Gemma: On foreign policy issues, what are your main concerns -- how do they set you apart from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump?
De La Fuente: First, it is difficult to determine how my approach differs from those of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump because those two individuals have been anything but clear with respect to where they stand on foreign policy. If you try to decipher their positions, I suppose you could point toward how they both like to brag about their willing to use our strength to impose our will on others. Trump wants to "bomb the s--t" out of everybody, and Clinton thinks Libya was her greatest policy triumph as Secretary of State -- a policy that President Obama has accurately described as the greatest political miscalculation of his Administration.
To succinctly frame my foreign policy position, I believe we should extricate ourselves from the failed exercise of nation building -- trying to impose democracy on countries that may not chose to embrace it or may not be ready to build upon it from a cultural perspective. I would like to see us be less active in that regard as it often leads to us being view negatively among other countries.
We also have a duty to protect our citizens. If we are attacked or there is a clear and present danger of such attack, then we have every right to defend ourselves. I simply don't think we should champion the political rhetoric that both Trump and Clinton have chosen to pursue that suggests that we should use force to intervene in the events of other nations if their cultures differ from ours and we see an opportunity to impose our will.
Gemma: How is your platform regarding government health care initiatives different from the two major parties?
De La Fuente: I do believe that as a civilized nation, we should provide healthcare for all those who need it. However, I think we once again politicized the issue and, as a result, missed the mark when we passed the Affordable Care Act [ACA] which has become not so affordable.
Special interests were served in the structuring of the ACA, and political graft was paid for the required votes in support of that bill. I would work to reform the health care initiative so that neither of these two elements was involved.
I would remain focused on all three of the original goals of health care reform -- lower cost, maintained or improved quality, and open access. The ACA ultimately only focused upon the access issue because of the political capital it carries with it. However, if you don't address cost and quality, you will have provided access to a systemically poor approach.
I think we need to readdress health care reform in a way that addresses cost and quality along with access. For example, substantive tort reform needs to be included in the discussion because of the way it distorts costs. Pharmaceutical advertising should also be on the table since it disproportionately adds cost without improving quality.
Catastrophic insurance coverage would probably be the best starting point to begin the reassessment. Then we could build upon that to ensure operational efficiency while minimizing the potential for abuse.
Gemma: You have stated that, "It is not the government's responsibility to support a military-industrial complex simply because it has allowed that structure to become unduly important in the financing of our political parties." What are your priorities in defense and national security policies?
De La Fuente: I do believe in a strong defense. However, I believe there is an incredible amount of waste and inefficiency in our current military budget. There also is a disgraceful relationship between our politicians and the military-industrial lobby.
It's all about favoritism -- all you have to do is follow the money. The cost of our military is unjustifiably high and our war fighters are unnecessarily put in harm's way. We need to become far more intelligent in the way we invest in our military, and the bonds between lobbyists and our elected officials must be broken. We cannot allow bad decisions and unjust enrichment to be dictated by which companies' PACs contribute to which candidates' campaigns.
Defense should focus on exactly that -- defense. National Security should focus in the more proactive role of prevention. However, National Security cannot come at the sacrifice of our unalienable rights. While we must remain vigilant, we must also do it in a way that reflects our fundamental values. Fear-mongering has led to investments in purported National Security agencies and programs that bear little return. We must look at those investments judiciously and eliminate the ones that have not proven to be effective. Today, we ignorantly tend to expand them.
Gemma: Do you have specifics on how you would deal with the threat of terrorism?
De La Fuente: To the degree that terrorism posed a clear and present danger to the United States, either at home or abroad, we should aggressive address the threat and eliminate it within the constructs of our legal authority. However, we must also learn not to incite it.
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