Ben Carson
Historical Details
Position on Issues
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Ben Carson has not expressed an opinion on treatment funding, but has shared his thoughts on drug addiction. "Usually addictions occur in people who are vulnerable, who are lacking something in their lives. We have to really start asking ourselves, what have we taken out of our lives in America? What are some of those values and principles that allowed us to ascend the ladder of success so rapidly to the very pinnacle of the world and the highest pinnacle anyone else had ever reached, and why are we in the process of throwing away all of our values and principles for the sake of political correctness?"
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Candidate's Website, 2014
Supports school choice, saying, "I think having charter schools, having school vouchers, things of that nature are extremely good because unless you are competing for those students, it's very likely you're going to become complacent."
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Book, 2012
Supports cutting all government budgets, including entitlements, by 10% ("America the Beautiful" by Ben Carson)
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Does not believe a plan for mass deportation is realistic, and instead proposes a program for illegals already in the country to register as guest workers. After that step, "we the American people" can consider a path to citizenship.
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"In recent years, there has been a troubling trend of the U.S. Department of Education increasingly trying to dictate how children are educated in our primary and secondary schools. This must stop and Common Core must be overturned."
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"It was no accident that our Founding Fathers enshrined the right to own firearms as the 2nd element of the Bill of Rights, immediately after establishing our free speech rights. I cannot and will not support any efforts to weaken The 2nd Amendment."
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"We must ratify a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution in order to restore fiscal responsibility to the federal government's budget."
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"Many advocates of common sense are also very concerned about the environment but are reasonable enough to realize that rather than using Environmental Protection Agency regulations to stifle abundant energy production, we can use the EPA in conjunction with the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to produce and export a vast amount of clean energy. This could vastly improve our bargaining position throughout the world."
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Supports a universal 10% tax on income, without exceptions
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Candidate's Website, 2015
Started a petition for Congress to defund Planned Parenthood
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Would "probably" enforce federal laws against marijuana in states that legalize marijuana
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Book, 2012
Supports regulating insurance companies as non-profits ("America the Beautiful" by Ben Carson)
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Carson supports Pres. Obama's decision to place special ops forces in Syria. At a November Presidential debate he also said, "What we've been doing so far is very ineffective, but we can't give up ground right there. But we have to look at this on a much more global scale. We're talking about global jihadists. And their desire is to destroy us and to destroy our way of life. So we have to be saying, how do we make them look like losers? Because that's the way that they're able to gather a lot of influence.
"And I think in order to make them look like losers, we have to destroy their caliphate. And you look for the easiest place to do that? It would be in Iraq. And if -- outside of Anbar in Iraq, there's a big energy field. Take that from them. Take all of that land from them. We could do that, I believe, fairly easily, I've learned from talking to several generals, and then you move on from there."
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Book, 2012
"The terrorist network derives most of its money through oil revenues, and we, along with most of the rest of the world, have an insatiable appetite for oil. Unlike the rest of the world, however, we have enormous amounts of oil under North and South Dakota, Montana, and Alaska, as well as offshore oil. I am as much of a conservationist as anyone and love the natural beauty that surrounds us, but the pragmatic part of me warns that there will be no beauty at all if the world is consumed in nuclear conflagration. As we intelligently tap our own resources, we must doggedly pursue other energy sources." ("America the Beautiful" by Ben Carson)
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In August 2015 Carson said, "We don't need a Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs should be folded in under the Department of Defense. And it should be a smooth transition. We need to be looking at the way we take care of soldiers." Carson instead supports giving each veteran a Health Savings Account to spend at any health care provider.
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Supports access to medicinal marijuana, but not recreational marijuana
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Book, 2012
Supports cutting taxes on corporations ("America the Beautiful" by Ben Carson)
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Candidate's Website, 2015
"I am unabashedly and entirely pro-life. Human life begins at conception and innocent life must be protected."
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"I think the death penalty is something that should be decided in a civil manner with the people in the area [state by state]."
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Carson has not specifically addressed the bulk data collection by the NSA, but he has generally expressed negative opinions of excessive surveillance. He said, "There are currently ways for our government to monitor the activities of suspicious individuals. You can get a court order very quickly when necessary. The security and privacy of our citizenry is paramount-one of the central [tenets] of our Constitution. But we can protect our national security without invading the rights of law-abiding citizens."
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"The age at which benefits are distributed should be gradually raised. I stress the word gradually because people must be given a chance to adjust their plans and expectations. It must be forbidden by law for government to use any of the money that has been set aside for Social Security."
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Said the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") "is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. And it is - in a way, it is slavery, in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government."
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"One of the latest massive expansions came early in the Obama years when a Democratic Congress passed the Dodd-Frank banking law and gave birth to an entire new agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB is the ultimate example of regulatory overreach, a nanny state mechanism asserting its control over everyday Americans that they did not want, did not ask for and do not need."
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Supports equal legal rights for same-sex couples and straight couples, but does not believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry
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"It's fortunate the Supreme Court of the United States saw fit last week to rule that corporations could not be coerced into covering religiously objectionable forms of birth control for their employees. This was a critical ruling because it indicates that the majority of the court still thinks that religious beliefs and personal choice have a valid place in American society."
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"I've made it my personal project, every time I visit a country outside the U.S., to ask what do they do to ensure the integrity of voting? There's not one single country anywhere - first world, second world, it doesn't matter - that doesn't have official requirements for voting. My question to those people who say we're racist because we apply those standards: Are all the other countries of the world racist? I don't think so. Voting is an important thing. Obviously, you want to make sure that it's done by the appropriate people."
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"Why is this such a big problem now? Because colleges and universities have learned that all they have to do is accept the student and then the student is eligible for for these federal loans. The problem is the federal loan is not at 3, 2, or 1 percent, it's at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 percent, which is much higher than the going rate for a loan. ... So what do you do about it? Yes, allow the loan, but make the school responsible for the interest. ... College is not a right, it's a privelege, and people used to understand that. There are a number of ways that you can get through that, including an old-fashioned way that unfortunately is a four-letter word: work."
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According to the Wall Street Journal, a campaign spokesman said Ben Carson "believes the [TPP] agreement does help to level the playing field in key markets and is important to improve our ties to trading partners in Asia as a counterbalance to China's influence in the region" and that Carson is "now inclined to support TPP, with reservations."
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Candidate's Website, 2015
Opposes the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran and said, "Without anywhere anytime surprise inspections, a full accounting of Iran's past secret nuclear arms pursuits, elimination of Iran's uranium stockpiles and the lifting of any sanctions only upon verification of Iranian compliance this is not a good deal, but a recipe for disaster and the first fateful step toward a frenzied nuclear arms race in the Middle East."
