North Carolina has recently reaching new limits with the 2016 election. With such a divided political system, J.J. Summerell is running for Congress in District 1 as a libertarian.
As chair, the Libertarian Party of North Carolina has grown nearly 30% in non-election years, but during election season, the party has grown around 93%. Not only has the party grown with Summerell as chair, but they are finally organized.
“I think I am the first [libertarian] to ever run in North Carolina that has a paid campaign manager and paid fundraising.” J.J. said. If elected, Summerell has many plans to implement in District 1- the poorest house district in our nation. He calls it “welfare rejuvenation”, but is also known as what Martin Luther King Jr. was working on before he got assassinated.
“So what I have proposed is a basic income guarantee. The government pays each person that makes below less than x dollars a certain amount of money for their welfare and they can spend it any way they would like. On food, on daycare, on babyfood, on medical bills- whatever,” J.J. went on. “This is an idea that Switzerland just implemented with their social welfare program. Even though they are wealthy, they were getting out of control. What it would do is give people an income but it would also allow us to get rid of 8-12 major federal bureaucracies- entire agencies. We could increase welfare benefits to these folks and cut the costs of taxpayers. Its called the basic income guarantee.”
Summerell also mentioned about the importance of getting out of the Middle East saying, “We broke it and now we need to fix it.”
Public school districts in District 1 or some of the worst in the nation. Summerell has many plans on solving this problem for North Carolina’s students. He stated that his proposal to congress would be getting rid of the department of the education and take half of the savings and give it to another department, take the other half and put it in the 10% of the poorest performing school districts. Summerell stated, “We’d have some money to do something with the schools and completely change them.”
Summerell has advice for voters this election season, “Follow your heart, not your party.”
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