Tony Zirkle for Congress

Visitor #46522

Election Q&A for Lafayette newspaper

U.S. Representative, primary

1. What are the three most pressing issues for your district? How will you take care of them?

Good jobs, affordable health care and national security. My jobs plan is included in 6, and my health care plan is outlined in 2. District 2 includes the area from Valparaiso to Elkhart and from South Bend to Kokomo. This district is in the heart of the Chicago-Detroit drug trade corridor, which I learned as a former drug crime prosecutor in Elkhart, St. Joseph and Lake Counties. National security is connected to economic strength and drugs drain this strength immensely, since drugs lead to ½ or more of all crime. We need to treat the underlying root causes such as mental illness and marital breakdown caused by porn-prostitution.

2. Name the best two things Congress can do to improve access to adequate health care in the nation. How would you get them done?

Health care premiums are too high. Few individuals can afford $6-11,000 just for premiums. These costs are also one of the major factors that are exporting jobs overseas. We can take the catastrophic claims out of the system by creating a single-payer, non-profit fund by reintroducing the payroll tax on the top 1% of incomes. By limiting health insurance liability to $30-50,000 per year per person, insurance companies will be able to reduce their premiums to around $3,000 per family. We also need to place a check on corporate greed/waste and limit CEO pay to 40 times the pay of the lowest paid employee.

3. Do you support President Bush’s tax cut plan and believe it should be made permanent, or should some provisions be rolled back? In either case, why?

Permanent is the wrong word to use since no congress can bind a future one on taxes. I would vote to preserve the cuts for all but those who have incomes over $200,000. However, I would vote to keep the top tax rate at 35% if 1. The payroll tax is reintroduced for incomes over $200,000 in order to reduce the cost of family health coverage to about $3,000 per year or 2. If the tax code is shifted to focus more on wealth than income by setting the following flat tax rates for lifetime cumulative taxable incomes: $10 million - 50%; $100 million - 60%; $1 billion - 70%; $10 billion - 80%.

4. How confident are you that existing homeland security measures can protect the United States from terrorists? What else would you suggest needs to be done?

More can always be done. For airline security, we can use our technology to enable planes to be “re-hijacked” by our own military planes through remote control from our E/A-6B Prowlers so that we don’t have to shoot citizens out of the sky. For long term security, we must banish the porn-prostitution cults that are destroying our economy through examples of irresponsible behavior that have led to a 50% STD rate by age 25. We will then have a population boom that can be used to diversify other cultures with our citizens that will reduce ignorance, prejudice and hatred.

5. Assess the U.S. policy in post-war Iraq. What do you believe is the next best step there?

While most of us would have to think before we could even state what centuries the crusades were in, to the Muslims, the memories are still fresh. If we are to err, we should err by getting out sooner. We should start in the north and deliver a new city back each week with full fanfare. We can then offer to serve as a military for Iraq to guard against foreign invasion. To provide transitional security, we can have our military set up outposts outside populated areas that can provide rapid response should it be needed to prevent uprisings or civil wars.

6. What is the best thing Congress can do to create or keep more jobs, and better jobs, in the United States?

We need to expand the definition what is called a tax. High health care costs are a tax and send more people to bankruptcy than anything but divorce. The health care plan I am proposing will reduce the labor costs for hiring new employees by making health care affordable. County governments currently pay around $11,000 a year per employee just for health coverage. By reducing that cost to around $3,000, more funds will be available to hire new employees and reduce layoffs. Fuel-inefficient vehicles are also a tax. High gas costs reduce profits for companies that could better use that money to hire new employees.

7. Do you favor an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that bans gay marriage? Why or why not?

Only if necessary. I have proposed a better, broader and more useful amendment that will move us away from the increasing judocracy that we are experiencing and back toward the republic we were promised. Judicial review, where judges make laws instead of interpreting them, needs a realistic check and balance like the ones on the executive and legislative branches. A super-majority (at least 2/3 or 3/4) vote in both houses plus the executive approval should be able to overrule individual judicial opinions without the need to amend the constitution every time the courts make an erroneous ruling.

8. Name two specific things that separate you from your opponents?

Mr. Chocola has placed a top priority in making tax cuts “permanent” for multi-billionaires where wealthy investors, with a 15% capital gains rate and who don’t work, will pay lower tax rates than workers. Such a policy is economically and historically unsound. I am for the middle class and will support both business and labor. I agree with President George H. W. Bush that trickle-down, supply-side economic theory is voodoo. We should focus on three more effective ways to cut taxes by lowering health care costs, creating fuel-efficient vehicles, and ending porn-prostitution which is the root of much crime that leads to incarceration taxes.

Biographical information

Name: Tony Zirkle

Age (please include date of birth):

Address:

Occupation: Attorney

Education: Tipton, IN High School, 1988; U.S. Naval Academy, 1988-90; I.U. Kokomo, 1991; Georgetown University, B.S. in Foreign Service - International Economics, 1995; Andrews, B.A. in Religion and B.A. in Economics, 1995; I.U. Bloomington School of Law, Juris Doctorate, 1997; Andrews University Theological Seminary, M.Div. Cand. two tests remain.

Family:

Political Background (if any): Indiana State President, Future Business Leaders of America, 1987-88; U.S. Naval Academy Class President, 1989-90; IN House of Representatives Dist. 8 Republican Candidate, 2000; St. Joseph Co. Republican Primary Candidate, 2002

Community Activities (top 3 or 4): Local Church Sabbath School Teacher, Emergency Medical Technician Volunteer - Georgetown University Hospital

Original hometown: Tipton, Indiana

Years lived in Indiana: All 34 years of my life except the educational time I spent at the Naval Academy, Georgetown and Andrews.

I can be contacted at 219 308-1673 cell or at home at 219 662-1540.

Your presence is welcome.

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