Tony Zirkle for Congress

Visitor #46522

Michigan City News-Dispatch Q & As

1. Iraq

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 of the populated areas sooner rather than later. We should start in the north now and deliver a new city back each week with full fanfare. We can then offer to temporarily serve as a military for Iraq to guard against foreign invasion while they build their economy. To provide transitional security, we can have our military set up outposts outside populated areas as a national guard that can provide rapid response should it be needed to prevent uprisings or civil wars. Additionally, it would be much easier to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world if we would decide to exercise a modest degree of public discipline in our liberty and end the full-scale retreat in this cultural war. There is a clear difference between private liberty, of which we can allow a broad range, and public, in your face profiteering promotion. If we continue to glorify, profit from and publicly promote porn-prostitution, partial-birth abortion, and attacks on traditional marriage, we will never win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world, and 9-11 will become a preview of coming attractions. Finally, as the only veteran in this race, I have a distinct advantage over the other candidates in understanding many of these issues.

2. Jobs

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 and fuel prices are two major job exporting factors that we must address. High health care costs are a tax to both businesses and individuals, and they send more people to bankruptcy than anything but divorce. Bankruptcies reduce profits for creditors and force them to lay off employees. The health care plan I am proposing will reduce the labor costs for hiring new employees by making health care affordable. The payroll tax cuts off at $87,900. By reintroducing it for incomes over $200,000, we can create a fund to take the catastrophic claims out of the system and reduce insurance companies’ liabilities to $30-50,000. This plan will dramatically reduce premium costs. County governments currently pay around $11,000 a year per employee just for health coverage, and we pay those prices in property taxes. By reducing that cost to around $3,000, more funds will be available to hire new employees. Job outsourcing will become less attractive. Fuel-inefficient vehicles are also a tax. High gas costs reduce profits for companies that could better use that money to hire new employees. I am proposing a U.S. Civil Service Academy, centered in or near LaPorte County, that will not only provide permanent job stimulus to an area that has lost 35,000 steel and manufacturing jobs, but also it will develop these fuel-efficient vehicles through its technological research and development center.

3. Economy

What do you see as the most important issues facing an office holder? 100 words or less.

Good jobs, affordable health care, reducing crime, and improved trade relations are four of the most important issues today for our economy. My platform includes a United States Civil Service Academy for permanent job stimulus for this district where we will develop fuel-efficient vehicles so that we can finally become free from foreign oil dependence. My goal it to reduce medical insurance premiums to about $3,000 per year for a family plan so that job outsourcing will become less attractive. This district is in the heart of the Chicago-Detroit drug trade corridor, which I observed first-hand as a former drug crime prosecutor in Elkhart, St. Joseph and Lake Counties. National security is connected to economic strength, and drugs drain this immensely, since drugs lead to about ½ of all crime. We should focus on the underlying causes such as mental illness and marital breakdown that is in part caused by porn-prostitution. Instead of merely punishing the symptoms of crime, we need to stop the revolving door of arresting, releasing and re-arresting the same individuals. We have tripled our prison population since 1975. We can not have a strong economy when 2.2 million citizens are incarcerated because these costs sap $25-$50,000 a year in just prison fees. Finally, with a foreign service degree in International Economics from Georgetown, I have the diplomatic training and education to understand and work for better international trade relations and agreements that are currently placing our economy at a disadvantage in the world marketplace.

Jason, your questions were “1. Thoughts on Iraq, 2. Jobs, and 3. Economy.” If you would like more specific answers, I could give them if you can make the questions more specific. Please feel free to contact me if you need modifications in these answers.

Your presence is welcome.

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