Speaking of Ron Paul, Petersen claims him as one of his inspirations, and it shows: Both men are libertarian ideologues who can expound their views in detail, and with pitbull-like tenacity. Petersen showed this tenacity during the Libertarian presidential debates, where he took apart both eventual candidate (and former Republican governor of New Mexico) Gary Johnson and also-ran billionaire John McAfee. Even though the Libertarian Party played it safe by re-selecting their 2012 presidential candidate Johnson, Petersen made it a much closer race than anyone expected. On top of this, Petersen shares Paul's disdain for abortion. Both men controversially support the fetal right-to-life above those of a woman's right to her body.
Speaking of the issues, here are Petersen's stands, taken directly from his website:
1. Healthcare:
We need a clean repeal of Obamacare. Period. While President Obama was in office, Republicans in Congress tried to accomplish this over 50 times. What’s changed now with President Trump? This is the problem with Washington: politics, partisanship, and putting special interests front and center — instead of keeping your promises and putting the American people first.This stands in direct opposition to Petersen's expected opponent Claire McCaskill, who voted for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) back in 2009. This is also a stronger view than that espoused by many waffling Republicans who cannot seem to pull themselves away from the Obamacare-style Rube Goldberg health care model.
2. Jobs
Government doesn’t create jobs, but it can certainly inhibit job growth. The truth is that if our government is going to spur growth, it has to be pruned — a lot. It’s time to radically reduce excessive and harmful regulations that inhibit economic growth and the creation of new jobs. It’s not rocket science; the more roadblocks you put in the way of entrepreneurs and job creators, the fewer jobs will be created. The more hoops you make people jump through, the more time they’ll have to spend jumping through them instead of spending that time creating a better product, thinking of new and innovative ways to get their product to market faster and more efficiently, or hiring that next employee.Economist Thomas Sowell once said that government is all about trade-offs. You can get it to do whatever you want, but you will have to give up something on the other end. Call it the law of unexpected economic consequences. Government creates regulations like eating peanuts. but each of those regulations has a consequence, and Austin Petersen is one of the few politicians who understands the true cost. While McCaskill claims to have similar views on government regulation, I don't recall her ever complaining about any of Obama's regulatory expansions.
3. Taxes
“If cigarette taxes are meant to discourage people from smoking, what are income taxes supposed to stop people from doing?” In a perfect world, we would get rid of the income tax. In the meantime, we need a flat tax — 15% across the board: personal, corporate, capital gains, you name it. This is the only way to make the system fair. Currently, it’s not just regulations that crush small businesses and innovators — it’s taxes as well.I would add to Petersen's first line, "What are progressive income taxes supposed to stop people from doing?" You can go back to Karl Marx and get the answer to that: Keep them from getting wealthy. And yet how many Republicans are opposed to the progressive income tax? Petersen is one of the few. McCaskill claims to be for "fair and simple" taxes, yet she never supported a flat tax like Petersen does.
4. Spending
We need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.Government spending is like Mark Twain's alleged quote about the weather: "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." We all know it is a problem, but nobody will do anything about it. Until we force Constitutional discipline on our government's spending, we will never get it. McCaskill talks about spending like Petersen does, even supporting a balanced budget amendment, and yet nothing has changed.
5. Criminal Justice Reform
Prohibition is one of the most expensive and deadly failures in American history. This war on drugs is a war on American citizens. It’s costly, and it creates more violence on the border. You can build the tallest wall in history, but smugglers will find a way to get under it, or go around it. To fight drugs, we have to remove the economic incentive for them to bring these substances into our country. We’re destroying people’s lives — we should be treating drug abuse as a medical problem, not a criminal problem. Drugs are dangerous in part because they’re created on the black market, just as it was in the days of bathtub gin. We must be compassionate towards those who are suffering with chemical dependencies, and let them come into the light and seek treatment and help. This is absolutely a constitutional conservative issue. We need to reinstate the Founders’ original intent with regards to constitutional checks and balances by eliminating federal “mandatory minimums” laws and restoring power to the judicial branch. We need to end the practice of “civil asset forfeiture” — also known as legal governmental theft. And we need to end, once and for all, the federal government’s “war on drugs.”The "war on drugs" is just as much of a failure as Prohibition was. We are no closer to eliminating drugs than we were in 1970, when the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was passed. But we have managed to incarcerate millions of Americans whose only failure was drug addiction, which is no better or worse than imprisoning people for alcohol or tobacco addiction. To McCaskill, the war on drugs is a non-issue. But that is one of the advantages of being a Democrat: No amount of failure is ever enough to concede defeat, since nobody ever holds Democrats accountable for policy failures.
This is actually a key area of difference between Petersen and the only other declared Republican in the race, Tony Monetti. Like McCaskill, Monetti is all about continuing the drug war.
6. Foreign Policy
Currently, we spend more on our military than the next 8 highest spenders combined — and we haven’t audited the Pentagon since 9/11. The American people deserve better than this. Our troops deserve better than this. America first! No more nation-building. The United States should seek to protect and defend its security, its allies, and its national interests abroad, but any military actions taken must come with a proper debate and vote in Congress and comply with the War Powers Act. No president should have the power to unilaterally declare war. That’s Congress’ job, as per the Constitution.It is funny to see a Republican candidate taking the peaceful route in opposition to the Democrat's war hawkishness. But Petersen lays out a solid case for peace, while McCaskill is all about killing Muslims overseas, with no cost in American lives and money being too much.
Overall, Austin Petersen is representative of a continuing trend in the Republican Party, that started with Ron Paul and exploded with the Tea Party candidates of the 2010 midterm election. With Republican Representative Ann Wagner pulling out of contention for the senate race, it almost looks like the GOP is conceding the seat, allowing the libertarian wing of the party an opportunity to prove it can succeed where more establishment-oriented Republicans don't see it as possible.
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