Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

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2008 Elections

Rudy Giuliani on the Issues

 

(Giuliani dropped out of the race on Jan. 30, 2008, after finishing a distant third in Florida's Jan. 29 Republican primary. He then endorsed John McCain.)

Abortion
He is personally opposed to abortion and favors adoption over abortion. However, ultimately, a woman should make that decision based on her own conscience in consultation with her physician. There should be reasonable restrictions on abortion such as parental notification with a judicial bypass and a ban on partial birth abortion—except when the life of the mother is at stake. As president, he would appoint strict constructionist judges, who, like Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, would take a conservative and more limited view of abortion ... more.

 

Health Care
He believes the problem with our health care insurance is that it's dominated by government and employers. If 100 million people were seeking out their own private health insurance plans, it would be affordable because free market principles would be at work. A major tax deduction of $15,000 to set up a health savings account would give people an incentive to own their own private health insurance ... more.

 

Environment and Energy
Giuliani accepts scientific theory that global warming is real and that humans contribute to it. He believes that ending global warming goes hand-in-hand with energy independence. Finding clean, environmentally-sound, alternative sources of energy will stop the flow of money to our "enemies", increasing our national security. He suggests funding a project to find and market alternative energy sources much like the one the U.S. used to put a man on the moon ... more.

 

Foreclosures
Giuliani has not spoken extensively on the subject, but has been quoted as saying he opposes the government bailing out homeowners hit by the mortgage crisis because there would be nothing stopping those homeowners from making another mistake. However, he has said he could see the government helping those who were cheated by unethical mortgage lenders. Giuliani says government should take a wider view and concentrate most heavily on strengthening the economy and making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. In a related matter, Giuliani has criticized the “FairTax” proposal endorsed by Mike Huckabee because it would eliminate the home mortgage income tax deduction, which has created an incentive for single-family home ownership for decades...more.

 

Immigration
Says he would end illegal immigration in as few as three years by boosting the number of border security agents to 18,000 from the current 12,000, building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that would employ monitoring devices and deploy federal agents at the border at 50 mile intervals, using high-tech monitors to detect people trying to enter illegally. Giuliani believes that our immigration laws should allow us to identify everyone who is in this country that comes here from a foreign country with a tamper-proof ID card. It should be in a database that allows employers and government agencies to verify who they are, why they are here and then deport the ones who are not in the database ... more.

 

Iraq
Giuliani says that setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal from Iraq now would be a terrible mistake, because it would only embolden our enemies. Because Iraq is only one front in the larger war on terror, failure there would lead to a broader and bloodier regional conflict in the near future. In order to prevent this, Giuliani is in favor of building a stable and accountable Iraq that will assist in reducing the threat of terrorism ... more.

 

Taxes
As a Democrat for most of his adult life, Giuliani has said that the issue of taxes was what drew him to the Republican Party. And, as president, he would make the Bush tax cuts permanent. He would also "kill" the estate tax. Giuliani says that his platform on taxes is one of proof, not theory. He cites his success with cutting taxes while he was mayor of New York City, where unemployment dropped 50 percent and he collected 40 percent more from lower taxes than the city had collected from higher taxes ... more.

 

Yucca Mountain
As the former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani has not had a chance to vote on any issues related to Yucca Mountain. However, he did seek and obtain the endorsement of former Gov. Bob List, a noted nuclear industry lobbyist who vocally supports the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. Aside from this political connection, Giuliani has not taken a firm stance on the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. Giuliani has also received the endorsement of U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who is against using Yucca Mountain to house nuclear waste. Giuliani has called the safety issues surrounding Yucca Mountain a matter of "grave concern," but has not not ruled out the possibility of supporting the project. ... more.

 

-- Las Vegas Sun new media managing editor Dave Toplikar and new media interns Jenna Kohler and April Corbin compiled this report.

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