- April 23, 2024
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Alec Pueschel
AGE: 66
FAMILY: Married, no kids
QUIRKY FACT: Went to 12 schools from first to 12th grade
BIO: The Rev. Alec Pueschel was born near Cambridge, England. He grew up around the military and settled down in the Washington, D.C., area. He served in the U.S. Air Force.
He worked for the FBI and then for the Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland until he retired in 1985. He obtain a commercial pilot’s license and flight instructor certificate. He flew air ambulance and taught primary, advanced and instrument aviation. In his community he was very involved with his church serving there in almost every office. He was ordained in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, in 1997. His first call was to Holy Cross in Jacksonville, from which he retired in January. His wife is Deborah Katz.
What would you do to balance the budget?
One, we really need to start examining what functions of the government are really not functions of the federal government. … We need to have most of this returned to the states. …
You need to have cutbacks, you have to get realistic, and you cannot operate outside of your means. If you can’t have the income, you can’t have the outlay. It’s really just basic common sense. ... We’ve gotten used to the federal government doing things for us that we don’t take the responsibility upon ourselves. ... It’s our own personal responsibility to pay for things like health care. That’s not federal government responsibility; that is our responsibility as individuals.
The whole idea with this federal health care, it’s a boondoggle and it’s going to get worse. I don’t see anything that the federal government does that is, shall we say, economical. They don’t have the incentive. So I think the cuts have to be made, each agency needs to be examined as to working to make the cuts. In fact, some of these agencies need to be eliminated. Like the Department of Education, it is not a federal function, it’s a local function; it should stay at the local level. When federal government comes along and it says, “We’re going to give you money,” there’s always attachments to that money. This leads to tyranny, and that’s one of the things that drove me to get into this race. … School boards are being told what textbooks they can have, what they can do, what they can’t do — it’s not the business of the federal government.
Would you be willing to pledge not to raise taxes?
Yes. I’m dead set against the income tax; I think that needs to be repealed. We need to go to a fair tax. Taxes ought to be on what you consume, your consumption, what you spend, but never on what you earn. … A lot of people who are working under the table don’t pay tax, do they? But if they have a consumption tax, they will. So I think it’s very clear that we need to change our tax structure. And no, I will not raise taxes.
If you’re asked to raise the national debt ceiling, how would you vote? What would you do to reduce the national debt?
We need to say no more raising the debt. You cannot take your credit card and keep trying to pay it off with another credit card. …
When you have overtaxation, overregulation, over indebtedness, what you have, in essence, is killing the economy and until you change those things, you’re not going to get a good debt reduction, and you can’t just have the federal government bail out bad business.
What should be done with the federal tax code? Where do you stand on the subject of a flat tax?
I think the fair tax is a lot better than just a flat tax. I think probably if you have a flat tax you’re going to end up saying, “Well this year it’ll be 20%, but next year we’re going to move to 25%,” so you end up getting back up to where you were. The fair tax eliminates that part of it. …
You need to repeal the amendment that authorized the income tax, because we don’t want to go back to the income tax; we just need to get rid of that and go to the fair tax.
What are you willing to do to reform Medicaid and Medicare?
Reform it. I’m on Medicare, believe it or not, and I don’t like it. I know some people swear by it, but I don’t like it. I’ve heard too many doctors complain about it. I really shouldn’t have to be on it, but I was mandated to be on it. I had a good insurance from my employer … but once I turned 65, that was taken away, and you had to go on Medicare. There’s a lot of people in that situation. …
I’d like to see the federal government actually in the long run wean all of us off Medicare. Now I don’t say that’s going to happen overnight, but I think within two to three generations, 50 years or so, we should be able to let people take their own responsibility and get the federal government out of the health care business. …
I see liberty being lost. If you read your Declaration of Independence and your Constitution, the powers enumerated in there, I don’t see where the federal government has any business (in health care). … The government cannot do these things efficiently. …
But the people who’ve been promised this, you have to honor your promises. …
