After in person discussions, Ed Kless is my recommendation for Texas Senate District 8, and you should contact him if you have additional questions.
David Hall
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ed Kless
Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:49 PM
Subject: Ed Kless for Texas Senate District 8
To: David Hall
Dear Mr. Hall,
I have been reading your weekly emails for a while. Since you state that you are considering supporting candidates other than Republicans, I hope you will consider endorsing me. I believe that you and I agree on many issues.
To illustrate this, have inserted my answer to the League of Women Voters for question 1 followed by your responses with my comments for questions 2-7. Although you and I definitely do not agree about everything, based on your writings, I suspect that you do not expect or demand that of anyone.
Thank you for your consideration.
In Liberty,
Ed Kless
Libertarian Candidate for Texas Senate – District 8
http://electkless.com
+1 972 836 9972
1. Please describe the education and experience that qualify you for the position of member of the Texas Senate/House of Representatives.
Ever since graduating magna cum laude from Pace University in New York, I have been working in one capacity or another to help make small businesses better. Within the past decade, I have begun studying economics, especially price theory, and believe that the lack of basic economic understanding drives most bad government policies. There are two words that all economists agree upon regardless of their political leaning, “Incentives matter.” Legislators motivated by the best of intentions have created perverse incentives that interfere with free market activities. Government is the problem in many cases, not the solution.
2. Texas ranks very low among states in percentage of persons with health insurance. What measures would you support for improving access to health care in Texas?
Texas Health Savings Accounts
Maintain database of IRS-qualified HSA expenses.
Enrollees establish HSA at insurance company or thrift.
Enrollees issued debit card.
Providers approve expenses for immediate payment on purchases of covered expense (insurance companies) or qualified expense for which there is adequate savings.
Public money issued as voucher which may be allocated as desired to either pay for insurance and/or be placed in the individual HSA account.
With this approach each individual will make the choice of how their money is spent based on their life situation.
2. I am in favor of large HSAs and catastrophic insurance. Insurance is a financial product and is meant for things we do not want. It is not intended to pay for the mundane. For example, car insurance does not pay for oil changes and gasoline and health insurance should not pay for every doctor visit and routine medical treatment. In addition, if we allow companies to include a heath dividend in policies for younger people, it would reduce the uninsured rates to a manageable level. Lastly, insurance should be allowed to be sold across state lines, this would increase competition.
3. How should Texas finance the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges?
User fees (tolls) collected via license plate numbers. * See Below
Should the gas tax be raised?
It should be eliminated in favor of a sales tax on vehicle fuel.
Should the gas tax be dedicated solely to road construction and maintenance?
If collected then yes.
Do you support increased construction of toll roads?
Yes, provided the tolls are only used for the road on which collected. *
* Also, the Texas law that requires parallel access roads for toll roads should be continued. This is a good law as it respects the poor, avoids coercion to pay the toll, and forces the toll road authority to maintain a high standard or lose business, unlike “Independent” School Districts.
3. I am OK with toll roads and agree the gas tax should be eliminated.
4. Do you consider Texas’ current per-student public school spending to be adequate and equitable? If not, what measures would you support to increase funding of public school education?
Adequate Not Equitable
Parents should have freedom of choice for their children's education. Currently Texas only supports “Independent” School Districts and charter schools. Parents should be free to choose a non-public school alternative and receive the state money for educating their children after their children demonstrate competency for core subjects by:
Student passes computer-based semester exam for each required course at an approved testing center.
Testing centers should be open at flexible times for students throughout the year with students being able to take any specific test for their semester grade level any time the testing center is open.
4. Vouchers, vouchers and vouchers! Senator Shapiro is on a committee figuring out how to raise more money to spend, I would work out a way to reduce the amount of money spent. Testing is a difficult issue as all tests are skewed and can be gamed; I would prefer more local control of the tests. Vouchers would allow parents to judge for themselves if their kids are learning. If they feel they are not, they will move them to a different school.
5. Texas is one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the U.S. What changes would you support to Texas’ energy policies?
Encourage businesses to develop home electric generation systems, cost-effective geothermal heat pumps, and methane/propane powered vehicles with Texas Energy Incentives.
The electric grid is inefficient including: turbines convert about 33% of fuel to electricity; transmission lines lose about 66%; with inefficiencies in dynamos, transformers, and other equipment yields about 6% of fuel energy to homes.
Home generators using natural gas would be considerably more efficient: fuel cells 60%+ or turbines with buried mufflers for noise mitigation 33%+.
Geothermal heat pumps reduce energy required for HVAC.
Methane/propane vehicles could be filled at home and emit less pollutants.
5. I agree that all alternatives should be explored, but with no government help. There is already enough market incentive to develop these technologies if they are truly energy efficient. For example, I have no problem with T. Boone Pickens drilling for all the natural gas in the state of Texas, he just should not get any of our money to do it.
6. State hospitals that serve people with mental illness have reduced the number of available beds, yet the need for services is increasing. How do you propose that Texas provide for the care of those with severe mental illness?
Allow non-violent criminals to remain at home with an ankle tracking system to monitor their location at all times then use the money saved to help persons with mental illness.
6. OK, but I also believe if we reduced the tax burden, local charities would be better able to take care of these folks. Americans, especially Texans are a giving people, but when our tax burden is so high, we just can’t do everything we would like to do locally.
7. What other issues do you believe will be most pressing in the next session of the Texas Legislature, and what is your position on these issues?
Persuade the Federal Government to return the offshore land that belongs to Texas from 10 to 200 miles from shore. Offshore leasing is the second largest source of "Federal Revenue" after income taxes which I learned working as a consultant for the Minerals Management Service.
Some information from the following web addresses is applicable to the offshore income question:
http://www.mms.gov/aboutmms/OCSLA/ocslahistory.htm
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/lsesale/visual1.pdf
This change can be effected cooperating with other states or the courts.
Replace property taxes with higher sales taxes.
Bring pressure on Texas State Agencies to hire Texas based businesses starting with replacing Pearson for student end-of-course evaluation testing.
7. I like the idea of taking revenue back from the Feds. It is always better to keep the money closer to the source. I would also eliminate property taxes, but would not increase the sales tax. Government must get smaller.
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