Interview: Jack Graziano (L) for U.S. Senate for Nebraska

By: Joe Urban 

1. What distinguishes you from your opponents?
The other candidates believe they are Santa Claus, delivering entitlements
and benefits to aid a few at the expense of many. I believe in a system
where your money stays where it belongs - in your pocket.

2. How long have you been involved in politics? Do you remember the first
time you voted?

Since my early teens when I was President of the Nassau County Teenage
Republican Club in New York.  The first time I voted I was 18 years old. My
family was very involved in politics when I was young. In fact, my father
was President of the Nassau County Republican Club, as well as a
Committeeman for the Republican Party. When he died, his eulogy was read
before Congress by then Rep. Lester Wolf - a Democrat!

3. What is the greatest challenge of public service?

Keeping in mind that the people are your boss, and not the other way around.

4.   What is the most important issue facing the State of Nebraska?

High taxes with a diminishing tax base.

5.   What advice would you give someone thinking of running for public
office?

Forget about what they taught you in your 8th grade civics class. A
campaign is ruled by politics, not by philosophy. Your opponents have one
thing in mind - to either take the job you want away or hold onto theirs.

6.   What was your first car?

A 1964 dark blue Buick LeSabre.


7.   What was your favorite subject in High School?

Biology (no pun intended!)

8.   How did you become involved in the Libertarian Party?

I became involved when I lived in Colorado in the early 1980's. I was
looking for a party that gave more than lip service to freedom and liberty.

9.   What motivates you?

In this election I am motivated by the fact that our representatives are
more than willing to sacrifice our basic constitutional guarantees of
liberty and freedom for smoke and mirror illusions of security. It was the
numerous government agencies that failed us miserably on 9-11, yet now
those same agencies want to restrict our freedoms to cover their mistakes.


10. Will the U.S. invade Iraq by December 2002?

Probably.

Should they invade Iraq?


No. We should make a surgical strike on Saddam Hussein himself, and not
invade Iraq whole scale.  If we invade Iraq, we would 1) make Saddam a
martyr,  2) create a legion of suicidal "doomsday machines" willing to
commit any atrocity just to "get back" at the United States and  3) have to
occupy with American soldiers yet another foreign country just to hold on
to what we have.


11.  If you were elected to the Senate, what would be your first bill you
would sponsor?

Repeal of the ill conceived Patriot Act. This bill wasn't even printed
before our representatives voted for it. Is that any way to run a free
country? Nothing in that bill would have prevented 9-11, nor make us one
whit safer. However it makes a mockery of our Constitution and gives the
government the tools it needs to make any American citizen a potential
criminal - or worse.

12. Why should the citizens of the State of Nebraska Elect you on Nov. 5th,
2002?

Because I am not owned by any corporate paymaster or political party boss.
I will vote to keep your money where it belongs - in your pockets. No
exceptions and no excuses. I will vote for freedom and liberty every time -
no exceptions and no excuses. And I will vote for what is Constitutional
rather than what might be "politically expedient." No exceptions, no excuses.

13. What should the U.S. Senate do about Homeland Security?

What we do not need is another super agency like the proposed Department of
Homeland Security.

In a nutshell, the plan is to take over the worst parts of the mismanaged,
bloated, non-responsive and inefficient agencies that couldn't protect the
country from box cutter wielding thugs, put these parts under one roof,
give them a initial budget of 37 billion dollars - and then hope they can
fulfill their mandate. Pardon me - but I see another Department of
Education fiasco in the making. A sinkhole for tax payer dollars that will
do little or nothing to fulfil its intended mission, but will do wonders in
perpetuating themselves at our expense.

As dog begets dog, the new Department will try and justify its existence,
and the only way it can do so is by arbitrarily creating rules and
regulations that we the people must follow. It is the nature of every
government bureaucracy to do so. And since this new behemoth is basically
formed from the dregs of other agencies - are we to suppose that those new
rules and regulations will do us any good?

Another point to consider: When President Bush is no longer in office, the
Department of Homeland Defense will be in full vigor. How many of you would
trust a President Hillary Clinton appointment to that office, or that the
agency in such a scenario will be used not to combat terrorism but to wage
political war? There is no doubt that in the wrong hands, like the FBI
under Hoover, this agency will become one of the most corrupt apples in the
bureaucratic barrel.


14. What current bills in the U.S. do you support?

A current bill that would eliminate the withholding tax from our paychecks.
Without changing the tax code one bit, if the average American citizen had
to sit down every three months and actually write a check to the IRS for
the amount owed, the current tangled mess of a tax structure we now have
would last about a New York minute. Almost no one realizes how much money
the government is taking out of our earnings. In fact, Washington treats
our paychecks as their due. It's NOT their money. It's OURS.