Michael Wardell- Candidate for MO-7 Congressional Seat

  I have posted a couple of Press Releases from Michael Wardell and also written about his views of the Billy Long potential ethics violations but I have not posted on Mr. Wardell’s positions.  Yesterday I posted on another Candidate in the race, Jack Goodman, and compared his positions with my own.  Today I give Mr. Wardell the same treatment.  I will say this up front, Mr Wardell is the only candidate I have actually met in person (so far).  On another note, I appreciate his use of facts and figures in his issues statement.

 

National Security

National security is my foremost concern because nothing else matters if we cannot protect Americans and defend our freedom.  We remain at war with enemies determined to destroy us.  They measure time differently than we do. [snip]   …The Afghanistan Conflict needs to end. …  We must DEFEND our nation - not “save” the world.  I want to see Congress issue a Letter of Reprisal as is allowed in the Constitution to continue this conflict. It is the only Constitutional way to continue this fight. If Congress doesn't, then we get out.

The Economy

… Government is notoriously inefficient and an impediment to economic growth, creating a terrible burden on society…Cutting taxes spurs economic growth and generates more revenue for the government. The private sector - the free enterprise, capitalist system is the source of our prosperity, not the public sector.

Once the economy recovers and we see positive GDP (gross domestic product) growth, we need to rein in spending and ensure the Federal Reserve is working to restrain the growth of the money supply to alleviate inflationary pressure. – [IMHO We need to audit and then end the Fed.  We may need some other system to assist in controlling the monetary supply but the Fed is broken and corrupt, is not accountable to anyone but themselves and probably helped create a big part of our current situation.]

We need to encourage entrepreneurship by cutting taxes. Government programs that tend to punish success and reward failure should be eliminated.

US corporations are the second highest taxed corporations in the world, second only to Japan. In Missouri, we are taxed at 38.4% total. That is higher than, Canada, France, Belgium, and Italy to name a few  Then we must pay taxes on any dividends that are distributed to shareholders for a grand total of 50.8 %.

In addition, we are facing proposed cuts in Medicare and Social Security to pay for “Obama-care.” Is there any wonder why our parents, grandparents, and their friends are angry?

Health Care

Let’s fix the problems and keep what is working. The solution is to invite more of the free market in health care, not less. For example, Americans should be able to buy health insurance across state lines. Additionally, we need to address tort reform. In states that have enacted tort reform, insurance premiums have continued to decline.  We cannot trust the current administration with any additional responsibilities let alone trust them with managing health care. 

Education

Eliminating the Department of Education is both constitutionally correct and the responsible thing to do. The needs of educating our children should be decided locally, where we could hold the local Board of Education accountable to the needs of our community. The Department of Education needs to be systematically drawn down with power returned to the states, over a 5-7 year period. The educational needs of children are different in different parts of the nation. No one in Washington D.C. has a vested interest in our children’s needs. The closer government is to the people, the more control the citizens have over these needs.

Second Amendment

I fully support the founding fathers original intent, both what is written into the constitution and the spirit that they all had for this, our most important amendment. For without this, the others could not be enforced.

Tenth Amendment

I fully support the founding fathers’ original intent on limiting the powers of the federal government by providing the states’ rights to pass laws beyond the 18 enumerated powers provided to Congress in Article I Section VIII of the Constitution. Any piece of legislation that does not meet the strict limits of the 18 enumerated powers will be met with a no vote. Now, more than ever, the states must enforce their power given to them by the Tenth Amendment in order to slow down the expansion of the federal government to protect the rights of their people.

Energy

More domestic energy production must be developed:  [SNIP] Market forces need to determine the needs for these energy sources, not the government. If someone can make a profit, someone will. [Snip] There must be a reward in terms of profit for the risk to be worth taking. If the government mandates something to be built there is no risk for the venture taker and it will fail (Freddy Mac et al.).

Social Security and Medicare

With an estimated $65 TRILLION ($65,000,000,000,000) in shortfalls due to the Bernie Madoff school of thinking, our debt to these two entitlement programs are equivalent to 6-8 years of our GDP. We must do the responsible thing and carefully and systematically privatize both programs. Like the health care issue, this matter is best left to the people who pay into it.

As you can see Mr. Wardell agrees with the positions as I see them in virtually every case.  Mr. Goodman and Mr. Wardell in fact both seem to take similar stances on their stated issues.    One thing seems evident, either man would be a ‘bold color’ to send to Washington, the question remains which one is ‘bolder’;  do they both believe these things to their core or will the boldness wash off into a ‘pale pastel’ like so many others have done?

I would be very enthused to see them in a debate.

-KOOK