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US House of Representatives 16th Congressional District candidate Michael Rebresh answered Shaw Local’s election questionnaire for the US House primary election.
Voting ends for the primary election on the evening of June 28.
Full Name: Michael Rebresh
What office are you seeking? Representative IL-16 US Congress
What offices, if any, have you previously held? No previous offices held
City: Minooka
Occupation: OTR Truck Owner/Operator
Education: Associate Arts Degree 1996 - College of Dupage Bachelors of Science Degree 1998 - Illinois State University
Campaign Website: Rebreshforcongress@gmail.com
What is your position re-establishing the Child Tax Credit at $3,500 per child as set in the American Rescue Plan?
I am against any tax on income. Our nation, it’s Declaration of Independence and subsequent Constitution were born from the idea of “No taxation without representation”.
As I watch our government look to spend 5 TRILLION dollars just in this fiscal year, I wonder how representative it is of the American Peoples Tax Dollars. When they create a 5000 page bill, give it to the “representatives” 24 hours before it is to be voted on…I don’t see how that is representative of me or the constituents of the 16th. What they do is sneaky and conniving. It is disingenuous and without a doubt, taxation without representation. Our people once fought against tyranny like what we see. They did it with weapons beyond the spoken or written word. I pray our country doesn’t have to do that again.
Do you believe that corporations pay enough in taxes?
Yes I do. Corporations provide good jobs for citizens who in turn use their earnings to maintain or improve their quality of life. Without corporations, the people lose that ability. The truth of increased corporate tax is the cost simply gets put back onto the consumer by way of price increases. You potentially end up in a downward spiral of never ending inflation. Kinda like what we are seeing now from the current administrations manor of governing.
Would you support increases or decreases in the amount of taxes corporations pay? Why?
Decreases to create more jobs. More jobs means more money being spent by the employee/consumer, which means more jobs and the cycle continues. It reverses that downward spiral of never ending inflation.
Do the rich, defined as the wealthiest 1%, pay enough in taxes?
They pay more than anyone else. If you want to “make them pay their fair share”, then the answer is to take away the ability to off shore their accounts. Eliminate the loopholes that allow them to skirt their obligations to taxation. Then you tax their earnings just like everyone else who works and only gets to keep a portion of their earnings. Changing the tax code means you change it for all. If it were up to me, anyone over 70 would no longer be liable for income tax, estate tax, death tax etc. They have earned, in more ways than one, the right to tax freedom. And by the same token, anyone under 22 shouldn’t have to pay taxes if they are attending school. Let them save to pay for their education or to give them the leg up when they start their taxpaying status.
Would support changes in the tax code that would increase or decrease their tax burden? Why?
See previous responses.
Do you support raising taxes on capital gains and dividends? Why?
Only if the burden is reduced for other members of our society who haven’t a clue what capital gains and dividends are. Investing is like making free money when the investment has big gains. If you cash out at the peak, you should be taxed on that “free money”. Conversely, when you have big losses on investment, you should have burden negated.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a breakdown in this country’s supply chain. What would you propose to fix it?
How about not letting unelected bureaucrats not make ALL the decisions that put us in this mess to begin with. Regarding the supply chain, let’s start with buying American products that have some lasting power instead of cheap Chinese crap that breaks in 3 months. How about improve the roads and bridges for real and not just allocate a bunch of money where sticky hands reside. Let the free market fix this instead of government who doesn’t know what they are doing. The transportation secretary for this current administration knows absolutely nothing about the supply chain. He wasn’t even doing his job for 6 months because of the babies he bought with his husband and what he thinks affords him paternity leave. Leadership mean something. At least it used to…
How would you bring back manufacturing jobs?
Energy independence, lowered manufacturing tax rate, secure the souther border, eliminate burdensome regulations, end the climate hoax. According to AOC, we only have 8 years of existence left anyway. So yeah…stop putting microphones in front of fools like that.
What plans do you have to help the lower and middle class?
Tax code - see previous responses
Energy independence - lower fuel costs mean even the lower classes can live better with more money to spend on what their hearts desire instead of on fuel, just to go to work.
Term Limits on Congress so the people can be represented by people instead of political career minded people who only know how to play “the game” instead of solving problems with logic and reason.
Do you support the idea that government can require immunizations against COVID-19 or other communicable diseases?
Absolutely not. My life is not theirs to manage. I will not subject myself to their medicinal experiments. When the manufacturer of the Covid vaccine asks that their records be sealed for 75 years, that tells me they are hiding something. That’s not good and I won’t participate in that. I will fight like hell to make certain no other citizen is compelled by government to do something to their bodies, against their will and truly unproven for long term effects.
How do you feel about mask mandates?
Never wore one. When I absolutely had to, I intentionally wore it wrong. The masks they tried to make everyone wear were NEVER going to stop the spread. Why? Your eyes are equally as vulnerable to an airborne virus. Did they require eye protection? No they didn’t. The virus was so small, it could pass through those blue masks everyone wore, like a mosquito through a chain link fence. And when one of those mask nazis would say “I wear mine to protect you, you should wear one to protect me!” Yeah… that guy? He wants me put into a reeducation camp or exterminated because I voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. You think that guy is wearing a mask to protect me? For what, so he can kill me later because I am white with male pattern baldness and somehow that makes me racist. So no. No mask.
Is America prepared for either another round of the current pandemic, or the next one?
More prepared to tell liars like Fauci to buzz off. We were born with immune systems. During the course of humanity, our bodies have overcome and adapted to many viruses and bacteria. It is natural process of the human body. Some folks are born without some of those natural protections and it is incumbent upon them to do what they can to mitigate their own risks. Life is tough for all of us and in different ways. One thing we absolutely shouldn’t be doing is going out of our way to play God or Mother Earth and making natural things into unnatural things.
Do you support new laws or regulations to safeguard people in the event of another pandemic?
Not at the expense of our freedoms or rights guaranteed by the constitution. He who is willing to give up freedom in exchange for security and safety will have none in the long run. Power corrupts. Always has, always will.
Should Medicare be expanded to include dental coverage for older Americans?
Yes it should
What are the top two threats to our national security?
Democrats at the helm
China
What should be done to eliminate them?
Send all the lying, cheating, money grubbing politicians to jail. D’s and R’s. Enough of government that doesn’t work for the people. Democrats must be defeated at every election from this day forward. They will destroy everything we have build in the name of something they can’t be attained. Utopia doesn’t exist. We can’t talk to animals and the earth has been spinning for millions of years, our time Ian but a tee at tiny small part of it.
China- stop buying their products. Stop allowing them to steal our intellectual property. Declare eminent domain over any property they hold on US soil. Sell it to American investors and then use those proceeds to eliminate the EIDL loans small business had to take out to survive 2019, 2020 and 2021 when the Chinese released a biological weapon on the world. Sanction the daylights out of them.
What is your position on climate change and what should be done about it?
The climate changes daily. If we are going to anything, lets clean up the oceans! Next, let’s invest in next generation technology and fuels of tomorrow, today. Use all available resources today. Open the gates to relatively free energy that is clean and renewable as possible. We have always lacked the technology to do it, but times are changing and quickly.
What is your position on nuclear energy expansion?
All for it. Let’s nail down fusion and power the world. Then the oil and coal giants of the world will never have humanity under their thumb again.
Should America invest in other forms of renewable energy? Please explain.
Anything that works, produces more from less. I would think all life in this planet would appreciate it.
Should pregnant women have the right to get an abortion?
Only in cases of rape, incest or critical to saving a mothers life from pregnancy complications
Is the immigration system a problem in this country? If so, what is your plan to fix it?
Big big problem. Restore Title 42, fund the wall and deport anyone who doesn’t belong here.
Do American cities have a crime problem?
Only the Democrat run ones do.
If so, what is your suggestion to solve it?
Refund the police Enforce the laws
Should police officers have qualified immunity in cases involving alleged excessive force or other misconduct?
Qualified immunity should be determined on a case by case basis.
Are there any limits to the Second Amendment?
Nope. Set in stone.
Do you support any restrictions on gun purchases or other stricter gun control measures including citizens’ access to military style weaponry?
Background checks are acceptable I am against individuals owning nuclear weapons, missiles and fully armed tanks.
Illinois, along with many states across the country, have legalized marijuana making it legal for people to buy and use it. Marijuana, however, is still illegal at the federal level. Do you support legalizing marijuana nationally? Why or why not?
Support. It is no worse than alcohol. I trust a stoner on the road more than I do a drunk. The truth is marijuana prohibition is and has been based on a false narrative from the beginning. I support taxing it the same way they do anything else you take to “escape your day” or “have a good time”. Anything less is just a mechanism to impose tyranny and injustice on the people
Did Joe Biden win the 2020 election?
He did not of you take away the fraud that most certainly exists then and now. The whole mail in ballot business because of chinavirus was uncontrollable. Too easy to commit fraud. And they told us they would. When Chuck Shumer told us after ACB was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice that the Democrat party was going to “go nuclear” on the Republcan party, what do you think that might have looked like?Perhaps like election fraud to ensure Trump was a one term president?
Would you have voted to ratify his presidency?
I would not. Too many questions that remained unsolved and unanswered. The fact that the election was influenced by a fake narrative of Russia Collusion created by Democrat Hillary Clintons bought and paid for Steele Dossier, that the mainstream media, social media and all other media went out of their way to scuttle anything that put Biden in a bad light while doing everything they could to destroy Trump and his families lives, well…that’s just a bit too much of question mark for my tastes. In all my years, since the invention of the scrolling tally of vote total on the tv, never in my life have I seen a large number of votes counted and then REMOVED from one candidates tally to the the opposing candidate tally. But that is exactly what happened at 2am in the morning after polls closed. Certain states changed to rules last second and without legislative authority to do so, in effort to affect the outcome. Again..too many question marks to ratify the vote.
What is your position on the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol?
On the couch at home, watching it on tv while in a sitting position.
Was it an insurrection?
Who got killed? Did they think these patriots who had grievances with what their government was doing, did they think they were going to go on the house floor and start passing new laws? Ah jeez, they just made it legal to kill pedophiles. Guess it’s law now…. Come on man. The only people who had a gun that wasn’t an FBI plant in the crowd was the mysterious unknown government employee who shot Ashley Babbit for shouting through a broken window and Adam Kinzinger because he is into conspiracy theory that he reads about on stupid Twitter. Should those who did damage to the peoples house suffer the consequences of their actions? Absolutely. That is my house too, just like to is yours. We would not put up with it in our own homes. Do I think everyone who went inside and took the unguided tour of congress suffer consequences? Not unless they broke stuff or stole personal or government property. It was no more an “insurrection” than the BLM riots over the previous summer were a “peaceful protest”….
Should people convicted of a crime related to their participation in the riot ever be pardoned?
If the punishment exceeds the crime they are charged with. Have they even been charged at this point? A year and a half later, people still sit in isolation and prison without having been charged with anything. That’s not right. Pardons are at the discretion of Governors and Presidents. Representatives have no say in the matter as official duty.
Should voters be required to show an ID to vote?
It will go a long way towards ensuring election integrity and that only citizens have votes counted. As Americans, we don’t get to vote for the leader of France, Mexico, Canada or any other nation who chooses their leaders by way of peoples choice. Why should a non citizen get a say on who we elect to lead us?
Would you, as a member of Congress, ever vote against certifying presidential electoral votes submitted by states’ official voting authorities?
Let’s get voter ID and audit every election on every level going forward before we decide on such things. Let’s take the money out of politics and running for office and see what that gets us in terms of honesty and integrity in elections.