To help express my position on a variety of issues, a series of quotations and sound bites is provided. These do not necessarily provide all the details on where I stand on the issues, but do give a good general sense of where I stand and give you an idea of what my governing philosophy is all about.
I hope you will stand behind me as I continue in my effort to bring common sense to Washington and put America back on the road to prosperity.
-Steve Packard
The Economy and Financial Markets:
Nobody wants to admit the simple truth about what caused the economic collapse. The Federal Government went out of its way to subsidize and encourage high-risk lending practices. This caused a rush on real estate, inflating prices and producing a bubble that inevitably burst. Value plummeted, loans defaulted, bonds went bad and the whole thing came crashing down.
We don’t need to sit around and envy the economic growth of China as if we can’t achieve the same thing here.
A bad economy amplifies social problems. When economic times are good, many of these issues solve themselves as more people have the ability to afford better healthcare, better education and are less reliant on social programs, freeing up resources for those who really need them.
Big business loves big government and profits off it enormously. A big bloated government that keeps smaller competitors out and offers huge subsidies to big corporations is ultimately what they want and unfortunately, it’s what they have recently gotten.
The government does not actually create jobs, but it is very effective at getting in the way of job creation.
The simplest thing the government could do to help increase employment would be to simplify the paperwork involved with hiring a new employee. Right now, any company that wants to take on a new worker has to deal with a mountain of regulations and documentation, including income tax, social security, payroll taxes, payroll documentation, medicare, state taxes. While these are important, if we could make the process a bit more streamlined, it would remove a big hurdle to job creation.
The National Debt:
There’s a big argument as to who is to blame for the massive deficit, Bush or Obama. They’re both to blame, and in the end, it does not matter who might have raised it a bit more than the other. We need to stop assigning blame and actually fix the problem.
The current national debt and the rate at which it is increasing is intolerable. We are getting to the point where we will never be able to pay it down. All we can possibly do is inflate it out of existence. Ultimately that’s very bad for our monetary system and economy. We need to stop this now.
Americans carry a lot of personal debt and that’s unsettling. The government carries even more debt and that’s downright frightening.
Energy:
Energy is the ability to do work. That’s true both literally and metaphorically.
Cheap abundant energy is the best way of stimulating the economy.
Energy is the most potent form of wealth.
There is no such thing as a surplus of energy.
We can’t afford to subsidize energy sources that don’t actually provide significant quantities of useful energy.
We should not forget that energy prices tend to be regressive and expensive energy has the biggest impact on the lowest economic classes.
No amount of efficiency mandates is going to actually reduce the amount of energy being consumed. At best, it might slow the rate of increase, but it will never reverse it. We need to realize that the future will require more energy, not less.
We will eventually move to a system where electricity is the primary energy source for industry and transportation. We are already seeing that transition start to happen. Clean, plentiful electricity will be the foundation of our energy future.
A smart grid is all well and good, but no amount of logic or control systems can makeup for the need for sufficient generating capacity.
We must not allow radiophobia to stand in the way of the greatest energy discovery to befall mankind since fire.
When I look at the subsidies and requirements for ethanol, the only conclusion I can walk away with is that the politicians who wrote the legislation were drinking way too much of it.
We are, for the time being, heavily dependent on hydrocarbon fuel, and while we may move away from that, for the time being, we need to assure we have secure and economical sources for the foreseeable future.
Foreign Policy:
The US should try to lead the world, but not rule the world.
Keeping our core alliances strong is the most effective way of making the United States a strong presence in the international community.
There are parts of the world that hate us. The reasons why are not important, but they hate us and there’s not much we can do to change that. If they want to sulk in their own hatred of us, then let them, just as long as we know better than to give them the opportunity to threaten our national security.
There are, unfortunately, a few countries out there that really don’t respond to any significant extent to diplomacy that is not backed up by the threat of force. In such circumstances, the use of force must always be an option, but always the last option. If we make it clear that we are willing to do so, if it comes to that, then more often than not, we won’t actually have to follow through.
When making alliances and providing military aid to regimes in unstable parts of the world, we must exercise the utmost of caution. I would think that would have become obvious by now, yet we’re still not doing that.
We should never allow ourselves to become so dependent on any single nation for anything as to allow them to dictate our relations and leave us with no bargaining room.
Homeland Security and Anti-Terrorism:
We do not need to give up our basic rights to make it possible for the government to investigate and capture terrorists.
It’s not just the fact that the TSA makes flying miserable that bothers me. It’s that the TSA makes flying miserable without actually making it safe.
If there is any department of the US government that is uniquely experienced and equipped in the challenges necessary to secure our boarders and prevent hostile intrusion or acts of terror, it is the US Coast Guard.
“Anti-terrorism” is not an excuse for wasting money. We’ve spent huge sums on radiation detectors, for example, despite the fact that they’re only useful in combating one of the least credible threats out there [dirty bombs] and useless against all others. In the meantime, we have done very little to combat other, far more dangerous threats to national security.
I am offended when I hear of people being labeled as “terrorists” for the most minor infraction, because of the culture of fear we have come to live in. Owning a few Geiger counters does not make someone a terrorist. Having some fireworks, even if they’re illegal ones does not make someone a terrorist. Selling fertilizer without a permit does not make someone a terrorist. Flying airplanes into buildings makes someone a terrorist.
Education:
Class rooms are great places to learn, but they are not the only places to learn. We’re selling our selves short by not giving proper credit for apprenticeships and work-study programs.
Education is the key to upward mobility, which is ultimately the foundation of all that the US is supposed to be about.
One of the biggest things lacking in science education is that we fail to teach most students the scientific method, why its important and just how poor humans are at observation without it.
Technology may be an important part of the educational experience, but it’s not a magic bullet. Laptops are no substitute for well qualified teachers and old fashioned studying.
Special interest groups should never dictate what we teach in schools. Facts are facts and science is science. We don’t get to change it because we don’t like part of it.
Science Policy:
The nation which sent men to the moon currently is incapable of sending a human to low earth orbit and must rely on seats purchased from the Russians in order to keep the space station that we built a large part of crewed. Every American should be outraged by that.
After the end of the Skylab program, we were left with no manned space capability for several years until the Shuttle was ready for flight. In that time, Skylab crashed to earth, the US lost its place as a space faring nation and our launch facilities sat in mothballs. It was a terrible terrible time and we were promised it would never happen again. Now it has. Am I angry? Your damn right I am angry.
Facilities like research reactors, pulsed neutron sources, pulsed power facilities and synchrotron light sources attract the kind of minds and the kind of research the United States needs to remain competitive and relevant in the world.
When scientists talk, politicians should listen.
When politicians assume they are smarter than scientists they prove that they are dumber than dirt.
The United States has some of the best science facilities and national laboratories in the world. These are national treasures. It took hundreds of billions of dollars and decades of work to create them. It costs comparatively little to keep them maintained and functioning. It is a crime to allow these treasures to be lost in the name of saving money.
Government science programs have enormous strategic value, although it is often not realized until it is needed or until it is lost.
I want the US to have the kind of science facilities that Chinese, Japanese and European scientists will be excited to have the opportunity to use, rather than have our scientists get excited about having the opportunity to use science facilities in China, Japan or Europe.
If we spend money on pure scientific research we will make discoveries with vast practical applications, although I have no idea what they will be or what applications they may have.
Health Care and Medicine:
Ideally, I’d want a health care system where care is affordable enough to the average person that we don’t need to resort to paying all the bills through government programs.
I’m not entirely sure what the answer is to fixing the American health care system, but I don’t think it’s Obamacare.
If you buy it with the intent of putting it into your body, then it’s valid for the FDA to verify its safety and quality control. Labeling something as ‘natural’ shouldn’t get anyone off the hook for basic regulations.
We need to take on some of the things that are driving up the cost of health care to the point where neither the individual nor the government is able to afford it. For example, drug companies that aggressively market new products that are no better than old ones, simply because the old ones are out of patent and they can’t make a fortune off selling them anymore.
Good health care coverage should reward people who exercise, eat well and maintain good health in general. Such responsibility ends up saving everyone money.
You know there’s something very wrong with your health care system when people with bad head colds go to the emergency room for treatment.
The Environment:
We should have realized by now that failing to maintain good environmental standards because they are expensive will usually end up costing us a lot more when we have to go back and clean up the mess we made.
There’s really no debate when it comes to global warming. It’s happening and it will continue to happen. Some of it might be natural climate variation, but a major part is human activity. Denying that won’t make it go away.
Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is important and we should work to do it, but we also shouldn’t forget the importance of emissions of nitrous oxides or methane. These are also important greenhouse gasses.
Environmental policy needs to be science-based. There are too many programs out there that are supposed to benefit the environment but don’t have any substantive impact. Not only do those waste money, they also divert the focus from what we can do to improve the environment.
Some of the biggest problems facing our environment are the ones you hear the least about. When was the last time anyone brought up underground coal fires or the discharge of raw sewage due to antiquated sewer and storm drain systems?
The sources of energy we utilize are inseparably tied to our effect on the environment.
I do not support carbon cap and trade or taxation. It’s not because I deny global warming or because I don’t think reducing greenhouse gas emissions is an important, but I’m not convinced that either of those methods will work and they will clearly cause a great deal of economic harm. If we focus on making clean energy cheap, we won’t have to make dirty energy expensive and the market will take care of the issue.
Right now there’s a massive patch of garbage in the Pacific ocean, there are coal fires burning around the US and the world and there are innumerable other major environmental problems that nobody is even attempting to do much about.