Justin Amash sees America leaning more libertarian, hopes Congress will see shift
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash is set to return to Congress after Tuesday, winning his district. Reason magazine quotes the libertarian leaning Republican as he noted that’s the direction America is moving and expect to see more like-minded faces in Congress.
“Congress is delayed by five or 10 years,” said Amash. “But I’m hopeful some of that will start to change. The public is more libertarian, the public is saying we want people who are going to be independent and not bow to leadership in either of the major parties.”
First elected to Congress during the Tea Party wave of 2010, Amash says subsequent elections brought more representatives who are sympathetic to the views of an increasingly libertarian electorate into the fold.
“Our pro-liberty caucus is growing every year,” he said.
This hasn’t been a positive to the Republican Party which propped up a “significant primary challenge from a well-funded opponent backed by neoconservative and corporatist critics of Amash’s views” says Reason in describing Brian Ellis.
Ellis “stooped as low as he could go, releasing an ad that accused Amash of being “al-Qaida’s best friend in Congress” due to the representative’s opposition to NSA spying and unauthorized wars…The ad backfired. District voters preferred Amash’s brand of skeptical anti-government conservatism to Ellis’s Bush-era demagoguery.”
“It felt great to get a big win,” Amash told Reason in an interview. “The people of the district came out and said they like what I am offering, which is independent conservative representation, libertarian representation… My challenger was offering run of the mill, establishment big government Republicanism. People are tired of that.”
Amash now faces Democrat Bob Goodrich who is a “stark contrast” to Amash.
“Goodrich says the desire to cut taxes, and for companies and people to avoid paying taxes has left a big hole in areas where the government needs to invest. Goodrich says that includes education and highways. But Amash says the federal government should have a limited role in issues like poverty and income inequality,” their article reviews.
Amash counters: “Well a lot of the income inequality occurs because you do have regulations in place that are benefiting a few people and a few large corporations at the expense of everyone else. And one of the things that I have pushed for as a federal representative is to end corporate welfare. One example of this is the Export-Import Bank, where regular folks are asked to pay into a corporate welfare bank which then sends money to overseas corporations so they can buy products from corporations here at home.”
Check out the full coverage from Reason HERE
