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John Hosta: Candidate Profile

14th Congressional District (Democrat)

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Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioQA Bio City: Spring GroveWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Twitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: 14th Congressional District Age: Family: Six ChildrenOccupation: Entrepreneur, Elite Quilting Company, Stock TraderEducation: Hope College, B.A. Business Administration, EconomicsCivic involvement: High School Football CoachElected offices held: Candidate did not respond.Questions Answers How will you work to make Congress more productive and effective? What actions are needed to produce a healthy federal budget? Specifically, what changes do you advocate regarding how revenue is produced or what our spending priorities are? In particular, what effect does current policy have on your district and what changes, if any, are needed?One of the ways that I would work to make Congress more productive and effective is to introduce more micro-management options. One of Congress' budget faults is their effortless approach to make broad sweeping approaches to budget cut or increases. If Congress would take, for example, the proposed broad cuts to the food stamp program and instead adjust the qualifications for and/or adjust the scope of the program; this would be more palatable across party lines. This way, the short term goal of reducing costs would be easier to attain instead of broadly hurting disadvantaged Americans. One of the revenue priorities that we should once again embrace just as we did for the first two hundred years since the inception of The United States would be to protect manufacturing industries such as the Auto industry. This would be an instant employment surge in our district, reduce the deficit, and increase government revenue. After all, taxation on imports once was the major income source of our government. In fact, there was not even a personal federal income tax until the early 1900's. I believe that it is an insult to the American people to give General Motors 74 billion dollars in corporate welfare and the company then expands its operations in China. It is programs like this and programs like funding foreign banking entities with 600 billion dollars that is bankrupting our future. Not assisting the unemployed that live, breathe, and spend their money here in The United States while Congress continues to ship American jobs out of the country. What immigration policies do you support? Where, if at all, do you see room for compromise to produce an effective policy on immigration? How will these policies have an impact in your district?I first support border security. This is the first and must step to gain control over our immigration problem and national security. I do embrace the position that the United Kingdom Border Patrol held about one year ago. Their stance, which is the same as mine, is that we currently do not have the hard infrastructure and the soft infrastructure in place to support a substantial increase in immigration at this time. In our history we found it prudent to drastically reduce the inflow of immigration for economic reasons. Currently the U.S. economy and the U.S. debt problem does not support an aggressive immigration program. In view of our current situation it is appropriate to minimize migration to the United States The one area that I see for immigration compromise is to review long term undocumented immigrants that have been financial independent and productive. What should be the top priorities in Congress related to the Affordable Care Act? If you want changes, what specifically do you recommend? If you want the act entirely eliminated, please address these questions: Is that politically feasible? If it proves infeasible, where do you see the potential for compromise? If it is eliminated, what would you replace it with, if anything?The Affordable Care Act is the perfect example of how well our two parties work together. The first rolled out the program with little thought and the other did everything they could to make it fail, all at the massive expense to tax payers. But let me be clear. People die because they don't have health care. So let's fix it. I have proposed four effective adjustments that the American public will like and greatly benefit from and ,of course, the lobbyist and special interest groups will attack. First, we must allow more generic pharmaceutical companies to compete. If we lower generic pharmaceutical licensing fees and individual drug fees while shortening the long term drug patents, we will ultimately significantly lower pharmaceutical costs. After all, if taxpayers are providing grants for drug research then the taxpayers should be awarded some of the monetary rewards from this research. By allowing more competition in the market and allowing the free market to flourish the direct result will be drastically lower pharmaceutical costs. Second, allow medical insurance companies to compete nationwide, not just within state boundaries. And, allow more of the #8220;not for profit#8221; group insurance programs more freedom and less regulation to compete. This will drive down insurance costs. Three and four are linked. Third, all medical fees, and costs are to be publically displayed on-line, in a comparable concise manner, and given to all patients. Costs need to be clearly public. Fourth, once cost disclosures are made public and assessable, everyone is given a $2000 medical savings account. Any year in which the insured does not use this money or a portion of the money it will be rewarded back to the individual as a tax credit. This will incentivize people from abusing medical coverage, encourage price shopping, increase medical competition, and will ultimately drive down costs.What military or diplomatic roles should the United States play to promote peace and stability in the Mideast? Under what circumstances, should we have military forces actively operating?The first role that the United States should participate in to increase the stability in the Mideast is to work with and through a Muslim coalition. This is key. In order to disarm terrorism and restore stability the fight must be brought through the Muslim community itself. Once the Muslim community is involved then terrorist leadership must be methodically removed as well as the source of the teaching. It is vital to understand that the core of the problem is the bad theology that leads to terrorism. There is a way to systematically bring into question the terrorist belief structure and our counterintelligence needs to be active in this area. Military force should be used when actual weapons of mass destruction are proven and/or our allies are attacked. Please list any elected office you have ever run for and what the result of that election was. Have you ever been appointed to fill an unexpired term?I ran for the 14th Congressional District in 2014. I did well against a well known, widely endorsed , established opponent where I earned 35% of the votes on a $250 budget. What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?Another very important issue to me is the continuous threat by our incumbent representative to cut Social Security. There are many elderly seniors that depend on Social Security for their livelihood and it is a shame to thoughtless cut their income. We can safeguard Social Security by eliminating monies sent to individuals that earn over one million dollars annually in retirement benefits. We can also reduce the payout by 50% to individuals earning over $500,000 annually in retirement benefits. This way the Senior Citizens at poverty levels will not have to suffer further and suffer the stress of the threat of a Social Security Reduction by our current representative.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.The incumbent of the 14th Congressional District because he needs to be replaced.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?That anything is achievable once you set your mind to it.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?To understand and study at an earlier age an ancient teacher by the name of Logos.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Macro-Economics. That is yet to be determined. If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?That there is a way to have life and live life abundantly.