Libertarian candidate for Mass. Governor, Carla Howell Libertarians believe less is more
Published on February 20th, 2002
STONEHAM, MA–The newspapers of the Woburn Daily Times, Inc. family have decided to bring all the candidates for Governor of Massachusetts into your home. This could get a little crowded in person, so we’ll run the interviews on our pages, one candidate at a time for eight weeks. The candidates for Governor are Carla Howell (Libertarian), Jill Stein (Green Party), Jane Swift (Republican), Shannon O’Brien (Democrat), Robert Reich (Democrat), Thomas Birming-ham (Democrat), Warren Tolman (Democrat) and Steven Grossman (Democrat). Subscribers to our daily newspapers will find these interviews in their Thursday editions.
Each week this series will briefly introduce a candidate with a summary of his or her personal and political background followed by a question and answer format. All candidates will answer several general questions as well as a few inquiries specifically tailored to each candidate’s unique situation. Carla Howell speaks with us in week one.
CARLA HOWELL Libertarian Party candidate
Carla Howell, 46, of Wayland moved around the country as a child. She attended high schools in Michigan and Pennsylvania and graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia in 1976 with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and computer science. But she was born in the Boston area and decided to return here as an adult. She is single, but has many family members in the area; her father, a Harvard alumnus, lives in Westwood. Howell earned an MBA from Babson College in 1986 and embarked on a 25-year career in the high tech business world. She describes her work as "engineering management." But the task at hand is running for Governor, and she is focused – her answers come quickly and emphatically without hesitation or qualification. Her message is "Small government is beautiful," and she believes it.
Howell has preached this gospel before in losing campaigns for State Auditor four years ago against A. Joseph DeNucci (Democrat) and for U.S. Senate two years ago against Edward Kennedy (Democrat). Although she lost both races she received more than 100,000 votes against DeNucci and more than 300,000 against Kennedy, almost as many as major party contender Jack E. Robinson (Republican).
This year Howell’s message and campaign are intertwined with a ballot question, championed by the Libertarian Party, asking voters to eliminate the Massachusetts income tax. She is a full-time candidate and advocate for the state income tax repeal, and her party has raised close to $500,000 for this dual effort.
Howell has been involved in Libertarian Party politics since 1996, and she wants to convince you that Carla Howell and Libertarian ideology can dramatically improve the quality of life in Massachusetts. Read on to see if you agree...
Question: What do you have to do to get on the ballot?
Howell: All candidates need 10,000 certified signatures. I did it for the Senate easily. We got 19,000. For the income tax ballot question we needed 57,000, and we got 75,000. It won’t be a problem.
Question: Aside from the issue of the state income tax and its possible repeal, tell me about the Libertarian Party and its general stand on governance. How small should state government be? What should the role of state government be?
Howell: Libertarians believe and act to make government smaller. Government should be limited to protecting life, liberty and property – that’s it, like a skeleton crew.
Big government is driving up the cost of healthcare programs, so much so that people sometimes skip appointments they should go to. Big government increases the cost of prescription drugs. Big government is destroying our healthcare system.
Big government is destroying higher education, driving private schools out of business, leaving only state schools where the government meddles with curriculum. This suppresses independent thinking and the free flow of vital information. Big government is also destroying k-12 with mandated curriculum. The results are higher illiteracy and higher drop-out rates. The state government has dramatically increased spending on schools and still the teacher / student ratio has decreased. Parochial schools at half the cost are turning out better educated students.
All we need from the state are law enforcement and the courts, and the military at the federal level.
Question: What about a social safety net?
Howell: The private sector can provide for people dramatically more efficiently and with higher quality. Big government social programs will be replaced almost immediately by more effective, more humane services. For example, look at when a disaster, like a mud slide, devastates an area in Central America. Within 48 hours millions of dollars are mobilized from private citizens to help.
Question: Again aside from the income tax, what do you believe is the most important issue facing Massachusetts, and what would you do as Governor to address it?
Howell: The state government imposes dangerous anti-gun laws that leave citizens unable to defend themselves. All these laws don’t work and should be eliminated. Laws against crime – murder, rape, child molestation – are the laws we need. Anti-gun laws only signal to criminals that honest people are unarmed. Criminals will always be able to get guns on the black market. These laws endanger a woman who needs to protect herself from a rapist or a mother defending her children.
Question: Now on to the income tax. The Libertarian Party has sponsored a question that will be on the general election ballot on Nov. 5, 2002, to repeal the Massachusetts income tax which is now assessed at 5.3 percent of personal income. What is the approximate total state budget for fiscal 2002, ending June 30, 2002, and how much of it was raised from this year’s income tax?
Howell: Nine billion dollars of the $23 billion state budget [comes from the income tax].
Question: What would you cut and how? Would anything be exempt from the ax?
Howell: Well, the big government budget of Michael Dukakis was $10 billion... Editor’s note: adjusting for inflation the same budget today would be around $14 billion. ...So we don’t need to spend $23 billion. I would remove programs that can’t justify their existence. All departments would be forced to account for all their spending, and if they can’t, they’re on the chopping block. There has been an enormous arrogance and disregard for taxpayers. All government spending should be published on the Internet accurately and immediately.
The repeal of the state income tax would put $3,000 back in the pockets of taxpayers every year for the rest of their lives. They could save this for a catastrophe, donate it to charity, use it to work less to free up their time to do charity work.
A Beacon Hill Institute study from 1998 said lowering the income tax from six percent, the rate at the time, to three percent would create 400,000 new jobs in Massachusetts. Editor’s note: This would equal a net gain of around 300,000 jobs after a loss of 100,000 state jobs.
Question: Are you afraid that eliminating the income tax could interfere with paying for state debt obligations or the pension fund?
Howell: We already have more than enough revenue to make these payments, and the state has no business issuing bonds and taking on debt for the taxpayers to pay.
Question: Do you think the State Legislature would let the repeal of the income tax stand? They’ve blocked and gutted the Clean Elections Law. How will the income tax repeal be different?
Howell: That’s why the people have to elect me, so I can fight for the undeniable will of the people.
Question: While we’re almost on the subject, what do you think of the Clean Elections Law? Editor’s note: Candidates for state offices who restrict their fund-raising to limited personal donations are eligible for state funding under the law which 66 percent of the voters passed on the general election ballot in 1998. The law is not yet in effect, and the Legislature is discussing repealing it or exempting races for State Legislature.
Howell: Public financing of campaigns doesn’t work. The law is unethical and elitist. Its dirty little secret is that rich deep pocket individuals financed the ballot question. The law gives welfare to undeserving politicians and forces people to fund candidates whose views they oppose.
Question: What is your position on the legalization of drugs?
Howell: The war on drugs is a failed, morally wrong, no-win war. It encourages harmful drug use, particularly among kids, and is responsible for a rise in homicide. The drug laws lead to thefts and break-ins, the abridgement of our rights, a source of funds for terrorists and the denial of medical marijuana to A.I.D.S. and cancer patients.
Question: What is your position on abortion?
Howell: There should be no government involvement, meaning no laws to restrict abortion and no state subsidies forcing taxpayers to fund abortion.
Question: What is your position on the death penalty?
Howell: I narrowly oppose it. Big government cannot be trusted with so weighty a decision. The FBI routinely fails to submit documents to court proceedings. We must keep violent criminals in jail. Violent criminals are released because of mandatory minimums [for other crimes such as drug possession] and that is insane. Release the pot smokers, and keep the dangerous criminals in jail.
Question: What would you do as Governor about the Big Dig?
Howell: The Big Dig is an example of bi-partisan big government. At this point we must finish it, but we must rebid any part not delivered on time and on budget. Every contractor needs to get a performance bond from an insurance company, so if they’re late, then the insurance company pays, not the taxpayers. If they can’t get insurance, they can’t bid. We must audit the contractors and disclose who has made contributions. And all this information should be on the Internet.
Question: Recent polls and stories in the Boston press indicate that Republican Governor Jane Swift is vulnerable even within her party. Do you think you can win Republican votes, and if so, why not run as a Republican?
Howell: Small government Republicans who believe in and want a dramatic tax cut support Carla Howell. Swift and Cellucci have also betrayed Republicans who are gun owners. But right now the Republican leadership has socially conservative, big government leaders.
Question: Why do you believe you would be a better Governor than the other seven candidates?
Howell: Small government is beautiful.
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