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| Jeff Jared, Libertarian |
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| Candidate: U.S. Senator |
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| Jeff Jared |
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| Age: 36 |
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| Residence: Kirkland |
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| Occupation: |
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Attorney, political writer |
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| Education: |
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B.A. in philosophy, Harvard University; J.D., U/Cal |
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| Political history: |
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Candidate for state representative, 1990 |
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| Endorsements: |
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Libertarian Party of Washington |
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| Campaign Web site: None |
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| Campaign theme: |
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Vote libertarian for liberty, responsibility and community. |
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| 1. |
Should prescription- drug coverage be guaranteed? Should it be given to all Medicare patients? |
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Congress should not add prescription drugs to Medicare, a socialist program from the 1960s, but expand free trade to include drugs in free trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico; allow more over-the-counter drugs; legalize ordering drugs from abroad over the Internet; and make FDA drug approval easier. |
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| 2. |
How would you change the current system of campaign finance, if at all? |
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When I give $10,000 to a campaign, I'm yelling, "I support this candidate!" and such speech should be protected and unregulated. Also, limiting campaign contributions, or publicly financing them, would seriously hurt third parties. If power were decentralized to state and local governments, there wouldn't be such a a powerful federal government to lobby and bribe. |
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| 3. |
Should Americans be guaranteed more Internet privacy? How? |
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Ideally, contract law (the contract between buyer and seller, on the Internet or anywhere else) should decide whether personal consumer information is shared by sellers. Perhaps buyers could get a price discount if they consented to having their data used. But the presumption should be that buyers do not divulge personal information about themselves without their consent. |
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| 4. |
What restrictions, if any, should be placed on access to abortion? |
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I'm pro-life (life begins at conception), although the Libertarian Party is officially pro-choice. Government tax money should not finance abortions. |
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| 5. |
What political acts do you regret? |
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None that I can think of. |
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| 6. |
What achievement are you proudest of? |
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Proudest achievement: garnering 28 percent of the vote when I ran for state representative in 1990 on the Libertarian ticket. |
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| 7. |
What changes do you advocate in education? |
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Vouchers are a great idea. Introducing market forces into education (which has been stagnating under bureaucracy and monopoly) would start a blossoming of different types of schools and an outpouring of creative and entrepreneurial energy into education. The federal Department of Education should be abolished. Non-credentialed teachers should not be hireable. |
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| 8. |
What changes do you advocate in the Social Security program? |
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Privatize Social Security. We should replace the old Depression-era socialist-inspired system with a private, voluntary and modern one. Benefits would be greater and taxes less. An ultimate safety net can be provided through local, private charities to catch people falling through the cracks. |
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| 9. |
What changes do you advocate in the current tax system? |
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Ideally, the income tax and the IRS should be done away with. The U.S. Constitution originally said tariffs and excise taxes would be all that was needed to run a minimal state. A 1 percent income tax to pay for national defense would be possible if the federal government was reduced through privatization and by selling federal assets to pay off the national debt. We should sell off excess military bases and equipment and part-out NASA to the highest bidders. |
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| 10. |
What is your view on breaching or removing dams in the Columbia and Snake rivers? |
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Dams shouldn't be breached, as cheap electricity is too important for working families. The way to protect species is to increase private control of land and waterways. Pollution should be seen as a "trespass" enforced in court through damages, injunctions and strict liability, rather than through federal regulators and their huge administrative agencies. |
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| 11. |
What is your view of the Microsoft case? |
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Department of Justice, go away! The federal government tries to break up Microsoft while allowing the U.S. postal monopoly, education monopolies in every state, bus monopolies in every county to continue to gouge us with artificially high prices. We should break up these government monopolies first. The software industry is vibrant because it is largely unregulated and should stay that way. |
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| 12. |
Do you believe the legal rights of medical patients should be expanded? How? |
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Health insurance should not be so employment-based. Tort law and medical-malpractice law provide enough remedies so a patients' bill of rights would be redundant or just politically symbolic. Less regulation of health care is what America needs. |
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| 13. |
What are your views on expanding U.S. trade to China and Cuba? |
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Free trade would be a boon to Washington's farmers and dot-commers by opening up huge foreign markets. We could increase trade by expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement. We need to loosen up immigration to allow more foreigners to help with our labor shortage. NAFTA should be expanded to include Chile, and ultimately we could open our borders and share a common currency with Canada and Mexico in a kind of "American Union" modeled on the European Union. |
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