Michael Bagdes-Canning

Greens support equal rights for women; a woman's right to control her body shall not be compromised.

Strongly Disagree

Agree

Federal and state taxes must be strongly progressive. Our current tax system is outrageously unjust. It is riddled with loopholes, subsidies and dodges for corporations and the super-rich. Most working people pay too much in taxes compared to corporations, multi-millionaires and billionaires. Many of our biggest and most profitable corporations pay little or no tax. Much investment income is taxed at less than the rate workers pay. We can afford to cut taxes for most people if we make corporations and the super-rich pay their fair share. Then we can cut them even more when we halt our nation's wasteful spending on wars, weaponry and militarism. We call for progressive taxation, shifting tax from individuals to corporations, taxing "bads" not "goods," taxing unearned income at the same rate as earned income, taxing speculation on Wall Street, and cutting corporate tax giveaways. We will institute comprehensive tax reform to simplify the tax system. We will eliminate loopholes and other exemptions that favor corporate and wealthy interests over tax justice. Small business, in particular, should not be penalized by a tax system which benefits those who can "work" the legislative tax committees for breaks and subsidies. We support substantive and wide-ranging re- form of the tax system that helps create jobs, economic efficiencies and innovation within the small business community. We will end "corporate welfare." Smaller businesses are the U. S. A's great strength. Greens believe government should have a tax policy which encourages small and socially responsible business. Political democracy remains a distant promise without economic democracy. A principal instrument for achieving economic democracy is our tax system. Taxes are the means whereby we fund our public services. They can also help create equity, justice, health and sustainability.

Military / police spending is bloated. We need to prioritize community building.

Strongly Agree

Agree

If you are operating in the public sphere, receiving public benefit, then you should be required to provide services to all (unless the services are are illegal).

No circumstances. We are guaranteed the right to worship.

I strongly favor Medicare For All. That does not mean there cannot be additional coverage. However, with a true Medicare For All, the need for a "private option" would be drastically reduced.

I believe in body autonomy. No one should be forced to be vaccinated. However, failure to vaccinate means that in the event of a pandemic, other public health measures may have to be enforced to protect public health.

We need to cut our military budget, so the US should not intervene militarily. We also need to quit destabilizing other regions.

Strongly Agree

As citizens we are allowed to express ourselves through boycotts, divestment and participation in political speech. These are fundamental rights guaranteed in our Constitution. I support those rights.

Strongly Disagree

Our border is already very secure. What we need to do is stop destabilizing our neighbors to the south so that people are forced to flee for economic or safety reasons. .It also must be acknowledged that the trigger for the influx of immigrants in this country has been largely due to unfair US trade policies. If it were economically possible to provide for their families many would choose to remain in their native countries. Any immigration policy should be seen a way to address all people’s

1. The undocumented immigrants who are already residing and working in the United States, and their families, should be granted a legal status which includes the chance to become U.S. citizens. Persons should be excluded from this process only if they present a clear and present danger to other members of our society. The level of fees required for this process should not be a burden on low income workers. In any path to citizenship created to provide an orderly and appropriate resolution of the status of persons currently in the United States without proper documentation, we demand a recognition of past, uncredited payments into the Social Security System as part of any fees assessed for regularization of status. In regard to who should have a right to come and live and work in the U.S. we believe the following policies are fair: (a) The Green Party calls for permanent border passes to all citizens of Mexico and Canada whose identity can be traced and verified. The “matricula consular" should be accepted as one means of proving one's identify. Work permits for citizens of Mexico and Canada must be easily obtainable, thereby decriminalizing the act of gainful employment. This action would help eliminate exploitation of undocumented persons by criminals engaged in human contraband (coyotes) and unethical employers. It would also help ensure that taxes will be paid in each corresponding nation per its laws. These measures will also help temporary residents from Mexico and Canada to secure driving privileges and liability insurance. (b) All persons fleeing political, racial, religious, or other types of persecution must be welcomed and given permanent resident status. The history of arbitrary denial of political asylum claims must be ended. Particular attention should be given to those minorities who are political exiles and refugees and those whose lives would be at risk if asylum is not granted. (c) Family reunification must be a priority in accepting applications for permanent residency. The years of waiting that families are currently put through must be ended. (d) Permanent residency should not be denied based on political views, racial or national origin, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, or any other arbitrary basis. (e) There are many countries in the world where the economic policies and military actions of the U.S. government or U.S. based corporations have caused extreme hardships. The peoples of these countries deserve special consideration if they wish to come to the U.S. to escape intolerable conditions created by our government or U.S, corporations. (f) We must keep faith with our commitment to the United Nations, to assist in the resettlement, including to our own country, of refugees currently stranded in refugee camps in other parts of the world. (g) All those who are issued work permits must have the option to come and go from the U.S. as they desire. They must also have the option of remaining in the U.S. and becoming U.S. Citizens. 2. Recognizing that a just reform of immigration policy may take some time, the Green Party supports: (a) Measures to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses if they can prove their identity and pass the required tests. This will improve road safety and allow the undocumented who are driving in any case to obtain insurance. (b) Measures to give legal status to undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school in the U.S. and who are otherwise qualified, to allow them to attend colleges and universities on an equal basis with other high school graduates. The Green Party is opposed to efforts to force undocumented youth into becoming cannon fodder for the U.S. military as the price for legal status. (c) Reduce wait lists and make the system work more efficiently: current numeric caps on immigrant visas must be increased. The current system of quotas and preferences has to be thoroughly and realistically reformed. Current backlogs must be brought up to date as soon as possible. Wait times for processing and resolving immigration benefit applications should be reduced to no more than six months. Pre-1996 screening criteria for legal permanent residency and citizenship applications should be restored. (d) The understandable concern about immigrant workers competing for jobs with current citizens cannot and should not be addressed by criminalizing undocumented immigration or punishing fellow victims of U.S. corporatist policies. Instead, we must reverse these policies. Among other things, we should repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, Fast Track and other corporate globalization policies. We must stop using our tax dollars to subsidize corporate agribusiness and to promote poverty in Latin America, and start using them to help reward environmentally responsible family farmers, encourage improved infrastructure and economic conditions in Latin America, and raise labor standards, at home and abroad. Here at home, we must also promote th

Strongly Disagree

No public funds for private schools. A quarter century of generous corporate funding from the likes of the Bradley and Wal-Mart Family Foundations and a decade of No Child Left Behind have given birth to a vast, well-endowed and lucrative sector which seeks to dismantle, privatize, or militarize public education, and destroy teachers unions.Fully fund public schools.

Disagree

Agree

Strongly Disagree

Secular marriage is not God-ordained. People are free to exercise their religious beliefs but not to impose them on others. My wife and I were married in church. Others may choose another path. It's not the government's place to tell people what constitutes marriage.

Strongly Disagree

This is not what CRT says.

I am a Christian.

Strongly Agree

Requiring a photo idea discriminates against people who are poor and people who cannot get a photo id. 21 million Americans do not have photo ids. It costs money for voter id - even if they are free. Voter id laws decrease voter turnout and there has been NO evidence that this requirement makes elections more secure.

Enact a national “right to vote” law or constitutional amendment to guarantee universal, automatic, permanent voter registration, along with fail-safe voting procedures, so that eligible voters whose names are not on the voter rolls or whose information is out-of-date can correct the rolls and vote on the same day. Restore full citizenship rights to felons upon completion of their sentence, including the right to vote and to run for elected office. Enable greater enfranchisement of overseas voters. Develop publicly-owned, open source voting equipment and deploy it across the nation to ensure high national standards, performance, transparency and accountability, or use paper ballots. Establish guarantees that every citizen’s vote counts, and that all U.S. voting systems — including electronic ones — are verifiable, transparent and accurate.

As we've seen from recent race related murders, the security of some of our citizens is already threatened.

Strongly Agree

I commit to full and complete reparations to the African community of this nation for the past four hundred plus years of genocide, slavery, land-loss, destruction of original identity and the stark disparities which haunt the present evidenced in unemployment statistics, substandard and inadequate education, higher levels of mortality including infant and maternal mortality and the practice of mass incarceration. I recognize that reparations are a debt (not charity).

B. We are facing an existential crisis. We cannot ignore the consequences of the choices we make.

Strongly Disagree

As someone who lives in a frontline community - where fracking has destroyed the drinking water supply for a small community, where members of that community have to go to a water bank just to get drinking water and the value of their property has been reduced to next to nothing - I believe that the fictional profits for a few do not justify the impoverishment of the many. There are health and environmental consequences, too.

In a democracy, individuals come together to form structures of governance that protect and advance the common good. We the citizens are the government, and we the citizens can direct it to fulfill its finest goals and purposes. Our citizens must not permit usurpation of their authority by acts of individuals and government agencies that isolate or insulate government from their oversight and control. We, the People, have a responsibility to participate in self-government through all the means that our Constitution provides.

Moderate

None of these labels adequately describe who I am. In many ways I am Very Conservative - in the truest definition of that word. In other ways, I am a radical - in the sense that "radical" comes from the same word at root, " of or growing from the root." The roots of democracy were in the throwing off of imperial rule.

Did not answer

No.

I will fight to reclaim our democracy from the 1%. I am a firm believer in grassroots democracy. I believe that we in the working class have more in common with each other than with the billionaire class. I am mayor of a rural community that voted for President Trump. I have a record of working with people - I am not a partisan.

Strongly Disagree

We are all citizens and should be held liable for our actions.

Strongly Agree

We are giving police too much to carry. We need to let them deal with what they are best trained to deal with and allow professionals in other fields to deal with things like mental health. No one should die because they are having a mental health issue.

I support the rights of citizens to own firearms - however, that right is not absolute.

Strongly Agree

Again, we are a country where all citizens, even legal fiction citizens like corporations, must be treated the same way. To say that gun manufactures should be immune from attempts seek justice is anti-American. Like all Americans, corporations can sue and be sued. In no way do I support giving corporations rights that other citizens do not enjoy.