Bill Hammons Platform

Climate Change

As I’ve been saying for years (on television and off), climate change is real, climate change is a real problem, and climate is a problem we can solve. Asking the planet’s population to overnight give up air travel, meat consumption, and all the other things that many have come to associate with the modern age simply isn’t going to happen. We should instead meet climate change with climate control: exploring ways of cooling the planet much as volcanoes have been doing for billions of years, with the understanding that climate control is only a stopgap measure and should be matched with moves towards a future free of climate-changing emissions.

Eliminate the Federal Income Tax

It’s been forgotten that income taxes (and property taxes, while we’re at it), are, by their very nature, an invasion of privacy. The federal income tax should be replaced with a national sales tax trumpeted by many conservatives, albeit a tax targeting sources of climate-changing emissions. Since such taxes are by their very nature regressive, some portion of the generated revenues should be remitted on a weekly basis to each and every American, much like current IRS refunds. This would effectively create a basic income for every American.

Student Loans

I borrowed tens of thousands of dollars during the 90s to complete my education at NYU, and didn’t pay off the balance until I sold my Manhattan apartment in 2005 and headed west to Colorado. My twenties were tough financially, and I feel the pain of today’s (and yesterday’s) students, but unilaterally massively wiping out debts of any sort is uncapitalist and deters future lending.

Abortion

I’m pro-liberty. The Fourth Amendment clearly states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons … shall not be violated,” and it could be argued that this right extends to the unborn as well as the bearing. The Supreme Court made the right call in 2022; the States should be at liberty to enact abortion laws as they see fit.

Gerrymandering

Along with Election Denial (see below), CGG (computer-generated gerrymandering) is corroding the very fabric of our democracy. The drawing of congressional districts along partisan lines (effectively, politicians choosing their voters versus the other way around) has been a problem since the founding days of our Republic (the term was named after Elbridge Gerry in 1812). Computer technology (and quite soon, something approaching artificial intelligence) has only poured gas on this dumpster fire. We need an amendment to the Constitution mandating that all Congressional districts be drawn by panels of retired judges along lines ensuring maximum competition, ensuring that those members of Congress sent to DC (see below), speak for all the people, not just party hacks.

Artificial Intelligence

Along with climate change, artificial intelligence is one of the gravest dangers to humanity in the 21st century. While we can reverse the former (at least over time) we cannot nor should not reverse AI, but instead ride this bolt of lightning and see where it takes us. Incidentally, “ride the lightning” refers to execution by the electric chair; that and the increasingly chilling implications of the Drake Equation (if the odds of intelligent life in the universe are rapidly improving, where is it?) should make us approach all technology with extreme caution.

Cannabis

Pot should be legalized at the federal level and taxed at the federal level (much like tobacco) to help fund Medicare for All (see Health Coverage).

Health Coverage

Government-funded, but not government-run, health coverage needs to be a universal option in America (a simple Gordion Knot solution would be to drop the eligibility age for Medicare 65 to 0, for all Americans). The Rube Goldberg contraption that we call Obamacare is unnecessarily complex and unstable, and a Medicare-for-all solution would retain some of Obamacare’s popular mandates, such as coverage for preexisting conditions.

Immigration

Climate change as a fuel for illegal immigration needs to be recognized. If we solve (or at least begin to solve) the climate crisis, we do the same for the crisis at the border. In the meantime, the United States needs to uphold its international treaty obligations dating back to the 60s and give asylum-seekers a real chance; asking them to use an app that doesn’t work is a bit of dark humor hearkening back to the Obamacare web rollout. The US could also expand its borders, bringing sorely-needed stability to new states while maintaining internal borders until new additions to the Union are brought up to speed with the rest of America; expansion is an idea dating back centuries to the days of the Monroe Doctrine; if the root of a problem lies in other countries, let’s solve it there.

National Security

If you build it, you own it: that’s the lesson I learned the hard way after trying to walk away from the Unity Party. App and website builders need to take a reasonable degree of responsibility for the content which appears on their platforms; just as institutions of higher learning should work to prevent threats of extermination by their students, platform propietors should be mandated to prevent their spaces from becoming cesspools of hate.

The Rule of Law

I support the Rule of Law, and this includes outlawing unsubstantiated election denials (if you honestly think an election was stolen, be prepared to back that up before a jury of your peers). Germany outlawed Holocaust denials many decades ago, and (for now) enjoy’s one of the world’s healthiest democracies (if a clunky one).

Reconcile Federal Donating and Voting Ages

Voting and donating ages should match at 16. Current federal law technically allows a young child to donate to a federal campaign; this is intellectually dishonest and needs to be reconciled with the fact that a 16-year-old child old enough to drive a vehicle arguably has an impact on society greater than if they were to be given the right to vote; making 16 the minimum age for both donating and voting would rationalize this illogical situation.

Term Limits

The Constitution needs to be amended to mandate term limits: single terms (total of four years) for US Presidents, two terms (total of 12 years) for US Senators, no more than a total of 12 years for US Supreme Justices, and four terms (total of 8 years) for Representatives in the US House. If Presidents Trump and Biden agree to one term each (in other words, exit stage right and left, respectively and still-somewhat gracefully), I’ll commit myself to one term. Otherwise, I make no commitments other than to adhere to the Constitution.

Lincoln, D.C.

Putin and his Poseidon tsunami torpedo are both very real. Washington, D.C. (if not a coastal city, a city very near a coast, lest you miss the point) was fixed at its current location as a compromise between the northern and southern states involving state debts and slavery which failed to avert the Civil War. As with many positions dating back to my Colorado days, I’m going to stand by my proposal to suggest, as Commander-in-Chief, moving the nation’s capital to a more secure, central location to give the nation’s government a fresh start, and a “District not exceeding ten Miles square” east of Denver International Airport would be an excellent spot.

Second Amendment

The Hamas attack on innocent Israelis was an advertisement for the Second Amendment in America. If one compares the respective populations of the United States on September 11, 2001 and Israel on October 7, 2023, something along the lines of the 2023 attacks on the US would have resulted in 35,000 Americans killed, 9,000 American women raped (most before and some after being murdered), and 7,000 taken hostage across a hostile border to be held and enslaved in underground tunnels (the only image that could help one wrap one’s brain around this is if the drug cartels had taken over Mexico and stormed the border). The Second Amendment in America has its place, is here to stay, and rightly renders the idea of any meaningful incursion across any American border absurd. All that said, better mental health monitoring and certain speed limits are not absurd.

Israel and Palestine

Israel has a right to exist, just as Palestine has a right to exist. If both have the right to exist, both have the obligation to exist side-by-side in peace. It’s unclear as of this writing if Gaza and the West Bank can ever be united under the same Palestinian flag again (it was perhaps inevitable that East and West Pakistan, sitting on the opposite sides of India, would eventually go their own ways). What is clear is that Hamas is a terrorist organization, and therefore cannot continue to exist. In order to prevent Hamas from rising from the ashes of the current war (or to prevent a Hamas replacement), both Gaza and the West Bank must be made viable states.

Ukraine

The United States needs to support Ukraine. Just as Israel has the right to exist, Ukraine has the right to exist (and a collapse of the country under Russian aggression would only embolden Putin to strike further west). Aid for American allies shouldn’t be tied to other asks in Washington; being an unreliable ally will only hurt us in the end.