Responsibility. Friendship. Liberty.

Balance our federal budget

The big problem with the Federal government is too much spending. Reducing it should be our number one priority. Things like regulating which sports teams trans girls play on may seem critically important to some people, but it's not like the Federal debt crisis.

When I view these issues as a physician, I see the Federal debt as a serious disease; like lung cancer, it needs to be addressed now, before it spreads any further and kills the patient. In comparison, regulating participation in sports, or which bathrooms people use, is like a small, common skin cancer. Sure, it may be very bothersome to some people, but rarely is it life-threatening. The question of who gets to participate in which sports is not going to bankrupt our country or cause the collapse of our nation. Let's not be distracted from the mortal danger.

Our massive and growing national debt is a threat to our nation and the future of our children. The government must spend less and pay down the debt. We need market forces to reduce the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. We need changes in Social Security—including increasing the age of eligibility for healthy working Americans—to make sure it will be there for the people who need it.

As our debt must be paid in the future, it is an unfair tax on our children. Today, that burden stands at $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Unless we change, it will be more tomorrow. Printing more money is no solution. It is a tax on everyone because it causes inflation, making our money worth less, and this makes all of us, especially the poor, worse off.

As noted by Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian M. Riedel in the Wall Street Journal, raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans won’t nearly be enough to solve our debt crisis. We must cut spending.

Simplify the system

A simpler system, with minimal rates and no deductions, would promote confidence by being more transparent. One simple, transparent approach would be a flat tax and sales tax, with a full rebate for everyone on all income up to the poverty level–and no other taxes.

Our military should defend our borders, not tell others how to live

We must defend our country, and we must always have the military strength our defense requires.

We will be more secure at home if we kill fewer people abroad. If we focus on defending our borders and get our military out of the business of forcing people in other countries to live as we do, we can maintain a strong defense and reduce the cost of government.

We will have fewer enemies, if we stop doing to others what we wouldn’t want done to us:

• Stop imposing sanctions that kill their children

• Stop supporting dictators in their countries

• Stop supporting Israel's mistreatment and killing of Palestinian families; as an American Jew who lost family in the Holocaust, I passionately believe that the Israeli government's current policy is morally and strategically wrong

We can better influence how other people live by being the best role model we can be. Spending some of what we save by focusing our military on defense, we can use our Peace Corps as a role model for peace. In addition to improving our relations with other countries, this will improve our human capital by training our young people in productive skills–such as construction, teaching, and health care–rather than teaching them how to kill. Over the long term, this will lead to economic growth that is consistent with our values and can reduce our federal debt.

Build a solid financial foundation to ensure the future of these programs

Both programs are going broke. Once they are out of money, they won’t work for anyone. Let’s work together to find and implement the best solution to keeping them viable.

People live longer, healthier lives than they used to. We should consider raising the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security, particularly for healthy, working people.

In The Dispatch, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian M. Riedel makes the case that, if we want to get serious about balancing the federal budget, we have to consider changes to Social Security and Medicare.

In a white paper for the Manhattan Institute, senior fellow Chris Pope outlines a plan to keep Medicare affordable.

Put the power of markets to work

There is no best healthcare system because we don’t have unlimited resources. Our current third-party payment system can provide miracles, but it is extraordinarily costly and not accessible to everyone.

As a physician caring for patients, I see how the limitations of our current system lead to higher costs and restricted access. Patients don’t have an incentive to choose low cost options. They do have an incentive to choose high cost care, and so costs rise. In the face of these higher costs, insurers, lacking unlimited resources, are forced to ration care; this restricts access.

A government-imposed single-payer system that provides “free” care does assure care for everyone but limits choice and makes government ration care. Plus, it isn’t free; it’s paid for by taxes or, worse, by laying more debt on future generations.

My preference is to encourage market-based care. Markets give people incentives to choose lower cost options, create competition that would reduce health care prices, and give providers incentives to improve quality.

On day one, I’d like to introduce legislation giving Americans back their freedom to purchase medications from wherever they want, without government restriction. Some of the medications my patients need are generic, yet still are very, very costly. These same medications are very affordable in Canada and Mexico.

Instituting high-deductible plans with health savings accounts would give people an incentive to seek lower cost care. It would also create competition to reduce healthcare prices and costs.

I would free the states to try different approaches to regulating health insurance and care. This would allow us to see the pluses and minuses of each approach and base our future decisions on facts.

The FDA is well meaning, but its rules and restrictions add unnecessary time and costs to the development of medications. I would like to introduce legislation that changes the FDA from a compulsory organization to an advisory one. This would give companies greater freedom to innovate and give us the information we need to make informed choices about our healthcare.

Some people advocate Medicare for all. This is a great idea, as long as it’s paid for. Let’s allow people who want Medicare to pay the premium and use Medicare.

While these are my preferences, they will not create a perfect system. Some people might choose less care than others think best. That should be their right. There is no perfect system.

End the prohibition

Government should restrict people from hurting others, but let them live their own lives as they choose. Legalizing or decriminalizing drugs at the federal level would:

• Allow us to rely on personal & family responsibility, rather than government force

• Reduce imprisonment and its associated costs

• Save tens of billions of dollars in direct government spending on the drug war, plus hundreds of billions of indirect costs

• End the destruction of communities caused by illegal drug traffic and government efforts to control it

• Reduce racial disparity

• Reduce the violence involved in drug prosecution

• Drive enforcement decisions to the local level, where people have a better understanding of their community’s situation and needs

• Eliminate drug cartels and drug violence

• Reduce problems at our southern border

High taxes on recreational drugs are not the solution. The experience in Colorado shows that high taxes create a black market.

Our experience with alcohol has shown that legalization is better than prohibition. By eliminating the prohibition on drugs we can expect to dramatically reduce drug cartels, drug related violence, and the cost of drug crime.

In addition, legalization and decriminalization allow us to address addiction and overdose more effectively. When drugs are illegal, sellers (illegal drug pushers) have an economic incentive to create addicts among their friends, and the resulting close interpersonal pressures are very difficult to reject. Plus, the variable quality and purity of illegal drugs can lead to overdose and death. When drugs are legal, corporations have strong incentives to promote well tested, consistent, safer, lower-dose products.

Legalizing drugs would reduce fentanyl deaths by helping people avoid illegal opioids that have been adulterated with fentanyl. Plus, it would allow us to address overdose at the point of sale. For example, NARCAN® (naloxone nasal spray) is an approved over-the-counter opioid overdose treatment. If drug use were legal, fentanyl and other opioids could be sold in a package with Narcan, reducing the number of deaths by overdose.

Work together to create a balanced policy

Abortion or reproductive rights is an issue for which there is no reasonable compromise. The government should—absolutely—not try to control women’s bodies. The government—absolutely—should not condone murder. These two “no compromise is possible” principles are at odds, and some balance must be found.

I encourage people on both the pro-Choice and pro-Life sides of this issue to advocate for their positions respectfully and to understand each other’s point of view. I respect the beliefs of people who think that a fetus is a baby, and I recognize that people of good will disagree as to whether a fetus is a baby. People who want to protect unborn babies do not want to control women’s bodies; they just want to prevent the murder of unborn babies. People who don’t want the government to force every woman to carry every pregnancy to term don’t want to kill babies; they just want women to have control over their bodies.

I agree with the pro-Choice position that the government should not be in the business of forcing women to give birth, at all times, in all situations. I agree with the pro-Life position that the rights of the fetus must also be considered; a woman does not have the right to indiscriminately end a pregnancy (kill her baby) at any time, for any reason.

Clearly, we should minimize the number of unwanted pregnancies. Once a pregnancy has occurred, I don’t think there’s any one correct answer. I do think we could craft a reasonable, balanced policy that includes

• Keeping government out of funding abortions

• Making abortion illegal after a certain period of gestation, with proper consideration for the health of the mother

• Allowing different states to adopt different regulations, based on the views of the people in those different states

The government has no place telling individuals who they can marry or telling religious organizations who they must marry

For some of us, marriage is sacred. Religious institutions should be free to define marriage as they please and choose who to marry without government interference.

Personally, I respect the marriages of all people equally. With my Jewish background and having had family members killed in the Holocaust, I am particularly sensitive to discrimination and don’t want to make life harder than it already is for anyone. Any two people who wish to marry should be able to do so without government interference.

Government should treat each person as an individual; it should never discriminate based on gender, skin color, or sexual preference

We are all one race. “Racial” preference should not be permitted in government-funded endeavors.

It is, however, entirely reasonable to address past discrimination. If someone, regardless of so-called “race,” was personally disadvantaged because of past discrimination, appropriate redress is reasonable.

Publicly funded colleges should not discriminate based on so-called “race,” but can consider the effects of past discrimination on individuals. For example, there is no basis for giving an advantage to a recent immigrant from Africa who has darkly pigmented skin but no personal or family history of discrimination in the U.S. However, it is entirely reasonable to consider an individual’s economic and educational background—including discrimination their family endured in education or economy—when making admission decisions.

Let’s create a system that allows all eligible voters — and only eligible voters — to vote

We all want fair elections. Voter ID cards ensure that everyone who casts a vote is eligible to vote and keeps ineligible voters from committing voter fraud. However, voter ID cards can make elections less fair by placing an undue burden on those eligible voters who may have difficulty obtaining a valid ID.

Recognizing the well-meaning motivations of people on both sides, I encourage us to come together and agree on a system that allows all eligible voters–and only eligible voters–to vote. Libertarians don’t care for government ID’s, but I personally believe that requiring a voter ID is entirely reasonable, if we make sure that all eligible voters are given or can easily obtain an ID.

Let’s direct our foreign policy toward peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations

Punishing other nations for choosing to govern themselves in ways we do not like or having values that differ from ours has proven to be counterproductive. Our most successful foreign policies have been based on peaceful engagement with other nations.

Policies that could foster peaceful relations include

• Ending sanctions on Iran and Cuba; those sanctions hurt the people in those countries and have had no beneficial effect on the policies of their governments

• Ending our support for dictators in other countries

• Expanding our Peace Corps activities

The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine could be ended by peaceful means. Russia’s invasion was fueled, in part, by the effort to expand NATO to the Russian border. The Russians don’t want American troops on their border any more than we want their troops on ours.

Continuing the current conflict or expanding it into a proxy war with Russia is bad for both Ukraine and America. Our support for fighting until the last Ukrainian is standing is horrible for Ukrainian families. Worse, if we were to provide Ukraine with sufficient support to win the war, we could bring on nuclear Armageddon. We can and should seek better options.

Our experience in the Cuban Missile Crisis–at a time of intense antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union–showed that we can defuse conflicts by considering the other side’s reasonable interests. The Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba when we removed our missiles from Turkey.

A similar diplomatic solution could convince Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. As Russia’s invasion was precipitated by the perceived threat of NATO troops on Russia’s border, I’d like to see us offer to withdraw from NATO. Europe doesn’t need our protection. We don’t need to be seen as a threat by Russia. Ukraine gains nothing by being on the front line of a presumed conflict between Russia and the NATO alliance. It is in everyone’s interest to find a peaceful resolution.

The best way to reduce violence is to make our culture less violent, not to take guns from law-abiding citizens

I don’t own a gun. I believe having a gun in my home would bring more risks than benefits, but that is only my personal perception. I don’t want to force my preferences on anyone else. The government should NOT take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

We all want to stop school shootings. Claiming that those who don’t want to get rid of guns— or that those who want to protect children by putting more guns in schools — don’t care about children’s lives is counterproductive, insulting, and contributes to our culture of hostility. Everyone wants our children to be safe.

Those of us who think there are too many guns should try to influence others by being role models. The solution starts with our modeling the respectful, peaceful resolution of disputes. Better care for the mentally ill, ending drug violence, creating a less confrontational culture, and ensuring a strong economy with low unemployment may also be more effective ways to address school violence.

Some regulations may be reasonable. For example, some gun enthusiasts argue in favor of restricting gun ownership by severely mentally ill people who would be likely to hurt others. Other gun owners tell me that better enforcement of gun crimes, background checks, waiting periods, and gun safety courses may also be valuable approaches. Gun enthusiasts should be involved in the development of these regulations so that we can maximize the intended benefits and minimize the undesirable secondary effects.

It is also reasonable to have different rules in different states, within the constraints of Constitutional law. This allows each state’s laws to reflect the will of the people in that state.

Give parents the tools to give their children a great education

Education is one key to prosperity. I would like to promote a culture that values education more and violence less. We can create that culture by being role models for learning, not by forcing education on people.

Our policies should recognize that a university degree in the arts or sciences is not for everyone. Policies that create greater career and technical education opportunities would be valuable for individuals and our society.

The federal government should get out of the business of subsidizing colleges and universities. These subsidies only drive up the price of a college education. We can bring the price down dramatically—and expand access—by reducing subsidies and encouraging greater use of online education.

Openness in government encourages decisions that are consistent with our values

As citizens of a democracy, it is our responsibility to vote for the people and policies that we think will best meet our nation’s needs. The less we know about the policies our legislature is developing and the ways in which our executive branch implements those policies, the less able we are to meet that responsibility. Our politicians and administrators should be as open as possible about what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Our current policies have failed; it’s time for a fresh perspective

Generally, immigration to America has been very good for us over the past 250 years. Young families contribute to the working population and help to grow the overall economy. However, the influx of new workers can have unacceptable effects on wages. Our policies need to balance these good and bad effects.

We have seen, though, that a policy based solely on blocking people at the border is, like our failed drug war, costly and ineffective. In addition, the drug war makes our immigration problems worse. Drug smuggling cartels make countries to our south so violent that families want to get out so badly that they leave everyone and everything they know to come here. Ending the drug war would end the drug smuggling cartels. It would be a start toward making life better in Mexico and Central America—and reducing the number of families seeking to move here.

Changes to other policies could also improve the lives of people in countries to our south. For example, ending our current sanctions on Venezuela would make families there less desperate to leave.

We know global warming is real; we cannot know its ultimate effects or how to solve them

Global warming is occurring, and some of that is due to industrial CO2 production. Science has limitations when it comes to predicting the future. We can know that temperatures are rising, but we cannot know how much they will change in the future or the full impact of that increase.

Market forces have already led to the development of technologies and processes that generate cleaner energy, will allow us to adapt to climate changes, and can mitigate some of their effects. We can expect the power of the market to continue to drive new responses. Government should encourage, but not attempt to direct, these responses.

To honor our flag is to honor each other

To many people in the United States, our flag represents our highest ideals, our Constitution, and our founding. To some, it also represents those who gave their lives in support of our country. People with those beliefs cannot fathom why anyone would disrespect the flag in any way. Others—who may also see our flag as the symbol of our highest ideals, our Constitution, and our founding—believe that protest in support of those values is the best way to honor our flag and those who gave their lives to defend our country.

I believe we should always listen deeply to understand the intentions of people who do things we disagree with. At the same time, we should always think carefully about how other people will interpret the things we do. While I support the right of people to disrespect or even desecrate the flag, I have tremendous respect for those who would like to do so but who choose not to because they know that their neighbors revere the flag as a symbol of our nation, its ideals, and the people who gave their lives to defend our freedoms.

I support the right of people to fly the Confederate flag and deeply respect those who choose not to because others see it as a symbol of racism and slavery

To many people the Confederate flag represents slavery and racism. However, to the people who fly that flag, it may simply represent their southern heritage, a heritage of hospitality, pork barbecue with hushpuppies, a rural way of life, and patriotism.

While I support the right of people to fly the Confederate flag, I have tremendous respect for those who would like to fly it, but who choose not to, because they know that some of their neighbors see it as a symbol of slavery and racism.