Q: Why did you decide to run for Pennsylvania Auditor General?  

A: “Because it combines two things that I love: auditing, which I’ve been an auditor for the law enforcement officer for over 30 years, but also service to the community. And I felt, because I have my unique experience, I’ve audited on the county level, the state level, the federal level and in the private sector, and I’ve been an internal auditor and a forensic auditor, with my unique set of experiences, I could make a difference, I could help state government and so I just felt with with my unique qualifications, that I could do some good with it.”

Q: What job did you have before running for Auditor General? How will this experience help you if you get elected?

A: “Yes, as far as my experiences, but my experiences of being a law enforcement, law enforcement officer and an auditor, and one of the things that I’ve always done is looked at how government uses its money, whether it’s using its money the way it’s supposed to be used, the programs that are funded by the government, whether or not they are working and if government is actually doing what it’s supposed to be, what it’s supposed to be doing, and making sure that when government does something with people’s money, with taxpayer dollars, that it actually shows what it was spent on and how it was spent. So, that’s something that I’ve been doing my entire life.”

Q: What do you, your party and your platform stand for?

A: “Things are a little different for me, my party may have one way of thinking, and they may have a certain platform. My platform is doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done, and we we follow the Pennsylvania fiscal COVID-19, which dictates what we’re supposed to do in government, and we also have to follow the generally accepted government auditing standards by the federal government, which tells us how to do the work. So one of the things is the auditing standards, auditing standards. State is that we’re supposed to be independent, which means we’re supposed to be independent of any political party or any political affiliation when we’re doing our job. So as far as a particular party platform, we don’t follow, or I don’t follow, any political party platform. It’s the fiscal COVID-19 that dictates what we’re supposed to do, and that’s what we follow, not a political ideology. We’re a political, non-partisan organization, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be, and that’s the way it’s going to be, all right.”

Q: What three issues are you most passionate about and are going to address if you get elected?

A: “Well, the one thing we’ve already addressed is financial literacy, and this is how it impacts you. It’s I, it’s my opinion that financial literacy needs to be taught in every school in Pennsylvania, from kindergarten through 12th grade. Why is that? Well, it’s because eventually, when you get out of high school, or you go to college, get out of college, and you may be working now and and we want to make sure that you have all the tools to make sure that you make the right decisions with with your money, that you understand how to spend your money, understanding what credit means, understand what it means to save for retirement, understand what it means to save for a for an emergency. So that’s the one thing I’m extremely passionate about is financial financial literacy. Another one that I’m extremely passionate about, that we’re working on, is making sure that people like yourself, who either go to a four year college or community college have a career opportunity within an apartment so we can have a career. Did a program called intern to hire, which means, if you intern with us, and you complete the internship program, you can have a job after you, after you complete the internship, but also providing opportunities for students going to community colleges, making sure that that that they have opportunities, the same opportunities as as anybody else. So addressing, addressing those making sure that our young people such as yourself, have a possible career, if you so choose, with the department. And probably the third one is addressing the first line of determining whether or not there is white collar crime has been committed is by performing audits. And so for that, we’re starting a forensic audit section. Take a deeper dive into areas where we think a crime may have been committed, but we are not sure if a crime is being committed, and this forensic audit section would be responsible for them for doing that. So those are probably, and I could go along with others, but those are probably the top three.”

Q: Why should 18-year-old high school students vote for you?

A: “Because I’m doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done. And one of the things that I always talk about when I speak to high school students, when I speak to groups, I talk about government the same way my parents talk to me and my brothers and sisters about government, understanding what each function of government is supposed to do. Each level of government is different. You have your three levels of government. You have to be judicial, you have your executive, you have your legislative. Each one has a different function. I’m considered part of the executive branch of government facing a specific function, and that is to look after taxpayer dollars. And that’s something I’ve been doing my entire life, because I care about how taxpayer dollars are being spent, but I also care about government making sure that government is is operating in a way in which it’s it’s being efficient, and that’s something I’ve dedicated my entire life to doing and doing it the right way, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

Q: I want to switch topics a little bit into certain issues that are important statewide, but also to our school at Altoona Area High specifically. So first thing, what are your thoughts on abortion?

A: “As far as with regards to that, that’s something that’s up to a patient and their doctor.

I mean, as far as for me being Auditor General, that’s something that we don’t audit, but that is something that’s very private, and the Auditor General has no role of responsibility about that. So that should be something that should be addressed with the patient and their doctor. I have a doctor’s appointment coming up, and some of the things I’m going to be discussing with my doctor are private. So that’s something that needs to be, that’s something that needs to be a private discussion between the patient and the doctor.”

Q: Concerning taxes and regulations, will they play into your Auditor General role?

A: “As far as that, the only thing, the only way that it does is we audit corporate taxes, making sure that corporations pay their fair share of corporation taxes. We audit that. Aside from that, as far as if you’re thinking like individual taxes and paying taxes, that’s not part of our role. Part of our role is making sure that corporations pay their fair share. We don’t get into individual taxes, and we don’t get into whether or not someone has we don’t we don’t audit individuals for taxes, so no one has to worry no one, no individual out there has to worry about us knocking their doors here, we’re here to order you. That’s going to be the IRS is going to do that, and that’s not part of our role. But we look at Corporation taxes.”

Q: And then I know that some of the issues that I’m going to mention now might not directly play into your position, but we would still like to hear your stances on them. So concerning the economy and inflation from post-COVID-19, is there anything that you’ll be able to do as Auditor General to curb that?

A: “The only thing that we have as far as to curb it, the only thing that we do is if you talk about the money that came from the federal government, so what we would do, if it came from the federal government to the Department of Revenue then paid out, we would audit that, and that would be included in something we call a single audit, which is an audit of expenditures from the federal government, but it has to come from the federal government to the state treasury, then disperse. If it’s funds coming from the federal government to other entities inside the Commonwealth, then that would be the federal not state, the federal inspector general that would audit that. So we would audit those funds after they’re spent, making sure again that they’re spent the way that they’re supposed to be spent. And that’s the thing about some of these funds, especially the COVID-19 funds, either there you have your discretionary funds and your non discretionary funds, you know the difference between the two.”

Q: Could you expand on that a little?

A: “With regards to COVID-19 funds, there’s both your discretionary funds and your non discretionary funds. Discretionary funds means that they’re supposed to be spent a certain way. Non discretionary funds means that you can spend those however you see fit, our responsibility is to make sure discretionary funds which are, which are to be spent a certain way, making sure that those are fact monitored, and making sure that those funds were, in fact, spent the way they were supposed to be spent.”

Q: What about climate change, the environment and policies such as that? Will that play any role in the Auditor General position? 

A: “Well, if it depends if it’s if there are fees that the Department of Environmental Resources are supposed to be doing with regards to climate change in the environment, then we would audit that to make sure, in fact, that they’re they’re doing that we wouldn’t create policy because we don’t create policy right, but we’re making sure that those policies that are supposed to be followed are, in fact followed.”

Q: Concerning health care, with regards to the Auditor General position, does that play any role?

A: “Okay, we would audit if, again, if state funds are being spent, and that’s the one thing important to remember, we just audit state funds. We don’t audit federal funds directly from the federal government, and we don’t audit local government funds. They have other entities who do that. As far as health care, whatever health care programs, whatever government sponsored healthcare programs, that state taxpayer dollars usually would audit that. For example, we recently audited Medicaid pharmacy benefit transfers. So we would audit to make sure, again, that those funds are being spent the way it’s supposed to be spent, and that the individuals who provide those healthcare services on behalf of people who are enrolled in the government sponsored healthcare program, that those services are in fact being provided, and that there is no extra fees added on, but the services in which are being provided making sure they’re being provided the way they’re supposed to be provided, if that makes any sense.” 

Q: What about energy and transportation? Would you audit anything in those areas?

A: “Concerning transportation  and energy, as long as state dollars are being spent with regards to energy and transportation, we are definitely auditing that. For example, roads. So what transportation, roads and bridges? Well, whenever you have a road and or a bridge that taxpayer dollars are being used, state tax dollars, those supposed to, they were supposed to be built a certain way. They’re supposed to last a certain amount of time, but they were supposed to be inspected, inspected to see if they are, if they need repair or need to be closed or need to be replaced. Our job is to also audit that, to make sure that, in fact, is happening.”

Q: What about concerning post-secondary education pursuits and costs such as college debt and things like that? Is there anything that you’ll be able to do in the auditor general position to impact that?

 A: “No. Yes, that’s something that’s more legislative, okay, but one of the things that we do for our employees is that we work with a lot of colleges in the state where, if you were an employee, if you’re an employee with us and if you have or if you have kids, I’m trying to hear the strange news. I’m having work done in my house. So as far as for our employees, we offer tuition discounts to our employees and to our employees dependents at Community glass. Community colleges and a lot of four year institutions. That’s the way that we’ve dealt with it. But as far as the cost of school, we wouldn’t necessarily be with the cost. However, if state funds are being used, we would make sure that those colleges and universities are using taxpayer dollars to where they’re supposed to use them.”

Q: And then, I know this may not play into your role, but I would still like to address it. Concerning immigration and the border, I mean, obviously we’re not a border state, but is that going to impact your role in any way?

A: “No, it doesn’t, not just current time. However, if there is legislation that comes out where taxpayer dollars are being used, then we would look at that, regardless of what it is. But as we stand right now, it doesn’t, however, if it’s legislated, then it possibly could be okay.”

Q: Concerning the First and Second Amendment, could you tell me your thoughts on them, and if they have any impact in your position?

A: “No, they don’t, because that is a policy-driven issue, and so that would be up to the legislature.” 

Q: Okay, could you still give me your opinion? 

A: “My opinion is something needs to be done. I mean, as far as there’s just other than Harrisburg, two days ago, a 16-year-old kid was shot. So the first question is, how did the 16-year-old get a gun? That’s my first thought. I’m raising a 17-year-old. Every time he walks out the door, I’m concerned. I’m concerned for him. And I think what needs to happen is both Republicans and Democrats need to get together and come up with some common sense solutions and how to deal with this issue, because until we do, people are going to still people, especially young kids, are still going to continue to die out in the street, and no one, and no one can say that there’s nothing that can’t be done. Things can be done, but at some point somebody has to. Somebody has to have to pass to do something like this right now. Where we are as a society is not working. What we’re doing now isn’t working.”

Q: And then, how would that look like if you had the power to say, change policies such as gun control? What would your solution to that problem look like?

A: “Well, here’s what I would look at the current gun laws, all the current gun laws being followed. That’s where, that’s where, that’s where you start, you would start, where are, where are we now? Are the current laws being followed? If not? Why? What is it that we can do, that everybody can agree upon and build from that.”

Q: Along the same lines with school shootings that have been occurring in the past several years, could you just give me your idea of how this issue could be fixed as well, whether it’s gun control or something else?

A: “That’s part of it. I mean, for one thing, you know, no young kid, especially a middle school kid, should be able to easily get their hands on a gun from their home. Okay, that’s careless and that’s reckless.” 

Q: Would you be for or against stricter gun laws and stricter gun control in Pennsylvania?

A:” The first thing I would do is we have a lot of gun laws, and I think the gun laws that we have definitely need to be updated, and law enforcement in different states needs to work, need to work together. But I think that as far as restrictor, if that’s something that we need, if that’s going to help, yeah, but also I understand people’s right to bear arms. I’m former law enforcement, and I have a gun myself, but my gun is safe and secure where I’m the only person who can get it. But I think that there needs to be. What I would do is put together a bipartisan group, a bipartisan group, and have them sit in a room and come up with the best strategies and how to deal with this issue. Because if you are going to have politicians just talk about this issue, nothing’s going to happen. So it has to be a bipartisan group, and whatever the bipartisan group comes up with, then that’s what we go with.”

Q: Concerning security in schools, also in the context of school shootings. For us at Altoona Area High every morning, we have to go through security checks, metal detectors and everything. What are your thoughts on school security?

A: “When I was in high school, we didn’t have these issues. And I just, I don’t know if this was a cop out answer or not, I really wouldn’t know how you feel. It’s sad, because I know the freedom that I had in high school, where I could just walk in, but we didn’t have these issues back then. Now with high school, trust me, the bottom line is to make sure you’re safe, right? That’s the bottom line, because you don’t know what’s going to happen now. Now, it’s just a different world that we live in, and it’s unfortunate that some of the things are happening because you know someone like you, you missed out on so much because of a lot of the restrictions, because you don’t know what other people are going to do. What was your question?” 

Q: My question was, would you be for or against more security officers and regulations like that in schools?

A: “Here’s what I would do. I would defer to law enforcement, because as far as safety and gun violence in schools. That’s a law enforcement question. So what I would do is, whatever law enforcement and Pennsylvania, the top law enforcement agency in the state, State Police, whatever, whatever they would recommend, is what I would go with.” 

Q: I want to pivot and change the topic again, into gender identity and the LGBTQ+ community. Could you give me your thoughts on them? 

A: “Well, we have a DEI initiative in our office, diversity, equity, inclusion, and that, what we basically do is it, no matter who you are, no matter who you identify with, you can have a safe place to work. All we care about is whether you can audit. Doesn’t matter who or what you identify as. And so we have the DEI initiative for that reason, where we’ve had every month

or every quarter, where we have people who from different diverse backgrounds, actually speak to employees about whether they’re gay, trans or even with regards to the Crown act. The Crown act pretty much deals with how you were. Here, you know some schools in some schools in some, some professional settings, you can wear your hair a certain way and that’s been a problem going on for some time. And so we have people come on talking about what it’s like to be gay, talking about different hairstyles, talking about the crown act. So with the department, it doesn’t really matter. I have several gay people in my front office. I didn’t hire them because they’re gay. I hired it because they knew what they were doing. So as long as we have that mindset where we just don’t focus on what the purpose, what the person loves, what the purpose, what the person identifies himself as being as we start looking at them as individuals who can do the job in which you’re hiring to do. I think we need to be at a much better place. So that’s where we have our di initiatives. So everybody can become comfortable whenever they come to work for us.”

Q: And then, concerning housing, is there anything that you’ll be able to do as Auditor General to make the situation better?

A: “We perform audits like on the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Association, make sure that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do when it comes to the house. Okay, so that’s, that’s what we would do as far as any policy, anything like that. No, because again, what we don’t do is we’re not a policy and compliance department, so we make sure that others follow compliance and follow laws and follow policy. We understand housing is important as an individual, and tend to be forward speaking. It’s an ongoing issue of affordable housing.”

Q: Concerning all of the issues that I mentioned and we discussed, is there anything else that you would like to address if you get the Auditor General position?

A: “No, that pretty much covers it all. We focus on doing the job and again, keeping politics out of the office. We have a specific function that is required by law for us to do, and our job is to do that free of politics. And that’s the plan, is to do that, continue to do the job the way it’s supposed to be done.”

Unable to be reached for comment.

Q: Why did you decide to run for Pennsylvania Auditor General?  

A:  “I decided to run for the American Solidarity party. As part of our ballot access initiative this year for the state of Pennsylvania, we had candidates for president, and we also had a candidate for U.S. senator. However, we did not have one for the Secretary of State. They didn’t accept our ballot petition for president and forced our senatorial candidate to withdraw his run. I think the GOP is the one who initiated those threats, and I’m the lone man left on for our ballot access initiative for the state of Pennsylvania.” 

Q: What job did you have before running for Auditor General? How will this experience help you if you get elected?

A: “I am an Army veteran, and a lot of these things are just organization of people and tasks.  I did that before I was a company commander. So I was in command of 137 people. We supported a battalion, which supported a brigade with a whole variety of services and support. So in terms of organization, I have experience with that. In terms of auditing stuff, I run my own budget. That company we had, if my memory serves me right, had over $40 million worth of equipment, property and various other budgetary needs. So tracking numbers down, it’s not the hardest job in the world. It just requires persistence and effort.” 

Q: What do you, your party and your platform stand for?

A: “The party takes our tradition from the Christian Democratic tradition from Europe. And this is a simple way to think about us but not a full picture: we would be considered on the right on social issues and on the left for economic issues. We basically believe that you need to take care of [people]. You can’t hurt them. You can’t kill them, no matter the position they’ll place in life. If you work in a place, you should have a say in how things are run. You need to be able to live your life in dignity and to not be forced down by either the major centralized government or a vast, powerful private monopoly like, say, Amazon—which I just read a story about the worries about their economic position, suppressed stories on unionization efforts and their warehouses that just came out yesterday. We’re against that sort of thing. We’re for people having a say in how they live their lives, and how to live their lives with dignity. I’m not expecting to become the Auditor General by any means, though I would like the parking space. I would expand on how the current Auditor General is doing things, as far as investigating how medical insurance companies bill the state through Medicare, Medicaid programs, and how currently—this was a report published in August, 28—pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have basically over-billed the public treasury by about $7 million. Now these sorts of PBMS, all they are are middle managers that shuffle paper. They don’t actually add anything to someone who’s sick, who needs medicine. All they’re there is to take money from the system and exposing that sort of a money trail is important. And as far as, say, someone who’s a high school student such as yourself might be interested in. Well, right now, Pennsylvania public schools have decreasing enrollment every year. So few and fewer students are going in every year, but spending increases every year. But that spending is not going towards students, it’s not going towards teachers, it is going towards administrators and the various county offices and the state offices. So you’re paying people that aren’t teaching students. Money is not going to students. It’s being lost, and it is going to pay for someone’s job. So the question needs to be, is a school system supposed to be for teaching students, or is it supposed to be a jobs program? And as an Auditor General, I’d like to look at that sort of trail and show some sunlight on it. Where’s the money going? Why isn’t it going towards students? Why is it that our system is failing so many students, and we’re pretending that we’re actually teaching people? I’ve seen it for years now, and so across the country, and especially in Pennsylvania, that people shoot the stats and make it look like they’re doing their job and they’re not actually doing it. So if you look at the money, you can start exposing that.” 

Q: Hypothetically, if you were to be elected to your position, what issue would you address first?

A: “First would be to understand all the current auditing processes. Right now, the Auditor General’s office has a few 100 million dollars going towards auditing different companies and auditing different programs, pension funds and all that, trying to understand those processes to see who they’re looking at, and, more importantly, who they’re not looking at. If you have one person assigned to look at all the companies that are contracted for the XYZ school system, we have 20 employees auditing all the companies for the ABC school system. You need to ask this question of, why is that sort of disparity there? If you’re charged with auditing all that, you need to have an equal distribution of resources and try to figure out who’s being looked at for what is important, so understanding these procedures and where resources are allocated in order to properly do the job that the State Constitution mandates for that office.”

Q: Why should 18-year-old high school students vote for you?

A: “Well, I’m going to ask you this: What has voting for the lesser evil done for this country? The first presidential election I really recall is Bush v. Gore in 2000. The first one I could vote in was Obama v. McCain. What have progressives actually progressed? What have conservatives actually conserved? How has the common good been supported? What sort of future are you expecting? I remember all the concerns over these forever wars being a big thing growing up, and then I watched people forget about all that on a dime, just for a candidate, because the big wigs say that this is how things are now. Just because someone has a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ behind their name doesn’t mean that you owe them your loyalty, right? The next generation is important. You need to understand these things and well, frankly, you guys have been given the short end of the stick in a lot of ways, and it can’t keep going the same way it’s been going. So why not try something new? Because how has the same old, same old business actually helped you? That’s my message.” 

Q: I want to pivot and address a lot of issues that are important nationally, but also important to our high school. What are your thoughts on abortion?

A: “To be able to kill someone just because of their location, because of the circumstances of their conception, their gender, whatever. It’s wrong. You’re killing a human being. We are here to support the least of us, no matter  their place in life, and to kill an innocent life is wrong, period.”

Q: What are your thoughts on taxes?

A: “A lot of the problems in our tax system are that people have all these loopholes, and they’re written for people. The loopholes that are written for large companies that have the lawyers to navigate them. So if you were to talk about me and the kind of party position, get rid of loopholes before we start talking about marginal tax rates and all that. Just start getting rid of all loopholes that force companies, only large companies whether they actually use them. And also get rid of a lot of the barriers in the welfare system basically forcing people to stay on it and not be able to get married and start families or to get into dual income status, and they start losing their benefits. So reorganizing that tax system, that is, you know, several 1000 pages long, is probably step one.”

Q: I would like to pivot to the economy and inflation. What are your thoughts on them, and how will they play into your Auditor General position?

A: “What the Auditor General could do is, because a lot of inflation is based on government expenditure, so if you start exposing the fact that PBMs and other sorts of government contracts, overcharge the government, overcharge the state of Pennsylvania, and that’s more tax money being taken out from people and just going into private hands. Exposing that, correcting that. It’s not a huge thing, but if you do it on a large enough scale, it will start reducing some of that spending and start reducing some of that inflation. This changes the fact that the public, the average taxpayer, is being robbed and just giving it to a private interest.” 

Q: What about the environment, climate change and things like that? 

A: “Most important thing right now as far as the environment goes is that you get huge amounts of erosion and topsoil and other sorts of biodiversity loss. And those are really important things that you can’t just ignore. This world has been given to all of us. We have a duty to [protect] it and to be good towards it. As far as climate change goes, well, it is a global problem. What you could do right now? The only real thing you can do right now is between countries like China and India that are just doing whatever they feel, starting with mitigation. How do you shorten supply chains? How do you prepare for droughts? How do you prepare for floods and all that? All right, so you have to do those sorts of steps. That’s the sort of thing you need to focus on first, because, frankly, it’s a global problem, and then if other nations aren’t doing their share, there’s only a limit to how much we can do.”

Q: What about health care measures? Do you think that should be something that the government takes care of, or should it be more left up to communities and local governments?

A: “There is a common thing that I am okay with. Medicare for all, abortion for none. All right, a lot of the reason why we have the massive private insurance options is because of the legacy of can’t raise wages and the World War II environment, and that has created huge inefficiencies in the system, and frankly, as a small worker cooperative, those people need to have health insurance, and they shouldn’t have to be paying out the nose on their own. That is a public good. I want my neighbors to be healthy. I want them to be educated. I don’t think that just because they’re poor they should be forgotten about and left behind.”

Q: What about sources of energy and transportation?

A: “Okay, if we’re talking about land use, fossil fuel and carbon emission stuff, nuclear power is the way to go. A lot of the problems that we have with nuclear power and getting it out there are purely self-inflicted, and the regulatory processes, especially when you’re talking about introducing the newer Gen-4 and the small modular reactors, which can be a big game changer. As far as fossil fuels go, I’d like to see most of them go away, right? Oil is important. Gas is important for transportation. It doesn’t need to be burned for power. Coal is very dirty. We need to understand that and understand that it’s a huge problem, especially for the health issues for the miners and the workers in those areas, and just throwing some dirt and planting some grass on top of a coal mining site doesn’t change the fact that you’ve torn off half a mountain. That’s a huge impact on the local environment. Solar and wind, there’s a place for them, but we’re using them raw. You want to cover a mountainside or cover massive farm fields and solar panels in a place that gets sun only a quarter of the year. That’s ludicrous. And where do they get panels from? From China. Do you know how many coal plants that China’s built in order to sell us solar panels? It’s an astronomical number. We’re not saving. We’re not saving the world by buying solar panels from China, that’s just a fact, and setting up in a place that doesn’t get sun, that’s silly. As far as transportation goes, I would like walkable locations, but that will require a huge change in how we live our lives, and short of a revolution or some sort of massive forcing people to move and relocate. I don’t think that’s going to change a whole lot. But if you want to talk about electric vehicles, utility vehicles, a great place to start are garbage trucks, things working in a city with a known route. Those are good candidates for electric vehicles. Talking about cars, no, not enough lithium in the world to really transport and turn everyone’s Corolla into an electric car. What you could do, however, is revitalize waterways. River barges. America is blessed with the largest inland water system in the world, but it’s been neglected in a lot of ways because it’s a lot harder for a politician to take credit for something on a river than it is for them to stand in front of a construction site with a hard hat and a shovel saying, ‘Oh, I brought this highway to you,’ You have one river barge, and you take hundreds of those semi trailers off the roads. Think of it all. And as far as gas savings, river barges are the most efficient ways to move goods, hands down. That has been true since before recorded history. Moving things on water is the easiest way to do things, so there’s a lot of improvements that could be done that way, and America has neglected its waterways and its ports.”

Q: My next question is about the Bill of Rights, and specifically the First and Second Amendments. What are your thoughts on them?

A: “Well, First Amendment, I’m totally fine with it. I understand there’s a lot of misinformation of, ‘oh, you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater.’ Oh, yes, you can. That was actually overturned back in the 70s and a 9-0 decision. You can say fire in a crowded theater. That’s nonsense. Yes, you can. That’s the Supreme Court decision. And the original ruling of, you can’t yell fire and a crowded theater was to jail war protesters, anti war protesters. And so I’m not too keen on that. I actually went overseas twice. I’m okay with you protesting war. There’s a reason why it’s horrible and why war is a racket. Right, as far as the Second Amendment goes, it’s there for a reason. We see all over the world, places where people aren’t armed to defend themselves, but we have to understand that you have to be responsible for it. There is a place where the government encourages gun safety classes, to teach people, ‘Hey, this is how you actually keep things safe. Keep it out of the hands of your kids. Lock them up in a place where your youngest can reach.’ And that’s important. You know, most gun owners aren’t doing that, but we understand it has to be done. Understand that there is a problem with that. And you know what, I don’t want my young kids getting access to a pistol, no, that’s why I keep it in a place where they can’t reach. But it requires a bit of common sense, and understanding and training on the part of the gun owner, and if they mishandle it, they need to face consequences of their actions. But the big problem with gun control in the background checks is that states don’t talk to each other. They have different definitions of what would be considered a runaway or someone who’s being pursued, and there’s huge gaps and holes in the federal databases too, where you have the Army and the Department of Defense not communicating to the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] that certain ex-service members are dangers where they don’t report domestic abusers to the system so they shouldn’t be able to get guns. We talk and talk about gun control. The biggest thing is to plug the holes in the background check system. Right now, the FBI is letting lots of background checks just slip through the cracks, because they don’t have enough people to actually run them, but they have to return an answer, yes or no, and they’re returning lots of answers that they probably shouldn’t. We saw during COVID-19, where they had all these people shut down, they were returning answers. And then when I went back and checked the next year, I think it was, you know, several 1000 people got guns that they shouldn’t have. So before you talk about new laws, actually properly enforce and execute the ones that you have already.”

Q: I have a follow up question to that. I think about two years ago, the Altoona Area High School had a shooting threat. It was a hoax, but we went into lockdown and we had SWAT teams running into the school. How are you going to address school shootings in the context of the Second Amendment?

A: “Well, you can become president, and have guards everywhere and do all that, but that’s not going to change anything. We do see that when some of the biggest parts of the school students, these are kids that come from broken homes. They come from families that don’t support them. They don’t have these sorts of support systems in their lives. This is a social and societal problem, and we have lots of broken communities, broken homes. How many people do you know in your own life that they’ve lost a family to drugs or another crime and other deaths of despair, right? We have a huge society where we’ve never been connected more by the internet, but we’re so alone. Most of us don’t even know our own neighbors. People three doors down the block; they don’t know. And when we have a society like that, well, who’s there to support you, who’s there to watch out for those trouble signs and intervene early? So as a fact of a society that is broken like this, we’re going to have these sorts of problems, right? I have a family from China, and they have a lot of things like that, not with guns, but with knives. You got people going into public areas and slashing each other up with knives, and then suicide of the cop, right? The sort of deaths of despair and this lashing out against a broken society is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Now, I wish I had a silver bullet answer, but I don’t know.”

Q: What are your thoughts on immigration and the border?

A: “Well, most of the immigration  bills—I actually read the past two or three that they tried to pass, and they were objectively bad, because they didn’t go to solving the issue—they want to hire more people to process people faster. Okay, that doesn’t actually keep someone from crossing a border. My mom’s an immigrant from Malaysia, a Chinese immigrant from Malaysia. I would love to see some sort of Ellis Island on the southern border, but you’re having a situation where people are crossing extremely dangerous locations being trafficked, crossed by gangs, huge amounts of all the worst things you can think of with human trafficking going on because of the border not being secured by any realistic means, and all the talk is, how quickly can we process them? That’s not a good system. You have a lot of problems with the legal immigration system, I can assure you of that. Looking to break down the idea of lotteries of the family, continuing the family unification chain, the chain migration policy stuff, that leads to lots of bad brain drain and total depopulation of the countryside and lots of places. That’s not good. I’m okay with the moderate to large number of legal immigrants. I’m not okay with illegal immigrants. If your first act to come to this country is to break a law, a very basic law, and try to evade capture, how can I trust you to be a good citizen? How can I trust you to do what’s right? Having a low trust society is very bad for everyone involved. I don’t want that sort of society for my kids. I would love if we had an Ellis Island type thing going on, where we can quickly and efficiently welcome people to a central location, make sure that they’re healthy, make sure that they are not a danger to the rest of us, and try to integrate them and assimilate them into society, into our society, but just letting them run wild and completely at the mercy of the gangs and the cartels. Why should that be something I should be in favor of?”

Q: I want to pivot specifically into education and post-secondary education pursuit costs like college debt and things like that. Could you kind of expand on that, and how that plays into your position?

A: “Well, I was thinking as far as post-secondary, I’m okay with a lot of debt forgiveness, provided money comes from the colleges. And if you’re a college that receives state funds, your book should be opened, and we should be able to see where that money is going to, and if your money is going to, as we can all tell, going to administrators who keep just not adding anything of value to education and just adding debt to students. Money should come from that college’s endowment. Money should come from the college, shouldn’t come from maybe a small amount of it coming from a general fund or from the state. But no, these colleges are running up the bill and getting all this federal and state money on the cheap. No, take it from them. You failed. They failed to deliver a useful product in the form of education to a student, let them pay. Let’s open up your boat to see where that money’s going. It shouldn’t be going to some six figure salary, someone who teaches maybe three classes a year of six students a piece, or someone who doesn’t teach at all. Why should our money for education be going to that okay?”

Q: And then I looked at your party platform, and I just have a few quotes that I would like to talk about with you and ask some questions on. The first thing I have is the quote: “we support greater access to higher education for all, especially those most economically disadvantaged. We call for all levels of the government to support public higher education at a level that removes economic barriers.” You already kind of addressed this, but could you kind of expand on that a little more? And what measures would you implement that removes those economic barriers?

A: “Well, as much as I want to disparage my own higher education, it is a good correlation and indicator of your success in life. And I know my own parents, who grew up and went to college, are way out of that sort of poverty. And I want that for all my fellow citizens. And they should be encouraged. They should be people who should know, what are the sort of financial aid options out there? It shouldn’t just be, ‘oh, you have a legacy admission. Your family went to this college before, so you should get in.’ No. Let it be known. Let it be open. Let’s be meritocratic. Let these admission systems be public knowledge so that people can compare them, see what university they want to go to, rather than this kind of opaque thing that you can sort of figure out, but you really can’t. You can’t really compare one to the other, because it’s like comparing apples to air to an aircraft carrier. So make that information public. And if you take state money, open your books, let’s all see where that money is going to see if that’s something that we really want to send people to and public money to.”

Unable to be reached for comment.

Q: Why did you decide to run for Pennsylvania Auditor General?  

A: “I decided to run for Auditor General because it’s a very unique position. A lot of the other positions, like Attorney General, Senator, Treasurer, even these are positions that create policy. They help write and pass legislation in the other seats. They’re administrative; they’re in the executive branch, but they’re still creating policies and rulemaking and things like that. The Auditor General’s Office does not create policies and regulations and things like that. Instead, what it does is it just looks at programs, audits them, evaluates their performance and sees that they’re complying with laws. They don’t create any policies. And so, as someone that’s running for a third party, one of the biggest roadblocks to having people vote third party, even when they agree with us more than they do the two main candidates, the Democrat and Republican, [is] they’re so worried about their least preferred candidate winning and creating policies they don’t like. When we take that risk off the table, what it does is it makes people much more willing to vote for third party and to try something new, which is especially important in the Auditor General’s role, where we really need an independent voice looking at the books, especially here in Pennsylvania, as a swing state. Since 2003 we’ve had only about four or three years of divided government where one party doesn’t control [the legislative and executive branches]. We only had two to three years of non-divided government where one party controlled both, frankly: the legislature and the governor’s mansion. We really have two-party control here in Pennsylvania, and so whenever there’s abuse, waste and corruption going on, if not from one party, it’s from both, both of them working together to waste and abuse our tax dollars and resources. And so it’s especially important that our Auditor General is an independent voice, which really is best served by a third party candidate like myself or others. That uniqueness is what drew me to the Auditor General’s race.”

Q: What job did you have before running for Auditor General? How will this experience help you if you get elected?

A: “Right now, I work in financial services, so I have a general understanding of movements of money and things like that. I’m not an accountant, but many other experiences that I’ve had will prepare me for the job of Auditor General. For example, I have a Bachelor’s with a concentration in law and policy. What that does is it is going to prepare me well for the performance audits that the Auditor General’s Office does. There’s actually different types of audits the Auditor General’s Office does. Performance audits don’t just look at, ‘oh, did the money go to where we actually budgeted it to go,’ but it looks at what was the impact of that money. Did this program do what we were trying to have it do? Having a background in economics and law policy is really beneficial for that and allows me to conduct that analysis effectively and understand what’s going on. I have experienced being sort of a watchdog towards my local government. When I was in 10th through 12th grade in high school, I attended all my local school board meetings and basically reported that to my classmates about the board level and with the administrative staff, sort of acting as a watchdog on their behalf as well, taking time to challenge the school board on things they were doing and stand up to them. What I think is important for this role, is you have to actually be willing to stand up to the people that are in power in Harrisburg. Something we’ve seen with the office is that the current Auditor Generals that you had previously, they never really stood up to the legislature or the Governor to say, ‘hey, look, I found this wrongdoing.’ We all know there’s a base level of corruption going on in Harrisburg, but we’ll never actually see an auditor uncover it. Instead, they just continue to ignore it as well. I think also, it’s the experiences that I don’t have that make me qualified in this job as well. I don’t have the experience of going into Harrisburg and voting to steal people’s money, to give it to my close friends and give it to the special interests that I represent. I don’t do that. So, it’s about the experiences that I have and the experiences that I don’t have as well that I think maybe qualify for this position.”

Q: What do you, your party and your platform stand for?

A: “As for my platform as a candidate myself, I’m running to inform the voters about two main things. The first thing I want everyone to know is that, since 2020, the Auditor General’s Office has conducted over 12,000 audits, but only about 20 of those 12,000 audits have actually been of the state government. They spend a lot of time just auditing counties and hospitals, which sure is helpful, but they have auditors, and now no one’s auditing the state government. Just to point out, 7% of the audits done by the Auditor General’s Office are actually of the state government. The second thing is, what I mentioned earlier, is that since 2003 we’ve only had about four years of undivided government in Pennsylvania, and so the corruption going on and the abuse of funds going on in Harrisburg really is a result of both the major parties, and therefore having a Democrat or Republican in the Auditor General’s Office isn’t going to make a difference. [They’ll] continue to hide the corruption that’s going on, and they’re going to ignore it and shove it under the rug. And the third thing that I really want people to realize is that I don’t have to win the Auditor General’s race to actually make a difference. So in 1992, Ross Perot ran for president. He ran on basically one issue, and that was that we need to balance our federal budget to stop creating more national debt. Now he lost that presidential election, but he got about 20% of the popular vote in 1992. Just a handful of years later, Democrats and Republicans worked together to balance the federal budget because they were trying to steal Ross Perot voters in order to win elections in the future. If the election is 40-40-20, if you can get that 20% then that 20 plus 40 is 60% and you win. You win big. I mean, we see presidential  elections go and they’re just a couple percentages off in the popular vote, but if you’ve got 60 to 40, I mean, that’s a blowout election, and we can recreate something like that here in the Auditor General seat. If I can get a significant amount of votes, and I don’t need to win; I don’t really even think I need to break double digits. If I can get a strong showing in this swing state, where the elections are usually just a percentage point off—if I can get a strong showing with this message of, ‘hey, we need to actually audit the state government, which we haven’t been doing. Instead of doing just 20 audits of the state government, we need to be doing 1000s of audits of the state government.’ Then what’s going to happen is, in future Auditor General elections, Auditor General candidates are going to say, ‘hey, I want to get those votes that went to Reese Smith to actually audit the state government.’ And I’m going to, if I win, actually audit so that I can win my re-election campaign. There’s a way for us to make a difference and have an effect on policy without even having to get 50%+ of the vote to win. That’s sort of the platform of myself. You mentioned the Libertarian Party. What does my party stand for? The fundamental principle of Libertarian Party is that every individual owns themselves, no one else owns you. No other individual or group of individuals can claim ownership over you. And from there, we deduce a lot of things from that, such as the belief that the government should not have special permission to do things individuals can’t, just like how two individuals can’t murder one another or steal from one another, the government shouldn’t be able to steal from people. We see this through taxes and civil asset forfeiture. The government shouldn’t be able to kill people. We see this in war all the time. The government just goes and they just kill civilians and they claim, ‘Oh, it’s this collateral damage trying to achieve our goals.’ But it’s still tragic and completely unjustified to kill civilians who have done nothing wrong at all, and so those are some of the principles of what the Libertarian Party believes in and it stands for.”

Q: Why should 18-year-old high school students vote for you?

A: “I mean, I think partly for all the reasons I laid out before with the platform of my candidacy, but I guess to go even further —I’m 21, so I’m still pretty young. If you look back through history, just sort of saying, ‘Oh, we just got to vote for the Democrat or Republican.’ It’s really partly what’s gotten us into this mess. And the two big parties are just out for themselves. They really are just one party doing the same things. They claim to support this and support that, oh, there’s this difference or that difference, but when you really get down to brass tacks at the end of the day, both parties are going to continue to take the money away from you and give it to their preferred people. They’re going to continue to tax you, to spend money on defense contractors. The Republicans pretend to say, ‘Oh, we want less spending.’ But right now, Sen. John Cornyn, who’s one of the two people who’s going to replace Mitch McConnell as a Republican leader in the Senate, says his party, if he were to be majority leader, would have to spend more money on defense contractors. So this is from the party that’s supposed to represent less government and less spending your money. For Democrats, I remember in 2008 when Barack Obama won the Democratic primary. Well, I don’t know if I was paying attention. I was in kindergarten, but you learn about it. Barack Obama won that primary being the anti-war candidate, as opposed to Hillary Clinton, who had voted pro-war in Iraq. He ran on closing Gitmo and ending the wars overseas. He expanded the wars overseas. He didn’t close Gitmo. He blew up innocent children, he blew up a hospital, and no one cared. The Democrats completely fell silent on it. And now the anti-war section of the Democratic Party is largely silent. We see some of them left , protesting over what Joe Biden is helping the Israelis do in Gaza. But even then, that’s a very small minority of that party. At the end of the day, both parties are going to continue to tax you and take your money and send it to their preferred people, defense contractors, rates for the biggest corporations that lobby for special treatment and send it over to foreign countries. We pretty much fund the entire military apparatus of the country of Egypt, but who even says, ‘oh yeah, our great buddy Egypt,’ but we’re basically funding their entire government over there, and they’re going to take your money to do that, and they pretend to have differences, but they really don’t. And I think it’s time for us to do something different and try something new. I think being young too is really important, because you can play the long game. You can vote for someone who’s a third party that you’re pretty confident isn’t going to win. Because , over time, if more and more people are open to their ideas, and are open to voting for them, over time, a third party candidate can win. There’s not going to be an instance where a third party candidate is just, miraculously, going to win a big state election, right out of the blue. They have to get 5% in an election, then they have to get 10%, then 20% and then 30%, and then 40%, and then 50%. They’re not going to go from 3% to 50% overnight. Being young allows you to play that long game of election voting. I mean, that’s what I’m doing. That’s why , at 18, I signed up to be part of the Libertarian Party and started to get involved. And I think that’s sort of my pitch to very young people, is that your parents and grandparents have been doing the same thing and we have to try something new. I think this is the new thing that we should try.”

Q: I want to turn to specific issue-based questions. What is your and your party’s stance on taxes? You already mentioned this, but I want to discuss it further.

A: “The Libertarian Party opposes taxes. We think taxation is theft. We believe in the idea of self ownership, and that everyone owns themselves. You own the things you trade. So let’s take the income tax, for example. I own myself, so I own my labor, so I can freely trade my labor for money. When I freely trade my labor for money, I should be getting that money. Should the state just be able to come in and just scoop out some of the money from that transaction and say, ‘Oh, this is actually mine.’ They’re taking directly from you by inserting themselves into that transaction. Also, we think about the property tax. If you just own a house, you own a house that’s yours. It’s your property. You own it. But the government says, ‘Actually, no, you owe us rent, just for the mere fact that you exist and you happen to own something. Now you owe us money from that.’ We think the government shouldn’t be treated any differently than individuals. If just some group came up to you and said, ‘Hey, you own a house, therefore you owe us some money that’s based on how much that house is worth,’ that’s involuntary. And likewise, taxation is involuntary. We believe that we can organize society through voluntary interactions. The government’s inherently an involuntary interaction. We don’t actively consent. We don’t say, ‘oh, yeah, I want this.’ Government comes in under the threat of a gun, says ‘we’re going to take this from you, whether you like it or not.’ And so we oppose taxation.”

Q: I have a follow up question to that. So as you said, you support getting rid of all taxes. If you support getting rid of all taxes, what will happen to the things that are governmentally-funded, such as public education, schools and colleges? 

A: “I’m glad you asked. So this is something that really makes people really work. So this is an interview, a short interview. People have dedicated entire 1000 page books talking about how society would organize ourselves through voluntary instead of involuntary means. And so, there’s a lot to say and a lot of nuance about that, but I think to sum it up is that we can’t get every detail right about what a purely voluntary society would look like. When the USSR was falling apart, and they were an economy that was a centrally planned economy where the government said, ‘Okay, you’re going to sell for this, and you’re going to buy for this.’ We couldn’t say we’re going to have exactly this much production, and this much this, and this much of this, now that it’s no longer being essentially produced. So [we don’t know] exactly what could happen, but we do know we can make some instances based on the way things currently are. For example, education. We already have a great model through what’s going on with charter schools and private schools and homeschooling. There were points where education was not fully government funded, but private. What you would probably see is, hopefully, if we’re going to get rid of the public school system, we’re also going to get rid of the public school taxes, which is going to give families 10s of 1000s of dollars back each year, or just 1000s, and they’re going to be able to take that extra money. And hopefully, either 1) homeschool their kids themselves, or use online curriculums and do things like that, or 2) you’re going to see people pay for charter schools or public schooling like that, and that just then begs the question, ‘okay, well, what about those that can’t afford it?’ Well, of course, if we look through history, there’s been plenty of charities and organizations that basically subsidize education for those that can’t afford it, and we would see that happen at least. I’m pretty confident, because I think education is something that people want to have, and people would be willing to fund that. I’d like to see us do that voluntarily, instead of involuntarily, through the force of the gun. That’s what we would expect, that education costs would decrease a policy school system because of its inefficiencies. If you look at the public school system now, it’s run by administrators, pretty much, at least. I know in my school district, we keep hiring more and more administrators, but we aren’t hiring teachers. And this is a trend across public schools in particular, not necessarily private and charter schools, as much. And I’ve heard plenty of stories of school districts that build these fancy buildings. They basically have free money. When you’re the government, you don’t have to actually try to sell something and provide a good. You don’t have to exchange anything. You don’t have to say, ‘Oh, I’m doing something so good for you that you’re going to pay me for what I’m doing.’ Instead, public schools, they’re going to take however much money they want to. Some school districts, they just keep increasing taxes every single year and taking more and more of our money because they can, because they have the power to, and they want to. And so, that’s sort of an answer on education. If there’s any other particular scopes, hopefully I can—I can’t expound on every single one of them, because it’s a very complex thing, and there’s a lot of different things that could happen—[but maybe I can explain them further].”

Q: In section 2.12 of your party platform, it says that you “would restore authority to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government.” Child protective services intervenes if parents are unable to take care of their children currently. How will you ensure that parents will take good care of their children and provide them an education so that they become competitive citizens in the free market?

A: “So a couple of things. First as Libertarians, we don’t claim to have a utopia, no. Don’t think that what we’re trying to accomplish will create a utopia where everyone is perfectly cared for. It’s simply not possible. And when other politicians think that they can deliver a utopia, they’re just lying. They’re just making it up to sound good, to get sound bites and to get votes. When they say they can deliver a utopia, Libertarians, we’re going to be honest and be like, ‘okay, there are trade offs, and we can try to make something better.’ And so under a more voluntary society, what we would see is what happened in the past. When people can’t care for their kids, members of the community, members of their family, would step in and basically assist the best they can. If it’s a monetary issue, often providing financial assistance to parents. If it’s that parents are physically abusive towards kids, it’s going to be separating the parents from the kids. And if parents are physically abusive, well, you can’t go around assaulting regular people and you can’t stop regular people. You shouldn’t be able to assault your child either, and that would just land you in jail like normal. So there’s sort of those aspects again, when it comes to actually providing education, we should be able to, hopefully, have charities that spring up like there have been in the past to help support and educate kids. And it’s not to say that we’re going to be able to do that so every single kid will be protected. Unfortunately, kids that are in situations that are terrible for them, but that already is the case right now. Even with Child Protective Services, there are still children being abused and still children being neglected, and we think that under our voluntary society that will be less, but we can’t promise you that we’re going to eliminate all of it, because it’s just not realistic, unfortunately.”

Q: I would like to pivot to the economy and inflation. What are your thoughts on them, and how will they play into your Auditor General position?

A: “First, from the Auditor General’s position, there’s not a whole lot that I can do, unfortunately. However, to expand more about the economy, because I do have a lot of thoughts about that. The Libertarian party has a lot of stances about that. You mentioned inflation, and let’s tackle that, because that really is the big issue. And there’s a bit of a non-two-hour-long explanation around that. So the thing we have to understand about inflation is that governments are generally the main cause of inflation. The government’s printing money under the COVID-19 lockdowns. We saw trillions and trillions of dollars being printed out of thin air and pushed into the economy. When that new money enters the economy, people are going to be spending with that money, but there’s still the same amount of goods. So now there’s more money, but the same amount of goods, people have that new money, and they think, ‘Wow, I’m so much richer now because I have all this extra money, and all the goods prices are still the same,’ and they immediately start to spend that money. When they do that, they bid up the prices of goods pretty much throughout the economy, which is sort of where we get the term actually, like price inflation,  which is when the prices are all rising. The thing about that mechanism is that it matters who gets that money first. People that get that money first spend that money, that new money, before all the prices rise. People that get that money last, their wages are the last to rise, but all the goods prices have already increased. So now their savings have been eroded. Now that $10,000 in savings doesn’t go as far anymore. Okay, maybe their wages are up some, but all their expenses are up even more. So inflation does not happen even in the economy. There are winners and losers. When the government is printing money and giving out that money, the people that get that new government money first are the winners. And who gets that money are the government contractors and the cronies of the government, the people that are the friends, the politicians that get the government contracts. So in this instance , like Raytheon and other government defense contractors, they get that new money first, and so they get the benefit of inflation. Inflation does redistribute money. It redistributes money from the non-politically-connected, which is often the poorest among us, and redistributes to the politically connected with some of the richest in the country. Five of the richest United States counties are the suburbs out of D.C., and it’s like that for a reason. The government is extracting resources from regular people and redistributing it to their cronies and to their government contractors, which is completely tragic, and something that the Libertarian Party completely opposes, and I completely oppose as well, and that’s sort of one of the big evils of inflation. At the same time that money printing that’s involved with the inflation , the Federal Reserve hides that inflation and its effect on the economy, keeps the interest artificially low, which is in part what causes the business cycle, which causes the boom and bust, which causes our recessions and makes it for an unstable economy. Most economists, what they like to do is, they like to study the bust. They like to say, ‘Oh, wow, this recession happened. Let’s look at the recession and how it started and all that.’ But really, what you have to look at is, why did we have this abnormal boom? Why did we have so much economic growth, so fast, so unsustainably? Why was this growth unsustainable? And when you actually take that method and look at it, you realize that it’s the Federal Reserve and the way we run our monetary policy is a really big contributor to the economic cycles that we experience. I think in the 1910s the Federal Reserve was created. It was sold to us, the American people, as if we have some cycles, we’ll stop having recessions. But what it did was it actually made recessions more frequent and deeper and longer. It made it worse, but at the same time as it makes it worse, everyone says, ‘oh, well, thank God. If we didn’t have it, it would have been even worse somehow.’ So, we have these recessions, institute the Federal Reserve, and they get worse. People’s response is not, ‘oh, well, maybe the Federal Reserve isn’t actually helping.’ Instead, they say, ‘Well, thank God for the Federal Reserve. Without it, it only would have been worse.’ And this is a common theme you see among government interventions is that we have an issue where we implement some sort of solution that actually has a lot of either unintended consequences, or just flat out makes things worse. And then people say, ‘Well, thank God for that government solution, because if not, things would have been worse.’ They always just imagine everything would have been worse without the government.”

Q: I also have another quote from the party platform, which I’d like to ask you something about. The platform states, “we support ending federal student loan guarantees and special treatment of student loan debt in bankruptcy proceedings.” How will students pay for post-secondary education, if they choose to pursue it?

A: “A couple things. So one about the bankruptcy things. So that’s saying students shouldn’t have special protection in bankruptcy, which means the creditors, the people loaning you money, shouldn’t be protected in that instance. Right now, you basically do go into bankruptcy. You can’t discharge that student loan debt; it stays with you through bankruptcy. One of the things that we are planning is that you actually shouldn’t be in debt in bankruptcy. If you are bankrupt, your student debts leave instead of being stuck with you. We get rid of that special treatment for the debt from the credit standpoint, and then also we don’t want the federal government guaranteeing student loans. It’s actually one of the reasons that college has skyrocketed so much. Usually, when you’re getting a loan for something, the bank goes, ‘Okay, well, what’s the likelihood that you’ll be able to actually pay this back? What’s the credit involved?’ Now, through the guaranteed loan, the fact that you can’t declare bankruptcy, those loans are guaranteed. There’s actually no risk. If you’re a student loan lender, you have absolutely zero risk, because the government has said, no matter what, the government will pay that loan off for you. And so what this means is that there’s essentially free money. Anyone can get money to go to college, and this has driven up prices, because if they’re just giving out free money. I don’t know what it’s like for you and your counselors, but where I went, the counselor just said, ‘Oh, don’t even worry about money. Don’t even think about it. No matter how much money you pay, it’s worth it, even if you get into hundreds of 1000s of dollars of debt.’ I have a friend who has like, $100,000 of debt, and it’s like, ‘Oh, whatever.’ That’s an insane amount of debt to have to pay off as soon as you turn 22 when you graduate. By subsidizing this debt, they made it incredibly easy to get, and they’ve allowed higher learning institutions, colleges and universities, to raise their prices, and students just kept going. What you would see happen is that students wouldn’t be able to just get a loan for $100,000 to go to college. And when that starts happening, colleges will see drop off in enrollment, and what they’ll do is they’ll lower their prices, so that way kids actually can either afford to just go straight out of pocket or work a job and pay it off, or lower it enough that banks aren’t going to make these stupid loans. So it seems a little frustrating, but at the end of the day, it’s going to lower the cost of education for people as well. At the end of the day, it’s not right that the government is going to basically make all the taxpayers pay for student loan debt. If someone makes a decision to go to college and they want to do that, that’s on them. And those costs shouldn’t be socialized to everyone else. Those costs shouldn’t be put on to everyone else. We believe in self ownership, and so you shouldn’t be able to take from someone to give to someone else. And student loan guarantees are a form of that, and so we oppose that as well.”

Q: My next question is about the Bill of Rights, and specifically the First and Second Amendments. What are your thoughts on them?

A: “We like both of them. So the First Amendment, the right to free speech. People have the right to voice their opinion. Free Press—there’s a common misconception about freedom of the press. They always think of the press as in, ‘oh, I have a press pass from the media.’ But freedom of the press really meant freedom of the printing press, for anyone to use the printing press. In that time, it wasn’t uncommon for countries to ban printing presses, or at least ban irregular people from owning printing presses, to limit who has the means to disperse information wide and large. The freedom of the press is not just that CNN and the New York Times have the right to speak their mind, but that everyone has the right to speak their mind. Freedom of religion—of course, people have the right to practice their beliefs as they want. Assembly—-we should always be able to assemble and protest. Right to petition—obviously, they all kind of go hand in hand. So very pro-First Amendment. The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms. Absolutely, we think people have the right to defend themselves, both on a personal level, defend themselves from attackers, but also to defend themselves from the government and from tyranny at large. The First Amendment is your first defense against the tyranny of government, being able to speak out against government and protest it. And the Second Amendment is for the second line of defense against this radical government to take up arms just like the Founding Fathers did, and defend themselves from outside forces. It’s also similar to what we’ve seen in the independence movements of many countries across the world, as we saw the throwing off of colonial powers, of local people revolting against far off rulers trying to control and enslave them, and so we are completely in support of people’s right to bear arms across the world.”

Q: I have a follow up question to that. I think about two years ago, the Altoona Area High School had a shooting threat. It was a hoax, but we went into lockdown and we had SWAT teams running into the school. How are you going to address school shootings in the context of the Second Amendment?

A: “Regarding school shootings, we have to take a more historical look and realize that this is a more recent phenomenon. It’s not really that it’s guns. It’s much more about the society that we’ve created. Not to be like, ‘oh, it’s just a mental health issue, ‘because a lot of people say that, but it’s really more than that. It’s not just, ‘oh, people are unwell.’ There’s always been unwell people. It’s about how we handle unwellness, and it’s about how, I think a lot of it, too, was about parental neglect. You see parents and they’re like, ‘oh, I didn’t realize the issues that my children were having.’ We have, I guess, an epidemic of parents and their kids not communicating anymore, and they don’t realize what’s going on. I’m not going to pretend that I have a solution to lead to a happier and healthier society. I have a lot of ideas, but I don’t have ideas on how to solve everything. But I think for identifying the problem, it’s not that just guns are the issue. I think a lot of it has to do with breakdowns of the family unit and societies, the bonds we have with one another, traditionally. If someone was disturbed and it was discovered, you thought they would do something. There’d be some sort of intervention, either on the family or friends level. And we don’t see that happening. We see people getting worse and worse and worse and then committing atrocities, which is terrible. We know it doesn’t have to be this way, because it wasn’t this way traditionally. Like I said, this is a recent phenomenon, but yet we’ve always had guns, and so that’s sort of my thoughts. And that’s a bit unsatisfying of an answer, I know, but that’s sort of what I have.”

Q: With less government regulation, how will you combat climate change and ensure clean air and water for the people when things such as the corporation emissions are no longer regulated?

A: “I’m so glad you asked this, because this is honestly one of the biggest hang ups. People have been adopting a Libertarian worldview, and they realize that they have it completely backwards. They think that the government protects the environment: ‘I think without the government, there would be massive pollution.’ But they don’t realize, though, that actually the government enables polluters way more than they stop them. So let’s consider what I would consider the sort of ideal voluntary society under self ownership and having property rights. And let’s say fracking, because we’re in western Pennsylvania. My Libertarian world of a voluntary society organized on voluntary interactions. If I had a piece of property, and there were people who were fracking, however far away, and they did something that basically poisoned my well—I’m sure you’ve seen the effects that fracking has had on well water—at that point, that fracker has caused harm to me. They, through their actions, have poisoned my water. They violated my property rights. And normally, I would take them to court and sue them, and I would receive damages. The court would say, ‘okay, you fracked here. You did not frack properly. You did not frack safely. Because of your actions, you caused harm to him, and you have to pay him damages for poison in his water,’ and then, at the very least, I would be compensated for that pollution. But what really would happen, what would happen more so is that frackers, in an attempt to not have to pay out damages, they would find safer ways to frack, and if they couldn’t find safer ways to frack, they would go out of business, because they would be paying as much when they wouldn’t have that pollution. That’s sort of the society that we would have under a Libertarian, voluntary society, that pollution would be disincentivized through you having to actually pay for your pollution, or at the very least, people would be compensated if they are victims of pollution. What happens right now is that the government says there’s some ideal level of pollution. They say actually a certain level of pollution is good, and so we’re going to allow people to pollute a certain amount. And so let’s say the fracker has poisoned my well water through fracking, and I say, ‘hey, I want to sue them.’ The government says, ‘no, you’re not allowed to sue them. I don’t care that you’re hurt. I don’t care that we’ve polluted your water. We, the government, say that there’s a certain level of pollution that’s beneficial for everyone, and so with all the fracking company responsibility, and you just have to suck it up and have poisoned water, you just have to deal with that. You have to deal with that pollution.’ And that’s currently, really what happens. The government tries to obfuscate this and appear to be the savior of the environment by having these other regulations and stuff, but at the end of the day, the real impact of their policies is they permit a certain level of pollution, saying it’s a public good. They provide liability to these companies that way, those companies aren’t held liable, and people just have to suffer. People are victims of these corporations with their pollution, and the people have no ability to sue them. They have no recourse for damages to be made out and for corrective action to be made. Instead, the government just shields them and protects them, and this is what I mean when the government just constantly gives out special protections to their cronies, to their friends, to their family members. And this is just one example of pollution. So under a Libertarian society, we really would probably see a lot less pollution overall, I would think.”

Q: What about energy and transportation in Pennsylvania? What measures would you take for that, if you get elected, to improve public transportation and things like that? 

A: “Okay, so as Auditor General, what I could do is I could audit the State Department of Transportation, because they need to be audited, because they have an enormous budget. They do terrible, terrible road work. They always have people just milling about doing not that much. We also have heard the horror stories of PennDOT. So I definitely would like to audit PennDOT transportation. I assume you’re also interested in things like public transit and things like that. Okay, as Auditor General at large, I’d audit the transit systems, but not at the city and county levels. I really would like to see the cities and counties focus on that. As state Auditor General, I think the issue is that the state Auditor General is focusing too much on the counties and cities, and they need to be focusing on the state. To speak on them, generally outside of the office, I think that they should be privatized. I think they’d be more efficient that way. The Pittsburgh transit system, the way it works is [everything flows to] downtown, and every bus and trolley line runs just to the city, and then it runs out. It’s basically just like a giant web, actually, not even a web, more like lines all pointing to the center. But this means here’s the city, and you want to get from [point A] to [point B], instead of going directly, you have to go downtown first. And so a trip that takes me 20 minutes in my car takes an hour and a half via bus. And that’s just really stupid, to be quite frank with you. But when you have the transportation being decided not through, ‘oh, what’s the most efficient use of resources?’ Which is, what? What the market does? The market allocates resources efficiently, and that’s like a 20 minute explanation, but to be sort of quick about it, the government allocates things based on political favors. They say, ‘oh, what decisions do we have to win? Who needs some stuff to get votes?’ That’s how they allocate things, and that’s inefficient and stupid. Additionally, we’ve seen what private mass transportation can do. Originally, the trolley lines in Pittsburgh were originally all private. They were run by private organizations who had an incentive to provide you a good and a service and provide you timely service and do a good job. But now the city provides it, and they do a terrible job at it. It’s not good to ride the bus in Pittsburgh, for really many cities I’ve traveled around for conferences. I’m really not impressed by most cities’ local transport systems, and that’s because they’re monopolies, they have no competition and they have no incentive to provide you a good or service. Sure, they have a fare, but most of their money is coming from grants from the state and federal government, or they’re getting extra money from the city and county budgets too, and so if they need more money, they can just steal it from a taxpayer. They don’t have time to provide any goods or services. So you mentioned energy as well. There’s sort of this big war between the Democrats and Republicans. All we need is green energy. Oh, we need more oil and gas. Oh, we need this, we need that. I’d say Libertarian Party is energy-open. We have oil and gas subsidies to produce more oil and gas, and we also have green energy subsidies, because that way they can be competitive with oil and gas. So we have two sides giving energy subsidies for both sides to beat the other. The Libertarian Party says, instead of stealing money from everyone to pay to the energy company, the Exxon CEO can get a million dollar bonus, let’s end the subsidies and have them compete and just whatever energy is the most efficient to use is what we’re going to end up using, because that’s how the market allocates resources. The government allocates resources based on political favors, but the market allocates it on the best way to use those resources. And so places you know that are rainy, like Pittsburgh, are probably going to have natural gas power plants. Places that have a lot of sun, and not a lot of clouds, like Arizona are probably going to go and they’re going to have solar farms. Places with a lot of rivers are probably going to have hydropower, and so we just end the subsidies and the meddling in the energy sector and just let different energy sources compete. If you’re building a power plant, you’re not going to say, let me use the least efficient method. You’re going to say, let me use the most efficient method so I can make the most amount of money and deliver the most good to people. And so we really need to just stop all the subsidies, stop robbing from people, and just let competition actually happen. And the fear of nuclear power is overblown, and nuclear power should be easier to do. There’s been a lot of improvements in nuclear safety technology since we’ve had the 50s like Three Mile Island and Fukushima. There are much safer ways to do it now. And right now, the government is in the way of preventing nuclear energy people want. I mean, part of this debate between the energy systems is that people that want oil and gas are like, ‘oh, they’re much more reliable than the renewables, because the renewables don’t always [produce]. It’s not always windy, it’s not always sunny,’ true. And then the green energy, people are like, ‘oh, but, you know, the oil and gas [are bad for the environment].’ Nuclear energy does not release carbon, and it’s reliable all the time. It’s literally like the perfect compromise solution for the two sides, but the government just bans it out of fear, mostly. And at this point, what is unbounded fear?”

Q: And then to ask a question about nuclear energy: is there radioactive waste as a result of nuclear power plants. And where would that go?

A: “It depends. I’m gonna be a little  in the weeds. I’m a bit interested in nuclear power. So I do know some stuff, not a lot. I’m not an expert in it, but [I am somewhat familiar with the] system. I don’t know the names of different systems. There’s different systems that produce, I believe. There’s some that really don’t produce much of any at all. They’re fair. It produces a very small amount of waste, like we could power the whole world for 100 years, and we would produce a barrel of it, or something—-so still some, but a very, very small amount. Everything is about trade offs, there is no utopian solution. And so, for trade offs, you get rid of all the carbon, and you have reliability that is not intermittent, and we have a little bit of nuclear waste. It sucks, but nuclear waste is much worse than, say, all the carbon being in the air or not having a reliable source of power. I think it’s a clear trade off there.”

Q: What about gender identity and the LGBTQ+ community? Could you address that and how it ties into the Auditor General position?

A: “We don’t really think the government has a role telling people what they’re doing with themselves and what they’re doing with their property. Let’s set gay marriage as an example. People arguing over, ‘oh, should gay marriage be legal? Should gay marriage be illegal?’ The Libertarian Party says, ‘You know what? Marriage shouldn’t be run by the government. The government should have no say in marriage. The government shouldn’t be regulating marriage that’s completely a voluntary interaction between two individuals. The government has no reason to get involved with it.’ The Libertarian Party was pro gay marriage since its founding in 1972 and the major parties, like the Democrats, are like, ‘oh yeah, pro gay marriage.’ But, Barack Obama ran in 2008 opposing gay marriage. Hillary Clinton ran in 2008 opposing gay marriage, and so did Joe Biden. And so has either major party really provided someone that truly believes in gay marriage and believes in protecting the interests of the LGBTQ+ community, or do they just put people up that sort of just pretend to care about these things, when, in reality, they just sort of have a surface level understanding and they just do it for votes? I think that the Libertarian party takes a consistent view of leaving individuals alone. If people want to date the same gender and marry the same gender, that’s really none of our business. If an adult wants to, you know, change their gender, that’s none of our business. They think they were born in the wrong body. That’s none of our business. We don’t really care. You know, Libertarianism is not a how-you-should-live-your-life view. Libertarianism is a view on government, and we believe in limiting the power of government.”

Q: What are your thoughts on immigration and the border?

A: “So it’s a very complex topic, especially for Libertarians, because there’s sort of an idea of what the ideal is, here’s what’s currently happening, and what are sort of the intermittent steps. In a lot of instances, the intermittent steps are a very clear slider to what we think is best. So for example for the economy, shipping regulations. The government wanted to have a lot less free trade. I think this is a perfect example. So free trade. So we believe in free trade. We completely oppose tariffs, quotas, anything like that. Every individual should be able to trade anything they want, even across borders. Right now, we have tariffs, and we oppose tariffs, and our goal would be to have zero tariffs. And so the goal on the way is we’re not going to get zero tariffs overnight, but if we can, you know, get the tariff rate cut in half, that’s great. And that’s very obvious, a linear path: Okay, we don’t want tariffs. They’re currently tariffs. We’re going to decrease tariffs until there are none left. There’s not a super simple linear response to immigration and the border. So to go to that topic now, the best case situation for immigration is that the way immigration would work is if someone invites you to the country, say you get a job offer at an American company, they’re going to pay you to come work. And so you go and you call up a real estate agent, and they help you buy a house somewhere, and you move and you immigrate, and you go start working a job like that would be great. That should be legal. That should be 100% easy. The government shouldn’t even be involved. If you’re going to buy a house and you’re going to work a job, I mean, even if you’re not gonna work a job like you just have money, and you pay to buy and to be in this country by buying property, so you have a right to be on that property. And so that’s sort of how that would work. Now, of course, we’re very far from a system where individuals can just sort of come in and buy or rent and start a life here, or in the system where it’s, ‘oh, you have to do this, do that.’ So currently, I think, the next steps for immigration is that, right now, what’s essentially happening is immigrants are coming into the country, and the government is saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to steal money from all of our regular citizens to provide for these immigrants that are coming in, both legal and illegal.’ And I think that’s generally wrong, that we’re going to just steal from people because, I mean, I think stealing money from people was wrong in all instances, like I said, even taxation, even if you’re giving it to other Americans. I still think that’s wrong as well. But right now, the government is going and taking money from people to give to immigrants,  especially illegal immigrants,  which I oppose. Not everyone in the party opposes this. Some people under the party oppose giving money to people, but I think the solution is to basically not have a wide open border. And some authoritarians are pro for having a wide open border. They’re completely okay with having no border at all. I don’t have an issue with immigrants coming in. I have an issue with the government taking money from everyone and giving it to a bunch of immigrants. So I think it’s wrong to take money from everyone, and I think it’s very unlikely that we’re going to get them to stop taxing people. I think it’s more likely that we could get them to stop letting so many people siphon off that tax money, if that makes sense. So it’s not an ideal solution, but I think it’s better than just letting it continue and stealing more money from people than you otherwise would.”

Q: What are your thoughts on abortion?

A: “Immigration and abortion are the two issues Libertarian Party has a lot of different stances on. So from my own opinion of abortion, I think you would generally consider me a pro-choice. What I’ve seen is that pretty much everyone agrees in the exception for helping protect the life of a mother. And I completely agree with that. And I think people underestimate the psychological effects of having a child that you don’t want to have. The mother being mentally traumatized by having a child that you don’t want to have, I think, counts as protecting life there in that instance. With that said, though, I also don’t think it’s right to practice abortion to the point of birth that some abortion advocates have advocated for. That is a very minority opinion, most people sort of just say, you know, abortion should definitely be legal until the first trimester. Some say up to the second but very few people say past the second trimester. So I take that sort of stance in that instance. So yeah, that’s my stance on abortion. And I think abortion is something that people should try to avoid. In the 1990s the Clintons would say, safe, legal and rare. I think that’s sort of like my opinion too, it should be legal in those circumstances, but it should be rare. We should try our best to wait so people understand their risks of becoming pregnant in order to help have less abortion that way. I mean, that’s one of my thoughts on that.”

Q: Would you like to add anything else?

A: “Seven percent of audits are actually directed at the state level government, and so the corruption is bipartisan, and we can win without necessarily winning the office. As Auditor General, one of the things I would do is I would publicize the results of audits way more. When’s the last time an Auditor General had a press conference or broke some big story about, ‘oh, look, we found out that…’ It’s always behind the scenes. They’re trying to cover up the corruption. I would commit to having regular press conferences where I discuss audit results publicly and explain to people what we found, whether to foster better information for the public. I would like to audit the Governor’s Office and the offices of the majority and minority leaders in the state legislatures. Those offices are some of the most high-risk areas for corruption and abuse of funds, and so I think they deserve special attention and to be audited. Additionally, you know, the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] constantly audits regular citizens and makes their life a giant hassle, and I think we should also do that to our politicians. We should also make their lives a hassle. They shouldn’t feel like they can go around and do stuff willy-nilly. They should feel as if they’re constantly under the watch of the Pennsylvania people, and so I’m committed to that as well.”