March 3, 2020 Primary Questionnaire
Top Three Priorities

CLIMATE ACTION – An Ecosocialist Green New Deal featuring public enterprise to rapidly rebuild the power, transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and agricultural sectors for 100% clean energy and zero or negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

ECONOMIC JUSTICE – An Economic Bill of Rights: Job guarantee. Guaranteed income above poverty. Affordable housing for all. Improved Medicare for All. Tuition-free public education preK through college. Retirement security by doubling Social Security.

PEACE – End the endless wars. US troops home. Cut military spending by 75%. No First Use of nuclear weapons. Disarm to Minimum Credible Deterrent. Negotiate mutual nuclear disarmament with nuclear powers. Sign the new Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

1: What programs or legislation, if any, would you support to help Americans of all ages to secure affordable health care?

I support a community-controlled National Health Service that treats health care as a human right and a public good. It will cover all medically necessary services with no out-of-pocket costs, including doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug, and medical supply costs

It starts by immediately implementing National Health Insurance, what is commonly called today single-payer Medicare for All. Over 10 years it builds out a National Health Service where healthcare facilities are publicly owned, healthcare workers are salaried, and the system is governed by community boards elected by the public (two-thirds of the seats) and health care workers (one-third of the seats). Based on a national assessment of unmet healthcare needs, it develops a plan to meet those needs, implements the plan, and converts the system to a fully public and democratically-run healthcare service.

This community-based National Health Service proposal has its roots in the Josephine Butler United States Health Care Service Act, which was introduced into every Congress for over 30 years, from 1977 to 1998 by Rep. Ron Dellums and from 1999 to 2010 by his successor, Rep. Barbara Lee. It was developed by medical and consumer advocates, and particularly by Civil Rights Movement veterans in the Medical Committee for Human Rights. It is time to again expand the health care reform agenda from socialized insurance for privatized care to a fully socialized and democratic system – publicly funded, publicly administered, and publicly delivered.

The entire plan is here:
https://howiehawkins.us/the-hawkins-healthcare-plan-medicare-for-all-as-a-community-controlled-national-health-service/.

2: Describe an immigration policy that you would support if presented to the President.

I support open borders with free movement between nations like it is within the European Union. International borders should be authentic fair-trade zones where people are free to travel across borders for work, shopping, residence, or recreation. People crossing international borders would be required to present their identification at a border crossing. Only people wanted for criminal charges or terrorist organization affiliation would be detained. People who cross without checking in at a border crossing would also be detained and brought to an official border crossing.

I would immediately close the border detention camps and reunite children with their families. I support legalizing the status of all undocumented immigrants and providing a timely path to citizenship.

Because of their persistent abuse of migrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (BPE) should be dismantled and replaced with a new immigration agency with personnel committed to the humane treatment of migrants and the administration of an open borders policy.

3: What financing method(s) would you support to repair or improve roads, rails, ports, airports, the electrical grid, and other infrastructure in the U.S.?

I have proposed a budget for an Ecosocialist Green New Deal, which is an emergency federal program to rebuild all of the infrastructure and production systems of the country for 100% clean energy and zero to negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. It would renovate all sectors of production: clean renewable power, electrified transportation, zero-waste manufacturing, green buildings, and regenerative organic agriculture.

The rapid reconstruction of the infrastructure and production systems will require social ownership and democratic planning of the power, transportation, manufacturing, and broadband sectors. During World War II the federal government built or took over from private enterprise a quarter of U.S. manufacturing in order to turn industry on a dime into what they called the “Arsenal of Democracy” to help defeat the Nazis and fascists. We need to do nothing less to defeat the existential threat of climate change.

The program will pay for itself in the long run through the sale of public goods and services through public power fees, public transportation fares, public housing rents, public high-speed internet fees, and leasing or selling green machinery to Green New Deal factories.

We will finance the upfront investment through a combination of:

• More Progressive Taxation of personal income, wealth, estates, and corporate profits.
• Ecological Taxes on land values, resource extraction, and carbon and other pollution.
• Budget Savings from cutting in military budget by 75% and by ending fossil fuel subsidies and other corporate welfare programs
• Green Quantitative Easing to bail out the people and the planet this time instead of the big banks.
• Public Money, or Greenbacks – Monetary reform to restore the federal government’s power to create debt-free money to be spent into the economy through the federal budget.

My Budget for an Ecosocialist Green New Deal is presented in detail and with budget estimates at:
https://howiehawkins.us/the-ecosocialist-green-new-deal-budget/.