Phil Harding

I can support abortion in situations where the life of the mother is in dire jeopardy. Two, or more lives are always at stake, and the rights of both (all) should be carefully considered, but if aborting the baby could save the life of the mother, better to save her life than lose both. Rape and incest are another matter. These are heart-wrenching situations, the result of vile, horrendous crimes committed against the mother, yet the baby's right to live should be carefully considered as well. I believe the mother should be provided loving, comprehensive care and counsel regarding options such as adoption. A decision should not be made lightly or in a panic, but I would ultimately support her decision, whatever it may be. If she decides to bring the baby to term, she should certainly be provided loving care during the pregnancy and beyond. If she decides to abort, she will also need care and counsel to deal with the trauma of both the original crime and the abortion. Beyond these three exceptions, I do not support nor condone abortion, however, I realize many people believe otherwise. I believe that if abortion is to be allowed, it should never be permitted beyond the point of viability, and preferably not after a heartbeat can be detected. Any woman considering abortion should hear and consider other available options before providers are allowed to terminate her pregnancy. There are thousands of couples desperately seeking to adopt who no doubt would be thrilled to provide support for the mother through her pregnancy if given the opportunity to save a baby's life and raise it as their own.

Disagree

I believe legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia open the door to unconscionable abuse. Modern medicine has given us incredible tools to save and prolong life, but artificially prolonging life beyond some point is problematic. I am sympathetic to pain and suffering of those nearing the end of life. I believe those in pain should be offered treatment, pain management, and a choice over whether to resuscitate, but ultimately it is not ours to determine when life is to end, but our Creator's.

Strongly Agree

Citizens who value life and believe strongly that abortion is murder should never be forced to support it with their tax dollars. Furthermore, our military services should not be permitted to fund transportation for members to secure an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother.

Every citizen should participate in funding the essential functions of our government. Our tax code has become far too progressive, and a weapon wielded against the productive. Very nearly half the citizens pay nothing in taxes to support essential government functions, or they receive net payments in 'benefits' provided through government 'redistribution' of taxes taken from other citizens. I would work to implement a 'Fair Tax' or a 'Flat Tax' in order to ensure every citizen has 'skin in the game'. I believe this would spread the responsibility for funding our government to all citizens and make each of us more aware of just how much we are paying in taxes and how much of our work and wealth government 'consumes' (or redistributes). Such a tax would still be 'progressive' in that those who earn more or have greater assets would pay more than those with less, but it would tend to spread a corresponding share of the responsibility to all citizens.

I believe the first step to reduce spending and balance the budget is to reform the budgeting process. Our current process starts with the previous year's budget then adds for inflation, new 'requirements', and wish list items. If expected increases are reduced or eliminated in the budget process, it's viewed as a budget cut--even though the budget grows! It's a recipe for ever-increasing spending, at an ever-accelerating rate of increase. We should implement a true 'zero-based' budget process where proposed budgets begin at zero and every expenditure must be fully justified in each budget cycle. Furthermore, just because an item is 'justified' shouldn't necessarily mean it will be funded. Every item should be assigned a priority in order to facilitate budgeting decisions--when proposed expenditures exceed expected receipts, that's the cut line. I believe it would also be helpful if agencies had incentives to economize. A process where allocated funds could be allowed to roll over to the next fiscal year might provide such an incentive. Most importantly, we must tie our budget to receipts. A first step could be to start with the previous year's receipts. That's the budget, not one cent more, and a percentage of those receipts should be dedicated to reducing the debt. In order to finally get control of our budget, we should enact a 'balanced budget' amendment, and one that has some real 'teeth'. I realize the potential need for (rare) deficit spending during times of war or genuine crisis, but our current level of debt and decades-long duration of continued deficit spending are unsustainable. A deficit in a single fiscal year could be allowed, but it should be mitigated in the next budget. We might consider some sort of mechanism that would bar any legislator or executive who votes for or proposes a deficit from serving beyond their current term or running for office again. As for specific cuts, we should immediately stop providing 'benefits' to immigrants, especially those who violate our laws in order to enter the country. We should immediately stop funding dubious research at colleges, universities, and other research institutions. We should reduce 'foreign aid', especially to nations and peoples who work against our interests on the world stage. We should work to reduce direct payments to individuals (welfare, etc.) and we should implement work requirements for the able-bodied--with a labor force participation rate at historic lows, we should not be providing 'benefits' to anyone who can work but isn't working. We should work to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, subsidies and other 'corporate welfare', including farm subsidies.

Strongly Disagree

Forcing an individual or business to violate their sincerely-held moral or religious belief is oppression. It's evil. It violates the First Amendment. Our government should never engage in such tyranny.

None, if by closing churches this refers to the government closing churches in general, as was done during the recent pandemic. This was and would be a gross violation of the First Amendment. Government has no right or authority to take such action. If, however, this refers to closing a single church, I can only imagine such action in a case where the building is dangerous and condemned or in a case where the church is involved in subversion, a plot against the nation, or other illegal behavior.

C) Medicaid and Medicare should remain available, but reform healthcare to maximize private health insurance options and move away from gov't provided care. Work to reduce the number of healthcare 'administrators' & increase the number of providers.

I am not opposed to vaccinations in general. Many vaccinations are generally recognized as safe and effective at preventing, even eradicating dangerous diseases such as smallpox and polio. However, heavy-handed, universal mandates are a form of tyranny. Furthermore, every individual is different, and many people have conditions or predispositions that would dictate significant caution regarding which vaccines (if any) may be appropriate. There are also many vaccines pushed today for diseases with few and largely only mild symptoms. Finally, there are many people who have religious or other concerns over vaccines. Their views should be respected. With these things in mind, I believe governments, schools, or employers should be allowed to mandate vaccines only in limited cases. I can agree with governments mandating vaccines for military readiness, when personnel may be required to deploy on a moment's notice to areas where certain diseases are endemic. I can support mandatory vaccines for certain jobs or careers where employees may routinely come in contact with pathogens against which vaccines have been proven an effective preventative measure. I can also support mandatory vaccinations for medical professionals and for those who travel internationally. As for schools, I believe common vaccines should be strongly encouraged, but not mandated. In any case, I believe that experimental or unproven vaccines should never be mandated, that there should be liberal exceptions for religious, moral, or health-related objections, that those exceptions should not require an onerous medical certification process or formal government authorization, and that timing of vaccinations (i.e., vaccination schedules for infants and children) should allow flexibility so that children don't have to receive multiple vaccinations at one time, to give their bodies plenty of time to process the vaccinations without adverse affects.

I believe our approach should be multi-faceted. First, we need to maintain robust counter-terror capabilities. This includes intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities and highly trained counter-terror forces in our military and domestic law enforcement agencies. We must use diplomatic efforts to encourage nations where terrorist activity originates to work with us to identify and neutralize terrorist cells and curb the forces that feed and fund terrorism. We must secure our borders to prevent terrorists from invading the nation or from funding their activities through the illicit drug trade or human trafficking.

Strongly Agree

We must close the revolving door of deportation and secure all our borders, ports of entry, and coasts. Complete the border wall, expand the Border Patrol, and use technology to augment other measures. Expand immigration courts to quickly process arrivals, end 'catch and release' and leniency for illegal entry. I believe we should also implement an immigration 'pause', as has been done in the past, in order to process the millions already here and allow those we choose to admit to assimilate.

Our immigration policy should be merit-based and focused on strengthening the nation. We should allow in immigrants who will contribute to our society, not those who want to 'transform' it into the society they left, or who simply want to take advantage of our openness and generosity. My wife came here from Panama. When we applied for her Green Card, I remember a stipulation that she would not be permitted to receive any form of government assistance (welfare, food stamps, etc.) for a period of seven years. She gained full citizenship, and has been a resident for 40 years and a citizen for over 30 years without once relying on any form of government assistance. We can accept close family members of immigrants who have been legally admitted, but we need to end the concept of unlimited 'chain migration'. We can also accept genuine refugees, but our compassion and benevolence are being unjustly and dangerously exploited.

Strongly Agree

Parents should have a stronger voice in their children's education. Allowing education dollars to follow the student would give them that voice. The state should implement standards and oversight to ensure public monies are spent wisely, but parents should have choice in how their children are educated.

A); C); E); D). I believe we should allow homeschoolers to take classes at public schools, and participate in sports and extracurricular activities. I would also agree that homeschool students could be required to pay a reasonable tuition for classes and other activities at public schools, especially if Universal Education Savings Accounts are implemented.

C) Pornography should not be accessible to minors, and further, it should not be available in public libraries at all. I think a system of curation similar to the movie rating system would also be helpful for other (non-pornographic) materials.

B and C.

Strongly Agree

I agree strongly with the statement above, but I also believe there is room in our society to respect others' values where they coincide with ours. I do not believe we should change our system to kowtow or pander to others. We have been a beacon of freedom and limited, consensual government for nearly 250 years. We should honor and sustain the values that have brought us thus far.

Disagree

I do not support adding gender identity as a specially protected class. Indeed, I believe singling out certain 'classes' of people for special protections runs counter to our founding values that "...all men were created equal". I believe these special protections perpetuate division and should be eliminated.

Strongly Agree

Marriage is the foundation of the family, and the family is the foundation of our society.

Strongly Disagree

Absolutely not! CRT is a Marxist concept being used to attack and destroy not just America, but Western Society in general.

I believe in the trinitarian God of the Holy Bible. I believe he created the heavens and the Earth and has revealed Himself through His Word, the Bible. I believe he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, who is both wholly God and wholly man, to live a perfect life and to pay the price of death to redeem his elect from their sin and reconcile them to Him. I believe Christ lived, that he kept the law perfectly, that he was crucified for our sin, that he died, was buried, and rose again, ascended to heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father, interceding for His elect.

Strongly Disagree

For the People to have confidence in the electoral process, we must ensure only eligible citizens are allowed to vote, and we must have mechanisms to verify they are who they claim and that they are indeed eligible voters. Positive, photo identification should be required in order to register to vote, and to cast a ballot.

B), but we should have a mechanism to propose constitutional amendments if legislatures won't act

Strongly Disagree

I strongly believe it would be unjust and counterproductive to take from those who have never owned a slave to pay reparations to those who were never enslaved. If there were ever a time for reparations, it has long past, and any effort today would create more harm than good.

I believe it is, because so many continue to focus on it. Racism was very nearly dead in this nation before Barack Obama and his ilk came on the scene with the intent to 'fundamentally transform America". Indeed, they have fundamentally transformed this nation and our society into a nation of perpetually offended 'victims' with a mentality of entitlement. We must reverse this trend. We must reverse the Balkanization of our society and focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. We must find ways to counter the sense of envy and entitlement and choose once again to celebrate responsibility and success if we are to move forward.

A) While protecting our environment is important, there are a multitude of factors to be weighed. We are stewards of the environment, and as stewards, we should weigh those factors to inform our decisions and implement sensible regulations that consider both cost and benefit. Unfortunately, in many instances, government considers only one side of the issue, stifling economic activity and jobs for dubious 'benefit' of the environment in the process. The focus on 'renewable' energy and electricity to the exclusion of 'fossil' fuels, and abundant, clean technologies like natural gas, clean coal, nuclear, and hydrogen are detrimental to the economy, to the environment, and to the well-being of the people. Further, in the push to adopt renewable energy and 'zero-emissions' technologies, we ignore the negative environmental factors of those technologies at our peril. Mining of scarce strategic minerals causes enormous environmental harm, to say nothing of the difficulty of recycling or disposing of many of these technologies when they reach the end of their useful economic life.

I believe the general purpose of government is to secure the inalienable rights endowed upon us by our Creator, as outlined so beautifully in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. Our Constitution includes more specific purposes in its preamble: "...in Order to...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...". In Biblical terms, I believe the purpose of government is to restrain evil, because without government, anarchy would reign and the evil of fallen man would be intolerable.

Very Conservative

I believe my views are mostly Conservative, leaning toward Very Conservative in many areas. I believe Conservatism is often unjustly maligned as stifling and mired in the past, but this is inaccurate. As a conservative, I believe enduring values and principles will best guide us and help us 'conserve' our freedoms and promote human progress.

https://ballotpedia.org/Phil_Harding

No, I have not.

I am a strong Conservative, a fierce patriot, and a lifelong Republican. I support a strict interpretation of the Constitution and am a strong advocate for the Second Amendment. I'm a dedicated husband, father, and grandfather, happily married for 38 years with three sons and seven grandchildren. I retired in 2012 from a 30-year career in the US Air Force as a full Colonel, having dedicated my life to service in defense of our Nation and our Constitution. I served as a Missile Launch Officer in charge of as many as 200 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles; led deployment planning and operations for a Bomber Wing and a Special Operations Wing; twice commanded front-line logistics units in Korea; led Aviation Logistics Operations for Air Forces in the Pacific Theater; served as Deputy Support Group Commander for an Intelligence Wing; and as Director of Expeditionary Training for Airmen deploying to combat zones worldwide. My career culminated in a 12-month deployment to Iraq directing Foreign Military Sales Logistics as part of the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq. I am now a successful Small Business Owner, operating a freight shipping business for the past 8 years. As a Community Leader, I serve in various roles: as a Deacon with First Presbyterian of Church Biloxi; as President of the John C. Robinson “Brown Condor” Association, which built and operates the Mississippi Aviation Heritage Museum; as Vice President of the Gulf Coast Veterans Parade; as Past President and current Treasurer of the Harrison County Republican Club; as Past President and current Board Member of the Mississippi Coast Military Officers Association; as a member of the Biloxi Bay Area Chamber of Commerce; as a member of the Biloxi Businessmen’s Club; and as a Board Member of the Gulfport Exchange Club. I also serve as the Chairman of the Biloxi Republican Municipal Executive Committee, and previously served as a member of the Harrison County Republican Executive Committee until resigning in order to seek elective office. As State Representative, I will fight tirelessly for Biloxi, D'Iberville, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast! I will work to attract and encourage diverse, innovative, and locally-driven economic development on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and across our state to bring rewarding, good-paying jobs for all Mississippians, and to provide opportunity and a bright future for our children. I will work to make our State Government more efficient and responsive to the needs of the People. I will work to eliminate the State Income Tax and reduce taxes overall, cut burdensome regulations, and reduce the size of our bloated bureaucracy. I will fight for better schools and Education Freedom, and I will work to enact a Parents' Bill of Rights.

Agree

If officers' conduct is consistent with their training and departmental policy, they should be protected from both criminal prosecution and civil liability.

Disagree

I believe we need more investment in mental health, but it should not come at the expense of our police departments. We have significant mental health and addiction crises, especially in the homeless community. We need to find ways to deal with this problem compassionately and humanely. Dealing with these crises will likely reduce crime, which may allow us to redirect funds from police departments to other areas, but until then, we will still need to prioritize policing.

None, other than that violent felons and the mentally incompetent should prohibited from gun ownership upon due process of law.

Strongly Disagree

Firearms are legal products, constitutionally protected by the Second Amendment. The only possible cases where I could support a lawsuit against a firearm manufacturer or dealer would be if they knowingly transferred a firearm to a prohibited person, or in the case of a defective product which caused damage or injury.