.

The so-called "health care reform" bill passed by Congress was in reality a scheme to bailout Wall Street billionaires who invested heavily in private health insurance companies that lately have experienced a decline in revenues as a result of a rapidly shrinking customer base. Since 2000, private insurers have lost more than nine million customers and the Democrats came to their rescue with a plan to prop them up by forcing millions of people to buy their inferior, overpriced policies and subsidize their profit margins with a half-trillion in taxpayer money. This latest giveaway needs to be repealed in favor of creating a single-payer "Medicare-for-all" type health care system. By driving private insurers out of business, we'll save $400 billion they waste each year on inefficiency and profiteering--money that can guarantee everybody has access to health care.

END COLONIAL WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN TO PAY FOR TUITION-FREE HIGHER EDUCATION FOR ALL STUDENTS

In this era of slashed state and federal budgets, both Democratic and Republican politicians repeatedly argue there is little if any money available to pay for education. Yet when President Barack Obama goes to Congress and demands they give him more money to bomb other countries, they cough up every dollar he wants without question. By immediately withdrawing all U.S. military troops, private mercenaries, and independent contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan, we can use about half of the estimated $200 billion in taxpayer money currently being wasted each year on these bloody colonial wars to guarantee that every academically-qualified student living within the United States, regardless of immigration status, will be able to obtain a tuition-free education at a public college, university, or technical trade school of their choosing.

OPPOSE NUCLEAR POWER IN FAVOR OF FURTHER DEVELOPING CLEAN AND SAFE SOURCES OF RENEWABLE ENERGY

In a cynical attempt to capitalize on global warming fears, multinational corporations that make huge profits constructing nuclear power plants are spending millions to convince the public that building more of them will help alleviate this problem. But what positive effects--if any--nuclear power has upon global warming is greatly outweighed by the fact it happens to be one of the most expensive and dangerous sources of energy ever created. Not only do nuclear power plants require billions in taxpayer subsidies for them to become commercially viable, but all aspects of their operations involve potentially harmful--if not deadly impacts--upon the environment. We could achieve much better results by encouraging conservation, promoting mass transit, and further developing clean and safe sources of renewable energy such as solar.

SUPPORT LEGALIZING MARIJUANA AND HEMP FOR MEDICINAL, RECREATIONAL, AND INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 800,000 people are arrested each year in the United States for growing, selling, and consuming a plant which evidence suggests is far less dangerous to use than legal drugs like alcohol, tobacco, and some prescription pharmaceuticals. This not only wastes jail space, but clogs up the court system, fills up the prisons, and diverts the time of police, prosecutors, and judges away from pursuing people who commit violent criminal acts against others. Legalizing marijuana not only will allow us to regulate it and thus make it much safer for consumers to use, but will bring in billions of dollars in new tax revenues to cash-starved local, state, and federal governments, and help facilitate the development of industrial hemp as a valuable agricultural commodity.