Reece Smith, Libertarian Party, Candidate for Auditor General

The biggest policy change that would help individuals’ economic positions is ending the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve causes inflation by printing money, which redistributes resources from average people to the politically connected. Additionally, The Federal Reserve creates an oligopoly in the banking system, which contributes to the distortion of the interest rate, which exacerbates the cycle of growth and recession.

The only way to address the rising cost of housing is to create more housing supply by eliminating the barriers to construction. There is too much red tape and bureaucracy in the way of constructing more housing. Once there is a greater supply of housing, its price will go down, just like all goods.

Every individual has a right to own firearms, like we do any other piece of property. It is especially important that individuals own firearms, so we can defend our liberties from the government. All through history, tyrants disarmed their subjects to prevent them from rebelling.

Many people see the government as an entity protecting the environment from polluters, but the reality is the government has done more to promote pollution than prevent it. Under a system of true private property, property owners would be able to sue polluters; if frackers pollute your water, you would sue them for that. Currently, the government says there’s some magical “optimal” pollution level and lets businesses pollute to that level, ignoring the people they harm.

First, to lower the insane price of higher education we need to stop pushing every single person to attend college; it is not the right decision for every person. Second, we need to stop subsidizing college, as it just leads to colleges raising their prices even higher.

In the past 4 years the office of the Auditor General has conducted over 12,000 audits; however, only about 20 were audits of state departments and agencies. That's about 0.17% of all the audits! The Auditor General is letting the state government spend the money taken from you any way they want. As Auditor General I would relentlessly investigate how politicians and bureaucrats are using your money. As well, since 2003, there were only 4 years where one Party controlled the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature. That means both parties are engaged in wasting and abusing our money, so we can't trust either of them to conduct genuine audits that expose corruption.