Issues

Michael J.

Gardiner

for Congress

ON THE ISSUES

THE ECONOMY: Creating Demand and Lasting Economic Recovery.

Many candidates will be offering government solutions to create jobs. The Consumer is said to be 60% to 70% of the U.S. economy. Consumers losing homes or home value don't feel very confident. Let's stop the foreclosures as long as people are paying their taxes and insurance and something on the note. It's a secured loan and real estate come back eventually. Some say it can't be done. It's being done, just not enough. When consumer confidence returns, the private sector will create the right jobs to meet real demand fueling recovery, growth, and more revenues to ease our deficit. But, we need more than that, we need to reduce the giant proportion of GNP we spend on healthcare too. Consumers will save and spend it and feel more confident, fueling recoveryLet's stop the foreclosures as long as are paying their taxes and insurance and something on the note. It's a secured loan and real estate come back eventually. Some say it can't be done. It's being done, just not enough. When consumer confidence returns, the private sector will create the right jobs to meet real demand fueling recovery, growth, and more revenues to ease our deficit. But, we need more than that, we need to reduce the giant proportion of GNP we spend on healthcare too. Consumers will save and spend it and feel more confident, fueling recovery

2. Jobs could come from a recovery of demand if consumers and employers suddenly had more money to spend. But where would it come from? We can cut taxes, but at some point a tax decrease could become reckless. We have to be viewed as capable of satisfying debt obligations and dare not default in any debt obligation. Just borrowing more from our future worries us and worries the world.

3. Where can we find some money? Where are we spending heavily? Can we create savings and use them to improve our economy?

4. The Connection Between Health Insurance Reform and the Economy. The following is from my 2010 website. We will update it soon but I believe the ideas this discussion promotes are still true and in fact worse.: Health insurance is costing individuals and families and in most cases their employers, a tremendous amount of money. Nationally the average individual policy costs $400 per month. The average family plan is $1100 per month and many pay more. That is $4800 per year and $13200 per year! . The following is from my 2010 website. We will update it soon but I ideas this discussion promotes are still true and in fact worse.: Health insurance is costing individuals and families and in most cases their employers, a tremendous amount of money. Nationally the average individual policy costs $400 per month. The average family plan is $1100 per month and many pay more. That is $4800 per year and $13200 per year! If you live in Rhode Island, you know these figures are low. Moreover in 2011, the premiums went up 9%. Heath insurance for families has near doubled since 2001. Moreover in 2011, the premiums went up 9%. Heath for families has near doubled since 2001

The market place of health insurance is carved up into fifty pieces. Whether we use Congress's commerce power, or have the states adopt a universal health care code, to create a nationwide market place, we need to create one market place for health insurance. the latter approach is preferable in the long term, the former approach, might gives us a temporary path until the states can finish the work of a uniform code. The intense competition for millions of subscribers will slow and even eliminate the annual increases in premiums that can be as much as 10% or say $500 for an individual plan, and $1500 or more for a family. What a drag on the economy! But more than that, we would probably see reduced premiums from competition. A 10% reduction in premium, $500 for an individual, and $1500 or more for a family plan, would produces a large stimulus to the economy . Savings would make consumer feel more confident, and employers would have money to invest in productivity and workers and new products. Here is an important part. The effect would be lasting; not just a one time shot in the arm. It would be year after year.

If we create a nationwide marketplace or exchange in health insurance, and we cut taxes and spending where we can, what else can we do?

If we create a nationwide marketplace or in health insurance, and we cut taxes and spending where we can, what else can we do?

Tort Reform. Alternative Remedy Tort Reform can be enacted and administered by the states overnight, eliminating the costs of defensive medicine and providing more remedy to more persons injured during medical care at low cost. The quality of care will actually improve as accidents become teaching moments immediately as opposed to secrets guarded through prolonged and expensive litigation.

Stabilize regulation. Set realistic, achievable and measurable public goals for regulation. enforce for results, not penalties. A reassured business community will be emboldened and invest more, and in turn creating more demand and progress toward a sustained recovery.

ENERGY:

1. Okay , I get it. Windmills are very "green" and so are solar panels. I appreciate and enjoy seeing the bold initiatives of individuals and groups at setting these up where they make sense. But we can very affordably insulate our homes and install newer furnaces and more efficient lighting, and encourage, as opposed to new sometimes very costly forms of generation. Its cheaper and more certain, and maybe even more green than throwing perfectly good gear away and replacing it with new that had to be manufactured using more energy and materials. We are not in a position to take unnecessary chances with our currently strapped financial situation if we have other sure bet conservation opportunities in front of us. In recent years, I have probably installed well over a hundred energy efficient windows in homes, chosen energy star hot water heaters, washer dryers, refrigerators and insulated hot water pipes and replaced older doors with modern weather stripped doors. We need to encourage this very affordable and practical energy conservation, an allow innovation to improve our costs and return on solar and wind.

2. A proposed wind farm off of RI's shores could produce jobs and could possibly make it a magnet for such enterprises, but that is a hope, not a certainty. Also, the equipment to harvest the so-called, " Saudi Arabia of Wind" will be offshore in the most expensive possible situation to construct and maintain the turbines in hostile conditions. The energy will cost more than any other source. If we really want electricity, why not put more solar panels up where they can serviced by people without going to sea? The maintenance simply has to be be cheaper. The ability to upgrade is almost certainly greater with solar, or wind turbines located on the ground. I am not against the windfarm offshore, but the government should not subsidize projects unless the numbers make sense. The demand is for cheaper power. Insulation and energy efficient appliances and furnaces provide attainable and durable reduction in consumption. They pay back fairly rapidly their costs, and the return is certain.

4. The government has just massively increased federal loan guarantees for financing of nuclear plants. If we only consider the need for more energy, and if you buy into the climate change arguments..... ( I am unconvinced), Southern New England could use a couple of nuclear power plants. But, is it safe enough? Is it right for Rhode Island? Certainly the Fukishima situation albeit with very old pant designs, post Tsunami, must give us serious, serious pause. Still, we need energy and we need affordable reliable energy. We must consider an all of the above energy policy. Outright bans on activity seem arbitrary. We should not foreclose drilling activities in other parts of America if adequate safeguards and technology can prevent or limit the risk to the environment and we would be capable of truly and quickly restoring any damage that did occur.. Respect for the environment should not lead to absolutism, but rather prudence and caution.

4. The government has just massively increased federal loan guarantees for financing of nuclear plants. If we only consider the need for more energy, and if you buy into the climate change arguments..... ( I am unconvinced), Southern New England could use a couple of nuclear power plants. But, is it safe enough? Is it right for Rhode Island? Certainly the Fukishima situation albeit with very old pant designs, post Tsunami, must give us serious, serious pause. Still, we need and we need affordable reliable energy. We must consider an all of the above energy policy. Outright bans on activity seem arbitrary. We should not foreclose drilling activities in other parts of America if adequate safeguards and technology can prevent or limit the risk to the environment and we would be capable of truly and quickly restoring any damage that did occur.. Respect for the environment should not lead to absolutism, but rather prudence and caution.

LIFE: Save as many as possible without offending individual freedom. I believe that the law should protect unborn human life. I reject the view unborn human life should receive no protection. I will lead by persuasion and by well reasoned measures. I will not allow the law to become a brute to the unborn, but I likewise will not allow the law to become a brute to the individual. I would like to claim the mantle of "pro-life" but to be more accurate, because I would protect a woman's right to choose as consistent with my respect for priviacy and insistence on a restrianed and limited government, I am in fact "pro-choice." The recent "Aiken scandel" supports my beeleif that startrting from a strict "pro-life" postion, with no exceptions, actually is too unreasonable and unrestrained a position to allow the proponent any effective influence to protect more life. I amim to protect more life. But my starting point must be consistent with the law of the land and I do support the decision in Roe v. Wade as it stands now as a rational balancing of competing concerns.

5. Expanding the period of protection of life, refusing taxpayer support for abortion, or abortion advocacy organizations, never giving up on the advocacy of the cause of protecting more life, keeping alive the discussion and possibility for the protection of more life are all legitimate ends that do not offend the idea of limited government, and do not require a government too intrusive for our American traditions. I therefore choose to describe myself as "Pro Life. " I accept Roe v. Wade, and would support a democratic majority determination to overturn it or limit it, because women are no longer a "minority" in fact or in treatment. Women are fully enfranchised and in a position to decide this issue in our state and federal legislatures. They are highly influential among their opposites gender. I would be open to the states and the people acting in the field by constitutional amendment, so long as it did not reduce the protections of the larger bill of rights. I think this is uniquely a woman's' issue that that will always be heavily influenced by women. I am willing to take affirmative legislative action to protect life consistent with the above principles. I will not support giving the government a blank check to interfere with the rights of the individuals, however, merely because a democratic majority has moved. It will always be the role of the Supreme Court to protect minorities against majorities, and although I do not believe that women are, in general, a "minority" each circumstance must be examined on its facts. As your representative, I will listen to each constitutuent. Birth Control.: Individuals have the right to prevent birth and to family plan. Family planning is far preferable to abortion or neglect. Public funding of responsible birth control and family planning makes sense. Sex Education: I strongly support sex education. Parents need to be allowed to preview and opt out of the curriculum. Hopefully, agreeable age appropriate and neutral curriculum can be crafted.

6. GAY MARRIAGE. What is marriage? It is a bond that creates a family. This bond may be intended to produce children, but there is no requirement that persons marrying intend to have children or are capable of having children. It may be to protect property, but there is no requirement to have or acquire property. At its base, it is two people declaring a bond that they are a family. Public policy should favor families. People need each other, and do better with companionship. Companionship and family is a fundamental right, and marriage is the device by which the state recognizes that right. I am of a party that strongly believes in individual responsibility. We must therefore also respect individuals for who they are. I do not accept the counter argument that accepting gay marriage will lead to unions of human and animal, brother and sister, and every other conjured "what if." It is is a fear based argument which is not grounded in law or fact.

Immigration. The Arizona statute and the upheaval it caused revealed the danger of the federal government creating a sense of hopelessness by neglect of the problems of uncontrolled border crossings and illegal immigration. I would support a bi-partisan framework that may get more attention in congress soon. The first priority in immigration is border control and the building of confidence that illegal immigrant flow is under control, combined with wider, easier, use of E-Verify and also SAVE ( a database that can prevent illegals from receiving public assistance). This will result in self deportation of large numbers of illegals. However, a path to citizenship is not out of the question, and is more practical than saying glibly "back of the line" to 11 million people. We must remember that all our ancestors are immigrants who came to work for a better life. Immigration reform should be a bi-partisan solution. Governing is not always perfectly fair or just . It must be practical and based in reality. We need not insist on perfection to find common ground. But better control of the border should be the negotiated pre-condition for any such concessions. I do hold the incumbent responsible for the current situation to an extent based upon his 6 terms. The 1986 amnesty should have been followed up with proper border control. We also need to protect our election process. See More.

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