League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz Counties, CA November 4, 2008 Election
	Brian Holtz Answers Questions Candidate for United States Representative; District 14

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What, if anything, do you believe the federal government should do to control global climate change?

Damage to the environment only happens where there is no definition and enforcement of individual rights in resources like land, water, air, wildlife, carbon sinks, and electromagnetic spectrum. Markets are the best mechanism for protecting the environment, because they can factor the consequences of pollution into the cost calculations of each potential polluter, and encourage the owners of a resource to preserve it. Markets also allow consumers to reward and punish producers for their impact on the environment. Green pricing (i.e. pollution taxes) would stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems.

The federal government should use its power over foreign trade and interstate commerce to enforce green pricing of the environmental externalities (e.g. anthropogenic global warming) imposed across those borders by the traded products.

2. What should the federal government do, if anything, to ensure that every American has health coverage?

America has too much health insurance. Huge tax subsidies for corporate health insurance hide costs from the insured, discriminate against those not working for large employers, and make insurance portability a regulatory nightmare. Article I Section 8 gives Congress zero authority to tell Americans what healthcare or health insurance they are required or prohibited to buy for their families. Bloated defined-benefit insurance programs (Medicare and Medicaid) offer an antiquated mix of procedures and the wrong balance between routine care and catastrophic coverage. The government over-regulates private health insurance, stopping insurers and beneficiaries from agreeing on lower-cost (e.g. out-of-state) alternatives. The only role of government in healthcare should be to provide tax incentives for insurance consumers to join broad risk pools independent of their employment.

3. What, if anything, should the federal government do about immigration?

Migration across borders should be without constraints, provided that migrants do not trespass and are sponsored by someone (perhaps themselves) who can afford to assume the same responsibility for their resource impact and congestion impact and subsistence needs as parents do for native children. Libertarians support control over the entry into our country of foreign nationals who pose a threat to security, health or property.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 25, 2008 13:02
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