League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Alameda County, CA November 2, 2010 Election
	Gerald "Jerry" Hashimoto Answers Questions Candidate for United States Representative; District 9

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. In this time of high unemployment, what are the most important steps that should be taken to improve our nation’s economy?

Eliminate these taxes:

• Payroll tax
• Corporate Income tax
• Alternative Minimum tax
• Estate tax
• Capital Gains Tax
• Income tax on interest and dividends

2. How should federal budget priorities be changed, now and into the future? How will you balance the costs of military action overseas and national security with the costs of domestic needs?

The spending of the Federal Government should correspond to that specified by the Constitution.

• the federal budget should be balanced except in times war or national emergency (the bank meltdown of 2008 would qualify as an emergency)
• the president should have the line-item veto
• defense spending should be increased
• transfer of wealth programs need to be curtailed

3. What, if anything, should be done by the federal government to address our dependence on fossil fuels or spur the use of clean energy?

• Coal needs to eliminated. Although we have abundant domestic supplies, it requires strip mining and pollutes the air.
• We have plentiful supplies of natural gas, and we should use it to run our cars and trucks. Honda and some bus producers already have function natural gas vehicles.
• We already have the perfect solution to all the political objections to our current mix of energy production: nuclear power. It is clean, safe, efficient, and does not pollute. And, we can use them to power electric cars, which should also be part of the solution. We have centuries of domestic supplies.

4. What, if any, changes should be made to current federal policies or programs that promote or provide health coverage for Americans.

The so-called 'Obamacare' bill must be immediately and completely repealed. It is clear that it will cause the cost of healthcare to increase dramatically in the next decade, and we simply cannot afford it. Now would be a good time to start the long, slow procedure of converting Medicare and Medicaid into the private insurance industry along with Federal vouchers for those who cannot afford it.

5. What, if any, changes should be made to federal rules on campaign financing or disclosure of political expenditures?

I am in favor of rules requiring the disclosure of campaign contributions, say on a website within a specified period of time that the contribution is made. However, I oppose all efforts to limit campaign contributions, as well as the public financing of political campaigns.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League. No candidate may refer to another candidate in the response.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 19, 2010 16:42
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