Taxes, Obamacare, regulations—find out what the presidential hopefuls say about the issues you care about most.
Sen. Ted Cruz was the first major presidential candidate to show up to the 2016 party. Now, he’s the most recent to be interviewed by TheSkimm, a daily news digest e-newsletter that has published interviews with several other 2016 presidential candidates.
Here’s how the presidential hopefuls have weighed in thus far on the issues that are most important to small business, based on the interviews with TheSkimm.
Sen. Ted Cruz
My top priority in all of this has been restoring economic growth, bringing back jobs, growth and opportunity. We can get back to booming growth, and the keys to doing so are tax reform and regulatory reform.
Tax reform: adopting a simple flat tax, where every American can fill out his or her taxes on a postcard. And regulatory reform: stopping the crushing regulations that are strangling small businesses, that are making it harder and harder to create jobs.
And the most important regulatory reform is repealing every word of Obamacare, which is just the biggest job killer in this country.
Former Gov. George Pataki
When I talk about reducing the size and the power and the influence of the federal government, and when I talk about reducing the tax and regulatory burden, when I talk about replacing dependency with opportunity–I did it in one of the bluest states in America.
I think one of the tragedies of the last decade has been the hideously slow economic growth and the creation of jobs. It’s not about the unemployment rate; it is about people’s belief that they can have a career that is successful.
One of the things I would focus on is lowering the tax and regulatory burden, taking advantage of the American work ethic, taking advantage of our lower energy prices, linking community colleges with industry in their areas to create a base of manufacturing that will significantly expand economic opportunities and jobs for middle class Americans.
I think [the Affordable Care Act] is a horrible law. I honestly think it is the worst law passed in my lifetime. We have a great healthcare system, but there were two issues pre-Obamacare: One, it was too expensive for many people, and the second was the unavailability of healthcare for too many Americans. Those issues could have been easily solved without disrupting the entire national healthcare system.
Former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton
I believe that we avoided a Great Depression and I give a lot of credit to the American people who made tough decisions.
I want the middle class to mean something again. I want people to feel like their paychecks are reflecting their hard work. That’s why I put raising incomes as my goal for my economic agenda, because if we don’t, we are going to see the slow and steady erosion of the middle class, and that is one of the great inventions of the United States.
Sen. Rand Paul
I think that in order to get the economy growing, we need to lead more money into the hands of the people. I want a much lower tax rate. The business tax rate, the corporate tax rate in our country is the highest in the world.
The regulatory burden is the highest in the world, and we continue to lose businesses overseas because, frankly, we don’t have a great or a hospitable environment here.
I would like to have health insurance and access for everybody. I am a physician. I think that the best way to do that is to provide inexpensive health insurance. One thing that has not been solved is that the cost of health insurance is still prohibitive for many people, and in fact, it has gone up higher since [the Affordable Care Act]. I think people should be given a choice.
Read the full Skimm interviews.
And use NFIB’s voter resources.
*Note: this news coverage does not equate to an endorsement of any candidate by NFIB.
