Many expect Indiana’s US Senate campaign to go down to the wire this November, between Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly and Republican challenger Mike Braun.
Libertarian Lucy Brenton could have an impact on such a tight race.
Indiana Public Broadcasting’s Brandon Smith talks with Brenton about her goals and reasons for running.
More US Senate election coverage at indianapublicmedia.org/election
Brandon Smith: How would you view being a U.S. senator as a Libertarian?
Lucy Brenton: As a Libertarian, my job in the U.S. Senate really to be to return us to constitutional values. The very first thing that I would do is look at what laws have been passed that are unconstitutional and work towards repealing those. We must go back to the master contract that governs this country and that’s the Constitution.
Smith: How do you envision doing that as presumably one Libertarian among 99 other Republicans and Democrats, for the most part?
Brenton: It’s funny because I also see my role there as a referee, as somebody that can cross the line and say ‘Let’s work together.’ Because when the Republicans work with the Democrats, it’s usually for something that’s going to collude against the American public, increase taxes, you know get those Christmas tree bills that are so famous passed. But my job as a Libertarian would bring people to the point of consensus on freedom.
Smith: There’s been a lot of discussion in this campaign about sort of how you represent Hoosiers when it comes to working with President Trump. How would you view your role, as it comes to working with President Trump in D.C.?
Brenton: My role would then be to hold him back from doing the things that are unconstitutional. My role is to hold people to the Constitution – that’s the master contract. I think what we saw in the debate on October 8 was Sen. Donnelly trying to prove how Republican he is and of course Braun with the ACA trying to prove how Democrat he is. What they’re proving is that they are more of the same.
Smith: How do you define success when it comes to the tariffs that have been in play over the last year-and-a-half?
Brenton: How are these subsidies that are given to replace the money lost by tariffs affecting the average individual. The average Hoosier is paying multiple times for that tariff – first in the price of corn, then in the price of the subsidies to the farmers. So it’s absolutely unacceptable that we’re being stolen from at every level. I believe in zero corporate income taxes. The reason our jobs are being outsourced is so that we can keep prices low by not having as many corporate taxes included in the price. Having corporate taxes of zero would allow our corporations to stay in this country, keep prices low.
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Smith: How do you replace the money that would be lost by zeroing out those taxes?
Brenton: The money isn’t lost anywhere. The money is simply in the consumers hands instead of the government’s. So, if I pay $10 for a product instead of $15 because of the taxes, now the consumer pays $10 and the other $5 stays in the consumer’s pocket, where it belongs.
Smith: There’s also the issue of health care. Is there any role for government in health care, in your mind?
Brenton: There is no role in government for health care, in my mind. When government enters a market, it disrupts it. It’s an unseen hand that moves prices up. When you take people out of the position of actually paying for their own health care, they don’t know how much it costs. I’ll use myself as an example. When I worked for the phone company, I had amazing insurance. I had birth, baby number seven, that was over $15,000. And I literally did not have even an aspirin; there was no OB-GYN there, it was a midwife-assisted birth. But yet with my baby number nine, born at home, that baby was $4,000. That’s it – it’s an $11,000 cost differential because there’s no competition and you are insulated from the cost by the insurance companies. Do you want to know why your premiums are so high? That’s it; it’s that thousand dollars aspirin.
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Smith: If you remove government entirely from health care, though, doesn’t that put everything in the hands of the insurance companies – and is that what people want?
Brenton: No, it puts it back in the hands of the consumer and the provider, where it should be.
Smith: The tax reform bill – something that Mike Braun obviously supports, something that Joe Donnelly says is bad for this country in the long term. If you had been in the U.S. Senate when the tax reform bill came up, how would you have voted?
Brenton: I will vote for anything that increases freedom and reduces cost. So, I would’ve voted for it but I don’t think it went far enough. When I reviewed it, it looked like Trump took from 35 to 21 percent on the corporate income tax. That’s great; that means that consumers are going to pay less. But it’s not nearly good enough.
