Political Philosophy for H. Engstrom

Statement of political philosophy

However, I find that a sense of "political correctness" does indeed suffuse much of of the political discussion within the Democratic party. Democratic party activists represent tendencies that are more liberal than the general population of registered Democratic voters. These activists focus on issue such as a woman's right to choose, the rights of women and racial minorities, and the rights of gays and Lesbians. These are, to be sure, important issues that I, too, support.

But we must not forget that the public is concerned about such issues as abuses within the welfare system, crime, education, abuses in campaign finance, the high cost of housing, taxes, social security, health care, illegal drugs, traffic congestion, and many other mundane issues. We Democrats must provide imaginative, humane, and cost effective solutions to these and other problems. If we don't, conservatives will promulgate truly harmful legislation such as Prop. 187 and the "three stikes law."

There are two key issues of overriding importance. The first is campaign finance reform. The present system of privately financed campaigns is so out of control that successful candidates are either the very rich or in debt to special interests. The interests of the public are not served by this system. We must consider some form of public funding for campaigns together with a shorter campaign season.

The other issue that underlies solutions to many problems is jobs. Here in Santa Clara County, where employment is at a higher level than the rest of the country, this issue tends rarely to me mentioned. But in places like West Oakland, Hunters Point, and Watts jobs are still critically lacking. With a truly full employment economy problems of welfare, crime, drug abuse, and even racism are greatly reduced. We must adopt policies with the aim of turning tax consumers such as welfare recipients, our huge prison population, and the unemployed into fully employed tax payers. Ultimately, we will save money in doing so. The solution is not make-work jobs provided through government, tax-payer subsidy. But government does have a role to play in partnership with private industry and the free market economy.