Tommy Hanson: Candidate profile

Bio

Party: Republican

City: Chicago

Office sought: U.S. Congress, 5th District

Age: 65

Family: Wife, Gabrielle, and daughter, Ashton

Occupation: Commercial real estate

Education: BA from Denison University

Civic involvement: Served on the board of a not-for-profit day care; 4H; church volunteer

Elected offices held: None

Incumbent? If yes, when were first elected: N/A

Website: None listed

Twitter: None listed

Facebook: None listed

Questions and Answers

1. What have the past three years of Donald Trump's unconventional leadership taught us about politics in the United States? What is the best thing his presidency has done? What is the most significant criticism you have of it?

Everyone talks about 'disrupters,' then when they get one, they completely flip out. I love disrupters and work in an industry full of them. It keeps you on your A-game.

• What is the best thing his presidency has done? Addressing what needs to be done instead of being politically correct.

• What is the most significant criticism you have of it? There have been times the twitter feeds have been a bit much.

2. What needs to be done to get Congress to work constructively, whether that be senators and representatives of both parties working with each other or Congress itself working with the president?

Term limits to rid Congress of the stale leadership, or lack thereof, that is draining us taxpayers of their money and doing absolutely nothing in return.

3. What do you see as the most important issues to address regarding immigration reform? If you oppose funding for a wall, what steps do you support to try to control illegal immigration?

Addressing the anchor baby epidemic where immigrants are coming in to this country and being paid thousands of dollars each month because they birthed an anchor baby in this country. Visit the social security office and interview them and look in the waiting room. It isn't full of retirement age people.

• If you oppose funding for a wall, what steps do you support to try to control illegal immigration? I am for legal immigration, that is part of what made America a wonderful place. If you want to come here, adopt our laws, language and lifestyle, and, do it legally, then please come to America and experience all the wonderful things we have. If you don't want to do it that way, then you need to stay in your own country and try to resolve the conflict there. Do you leave your door unlocked? Why should we leave the door to our country unlocked.

4. Please define your position on health care reform, especially as it relates to the Affordable Care Act.

The ACA was forced upon the American people by a Democratic-controlled House without any bipartisan support. It was designed to fail in order to justify the following step: that of universal Medicare.

In order to pay for the uninsured, (including the costs of contraception and childbirth for women and men) the costs to the individual became excessive. The next step would have been akin to the systems in Canada and Europe, which is the rationing of resources, increasing wait times and a decline in the quality of care that Americans have come expect and enjoy in a free enterprise system.

The domino effect of the ACA and Medicare with price controls and rationing will be the impact on research. Can anyone think of any new and cutting edge innovations that have come out of the Canadian health care system, or any socialized system for that matter? The bottom line is that it did not provide choices. It is a typical top down, centralized government mandate and contrary to a free market system.

People really only want to pay for (what) they use, whereas the private insurance system was able to offer more choices that were in line with the desires of the public.

However, the ACA even negatively impacted privately insured health care, by limiting the products they could offer, it caused prices to rise in their sector as well. Obviously, it did not work out well for most insurers as most of them exited the playing field.

5. What is your position on federal funding for contraception, the Violence Against Women Act and reproductive rights?

I don't care if we fund contraceptives. I am really tired of all the 'victimization' in every demographic. We should stay out of people's personal lives.

6. What do you consider America's role in world affairs? What are we doing correctly to fill that role? What else should we be doing?

• What are we doing correctly to fill that role? We don't need to second guess any president. There are things they know that we don't and don't need to know. America has razor sharp focus where it needs to go. We aren't out picking fights with other countries, but if they are out of line with us, or there is an eminent threat (that the public likely would never know about), then we have a president with the chutzpah to handle it

• What else should we be doing? We should stop foreign aid. We have far too many financial needs here. Just look at Chicago, that money would make a huge dent in homeless for children, improved roads, and safer neighborhoods.

7. Do you believe climate change is caused by human activity? What steps should government be taking to address the issue?

Climate change is caused by overpopulation sucking up all the water supply. It's not a climate change, it's a lack of natural water. But, I believe in climate change like I do Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

• What steps should government be taking to address the issue? Nothing other than slowing down population growth