Independent Candidate Enters Race for U.S. House

Originally Written on March 27^th, 2016

Edited on March 29^th and 30^th, and April 22nd, 2016


Thanks to Annie Dean for her helpful input

            Joseph Kopsick, a 29-year-old resident of Lake Bluff, is running as a New Party candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. He will be fighting to represent Illinois’s 10^th District, along with some other recognizable names. An Illinois native, Kopsick was born at Lake Forest Hospital in 1987, attended area public schools in Lake Bluff throughout his childhood, and graduated from Lake Forest High School in 2005. He majored in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a bachelor’s in 2009. While living in Madison, Kopsick ran for the U.S. House from Wisconsin’s 2^nd District in 2012, and also ran for Oregon’s 3^rd in 2014.

Kopsick decided to move back home to Illinois after traveling around the country getting to know different kinds of people, and understanding their struggles and what they need most from their government. In a country so divided, Kopsick now feels that the battle for the House is just as important in Illinois’s 10^th as anywhere else. Kopsick declared his candidacy in November, citing a lack of diversity of opinion among the other candidates on numerous key issues. He believes that his opponents’ records do not sufficiently reflect an interest in reducing federal power, practicing a non-interventionist foreign policy, and supporting personal freedom.

            Kopsick desires to reduce the size of the federal workforce, cap spending at lower levels, and help pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. He opposes income taxes, but would accept a Negative Income Tax. He considers taxes on sales, gifts, estates, and investments as discouraging productive behavior. Kopsick favors an integrated approach to taxes and the environment, desiring to reform property taxes so as to fund government solely through fees on natural resource extraction, and fines on pollution and blight and disuse of land. He opposes privatizing Lake Michigan’s water rights, favoring the establishment of community land and water trusts.

            Kopsick opposes federal gun control legislation, and supports strengthening the Second Amendment by restoring it to its original intent of protecting the right of conscientious objection to military conscription. Concerning immigration, Kopsick opposes building a border wall, and would support legislative deferred action for childhood arrivals and their parents, rather than executive orders or memoranda effecting the same. On health, Kopsick will work to expand insurance coverage by legalizing interstate insurance purchase and eliminating the tax credit for employer provided insurance. He opposes federal restrictions on abortion, and considers mandated ultrasounds intrusive, costly, and medically unnecessary.

            On labor issues, Kopsick has criticized both Right to Work laws and compulsory union voting, and prefers allowing workers to personalize their retirements and opt-out of Social Security rather than privatizing the program. As alternatives to increasing the federal minimum wage, Kopsick hopes to increase the dollar’s purchasing power by reining-in the Federal Reserve, eliminating tariffs and sales taxes, and improving the balance of trade. Kopsick’s political writing is available on his blog www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com, and you can join the conversation about his campaign on Facebook at “Joe Kopsick for Congress 2016 (IL-10)”, and on Twitter @JoeK4Congress.