Twenty-One Questions for Bob Dold and Brad Schneider

Written Between October 1^st and 16^th, 2016
Published on October 10^th, 2016
Edited and Expanded on October 20th, 2016

 

            One of some eight or nine debates between Illinois's 10^th District U.S. congressional candidates Bob Dold and Brad Schneider took place at Lake Forest High School in Lake Forest, Illinois, at 1:30 on the afternoon of Sunday, October 16^th, 2016. The debate, hosted by the Lake County League of Women Voters, was free and open to the public.

Audience members were invited to submit questions at the debate by writing them on notecards. Since, as a write-in candidate, my name is not technically on the ballot, I was not invited to the debate; however, I was there to submit questions. Since audience members were only permitted to ask several questions each, below I have listed twenty-one questions that I would like to hear the candidates answer.

 

Ninth Amendment

     I believe that the freedoms to marry, travel, work, go on strike, buy and sell, drink, smoke, vote, and defend oneself, are natural, fundamental, and inalienable rights; that they cannot be voted away by legislatures. Do you agree, or do you believe that our rights are mere privileges, which are sold or revoked at government's whim, and that we need to pay taxes on - and pay for applications, permits, and licenses for - everything we do?

Ninth Amendment
     Is there a single, unifying reason why self-defense, marriage, voting, working in an occupation, buying and selling, and traveling, should not be considered natural rights or freedoms, but rather as privileges which can be sold or denied by government, which has the exclusive authority to profit from the sale of license and permit fees?

Government's Role in Society

     What is your preferred vision of the kind of society that government has a responsibility to help create; a compulsory society, or a voluntary society? Would you prefer a compulsory society in which there is a military draft, and nearly everything we do is taxed, and may not be done without applying for a permit or license, and paying fees therefor? Or do you prefer an all-volunteer military; low barriers of entry into the professions; and a tax base relying only on voluntary contributions, user fees, and fees punishing waste?

Private Property
     What are you doing to make it easier to own a car with full exclusionary rights and access to the vehicle's Statement of Origin? What have you done to make it easier to fully own a home without being subject to neighborhood association guidelines and property taxes that disincentivize construction, growth, and useful production thereupon? What would you do to make it easier to owning landed property in full allodial title?


Separation of Powers
     How can you defend the constitutionality of federal involvement in health and education, without resorting to making excuses for the same kind of inappropriate delegation of congressional powers to the president; the kind that brought us the expansion of domestic surveillance and the size of the executive branch, in addition to the expansion of presidential war powers which led to the second invasion of Iraq?

Elections

     Which of the following is the biggest problem pertaining to campaign finance?: 1) lack of transparency in donation disclosures; 2) unlimited donations; or 3) the influence of lobbyists on expanding government, with its favors and privileges for donors and favored industries, in a way that makes such large donations typical? Also, would you support limiting your own office to four consecutive terms at a time?

Amending the Constitution

     Is there any amendment that you would like to see repealed or heavily amended; such as the 14^th, 16^th, or 17^th Amendments? Would you support a new amendment to the Constitution? Would you support voting reform, term limits, an Equal Rights Amendment, or a Balanced Budget Amendment?

Taxes and Productivity

     Do you suspect that taxing any behaviors at lower rates might yield greater revenues? Do you think that keeping tax rates too high might risk inadvertently disincentivizing the behaviors being taxed (namely earning money, buying and selling goods and services, making investments, importing goods, giving gifts, and bequeathing inheritances)? Would it be less harmful to base all government revenue on voluntary contributions; user fees; fees for mineral resource extraction; and fees penalizing waste, blight, and pollution?

Taxes and Poverty

     How is poverty best addressed? Would you support: 1) extending the Earned Income Tax Credit; 2) applying homesteading tax credits to low-cost housing; 3) establishing a citizens' dividend or sovereign wealth fund; or 4) the Negative Income Tax, giving tax payments to those below the poverty level?

Unions
     First, were things better for workers when unions engaged in strikes without the permission of a government labor relations board? Second, would it benefit workers to amend the law so that wildcat strikes, sympathy strikes, and wide-scale boycotts are legal, effective, and possible? Third and last, would you amend the Wagner Act so that unions are no longer required to represent all workers in a workplace, including those who do not consent to paying dues and do not want the benefits of representation?

Wages, Treasury, and the Budget
     Would it still be necessary to raise the minimum wage for private-sector jobs, if we had a balanced budget, a more sound currency, a greater purchasing power, and consumers' costs could be relieved directly by eliminating duties, imposts, tariffs, and sales taxes?

Taxation of Business
     When it comes to enterprise, which types of behaviors by companies should be taxed; 1) malinvestments; 2) personal income, executive bonuses, sales and profits, imports, capital gains, investments, and retirement and health accounts; or 3) pollution, waste, abuse and disuse of land, and extraction of natural resources?

Corporate Privilege
     Would you agree that it is not possible to effectively boycott companies, unless and until several types of government-granted, taxpayer-funded corporate and small business privileges and supports are either revoked or more strictly limited? Also, should multinational businesses be free to sue governments for loss of potential future profits, if those governments don't agree to do business with those companies?

Banking and Bailouts

     How is the public best insulated from the risks of Wall Street speculation, the excesses of commercial banking, and the risk of bailouts? Should Glass-Steagall be restored, should the amount of money that the F.D.I.C. can insure be lowered, is it the credit and bond rating systems that need reform, or should something else be done?

Abortion

     Should partial-birth abortion be legal, should it be publicly funded, and is it abortion or infanticide? Also, what in the Constitution gives any agent or agency of the federal government authority on matters of abortion, except when it comes to whether health insurance should cover the reproductive health needs of federal workers? Lastly, does anything about either the 9^th or the 14^th Amendment agree or conflict with your position on abortion?

Guns and the Draft
     Should the Second Amendment be modified as to recognize the natural right to refuse service in the militia; and the right to claim a moral philosophical, or religious conscientious objection to being required to render military service in person, whether as part of a draft or mandatory civil emergency preparedness service? Should women be required to register for the draft; or should mandatory draft registration end altogether, and the draft be repealed via a constitutional amendment?

Foreign Aid to Israel

The federal government sends $3.8 billion to the State of Israel each year. Considering that an IRmep/Google poll revealed last month that more than 80% of American adult internet users surveyed, thought that aid to Israel would better be spent on something else, would you consider reducing or revoking aid until the Israelis agree to end their draft, withdraw from illegally occupied territories, admit their possession of nuclear weapons, and sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Israel and Iran

   What would you say to a voter who opposes foreign aid to both the State of Israel and its majority-Muslim neighbor states, for the same reasons; women's rights violations, denial of religious freedoms, disregard of civil liberties in policing and military recruitment, and non-transparent nuclear military ambitions? Could Israel take a more merciful role in the peace process? Lastly, do you support the Iran deal, and why or why not?

Schneider's Foreign Policy

Mr. Schneider, what should be done about U.S. presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Should we stay in Iraq to fight I.S.I.S., or work with the Russians to achieve peace in Syria? Would you support the Iraq partition plan, or time-tables for withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan? Finally, should the U.S. Army be guarding Pakistan's border with India instead of its border with Afghanistan?

Dold's Inconsistencies

Congressman Dold, what would you tell a conservative or Republican voter who feels that you have flip-flopped on repealing Obamacare, and sees your commercials where you promote gun control and continuing funding for Planned Parenthood, and wonder whether there are any key issues on which you are in total agreement with conservative voters?

Rahm Emanuel

Have you met Rahm Emanuel, do you think he is a good leader, and do you think he has done anything unethical in any of his roles in government or business - such as his time as a Clinton fundraiser and adviser, on the board of Freddie Mac, in his role in the 2008 restructuring, as President Obama's Chief of Staff, or as the Mayor of Chicago - that should disqualify him from seeking higher offices?