my campaign’s League of Women Voters questionnaire responses
Steven Welzer
2024 Green Party candidate for US House in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District
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What are the most important challenges facing our country, and how do you propose to address them?
Hyper-militarism: The bipartisan endless war machine enriches military contractors, lobbyists, and politicians, while it fuels devastation around the world and drains funds from our domestic needs. The Pentagon budget consumes over half of the discretionary federal budget! We must create a new foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, and human rights to lead the way to a new era of peace and cooperation. If we cut the military budget by 50% our country would still be spending twice as much as any other country in the world.
Social injustice: To reverse surging inequality and insecurity, we need an Economic Bill of Rights establishing the rights to a living-wage job, housing, healthcare, and a secure retirement.
Climate disruption: We’re facing a worsening global climate crisis that threatens habitat and ecological balances. The solution offered by the Green Party is a more-comprehensive version of the Green New Deal in which we call for allocating substantial funding to support the manufacture of renewable energy, clean transportation technology, and a variety of other eco-solutions. This would generate millions of good-paying union jobs while helping to green the economy.
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What will you do to support an economy and job market that are strong and inclusive of all people?
. Guarantee lifelong free public education for all institutions of learning, including trade schools.
. Increase and equalize public school funding.
. Guarantee free childcare.
. Reduce taxes on incomes below the real median income of $75,000 per household.
. Strengthen Social Security — remove the artificial cap on the Social Security tax for the wealthy, and apply the Social Security payroll tax to all income, including capital gains and dividends.
. Institute strongly progressive taxation for incomes and wealth, and increase the estate tax.
. Guarantee affordable, efficient utilities through a transition of all utilities to public not-for-profit ownership.
. Put “too big to fail” banks into public ownership as public utilities (for example: the four largest banks, which own 25% of all banking assets).
. Create nonprofit public state and local banking.
. Replace corporate trade agreements with global fair trade agreements.
. Prohibit finance capital from buying up single-family homes and rental housing stock.
. Ban corporate stock buybacks.
. Break up monopolies in big tech and elsewhere.
. Increase federal support for worker-owned cooperatives.
. Expand and defend workers’ right to unionize.
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What measures do you support to expand voter access and restore trust in our elections?
The number of Americans who feel that neither establishment party represents them is at a record high. I believe that today’s US government is an oligarchy where policies are determined not by the will of the people but by the demands of corporate elites. The Wall Street parties have systematically concentrated power in the hands of their wealthy donors, locking out the people from our rightful place at the decision-making table. So we need to revive our democracy with a full spectrum of reforms to empower the people, including real choice on the ballot — because without freedom of choice in elections, there is no democracy.
. Replace the exclusionary “only-two-significant-parties” system with full multi-party democracy through ranked-choice voting and proportional representation
. Institute full public financing of elections … get the corrupting influence of private money out of politics
. Abolish the Electoral College; elect the president via national popular vote using ranked-choice voting
. Support a modern Voting Rights Act, including non-partisan redistricting commissions and same-day voter registration nationwide
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What is your position on immigration reform?
For hundreds of years immigrants have contributed immensely to the United States despite facing constant exploitation, discrimination, xenophobia and scapegoating. Exploitative businesses use immigrants as essential labor while denying them the human rights and dignity that everyone deserves. We need a comprehensive immigration policy and properly funded institutions to ensure a timely, ethical, transparent, and dignified path to citizenship for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Border policy should move toward humane and effective asylum processing. Instead of jailing migrants and asylum seekers, we should create non-custodial reception centers at the border. Migrants should be processed rapidly to screen for significant criminal records. Once processed, migrants should have papers to begin work immediately, making them a productive resource for communities. Meanwhile, we should strive to reduce the tide of migration by helping to ameliorate crises (such as military conflicts and climate disruptions) that are driving people to leave their home countries. Legalization of marijuana would undercut drug cartels whose violence is a major driver of migration.
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What, if any, actions would you take to address the threats facing the United States due to climate change?
. Achieve 100% clean renewable energy and zero carbon emissions by 2035.
. Create an Office of Climate Mobilization to coordinate policy changes and other needed interventions to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions.
. Strive to ensure that all climate solutions are global in scope.
. Ensure a Just Transition for workers shifting from the fossil fuel and other extractive and polluting industries to alternative work of their choosing.
. End all forms of subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
. Invest in renewable energy infrastructure including wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal, with adequate battery and energy storage.
. Build a nationwide, publicly-owned smart electricity grid and an electrified coast to coast high-speed rail network.
. Ban all forms of fracking, mountaintop removal, tar sands mining, and new fossil fuel infrastructure.
. Phase out nuclear power, a toxic, expensive, and uninsurable technology.
. Require new buildings to demonstrate zero emissions by 2035 and retrofit existing buildings.
. Transform the American Climate Corps into a public agency that employs millions for ecosystem restoration, climate damage mitigation, and renewable energy development.
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What is your stance on access to abortion?
Ensure full reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for women. Codify Roe v Wade in legislation. Our goal should be that every baby born is a wanted child.
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What’s the biggest foreign policy challenge facing the United States and how would you address it?
. US hyper-militarism keeps getting us dragged into foreign wars.
. We should cut our military spending by at least 50% and ensure a just transition that replaces military jobs with Green New Deal jobs.
. Close the vast majority of the 700+ foreign US military bases.
. Stop US support and arms sales to human rights abusers.
. Lead on global nuclear disarmament.
. End unilateral economic sanctions that primarily harm civilian populations.
. Restore Congress’s sole power to declare war.
. Disband NATO and replace it with a modern, inclusive security framework that respects the security interests of all nations and people.
. Demand an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Palestine, an end to the blockade of Gaza, immediate humanitarian and medical relief, and release of all hostages and political prisoners.
. End the elitist UN Security Council so that the UN becomes a truly democratic body.
. Remove US troops from Iraq and Syria.
. Stop fueling the war between Russia and Ukraine; instead take the lead on negotiating a peaceful settlement.
