Jim Rubens

Candidate's Website, 2016

"No amnesty, work permits, or path to citizenship for those who entered our country illegally."

Candidate's Website, 2014

"Jim Rubens vigorously opposes Common Core. This federally funded, one-size-fits-all education policy would leave graduating high school students two grade levels behind in college readiness for Math. Common Core is inappropriate for younger students and especially for special education students. The associated Common Core aligned, Smarter Balanced assessments, have not been properly validated. Many students have been reduced to tears of frustration by the relentless length of these assessments and by their purposefully ambiguous questions. For example, see Question 12 of this grade one Smarter Balanced test."

Candidate's Website, 2016

Here is my three part plan to reform the corrupt political money system which has given us a Congress that votes to sell out Americans for campaign contributions and cushy revolving door jobs:

1. Remove all political spending and contribution limits for candidates. Attempts to limit private political spending have failed and the First Amendment protects the right of even wealthy and well-organized people to speak using as much money as they wish.
2. Require searchable, realtime online reporting of contributions above $200 to every candidate and organization engaging in campaigning for or against candidates, legislation or regulatory activity. While disclosure can suppress paid speech,there is a stronger and offsetting public interest in knowing about real or perceivable conflicts of interest involving public money and the public trust.
3. Enact an election funding system that empowers ordinary Americans and stops candidates from being forced to sell their votes to special interest donors. Under my system, every election cycle each legal voter is automatically issued a $100 tax rebate voucher that the voter may contribute to any federal candidate voluntarily opting out of the current corrupted campaign money system. Candidates eligible to accept these vouchers must first establish credibility by having raised a threshold sum of private money in small dollar contributions from persons eligible to vote for the participating candidate. There is no requirement that candidates participate in the public system. The cost of this tax rebate voucher system would be at least an order of magnitude less than the cost of the present corrupt system, where political money is traded for taxpayer-financed tax loopholes, pork, and regulatory and diplomatic favors. Unused vouchers expire worthless at the end of each cycle. Voucher privacy and anti-fraud protections are required.

Candidate's Website, 2016

I PLEDGE TO OPPOSE

• Bans on so-called "assault weapons".
• Bans and/or limits on magazine capacity.
• Gun registration.
• Legislation that would turn law-abiding citizens into criminals.
• Ratification of any treaty or international agreement that would infringe on the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Click here to read Rubens' statement comparing his issue position on gun laws to Kelly Ayotte's position.

Candidate's Website, 2016

"I will fight for a constitutional balanced budget amendment."

Candidate's Website, 2016

"Kelly Ayotte supports President Obama's EPA global warming regulations. I oppose them. Like Obamacare, these regulations are aggressively partisan and have almost no Republican support. These regulations are tied up in litigation and, if they survive Supreme Court challenge, will force states to adopt hyper-complex compliance plans subject to special interest gaming and to hire lobbyists and bureaucrats to plead for waivers from Washington. For those like me who accept the published science, even the EPA admits that this regulation will do nothing to reduce power plant carbon emissions beyond what the market is already doing."

Candidate's Website, 2016

"End taxpayer funding for abortion and for Planned Parenthood. Redirect womens' health dollars to non-profit womens health clinics and family planning counseling services which do not provide abortions."

Candidate's Website, 2016

"For marijuana, Congress should grant states the power to legalize and regulate as they see fit like alcohol. I would then suggest (not mandate) that states require child-proof packaging and labels disclosing potency and health effects, including the fact that MJ use involves performance and brain developmental effects (though far less in the aggregate than tobacco or alcohol). I would also suggest banning advertising and public use, licensing in-state wholesale producers, allowing personal production in limited quantities, and extending DUI laws to cover marijuana metabolite blood levels."

Other, 2014

"Countless studies have shown that raising the minimum wage is poorly targeted and relies more heavily on bureaucratic interventions than direct cash grants that support work and family stability. A better-targeted and reformed Earned Income Tax Credit would lift low-income workers out of poverty more effectively and efficiently than a higher minimum wage."

Candidate's Website, 2016

"Support the Veterans Accountability Act so that VA system employees may be fired for incompetence or corruption. Make it easy for veterans to use healthcare choice. Fund needed defense spending from cuts to pork, not by breaking healthcare and pay promises to our soldiers and vets."

Candidate's Website, 2016

"We can repatriate $2 trillion or more in U.S. corporate profits trapped offshore by the present 35 percent corporate rate with both a one-time and permanent cut in corporate tax rates. Returned to U.S. soil, this private money will likely fund domestic capital investment, job creation, and increased dividend payments for savers and investors."

Nashua Telegraph Voter Guide, 2014

"Rubens also favors means testing for Social Security and Medicare requiring wealthy seniors to pay higher premiums to get government-paid for health coverage."

Candidate's Website, 2016

Although Rubens has identified as pro-choice in the past, he supports various restrictions on abortion, such as the partial birth abortion ban.

Candidate's Website, 2016

"Weakening or breaching our 4th Amendment civil liberties has proven ineffective and unnecessary. A government encryption backdoor would be promptly exploited by enemies and cyber-criminals."

Other, 2016

"To protect the millions of Americans who depend upon Social Security and Medicare, Congress must make these vital programs fiscally stable long term. My healthcare plan includes several means to achieve this, including reducing Medicare billing fraud, preventing illegal aliens from obtaining Social Security or other taxpayer benefits, and, most importantly, reducing US healthcare costs, now double those of other advanced nations."

Candidate's Website, 2016

Rubens supports repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act/"Obamacare"

Candidate's Website, 2014

"While Dodd-Frank fattened Brown and Shaheen's Wall Street campaign funders, it hurt New Hampshire home buyers and New Hampshire's small business economy. Caught in the net of 30,000 pages of pending Dodd-Frank regulations, New Hampshire's community banks and their small business and home buyer customers are less able to make and obtain loans. Wall Street banks can afford the $1,000 an hour lawyers to manipulate the regulatory process; New Hampshire's small business community cannot."

Other, 2016

"Federal college loans and grants have perversely resulted in cost-prohibitive increases in the cost of college education. Because borrowers cannot shed college debt via bankruptcy, lenders have reduced incentive to measure value received and borrower capacity to repay, also driving up cost. To restore proper market incentives, colleges and private lenders should innovate and offer loans with payments in amounts contingent on future earnings."

Candidate's Facebook Page, 2015

Rubens opposes parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In March 2015 he wrote, "The TPP investment provisions allow a foreign investor to submit a claim for lost profits or expected profits arising from the actions of a U.S. (or other signatory nation's) federal, state, or local government to a three-member panel of arbitrators -- in essence, a court with powers superior to U.S. courts and unaccountable to American citizens."