United States Senate election in Connecticut, 2018

Growing Connecticut’s Economy & Creating Jobs

Whether it’s securing funding for job training programs in Eastern Connecticut or supporting new tech startups in New Haven, Chris is working to make sure that Connecticut companies have what they need to create new jobs and that our state has employees ready to fill them. Since he was first elected to Congress, Chris has supported Connecticut manufacturers - working with administrations of both parties to strengthen our Buy American laws, encouraging new submarines, jet engines and helicopters to be made our state, and securing funding for job training programs that prepare people for high-tech manufacturing careers. Chris has also fostered Connecticut’s startup culture, introducing legislation that will help new companies secure seed funding. And he helped draft the replacement for No Child Left Behind, putting more emphasis on career readiness skills in our elementary and secondary schools. Finally, Chris fights to make sure that every employee is treated with dignity, pushing to raise the minimum wage, provide national paid family leave and reduce the cost of childcare for working parents.

Health Insurance, Mental Health & Addiction

It’s simple: in the richest country in the world, everyone should be able to get quality, affordable health care. It’s an idea that Chris has been fighting for ever since he was first elected to public office. He has been a champion of the Affordable Care Act and fought alongside families in Connecticut to save the law from repeal. He introduced the Choose Medicare Act to allow every American and every business to buy in to Medicare in order to drive down costs. And he authored the most comprehensive update to our mental health laws in a generation, the bipartisan Mental Health Reform Act, which was signed into law in 2016. Chris is also committed to ending the opioid epidemic, traveling across the state to hear from doctors, law enforcement and families impacted by addiction. He has secured millions of dollars in new funding for treatment programs and prevention in Connecticut.

Gun Violence

Following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Chris vowed that he would do everything in his power to strengthen our nation’s gun laws. He introduced legislation to make sure every gun purchase goes through a background check, and he worked across the aisle with Republican Senator John Cornyn to pass a law to strengthen our current background check system - the first piece of legislation significantly strengthening our guns laws since Sandy Hook. When it appeared that the Congress was going to do nothing following the shooting at Pulse nightclub, Chris took to the Senate floor, filibustering for 15 hours until he secured a vote. He supports measures to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, encourage licensing requirements for handguns and limits on military-style assault weapons. Chris works with leaders in Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport to make sure that the conversation around gun violence doesn’t just follow mass shootings but addresses the reality they see in their cities every day.

Protecting Our Nation & Veterans

Chris has become one of the Senate’s leading voices on national security. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Chris has pressed to increase the power of the State Department to address the array of non-military challenges presented to the United States. He has pushed to end arms sales to countries that do not support America’s mission to end global terrorism. And he has argued for more humanitarian funding to assure that poverty and hunger don’t drive desperate people to extremism. Back home, Chris works to provide the best for our veterans. He has fought to end veteran homelessness in Connecticut, securing new funding to help tackle the problem in our state. When Chris learned that thousands of veterans with PTSD had been pushed out of the military with less than honorable discharges, he authored the Honor Our Commitment Act to ensure that these veterans would be able to get the mental health care they need and deserve. The bill was signed into law by President Trump in 2018.

Connecticut Values

In Washington, Chris fights to make sure that everyone receives equal treatment under the law. That means standing up for women’s rights and fighting for reproductive health funding. It means fighting for LGBTQ communities and working to pass bills like the Equality Act to end discrimination in employment, housing, and more. It means speaking out for Dreamers and immigrants whose rights are being threatened by the Trump administration by supporting the DREAM Act and authoring legislation to overturn the Muslim Ban. And it means working to preserve our environment for generations to come by speaking out on the effects of climate change, championing the cleanup of Long Island Sound and the conserving open spaces.^[1]

Economy
The $20 trillion in debt that we face is stifling job growth. The failure and lack of courage in Washington to pass a balanced budget is hindering our ability to grow the economy. This is similar to what we are facing here in Connecticut. We need to encourage research and development. With the right tax policy we can bring technology companies to invest in this country and state. We need job growth in new technologies. We have to create a pathway for the next generation to bring new innovation to help America be the leader in the 21st Century. Our current representatives only talk about obstruction. The harmful regulations that cost businesses millions of dollars that could be used for job growth and research of the new technologies of tomorrow. The last ten years here in the State of Connecticut we have lost over 100,000 manufacturing jobs. We need to invest in small business in low income communities to increase job opportunities for all. The apprentice programs the President is advocating for will help get the workforce educated for the jobs of the future. With all the government contracts Connecticut receives, major corporations along with private sector investment in these communities can help lower the high rate of unemployment. This investment can educate and prepare people for the labor market.

Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid
We have 59 million Americans receiving benefits from Social Security, which includes retirement, disability, and survivor benefits. This benefit is not an entitlement. The people, who are not entitled to it, are the politicians who borrow from it. There is $2.8 trillion in Treasury bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. That is us folks. We need to get the 94 million plus people that are out of work, back in the work force who are not yet of retirement age. We also need to raise the contribution cap. We need to give social security to those who need it most. It was a safeguard to prevent seniors from living in poverty. We need tax free retirement savings accounts. This will encourage people to save more. We also need to look at increasing the retirement age. This can be done if we have serious people in Washington making the tough decisions. More powers should be given to the states on Medicaid spending. States should be held more accountable for coming up with cost saving measures for the younger people receiving assistance such as a voucher system to help them get private insurance. We need the public and private sector working together to solve these problems.

Health Care
We all agree health care cost is on the rise. We should allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines. We also need tort reform. Doctors are under tremendous strain and rising costs of performing their job. There should be no discrimination on purchasing health care with preexisting conditions which the states should subsidize through cost effective Medicaid programs. The health care exchanges are in place. Let the free market compete in these exchanges so the American people can get the best rates. We also need to create large pools so individuals can get the best rates available. This should include creating policies to cater to individual needs to get more people to sign up.

Facts

• 100,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the State of CT since year 2000
• Construction industry lost 20,000 jobs since 2008
• Insurance industry related jobs have been reduced from over 60,000 to just under 37,000 since the 1990’s
• Each generation has an obligation to pave the way with opportunities for the next, instead we have burdened them with a selfish debt on the State and Federal level

Defense
Defense is vital to our nation’s security and our state’s economy. We only have one representative on the House Armed Services Committee. We can’t afford to lose Federal contracts. Connecticut’s economy depends on preserving these defense contracts. ISIS must be destroyed wherever it festers. We need strong leadership in Washington with a clear mission to destroy this evil. If we elect to do nothing we will witness evil and genocide continue to destroy human life. Radical Islam will influence the youth in the region taking generations to eradicate. We need to lead a coalition of forces from the region to destroy this evil. North Korea and Iran must not be allowed ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons. We must put more pressure on China with trade policies to influence them that a nuclear Asian peninsula is not in their best interest.

Education
Give parents the choice to enroll their children in the public schools, charter schools, or private schools they feel could help their child’s future to compete in a world market. Provide a tax credit for families who home school their children. Eliminate the Federal Department of Education and return power to the states and local government. Send block grants back to the states. Let teachers and parents have more input in the education process of their children. The civil rights battle of today is in the cities. Children can’t attend schools that have vacant seats because of quotas. We need strong legislative leadership to address this injustice.

Jobs
We need confidence in the business sector so we can continue job growth. We need to decrease federal spending on wasteful projects and increase private sector investment through tax reform. Federal mandates and burdensome regulations are destroying job growth. We need to revisit duplicate regulations that are preventing companies from investing in our most deprived communities. We need a sound energy policy so companies can compete in a global economy. We need fossil fuels along with green energy to fuel our economy. We need to invest in the next generation who will have the answers through research and development to lead this nation in becoming a clean energy independent country. We need corporate tax reform to bring back the trillions of dollars overseas back to the United States. We need to stop crony capitalism. We need to end the import export bank which uses tax payer money to fund some largest corporate welfare.

Veterans
We owe our freedoms to those who serve. They must never be forgotten. The seen and unseen scars must be of top priority. The backlog of disability claims must be addressed immediately. We cannot send our men and women into harm’s way and forget them when they return. Washington needs to keep their promises to our veterans. I propose we eliminate every veterans hospital that is failing our veterans and put them into the hospitals that work for everyone. The VA has a budget of $160 billion. Some of this money is not spent in the interests of our veterans. The VA must be held accountable for failing to serve our veterans with the dignity they deserve. We also need to extend the GI Bill for life for those who have served with honor.

Immigration
For years Congress has failed to address the problem of our broken immigration system. Now, with the continuing threat from terrorism from abroad, the danger of illegal drugs, as well as the sheer and unsustainable cost of illegal immigration, we must solve this dilemma.

Our elected representatives in Washington, including my opponent, have failed us. Chris Murphy, who wants nothing more than to grow the Federal government, says the problem of illegal immigration is just too big to solve – so we just let everybody and anybody in. And the problem only gets worse year after year.

We are, or should be, a nation of laws. Illegal immigration is an insult to our values, to our citizens, to the concept of the rule of law, and to the thousands of foreign nationals who adhere to the rules and regulations, and enter our nation legally to visit, to work or become legal citizens.

Above all, we need to fully enforce our existing laws, and especially secure our southern border, along with the other various entry points into our nation, against further illegal entry. That means building the wall at our southern border. And it means we need to listen to our troops on the ground, our ICE and Border Patrol agents, and consider and implement their recommendations as we fight this battle.

This first step needs to be effective, and visible and consistent, both to stop the illegal flow immediately and so those who try to enter repeatedly understand the effort is futile. Additionally, sanctions against those who traffic in illegal immigration may need to be enhanced as a further strong deterrent.

Any law without effective enforcement is no law at all. Natural born Americans are expected to adhere to laws. There is no reason illegal immigrants should be exempt from out laws. This means the practice of Sanctuary Cities must end. We must the abuse of Visa overstays. We must make employers accountable when they hire illegal immigrants.

At the same time, we need speed and streamline the review of immigration applications from people who want to immigrate legally. Justice delayed is justice denied, and an inexcusably long review just encourages people to skirt the rules.

We need to clear the legal immigration pipeline, and consider and perhaps increase the number of those permitted to emigrate legally. Legal immigration is a benefit to our nation, as it is to every nation, and it should be permitted and encouraged within the limits each nation determines is best.

Lastly, we need to finally address the issue of the estimated millions of immigrants who are here illegally. A blanket amnesty for all illegal immigrants is unfair to American citizens and to those immigrants who adhered to our legal immigration process.

Amnesty will just encourage future immigrants to break our laws and then wait for the next blanket amnesty.

One solution is a self-identification process for the illegal immigrants who are already here, and who want to step out of the shadows, become real citizens, and remain here and contribute openly and fully to the welfare of their families and our nation.

One approach is to require registration with the Immigration and Naturalization Service along with the payment of a fine. Initially, this fine could be deferred, suspended or even waived to spur compliance. But the lawbreakers must pay some sort of a penalty for their lawlessness.

Those who self-identify would be eligible to work legally and pay taxes. However, they must comply with the entire citizenship process, and would start at the back of the line. Applicants who break our laws or depart from the legal immigration process would be subject to deportation.

The fine could increase annually, and after a certain period of time, perhaps five years, those who are here illegally and choose not to participate in the legal process would be subject to deportation.^[1]

Energy
That means the Dakota Access Pipeline will have little or no oil to transport a very short time after it is completed. Therefore, completing this pipeline makes little or no sense at all.

Government Reform
If you want real change on Election Day, there are three things you can't do: you cannot vote for Republicans, and you cannot vote for Democrats, and YOU CAN'T STAY HOME!

Pipelines
I Stand with Standing Rock. We cannot keep putting more fossil carbon into the atmosphere. The future has no place for DAPL or Atlantic Bridge or any other pipeline project.

Military
I have been saying 'peace is less expensive' for the better part of this century. Peace has no innocent lives lost, then dismissed as 'Collateral Damage.'

Climate Change
The unprecedented changes we, the human species, have made in our atmosphere are warming the planet to an alarming degree.

Foreign Policy
I have been saying 'peace is less expensive' for the better part of this century. Peace has no innocent lives lost, then dismissed as 'Collateral Damage.' Peace has no destroyed infrastructure.

Energy Efficiency
I had the thought that this was an attempt to build the Keystone XL one piece at a time. That the underlying intention has always been to transport tar sands oil.

Diplomacy
Peace does not push people who have been living in a modern society into a level of technology of bygone centuries. Peace has an exponentially smaller carbon footprint.^[1]

I'm Libertarian, I'm violet, a smart blend of red and blue.

​ Issue 1: Unalienable Rights. Unalienable Rights do not come from government. Unalienable Rights are endowed by our Creator, whoever each individual’s Creator may be. Therefore, everybody on the entire planet have the exact same Unalienable Rights. Among these, but not limited to, are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Governments are instituted to secure these rights. Our Government, like others, often becomes destructive of these ends. I will work to ensure our Government functions to secure and not to oppress our Unalienable Rights.

Issue 2: Ending the war on drugs. The war on drugs has not had any success in eliminating drugs. Drugs are common and extremely available. The war on drugs has succeeded in funding terrorism, creating crime on the streets, consuming millions of tax dollars and oppressing the American people. I will work to legalize all drugs, even the bad ones. The war on drugs is much more destructive than the worst drugs. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Silas Deane were hemp farmers. The Spanish word for hemp is marijuana. Today's laws would make them all criminals.

Issue 3: Eliminate gun laws. Whether it is Columbine, Virginia Tech, New Town or 9/11, we have our most horrendous murders in gun free zones. We have few or no murders at our nation's many gun shows. It’s simple math: Zero guns equals many murders. Many guns equals near zero murders. Americans have the right to protect themselves from any threat, not just in their homes, but also on the streets. You don’t need a religion permit to practice religion. You don’t need a speech permit to speak. You should not be required to have a gun permit to hold and bear arms. The criminals don’t have gun permits, yet they carry guns.

Gun control supporters, you are puppets for the ruling class. The ruling class, A.K.A. the 1% control the most powerful politicians in the world. They profit from war, and keep us at war. They keep themselves surrounded with high powered guns because they know guns save lives. They want that safety for themselves. They support the drug war for corrupt profiteering and oppression of the masses. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that is their quest. They use the media to misinform and scare you. They want you to support gun control. They want more power over you. Thousands of unarmed people at Occupy Wall Street, and the government sprayed them in the face with tear gas. That's power to the state. A handful of armed people at the Bundy Ranch, and the government backed down. That's power to the people. What law could have stopped the attack on Paris? There is none. Most of our gun violence is a result of the war on drugs, a product of the 1%. You live on a dangers planet. If danger finds you, you may have to fight for your life. Guns save lives. You better hope you have one to save your life, or another's life. The media is trying, and with some people succeeding, to brainwash you into having an irrational fear of guns. Guns are not as dangerous as the media propagates. Heed Benjamin Franklin's warning about giving up liberty for security. You are giving up your liberty to protect yourself. Support gun rights for the people, not gun control for the ruling class.

Issue 4: Gays in the Military. Would George Washington allow a gay to serve in the Continental Army? He did! Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin Ludolf Gerhard (Frederick William Augustus Henry Ferdinand) von Steuben also referred to as the Baron von Steuben was a Prussian aristocrat and military officer. Steuben's Prussian army career ended in scandal when he was alleged to be gay. No other European army would take him. He came to America and joined the Continental Army. He served as inspector general and Major general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline. He wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual, the book that became the standard United States drill manual until the War of 1812. He served as General George Washington's chief of staff in the final years of the war. If gays in the military is OK with George Washington, it's OK with me. Don't ask, don't tell; is an oppression of freedom of speech.

Issue 5: Abortion. I’m glad I wasn’t aborted. I believe very few people wish they were aborted. A pregnant woman may not want to have a baby, especially if she is pregnant because she was raped. However, the baby should not be given the death penalty because its father committed a crime. Making abortion illegal would not make abortion go away. It would make it more dangerous. I am pro choice, and I would like pregnant women to have more choices when they have an unwanted pregnancy. I once saw a show on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channelor other educational television network. This show had to do with zebras having low population. To increase zebra population, female zebras were allowed to get pregnant by male zebras. Because zebra is a breed of horse, veterinarians wereable to remove the fetus from the zebra and put it in another breed of female horse, such as Arabian. The Arabian horse would then be pregnant with the zebra’s baby and the female zebra could get pregnant again in a short time. If this can be done with horses, then maybe it can be done with humans. The fetus in the woman with an unwanted pregnancy may be able to be put into a woman who wants to have a baby. It would require medical science and social services to make this choice a reality.

Issue 6: Government bailouts and corporate welfare. The concept of "too big to fail" is ridiculous because it is small businesses that provides most of the jobs. The money for the bailout must come from somewhere. If it comes from taxing businesses that make a profit, many of them small businesses, then their profits may be reduced and jeopardize more jobs than were saved with the bailout of a "too big to fail" business.

Issue 7: Gay and unorthodox marriage. I support anybody's right to marry as they see fit. Whether someone wants a spouse of the same sex or multiple spouses, it's not the government's business. Clergy have a right to refuse to provide service.

Issue 8: Balancing the budget. Deep spending cuts is the only way. Over taxing anyone, including the rich, is immoral. Spending benefits whoever is the recipient of the spending. For example, building Rentschler Stadium for UCONN football benefitted whoever got the contract to build the stadium. I was born and raised in Pennsylvania, therefore, by law, I am a football fan. However, I would have opposed public money being used to build the stadium. If somebody wanted to spend their own money to build a stadium, that's fine, but it is not the state's job to fund such endeavors. I will only support spending that I deem to be proper and necessary. I will also work to simplify the tax code, for within the complexity hide the tax breaks for the few.

Issue 9: Health Care IS a right. Health care is one of the Unalienable Rights not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Some people believe that having a right to something means that you get it for free or that the Government pays for it. If this were true, then we would get free guns because of the fact that gun ownership is a right. Because freedom of the press is also a right, we would get a free printing press. The government neither owes us free guns, nor free printing presses, nor free health care. A right to something means that the government may not stand in the way of us acquiring these things in an honest, non violent way, even if it means medical marijuana. The fact is, that the government does stand in the way of us using medical marijuana. This is an oppression of our Unalienable Right to Health Care.

Issue 10: Defending America from foreign military invasion. On September 25, 2012, China launched their first aircraft carrier ever in their history. That is ninety-eight years after the British had their first aircraft carrier. Of the 196 countries in the world, only nine have aircraft carriers, and most of them are considered our friends, like England, France, and Australia. Of the nine countries that have aircraft carriers, only one has more than two. That country is the United States. We have twelve in service and one in reserve. We got two brand new aircraft carriers under Obama, at thirteen billion dollars each. We are expecting to spend $1.5 trillion for the F-35 multirole fighter plane over the 55-year life of the program, despite the fact that the Air Force has more airplanes than they can fly, and park hundreds of extra in the desert. This excessive military spending that the United States is obsessed with is not making us safer, and it may be putting us in greater danger. Consider the very beginning of World War II. France had the largest standing army in Western Europe, at great expense to the French taxpayer. Germany didn't care and invaded them. England had the largest navy in the world, at great expense to the British taxpayer. Germany didn't care and bombed them, and planned on invading them. Switzerland had a very small military, saving the Swiss taxpayers a fortune. To defend their country, they had, and still have today, a well regulated militia. Despite Switzerland having a common border with Germany, Germany refused to invade them.

Excessive military spending doesn't make us safer, it makes a handful of people incredibly rich, and the masses much poorer. We do it because most elected politicians serve the incredibly rich. The politicians fabricate reasons for war overseas and war on Americans with the war on drugs. They get reelected, and the incredibly rich get incredible richer, and the poor get poorer, and many people suffer from the wars, especially the poor, but seldom the rich.

We need to recall most of our overseas military and redeploy them in the United States. This would beef-up the economies of the communities in the area of the bases. If need be, military personnel could be assigned duties in the United States such as border patrol, customs support, road construction, along with conducting military training exercises.

The largest military in the world is China's with 2,300,000 troops. Not that they could get them all over here to invade us, but if they did, the number of gun owners in just the State of Pennsylvania would outnumber them by more than two to one. Throw in the rest of the country and we crush them. We need to organize the well regulated militia into the fighting force our founding fathers intended it to be. We should give tax deductions to people who buy guns that have military applications, and tax deductions for money spent on ammo and training.

I am convinced that we can phase our military spending down by about 75% in about four years, without jeopardizing our security.

Issue 11. Change the name of Columbus Day. Let's face it, the Vikings got to North America long before Columbus, so why should it be called Columbus day in the first place? I think we should change the name of Columbus Day to Canadian Thanksgiving. This will force Canada to celebrate Thanksgiving on that day, rather then when it is supposed to be celebrated. This will punish Canada, and they need to be punished. Look at a map, they're always sitting on top of us. Like excuse me? I don't really like a lot of Canadians. I don't like Justin Bieber, I don't like Ted Cruz, I don't like Private School Jewel. I take that back. I do like Private School Jewel. But the rest of the Canadians must celebrate Thanksgiving early!

Issue 12. Some people can't tell when I am joking and when I'm not. Take Issue 11 for example, some people thought I was serious.

Issue 13: Dealing with isolated threats and violence such as rape, terrorism, home invasion, robbery, battery, and the like. Non-isolated violence would be war, which I discussed in issue 10. The ruling class have several body guards following them around. This makes them safer. Common people can not afford to hire body guards. These people must be their own body guard. We need to encourage gun safety and use training, starting as young as kindergarten (not necessarily with guns). This will help people overcome their irrational fear of guns. People on a daily basie handle things more dangerous than guns. Gasoline for example. One gallon of gasoline has the explosive power of fourteen sticks of dynamite. We have no restrictions on buying gasoline. You can be any age, and you don't need a background check. Gasoline fumes can be inhaled to get high. Gasoline is a bomb and a dangerous drug, but we let anybody buy all they want. Despite how dangerous gasoline is, we do not have an irrational fear of it. Watch this video, see how guns, when used properly save lives.

When faced with a dangerous threat, calling 911, will not always get help on time. By becoming trained to more safely use guns, people have a better chance to protect themselves. Government needs to encourage gun use, not restrict guns to good people.

Nobody wants violent people to have guns. Most criminals buy their guns on the black market, not through some gun show loophole. I will support efforts to stop black market gun sales. I will support laws to force gun wholesalers to keep records of gun sales. Are they selling to legitimate gun stores and dealers, or are they selling to the black market? While the gun grabbers fight to close the imaginary gun-show loophole, I will work to close the real black market loopholes.

Issue 14: Provide for the general Welfare. Some of my Libertarian friends will cringe when they read this one, but here goes. I am not a huge fan of raising the minimum wage, however I am not staunchly opposed to it. I want salaries of the masses to go up. Prices are controlled by supply and demand. The supply of labour jumped dramatically when women entered the workforce. This helped to push the price for labour down. The demand for labour drops with every technological breakthrough. Think about a car company having engineers drawing plans on paper using T squares and compasses rather than computer aided design (CAD) and the factory building cars with no robots. Imagine stores having to put price tags on every item, with no cash register adjusting inventory with each sale. Imagine banks keeping track of your account by writing it in a book with no computer and then they mailed your cashed cheques back to you. Supply of labour has risen and demand for labour has dropped, therefore the price of labour is too low for many people to live on what they make. To raise the price of labour, we must increase demand. We can do this by changing the 40 hour workweek to 30 hours. After 30 hours you would be paid overtime. To avoid paying overtime, employers would have to hire more people, increasing demand for labour, thus raising wages. Rather than eight hours a day five days a week, the standard may be six hours a day.

Issue 15: Free College. I am happy about your privilege to take advantage of free college at https://www.khanacademy.org/ You may also find other free college opportunities if you search the internet.^[1]