Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson is an American entrepreneur and the 29th Governor of New Mexico. Gary Johnson was a candidate for the Republican and Libertarian nominations for President of the United States in 2012.

Freedom

• The root of all evil, if you want to point at it, is politicians that are going to save you and I from terrorists, from illegal immigrants, from drugs. "Elect me, and I'll save you."
  • "Statement to an Occupy Wall Street protester", YouTube, 20 October 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

• When you recognize that half of everything we're spending on law enforcement, the courts, and the prisons is drug related. What are we getting for that? Well, we're arresting one point eight million people a year in this country and we now have two point three million people behind bars in this country. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world and isn't this America; liberty, personal freedom, and responsibility that goes along with that? I think that when it comes to drug policy, we've thrown that notion out the window.
  • "Statement from CNN Interview", YouTube, 21 April 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

• I don't drink, Stephen, I've smoked marijuana, I choose not to smoke marijuana, but when I smoked it the first time, you know what I thought when I smoked it the first time? I thought, "the government lied." I just think that the government should tell the truth when it comes to these drugs. Look, marijuana is safer than alcohol, and don't trust me on this but the City of Denver, five years ago, voted on the decriminalization of marijuana on a campaign based on marijuana being safer than alcohol.
  • "Statement from Interview with Stephen Colbert", Colbert Report, 10 May 2010, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

• I support a woman's right to choose up until viability of the fetus. As Governor of New Mexico, I would have signed a bill banning late-term abortion. I've always favored parental notification, I've always favored counseling, and I've always favored the notion that public funds should not be used for abortion.
  • "Statement at FOX News Debate", YouTube, 5 May 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

• The threats to privacy in America – from our own government – seem to never end. Does Congress really think they can just stick an ‘oh-by-the-way’ provision in an obscure piece of legislation directing the FAA to clear the way for 30,000 drones to fly over our neighborhoods, and have no one notice?
  • "Gary Johnson Decries Domestic Drones", rawstory, 19 February 2012, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

Sound Government

• Everything that I did as Governor, and everything that I think needs to occur right now in the Federal Government, needs to be a cost-benefit analysis. What are we spending our money on, and what are we getting for what we're spending? I am of the belief that we are on the verge of a financial collapse. We can not repay fourteen trillion dollars in debt if we're spending one point six trillion dollars more than we're taking in this year and years to come. That is not sustainable... We landed on the moon, we can balance the federal budget. And that means cutting fourty-three cents out of every federal dollar that we're currently spending.
  • "Statement from CNN Interview", YouTube, 21 April 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

• I may have vetoed more legislation than the other forty-nine governors in the country combined. And it wasn't just saying, "no," it was really looking at what we were spending our money on and what we were getting for the money we were spending. And I really do believe in smaller government, I really believe that there are consequences of legislation that gets passed and maybe it isn't in our best interest to pass all the legislation that we pass, that it layers bureaucracy on transactions that aren't made any safer by you and I, but that just end up making it so much more cumbersome, so much more burdensome, and ends up adding a lot of money as opposed to the notion of liberty and freedom and the personal responsibility that goes along with that... My entire life I watched government spend more money than what it takes in and I just always thought that there would be a day of reckoning with regard to that spending, and I think that day of reckoning is here, that it's right now, and it needs to be fixed... But what I said then and I'll say now, I think that Republicans would gain a lot of credibility in this argument if Republicans would offer up a repeal of the Prescription Health Care Benefit that they passed when they had control of both houses of Congress and ran up record deficits.
  • "Announcement of Intention to Run for the Republican Nomination for President of the United States", YouTube, 21 April 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

• Fixing America is not an insurmountable task. It's actually about putting people first rather than politics. I wouldn't be involved in this if I didn't think that we can make a difference, and that it is easy, it's really easy to be principled and put the issues first and politics last.
  • "Introduction to Gary Johnson", YouTube, 23 August 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

Economic Policy

• I think that repealing or doing away with the corporate income tax is simply getting us back to where we were. We need to understand that the corporate income tax is a double tax, that we all own the corporations and that when income gets distributed to us we pay the tax on that. So we have the highest corporate income tax in the world right now, let's abolish it, let's make it the way that it was to begin with, and that will literally create tens of millions of jobs overnight because this country will be the only place to establish, grow, nurture business. Why won't that happen?
  • "Statement at FOX News Debate", YouTube, 5 May 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

Foreign Policy

• I was opposed to us going to Iraq from the very beginning. I really thought that there was no threat to our national security, I really thought that if we went into Iraq we would find ourselves in a civil war to which there would be no end, and I thought we had the military surveillance capability to see Iraq roll out any weapons of mass destruction and if they had done that we could have gone in and dealt with that. Afghanistan, originally, I was completely supportive of that. We were attacked, we attacked back. That's what our military is for and after about six months I think we had pretty effectively taken care of al Qaeda. But that was ten years ago! We're building roads, schools, bridges, and highways in Iraq and Afghanistan and we're borrowing fourty-three cents out of every dollar to do that. In my opinion, this is crazy. And in looking at Libya right now... my opinion is I'm opposed to it A through Z.
  • "Statement at FOX News Debate", YouTube, 5 May 2011, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

Miscellaneous

• My next door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs than this current administration.
  • "Quip at Fox/Google debate", YouTube, 22 September 2012, retrieved on 2012-02-24 

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