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Refocus our foreign policy, honor our veterans

As an Army veteran, Dr. Peters understands the need for a strong and ready military. He’ll help reclaim Congress’s power to declare war and refocus America’s foreign policy.

Defense is the most important role of the federal government, but too many politicians in Washington D.C. want to spend our resources on missions that are counterproductive to America’s security.

Support our troops and veterans – The most important commitment we can make to men and women in uniform is to only send them in harm’s way when it’s absolutely necessary and only with adequate support. And when the job is done, Dr. Peters will fight to secure benefits for all of our veterans.

Reclaim Congress’s authority – The United States should only go to war with the approval of Congress, as required by our Constitution. Dr. Peters supports targeted strikes against verifiable terrorist enemies, but only with Congressional approval and public oversight.

Defend civil liberties – Establishment politicians are willing to trade Americans’ liberties for a false sense of security. Dr. Peters will fight to protect the Bill of Rights, restrict mass surveillance, and uphold due process.

Factcheck: Dave Loebsack on foreign policy

Level playing field for Iowa families and small businesses

Americans are fed up because they can see the economy is rigged against everyday workers and families.

Dr. Peters will fight for common-sense tax and spending reforms and help to unleash the free market and rebuild an economy that works for all Iowans.

Balance the budget with compromises from both parties – Interest payments on the federal debt already consume more than $200 billion each year – more than education, veterans benefits, energy and environmental programs, farm supports, and food stamps – combined. Dr. Peters will pursue fiscally responsible reforms to fix the budget crisis, especially by containing costs for healthcare, entitlements, and defense.

Modernize healthcare and entitlements – We cannot fix the federal budget crisis or give families greater spending power without addressing healthcare and entitlement spending. Healthcare and entitlement programs consume a huge portion of our federal budget, and healthcare costs to families are growing much faster than inflation.

Level playing field for small business and working families – Taxes and regulations are set up to benefit big corporations, while making business more difficult for small businesses and workers. Dr. Peters will fight to make our taxes and regulations more fair for everyone.

Protect Iowa’s seniors

Dr. Peters will fight to protect today’s seniors and secure fundamental reforms to serve future generations.

America cannot get its fiscal house in order without dealing with these issues. Social Security and the federal government’s major healthcare programs together already consume half of all federal revenues; and families’ healthcare costs are rising much more quickly than inflation or wage growth.

Dr. Peters is putting forth common-sense, non-partisan solutions to protect all seniors and preserve our safety net for future generations.

Modernize Social Security and Medicare – Our aging population presents unique challenges, but Dr. Peters is 100% committed to maintaining benefits for all current retirees. He’ll work to fundamentally reform the programs for the next generation, to ensure they’re solvent. That includes slowly increasing the retirement age, limiting benefits for some wealthy retirees, and raising the cap on workers’ contributions to those programs.

Unleash the free market in healthcare – As a practicing surgeon, Dr. Peters knows that healthcare is one of the most heavily subsidized and regulated industries in our country. Yet costs continue to rise and many people have fewer options. Dr. Peters has a set of free-market reforms that will help to contain costs and restore choice – even without repealing the Affordable Care Act – including eliminating barriers to competition between insurance companies across state lines, promoting high-deductible insurance plans and health savings accounts, and reforming the pharmaceutical patent system.

True health care reform for Iowa seniors and families

Protect Social Security and Medicare for today’s seniors

Protect civil liberties for all Americans

Dr. Peters believes all people have the right to live their lives as they want, as long as they don’t hinder others from doing the same.

Sadly, politicians from both major parties have chipped away at our individual rights in the false pursuit of safety or social progress. Dr. Peters will defend liberty and free choice for all Americans.

Trim the criminal code, end the drug war – Drug laws and other non-violent crimes have contributed to building the world’s biggest prison population. About one-quarter of all the world’s prisoners are here in the U.S. Dr. Peters supports comprehensive criminal justice reform to redirect attention to violent and other serious crimes.

Enable community-based policing – We have good police officers in every American city, but their hands are tied with unenforceable laws and federal programs that incentivize them to pursue drug offenders. Dr. Peters supports restricting civil asset forfeiture, so-called “drug task-force” programs, and domestic use of military equipment, allowing police and local officials to focus on community issues.

Protect privacy – The federal government gathers enormous amounts of information about ordinary Americans, even those not suspected of wrongdoing. Those data-gathering authorities were passed in the name of national security, but there’s little evidence that it’s been effective – Dr. Peters will work to rein in Patriot Act authorities and defend privacy for all Americans.

Restore common sense to Washington D.C.

Everyone knows our government is broken, but nobody feels like they can do anything about it.

Even the most loyal Republicans and Democrats probably agree that our greatest challenges won’t be solved simply by electing more of their own party to Congress. Instead, we need some fundamental reforms to change the way our government works.

Stop money in politics at its source

If my small surgical clinic in Coralville went under, I don’t think the federal government would be there to bail me out. Yet we see time and time again that big companies get special tax breaks, regulations, and subsidies to protect them from competition.

Part of the reason so many incumbents are re-elected is because their campaigns are powered by huge donations from special interests that benefit from this vicious cycle. We should address this problem at its root – by banning corporate handouts, we’ll immediately make it less profitable for corporations to buy members of Congress.

Replace career politicians

Incumbent members of Congress have enormous fundraising power, allowing many of them to win re-election over and over for decades. Today, the 10 most senior members of Congress have served a combined 418 years in Congress.

Americans would be much better-served by citizen-legislators who serve for shorter periods, rather than career politicians who become too cozy with Washington special interests. Americans overwhelmingly support term limits for federal politicians – not only will I fight to make that happen, I vow to self-impose a limit of five terms.

Empower independent voters

I am running for Congress as a Republican because I believe in our party’s founding principles – limited government, individual liberty, and equality before the law. Yet it’s still clear to me that third-party and independent candidates face unfair disadvantages compared to Democrats and Republicans. And the 2016 election cycle highlighted several flaws in the presidential nominating process.

In politics as in economics, I believe competition produces better results. I’ll lead the charge to replace the Commission on Presidential Debates, as well as work with leaders in all 50 states to reform ballot-access laws and nominating processes.

Entitlements: Reform the safety net for every generation

every generation

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