Interview with Tyler Russell
9-12 Candidate for Congress
Texas District 8
Interview Transcript
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Host: Mr. Russell, your state is not just on our Southern Border, it also is on the Gulf of Mexico and sitting with two major ports, Houston and
Galveston.  Now needless to say, your state is directly affected by illegal immigration and trafficking.  You currently have a 690 mile long
border fence that’s being built on your southern border with Mexico.  Can you update us with the progress of this border?  
Candidate: Absolutely.  We have many border agents that have been reporting to our campaign thing that we’ve been quite successful in
reducing the illegal immigration into our country.  We’re very pleased with the progress that’s been made to date, but like you said the
problem persists.  We have quite a large coastline and a lot of oceans to patrol, so it’s going to be one of our priorities in the next several,
well, over the next several years to be able to get something in place that’s going to help us patrol those coastlines better to prevent drugs,
drug trafficking, and human trafficking in and out of our country.

Host: Now you’re talking about human trafficking.  Now, some in your own state, in fact at the University of Texas I believe, see this fence as  
“The border fence as a human right barrier”.  Now given a chance, how would you respond to that statement?
Candidate: Well, I would say to someone who was opposed to the fence as a human rights violation.  I would say to them that the fence
insures that our freedoms and our liberty are protected.  The fences that have been built in Texas and in California are protecting our
country’s sovereignty and our sovereignty is the only thing that protects us, again protects our liberties and our life.  So I feel that we would
be violating our own liberties and our own life if we did not do everything we could to defend our borders.  I would also say that I’m not
opposed to performing the legal immigration into our country, but just that we are stopping the illegal immigrants or the drugs and the drug
wars that are in Mexico from coming into the United States which would be bad for us.  

Host: I think that most of us would agree that a fence is just one piece of the puzzle that needs to be addressed and not a full-blown solution
to the immigration problem.  What approach would you support to fix this situation?
Candidate: I feel like the problem here is not necessarily the immigrants being able to get into our country.  I feel that the fences provided
some security but like you said, there’s a root cause.  The root cause is that we generally have a very strong economy that produces a lot of
jobs, a lot of money.  A source of wealth for many nations is here in the United States.  The companies that provide the wealth of our
economy is what these people are coming to our country for and if we cannot get the companies to enforce the laws that are already on the
books, we can’t stop illegal immigration influx.  We need companies that are going to check citizenship status of all their employees.  I know
that when I joined my job, I had to provide two forms of identification to insure that I was in fact a legal resident of the United States.  I would
propose that every business do the same thing.  The laws are already on the books.  I think that we just need to enforce what’s already
there.  

Host: Let’s go to energy.  Energy is always at the forefront in Texas.  Oil is often seen as the devil and the cause of many problems.  Now
Texas is a big oil state and drilling is in its blood.  What energy solutions would you propose for the long run but also for the short term?
Candidate: Yes, Ma’am.  Well I happen to have a very good insight into the energy legislation and policies that is currently trying to be
implemented by the United States because I work for an oil major here in Houston.  The way that I see things is that oil is a key component
to our future success as a country.  Oil has been the standard by which all other energies are measured for, you know, for the last two
hundred and fifty years.  And I believe that in order to gain more energy independence from other countries, we have to pursue not only
solar and wind and nuclear power and coal, but also we have to look at other ways of harvesting the hydrocarbons that we have here in the
United States.   We need to end Federal mandates on drilling offshore that prevents the oil that we have here, our own resources from being
used.  And to further that along, we need to look at how we can use more natural gas in our country so that in times of a crisis when we can’t
get oil and we can’t gasoline for our cars, we have another energy solution here that is self-sustaining.  So I’m not going to ever propose that
we completely get rid of oil because frankly it keeps the cost of our energy down and it’s a very efficient energy supply.  But I also feel like we
have other technologies that can be developed.  So in the short term I think the best thing we can do is get rid of the Federal mandate and in
the long term we need to look at investing in clean technologies and looking at other uses of other hydrocarbons for our energy supply.  And
all those things will help build our energy independence.

Host: So in a short form, what you are also proposing is that we put together a Plan B.  Plan A being possibly still oil, but we have in place a
very strong Plan B so that we are not constantly being held hostage to the Plan A?
Candidate: Yes, Ma’am.  That’s exactly correct.  You have to have a short term view and a long term view in order to have a successful
implementation of a new technology.  Unless we have a major breakthrough, we need to have the source of energy that will help us
immediately and then we need the source of energy that will take us into the future.  And right now I feel like the current solution is coal and
oil and nuclear power.  And the longer term might be solar, it might be wind, but we definitely need to be doing the research that it’s going to
take to develop this technology and the storage cells for that energy in order to implement it on a large scale for every America.

Host: Now you have a financial background, so let’s address finances for a second, okay?
Candidate: Yes, Ma’am.

Host: From a financial standpoint, running our country is really no different than running a large corporation, albeit in this case a very, very
large one indeed.  And of course with a humongous budget filled with many, many line items.  You have promised to vote against any
increase in spending or in taxes, yet you would like to increase the Veterans Administration budget.  Now in a corporation when you need to
spend more money in one area without increasing spending, you then reallocate funds from one line item in the budget to another one and
that’s called budget reallocation.  Is that your plan and if so, which budgets would you see would be affected?
Candidate: In order to have a successful budget like you said, I’m proposing that we do not increase spending in one spot without detracting
from another.  In order to accomplish this task, we are going to have to cut items like cut funding for the Department of Energy.  We’re going
to have to cut items from the Department of Education on a Federal level.  These organizations don’t really provide us the services that were
originally promised.  Cutting those services along would cover almost a doubling of the Veterans benefits that are currently in place.  And to
me those cuts would be worthwhile to support the people who fought for our country.  Now that being said, for example the Department of
Energy was originally created in the 1970’s to move us towards energy independence.  I find this ironic that, you know, 35 years later we’re
sitting in the same position of looking for energy independence, but now we have 26,000 employees working for the Department of Energy
and all we’re doing is paying them for the same thing we’ve been working for, for all these 35 years with little to no progress, actually
probably a regression.  So we would look at items like that, the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and revisit how our
federal money is being spent item by item down the list of all our expenditures and find ways that we can cut the spending and decrease
taxes on the taxpayer.

Host: So you would go first of course after the waste inside the budget?
Candidate: Absolutely.  There’s, to me I really feel like there’s about 66% of all the spending is wasted spending at the Federal level.  And I
don’t see any reason why we can’t focus on our spending problem in order to fix the deficit problem that we’re having here in the United
States.

Host: Now continuing on with budget consideration, you indicated that you wanted to aggressively tackle the out-of-control Federal
government.  How do you plan to do that and is that what you just said?  Is that part of the plan of action that you are putting forward?
Candidate: Yes, Ma’am.  And further to what I’ve spoken about earlier, we’re also going to propose legislation that it would be illegal to pass
an unbalanced budget that was projected to be unbalanced at any point in time for the next five years.  So for example, this year’s budget
would be clear for a six year time scale showing that we would not be increasing our spending and would be reducing our deficit.  Now, and
by reducing our deficit, I actually mean we’d be having a surplus because I’m not ever going to ever vote for an unbalanced budget.  And I
find that unlawful and immoral that our country has done that for the last fifty years.  And that’s one of the big points of the 9-12 group is that
you’re thrifty and will work hard to insure personal responsibility.  And that’s what we’re going to hold the finances of our country to those
same standards.

Host:  Now you cannot talk about budget without of course putting into the mix taxes.  One does not exist without the other.  You support Fair
Taxes.  Why, and do you see any sign of hope at all that such an overhaul of our tax system could indeed be done?
Candidate: Absolutely, I think that focusing on tax reform is our number one issue.  I think that items like the Flat Tax is a necessary step
forward but I really feel that the Fair Tax is our best way, our best approach for the future.  We have over 67,000 pages of IRS tax code right
now that no one really has an idea of how that progressive code works.  At any given time there’s…  Every day there’s more than one change
to the tax code and it’s always changed to favor this lobbyist and organization which are influential to the Congress that’s in place.  We need
to eliminate that system and get rid of the IRS which is basically wasting the money that we’re spending for them to bring it in.  I believe I
remember seeing a figure recently that we’re spending a hundred billion dollars a year to collect taxes, and to me that’s ludicrous that we’re
spending that amount of money just to bring in something as simple as an income tax.  So I think we need to repeal the income tax and we
need to move to something that will actually impact every citizen in the United States.  So everyone understands the impact of having a
federal government.  I think that we have a very detached tax system right now where you don’t really ever feel the pressure of the Federal
government unless you’re making a lot of money and you’re writing a check every year.  I would really like to move to a system where you
don’t lose any of your income but you lose it all when you go to buy a consumable or a service.  So that way you feel the affect of that
Federal tax every time you spend money, so you’re reminded that the Federal government is taking your money away and you need to be
more cautious about how it’s being spent.

Host: You know that’s an interesting point as well that you just made here.
Candidate: Yes, Ma’am.  So I really feel like that would move us in the right direction and instead of just having your money be, you know,
automatically deducted from each of your paychecks, you physically pay it in a very different system.

Host: Right.  Now last but not least, I’m on my last question because we’re running out of time.  You are I believe a first time candidate?
Candidate: Yes, Ma’am, that’s correct.  I am a first time candidate.  

Host: How do you feel about term limits?
Candidate: Ma’am, I’m a strong supporter of term limits and I’m signing a personal contract with my district that I will not serve longer than
four terms.  I believe that a real problem with our current system is that we didn’t ever implement the term limits that were talked about in the
contract for America in 1996.  And I think it’s one of the shortfalls of our country, so I really think that we need to get a coalition of people in
Congress together that are for term limits and will make sure that it happens.  I think of this as the country is finally waking up to the fact that
politicians can’t be there forever and I would like to be one of the first people in Congress to advocate the term limits.  In fact I would have no
problem making that my first piece of sponsored legislation upon entering Congress.  

Host: Mr. Russell, we’re at the end of our program right now.  I thank you very much for being on the program today.
Candidate: Well thank you, Danielle.  I look forward to talking with you again soon.
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