3. Economy: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, known as the economic stimulus package, passed by Congress in response to the economic recession.
10. Protected Classes: Adding “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” to the protected classes of race, religion, age, sex, and ancestry in antidiscrimination law.
11. Immigration: How should the federal government respond to the estimated 15 million illegal immigrants who are in the U.S.?
Mr. Rick Crawford (R):
I support immigration reform and am concerned about the impact of illegal immigration on our resources and national security. We must: - Improve our border security and speed up construction of the security fence along our southern border. - Improve enforcement of our immigration laws, in part by forcing the Department of Homeland Security to fully implement a computerized entry-exit system so we know who’s entering our country. - Prohibit benefits enacted for U.S. citizens from being received by those who are in our country illegally, including Social Security and welfare. - Make English the national language of the United States. - End birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and allow only children born of a U.S. citizen or national, a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. or those performing active service in the U.S. armed forces to be eligible for birthright citizenship.
12. Economy: How should the federal government respond to our nation’s $15 trillion national debt?
Mr. Rick Crawford (R):
We have to take action now to reduce the national debt, our annual deficits and avoid leaving future generations a country in financial ruin. I support: - Immediately and permanently reducing and capping federal spending - Passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to permanently limit federal spending - Ending bailouts and failed stimulus measures that leave us more in debt.
A balanced budget amendment would force Congress to do what it has proven incapable of so far: living within our means and prioritizing federal spending.
13. Defense: Should the U.S. military be restructured? If so, how? If not, why not?
Mr. Rick Crawford (R):
Yes, I believe we can achieve savings and more efficiency at DoD, especially in the area of procurement that has long been a problem. The Department of Defense should not be immune to oversight, reform and spending cuts.
Additionally, I believe we must modernize the structure at DoD to better reflect and support modern war fighting. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 was historic and helped spur great progress in modernizing the Defense Department and encouraging more joint operations. Now 26 years later and in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe we need another Goldwater-Nichols-type reform effort to take recent lessons learned to create the structure needed at DoD to most efficiently fight wars and spend taxpayer dollars. More joint control, rather than service branch control, is needed over research, development, acquisition and organizational structures to improve efficiency.
14. Government: List any federal departments that should be eliminated, added, or changed along with your proposals. If there are none, please tell why.
Mr. Rick Crawford (R):
I think Congress should seriously consider eliminating the Departments of Commerce and Energy. The key to saving federal funds, however, is not in just eliminating Cabinet Departments, but in eliminating functions of those departments. For example, the Cato Institute has proposed eliminating functions at the Commerce Department that are wasteful and duplicative and has identified up to $2 billion that could be saved by taxpayers annually. Congress should consider that proposal. The Energy Department was created out of the oil crisis in the 1970s. Its most important functions could be handed to other agencies, such as the Department of Defense, especially where it comes to nuclear weapons.
Mr. Rick Crawford (R):
