Shirk/Lafferty
Hailing from the Vision Party, Shirk/Lafferty is devoted to establishing a federal government based on Biblical and Constitutional foundations and principles, which include limited government. As such, our ticket seeks to uphold liberty while also focusing on long-term goals and accomplishing them through reliable and cost-effective means. We believe that less government intervention is required for America and her citizens to properly flourish.
Our ticket seeks to address the first issue of foreign aid by adjusting the focus of the American government from the world at large to the people on its own soil. Looking at financial records of the U.S. government*, in 2019 alone, we spent over $47 billion dollars on foreign aid. This is also before the Ukraine and Russia conflict, and the Israel and Hamas conflict. By spending money on our own healthcare and general public well-being, we can better protect our people's rights and liberty. Shirk/Lafferty believes it is important to assist our foreign neighbors in their times of need, but only if we as a nation are first able to. According to a poll taken by the Times newspaper, “More than 70% of U.S. adults feel the healthcare system is failing to meet their needs in at least one way.”** It is of foremost importance that the government prioritizes its own people, not only for the sake of liberty, but to naturally stimulate the economy, and in turn, helping to solve the following two issues.
The second is immigration. As members of the Vision party, we firmly believe in limiting government overreach and naturally boosting the economy. The Shirk/Lafferty ticket strongly supports boosting legal immigration to accomplish these goals. According to an article written by several White House Economists*** “Most directly, immigration increases potential economic output by increasing the size of the labor force.” As we boost legal immigration, it is simultaneously important to protect the health and safety of those most important: American citizens. Those who cross the border illegally will be prosecuted and returned to their home country to protect this population. Our ticket hopes to refine the process of legal immigration to allow people to cross the border in a quicker and more cost-efficient way. Streamlining this process will naturally boost the economy so our citizens are able to embody the American Dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The last issue the Shirk/Lafferty ticket seeks to address is climate change. People old and young are impassioned by this topic, so our ticket seeks to handle it delicately, striving to protect liberty and minimize federal government interference. Each state has a vastly different climate environment and thus instituting new and broad federal regulations does more harm than good. Lining up with this plan, the New York Times**** posted an article stating that “state-level climate change policies will play a more important role than federal ones.” We believe the stimulated economy, resulting from the changes laid out above, will allow each state to rely on private industries and the free market to control and regulate climate change. We hope to partner with these private corporations to alter the capitalistic model to one that focuses on more long-term sustainability rather than profit driven growth. The Shirk/Lafferty ticket promises a boosted economy; thus, individual citizens and corporations are given the liberty to develop without oppressive government regulations.
We, as the Shirk/Lafferty ticket, are striving to uphold the individual liberty of the American citizen through restricted government oversight. We believe our ticket, which creatively and reliably seeks to solve pressing issues while first upholding liberty, is the ticket that aligns with the Biblical role of government and the true Constitutional intentions of America the best.
*https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/us-foreign-aid-by-country
** https://time.com/6279937/us-health-care-system-attitudes/
***https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/17/the-economic-benefits-of-extending permanent-legal-status-to-unauthorized-immigrants/
****https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/climate/climate-change-action-united-states.html