Issues

The principles that would guide Larry Stafford's work in the US Senate are the all-American values of individual freedom, personal responsibility, and limited government. These principles are proven to maximize peace, prosperity, and justice for all.

The founders of our country wisely instilled these principles into the US Constitution. Larry will focus on restoring Constitutional principles to our nation in areas such as:

The Economy: Healthcare, Jobs, Taxes, Retirement, Welfare
Personal Freedom: Abortion, Civil Rights, Drugs, Discrimination, Education, Gun Rights
The Environment: Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environmental Protection
Foreign Policy: Aid, Immigration, International Policy, Military, Trade, War in Iraq, War on Terror
Good Government: Cost of Government Awareness, Enumerated Powers, One Subject at a Time, Read the Bills

The Economy

Healthcare - All Americans need affordable access to effective healthcare. Big-government programs and red tape stand in the way. Prices will fall if we allow consumers to freely shop for the care and insurance that suits them best. When consumers are paying the bills, they will naturally be thrifty about which healthcare services are actually needed to maintain and improve their health and the health of their families.

Plan - Reduce healthcare costs for all by downsizing the many federal departments and regulations that inhibit healthcare innovation, competition, and thrift. Help everyone pay for care through tax-free medical savings accounts, larger deductions for healthcare expenses, and free-market health insurance.

Jobs - Americans must create new jobs continuously to keep up with our expanding population. Government hinders job creation through excessive taxation, regulation, subsidies, and tariffs.

Plan - Stimulate job creation by downsizing unnecessary federal departments, regulations, subsidies, and tariffs. This will allow the American entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great to flourish.

Taxes - Government has grown fat on the backs of American taxpayers. Reducing the tax burden will increase American prosperity by allowing Americans to keep more of the money they earn, which they will plow back into the economy.

Plan - Eliminate the federal income tax by slashing government spending until it is no longer needed. There are enough other taxes to support our national defense and other Constitutionally-authorized federal programs.

Retirement - Hard-working Americans deserve a secure retirement. Real retirement security includes ownership and control of your money, not dependency on a bankrupt scheme run by politicians who can raise taxes, reduce payments, and change benefit rules at will.

Plan - Foster real retirement security by allowing Americans to opt out of the government-run system and create their own retirement accounts. Provide seniors trapped in the system with their own annuities funded by selling off government property.

Welfare - Federal handouts come in two flavors: individual and corporate. Both hurt more than they help. Assistance to the poor can best be provided by private charities, who can help most people become self-sufficient. Providing taxpayer dollars to businesses through corporate subsidies and industry bailouts only encourages more irresponsible corporate behavior.

Plan - Help individuals and businesses thrive by reducing all federal handouts, over time, to zero. Support private charitable efforts by increasing charitable tax deductions.

Personal Freedom

Abortion - No one wants abortions to occur, so everyone should work together to make them as rare as possible. A woman has the right to control her own body until a fetus is capable of living independently. Even then, a woman has the right of self-defense and can choose to prioritize her life when continuing a pregnancy would bring her permanent physical harm.

Plan - Support efforts to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Oppose taxpayer funding and other government meddling in this most-personal family issue.

Civil Rights - Fear has been used to justify unlawful spying on and detention of Americans, and torture of those labeled "enemy combatants." None of these violations of civil rights are required to prevent terrorism.

Plan - Sponsor US Congressman Ron Paul's American Freedom Agenda Act in the US Senate. This Act would restore our most precious civil rights and protect the human rights of others. Read the summary.

Drugs - Drugs are a health issue, not a criminal issue. Most of the harmful effects of drugs, such as smuggling, theft, and violence, are the result of drug prohibition.

Plan - Minimize the harm the misuse of drugs does to society by ending drug prohibition. Just like alcohol prohibition, the "cure" of drug prohibition is worse than the disease.

Discrimination - Every person is equal before the law. Government should not discriminate for or against anyone based on their race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

Plan - Oppose regulations on personal relationships, including those against gay or lesbian people who would like to marry. Remove programs that discriminate for or against groups of people in government contracting, hiring, and education systems.

Education - America should have the best education system in the world. Instead, we have government-run failure. Let's free parents to decide what school their children will attend. When schools have to compete for students, quality will increase, costs will decrease, and we all win.

Plan - Eliminate the federal Department of Education and all federal meddling in education. Support programs that free parents to choose the schools their children attend.

Gun Rights - Allow adults unlimited access to firearms except those with a history of mental instability or violence.

Plan - Support an instant background check to prevent gun ownership by children, the mentally unstable, and violent.

The Environment

Climate Change - Our planet is always cooling or warming. Illinois has been both covered in a mile-high sheet of ice and supported a tropical climate. Some scientists predict warming in our future while others predict cooling.

Plan - Support economic growth so that we have the resources to adapt to either warming or cooling trends. Oppose all government-mandated attempts to affect the climate that would hurt the American economy.

Energy Policy - To keep the price of energy down, we need to both conserve energy and increase energy production. The best way to increase production is through the pursuit of all possible energy sources, including traditional ones like oil, natural gas, and coal, as well as newer ones, such as solar, wind, water, and hydrogen.

Plan - Provide tax breaks to consumers who purchase hybrids and alternative energy vehicles as well as companies who invest in clean energy sources, such as wind, solar, and nuclear power.

Environmental Protection - Everyone wants a clean, safe, healthy environment. The good news is that our environment here in America and that of countries around the world is improving over time. As people become more prosperous, they demand a cleaner environment and they get it.

Plan - Safeguard and grow our economy to allow natural environmental progress to continue.

Foreign Policy

Aid - Foreign aid has been described as "taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich people in other countries." Americans should be free to choose whether or not to give their hard-earned money to governments of other countries.

Plan - Cut the foreign aid budget to $0 and allow Americans to send money overseas if they wish. Establish an emergency assistance program to provide aid in countries when natural disaster strikes and lives are at risk.

Immigration - We need to prevent people from coming here who would harm our nation, so protecting our borders against unauthorized entry is fundamental to our national security. However, legal immigration by properly-identified, law-abiding, self-supporting individuals helps grow our economy.

Plan - Support the work to secure our borders. Establish a path to legalization for current illegal immigrants that includes a requirement for financial self-sufficiency. Deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes. Increase the speed of processing productive legal immigrants into our nation.

International Policy - As a nation we should follow the "Golden Rule" and treat other nations as we would like to be treated.

Plan - Use the United Nations forum to broaden communications and strengthen peaceful cooperation between countries. Oppose United Nations use of force against any nation.

Military - Our military exists to protect our national security. All other uses, such as regime change, nation building, and promoting democracy, should end.

Plan - Reduce the burden on American troops, their families, and the taxpayers by closing most of our foreign military bases and bringing the troops home.

Trade - Trade increases our nation's wealth. Our involvement with international organizations that promote free trade is a win-win for America.

Plan - Support all trade agreements that are based on voluntary participation and do not violate our national sovereignty or our Constitution.

War in Iraq - The war should have never been started, but it is over and we won. Now we are providing security for Iraq at our expense, which they can and should do for themselves. Let's go home.

Plan - Follow A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, which ends US military action, revives the protection the US Constitution provides us against future unnecessary wars, and addresses humanitarian concerns in Iraq.

War on Terror - When you hear a politician talk about a "war on" something, you can be sure of two things: 1) it's a war that cannot be won and 2) it's an excuse to pick your pocket. The so-called War on Terror is worse than most in that it is also intended to further erode our civil rights.

Plan - Prevent terrorism by following a non-interventionist foreign policy and providing a first-class, but Constitutionally-limited, intelligence service.

Good Government

The non-partisan Downsize DC organization has come up with a number of ways we can make government work more effectively and efficiently for us. You can read more about each of the following at the Downsize DC website:

Cost of Government Awareness Act - Eliminates the requirement that businesses withhold taxes for the government. If citizens had to write checks to pay their taxes every month, they would wake up fast and demand change.

Enumerated Powers Act - Congress is provided with 20 specific powers in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution. Would force legislators to cite the Constitutional authority for each bill they write.

One Subject at a Time Act - Requires that each bill that comes to a vote be about one subject, and one subject only. Many of the worst laws are passed as small part of a larger bill that lawmakers feel they cannot oppose. (This is exactly how the Real ID Act became law.)

Read the Bills Act - Requires all lawmakers to certify that they have read the bills they are voting on. Would go a long way to cut back unnecessary laws and the unnecessary complexity of laws that are passed each year.

The Job of a US Senator

"You don't need to be a lawyer to read the US Constitution or to follow it. As your Senator,
I will swear to defend and protect the Constitution —and I will mean it."

- Larry Stafford