FAIRBANKS - Joe Miller on ... Immigration

Miller says he believes illegal immigration is a “critically important” issue to deal with because of its economic effects on health care, education and employment.

The first step in dealing with the problem, he says, is to secure the border to stop more immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally and protect the country from possible terrorist threats.

He does not believe the millions of immigrants already here illegally should be granted amnesty.

“That cheats all those folks in other countries who have been waiting patiently to come to this country,” Miller said. “When you reward law breaking, you encourage more of the same. One of the reasons we have such a huge illegal immigrant problem today is the amnesty offered under the Reagan administration.”

Miller supports efforts by states such as Arizona to enforce immigration laws when the federal government will not, and he believes illegal immigrants should be deported when they come into contact with law enforcement officials.

Miller was noncommittal about his stance on the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the country, but said it is something that needs to be clarified with Constitutional amendments. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., has recently called for reviewing and possibly repealing the 14th Amendment.

“That way it locks it in stone. We don’t have to deal with this issue again some day in the future,” he said. “It provides a level of certainty I believe Americans need on this issue.”

Some politicians have called for repealing the amendment or adding a a new one to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants purposely crossing the border so that their children will be citizens.

Abortion

Miller has the endorsement of Alaska Right to Life and describes himself as “unequivocally pro-life,” including cases of rape or incest.

He said he believes in abortion “only when the mother’s life is in danger.”

Health care

Miller opposes the health care reform bill championed by President Obama and passed by Congress earlier this year.

He does not believe the Constitution gives the federal government the the power to regulate health care and the Obama bill only makes the health care system less efficient.

He would like to see reform legislation that emphasizes self-funded health care savings accounts and market-based incentives to improve affordability.

“That type of provision would empower people by letting them pay their own medical bills up to a certain level,” Miller said.

Federal spending in Alaska

Miller believes that at $13 trillion, the national debt is out of control, and the U.S. could be in for a reckoning similar to what Greece saw earlier this year.

“That debt load is unsustainable,” he said. “We already have our creditors not buying as much as they have in the past. A Chinese bond rating agency actually downgraded our debt several weeks ago. Our own bond rating agencies will probably downgrade our debt in the very near future.”

Per capita, Alaska gets more federal funding than any other state, with a 2008 University of Alaska Anchorage study determining one-third of all jobs in the state can be traced to federal money.

It’s exactly because of that reliance on federal spending that Miller is concerned that a U.S. debt crisis could turn the state “upside-down overnight.”

He is calling for Alaska to take charge of its own resources to build its economy, rather than rely on funding from the feds.

“The Alaska resource base is more than sufficient to elevate the state to the best economic position in this country,” he said.

Defense spending

With calls across the board to reduce federal spending, even the annual $700 billion defense budget isn’t immune. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates came under fire earlier this month when he announced the first major budget cut, the closing of a Joint Forces Command in Virginia.

Miller said he believes the defense budget could be run more efficiently, but the combat veteran of the first Gulf War does not think the defense budget should be cut, especially when facing possible threats from countries like Iran.

“If we have one nuclear bomb or one chemical weapon go off in one of our cities overnight, it changes the face of this nation and in a horrific way, not just in loss of life, but in loss of freedom, the impact financially,” Miller said. “We still haven’t recovered from 9/11. We can’t afford to have a military that isn’t that strong, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have efficiencies, and I think that’s what the secretary is trying to build.”

Miller believes government cuts need to come from welfare programs and Medicaid. It is important to continue to pay Social Security to older Americans who have paid into the system for decades, but he also supports privatization of that program.

“The idea is allowing people to invest in private plans they have control over that can actually provide a return and can keep going into perpetuity without someone sticking their hand in it and stealing the money for some other purpose,” he said.

Tribal authority

Earlier this month, Alaska’s Democratic senator, Mark Begich, introduced the Alaska Safe Families and Village Act which would “set up tribal courts, establish tribal ordinances, and ... impose sanctions on those people who violate the ordinances.”

Begich says the act is necessary to combat drug and alcohol problems and deal with the issues of domestic violence and child abuse in rural Alaska.

Miller flatly opposes the plan.

“I absolutely believe rural, local people should have a role in law enforcement, but Sen. Begich’s bill is way off track and I oppose it,” he said. “Every person in Alaska should be subject to the same laws. It’s an issue of equal justice under the law, and equal access to the state’s resources.”

Climate change

Miller doesn’t doubt that the climate changing, only to what extent humans are causing climate change.

“I think it’s undeniable, that anyone who has looked at the natural record of the Earth can see significant cyclical changes well before the industrial age, so we know the temperature change is part of the process of our existence, and frankly, you’re probably aware in the ’70s there were real concerns about global cooling,” he said.

Miller’s said his concern is that if it hasn’t been definitively proven that humans are causing the climate change, the rush to impose legislation such as the so-called “cap-and-trade” system for regulating carbon dioxide could be economically catastrophic, particularly on Alaska projects such as the proposed natural gas pipeline.

“We haven’t heard there’s man-made global warming,” he said. “Second, even if we proved that, we have not proven we have a solution that works. And third, even if we’ve proven that, we haven’t done a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether the solutions like cap-and-trade that Sen. Murkowski has proposed are actually worth the cost to people.”

The final word

“Everybody should go to joemiller.us before making their decision in the race,” Miller said.