Sunday, February 6, 2011

SSDP at CPAC 2011

Hey readers, hope your year is going well. I haven’t posted on this blog before, so here goes.

This week KSU SSDP as well as members from many different chapters will converge onto the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC. Here we will be voting in a straw poll for Gov. Gary Johnson. Gov. Johnson has been a strong voice in the movement for reforming current drug policies. In 1999 during his second term as Governor of New Mexico, Johnson took a strong stance on marijuana legalization, and has said that the other illegal drugs should be treated from a health issue instead of a legal one. He has been quoted as saying "I came to the conclusion that 90 percent of the problem was prohibition related” when talking about his stances on the drug war issue, with Myrtle Beach Tea Partiers (see link at bottom). His stances on this issue have even garnered the support of famous republican figures such as William F. Buckley.

Should this man become president, I believe that he would take America out of the downtrodden economy that we have now. For proof, I present his only held elected position. When he came into the gubernatorial position in New Mexico the state was suffering from a yearly budget increase of 10%. Through his policies and his strong use of veto power, Johnson cut this increase out and in fact left the New Mexican Economy with a large surplus. His economic policies are driven by his business minded approach, which stems from his years in college where he would make money by being a door to door handyman. That business grew and became a multimillion dollar business and provided him with the capital to be elected in the first place. He has since sold that business and is concentrating on activism; Sitting on the advisory board for our own SSDP and also Students for Liberty, a student political organization. He has also started his own 501(c) (4) committee called Our America Initiative (http://ouramericainitiative.com/) whose mission statement reads “OUR America Initiative seeks to broaden the parameters of the public policy debate of current topics in the national arena. We look to enlighten the population about civil liberties, free enterprise, limited government, and traditional American values. It is our aim to increase the amount of discussion and involvement regarding all-important issues.”

On other Issues, Johnson pushed to give school vouchers to all K-12 students in New Mexico, in order to allow them to go to school where they and their parents wished. He attempted this twice during his second term, but was unsuccessful in pushing it through the democratically controlled congress of the time. (See link at bottom)

Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/02/01/1955144/mb-tea-party-hears-from-presidential.html#ixzz1DD8JQcDJ

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/01/31/us/parents-lead-way-as-states-debate-school-vouchers.html?pagewanted=1&src=pm

Dave Goldshtein is a member of Kent State SSDP