Steven Feldman

I respect people who hold different political views. I recognize their motivations are good. I will not encourage anyone to think ill of them.

I believe the best way to achieve those goals is to promote individual liberty and international peace, build on our foundation of shared values, and seek reasonable compromise. Bringing this fresh perspective to Congress, I will work across divides to shrink government, reduce federal debt, and let people live their lives as they wish, as long as they do no harm to others.

As your congressman, I will build on the foundation of our shared values of decency, kindness, fairness, and respect. I will carefully work to understand and consider the positions held by members of all parties and political persuasions. I will seek compromise to resolve our differences and achieve our shared goals. I will encourage us to try different approaches in different places, and I will advocate for the approaches that prove most successful in practice.

Favor policies that minimize government's intrusion into our lives. All of us should be free to live as we want as long as we don’t hurt others. When policy makers create regulations that force individuals to make “healthier” or “more responsible” life choices, they certainly intend to make things better. However, those regulations often have secondary effects and unintended consequences that only make matters worse.

I favor solutions that give individuals and families responsibility for their own lives and well-being. It is always better to create opportunity than to foster dependency.

I am running now because our national debt has placed our country in financial peril and a foreign policy that uses violence to achieve peace is making our nation less safe. I do not believe we can create the world we want by emphasizing our differences and tearing each other down. The Boy Scouts taught me that we should always leave things better than we found them. We can make things better by recognizing that we are all good people with good values, by listening to and understanding each other, and by working together to achieve our shared goals. It’s time to step up and meet the crisis.

Our military should defend, not direct.

Supports balancing the federal budget by reducing federal spending and paying down the national debt.

• Calls reducing federal spending the top fiscal priority and rejects relying primarily on tax increases or money creation to address the debt.

Supports replacing the current federal tax structure with a simpler system using a flat tax and sales tax, paired with a full rebate on income up to the poverty level.

• The proposal would use minimal rates, eliminate deductions, provide a poverty-level rebate, and otherwise eliminate federal taxes under the described approach.

Supports maintaining a strong military focused on defending the United States while reducing military intervention intended to direct how other countries are governed.

• Emphasizes defending U.S. borders and reducing the cost and scope of overseas military intervention.

Supports considering a higher eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare, particularly for healthy people who remain able to work.

• Frames the change as one option for improving the long-term financial sustainability of both programs.

Supports a more market-based healthcare system, including greater use of high-deductible insurance plans paired with health savings accounts.

• Argues that stronger price incentives and competition could reduce healthcare costs while preserving individual choice.

Supports allowing Americans to buy medications from other countries without federal restrictions.

• States that he would introduce legislation allowing medication purchases from places such as Canada and Mexico.

Supports giving states greater freedom to test different approaches to regulating health insurance and healthcare.

• Would use state-level variation to compare approaches and inform future policy decisions.

Supports changing the FDA from a compulsory approval authority to an advisory body.

• States that he would introduce legislation intended to reduce regulatory barriers to medication development while retaining information for consumers.

Supports allowing people who want Medicare coverage to buy into the program by paying its premium.

• Presents voluntary paid Medicare participation as an alternative to compulsory single-payer coverage.

Supports legalizing or decriminalizing drugs at the federal level and shifting more enforcement decisions to local communities.

• Also opposes using high taxes on legal recreational drugs and argues for pairing legal access with overdose-prevention measures.

Supports a federal abortion framework that bars government funding for abortion, permits gestational limits with health exceptions, and allows states to adopt different regulations.

• Describes the approach as an effort to balance bodily autonomy with consideration of fetal interests.

Supports the right of any two people to marry while also supporting the freedom of religious institutions to define marriage and decide whom they will marry.

• Opposes government interference in individual marriage choice or religious marriage decisions.

Supports prohibiting government discrimination based on sex, skin color, or sexual preference and opposes race preferences in government-funded programs.

• Would allow individualized consideration of demonstrated past discrimination or economic and educational disadvantage rather than categorical racial preference.

Supports voter identification requirements if every eligible voter is given or can easily obtain acceptable identification.

• Frames the policy as combining eligibility verification with protection against undue burdens on lawful voters.

Supports reducing coercive U.S. foreign-policy tools and expanding peaceful engagement with other countries.

• Calls for ending sanctions on Iran and Cuba, ending support for dictators, expanding the Peace Corps, and offering U.S. withdrawal from NATO as part of a diplomatic effort to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Supports protecting the ability of law-abiding people to own firearms.

• States that government should not take guns away from law-abiding citizens.

Supports considering targeted gun regulations while involving gun owners in their design and allowing state-level variation within constitutional limits.

• Lists possible approaches including restrictions for severely mentally ill people likely to harm others, background checks, waiting periods, gun-safety courses, and stronger enforcement of gun crimes.

Supports policies that expand career and technical education for students who may not pursue a traditional university degree.

Supports ending federal subsidies to colleges and universities while encouraging wider use of online education.

• Argues that reducing subsidies and expanding online options would lower higher-education costs and broaden access.

Prioritizes greater openness about how the legislative and executive branches develop and implement policy.

• States that politicians and administrators should be as open as possible about what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Supports government encouraging market responses to climate change without directing those responses.

• Acknowledges industrial carbon dioxide as a contributor to warming and favors market-led development of cleaner energy, adaptation, and mitigation technologies.

Supports the legal right to disrespect or desecrate the U.S. flag and the right to fly the Confederate flag, while encouraging respect for people who view those symbols differently.

• Frames both positions as matters of individual expression and mutual consideration.

Supports minimizing government intrusion into personal choices so long as individuals are not harming others.

• Describes individual responsibility and opportunity as preferable to government-directed personal behavior.