Massachusetts News 
By Eric Darbe 

January 5--Carla Howell is running for the U.S. Senate because, "We’ve had way too much government for way too long. According to Howell, "Senator Ted Kennedy is a big government, high tax Democrat. The Republican candidate will be a big government, high tax Republican. People who want small government need a choice." 

In 1998, Howell ran as a Libertarian for state auditor. She received 102,198 votes, and was endorsed by the Boston Herald who said she was "a serious, savvy, and well qualified candidate… well worth a vote." She also was endorsed by Barbara Anderson, co-director of CLT, and Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby. 

Howell warns that the word "libertarian" is getting popular. "If one itty-bitty part of a big government program looks mildly free enterprise, the politician supporting it will talk about his ‘libertarian leanings.’ If a big government politician sounds mildly tolerant, he may call this tolerance ‘libertarian.’ Neither one is a Libertarian. A true Libertarian is someone who acts to make government small. Every issue. Every time. No exceptions. No excuses." 

The Carla Howell Libertarian U.S. Senate campaign has raised over $81,000.  

Howell’s campaign manager Michael Cloud expects her senate campaign to raise $626,821, the same amount Jesse Ventura spent to win the Governor’s race in Minnesota. 

Howell earned her MBA at Babson College in Wellesley and has worked in the private sector for 24 years in engineering, marketing, and management.  

She recently spoke with Massachusetts News. 

MassNews: What is your number one campaign issue? 

Howell: Big government versus small government. One simple issue, one simple choice. Big government problems, or small government solutions. Big government is the problem; small government is the solution. I am campaigning for small government. 

You either get big government and high taxes or small government and low taxes. 

MassNews: Why do you advocate immediately ending the personal income tax?  

Howell: $700 billion out of the $1.9 trillion federal budget comes from our personal income taxes. Ending the personal income tax would cut the total federal budget back to a $1.2 trillion Reagan era budget. I seek to make the federal government so small it doesn’t need an income tax. Ending the personal income tax means that the average American taxpayer will keep $6,000 every year. That means prosperity for our families and our communities…instead of an over-bloated federal government. 

MassNews: What is small government? 

Howell: Small government is a night watchman, a tiny institution that does only the bare essentials. Small government is limited to defending our lives, our liberty, and our property. Small government is a mere fraction of today’s big government. Libertarian government is small government.  

MassNews: In terms of some of the other issues that the government has been getting involved in, say the Microsoft case, could you explain your position on that?   

Howell: The Microsoft antitrust case is not going to work. It could be outright disastrous for high-tech in America. And, it will create all kinds of new problems, while diverting resources that should be concerned with true crime, not with successful big business.  

MassNews: If an ATM fee ban came up in the Senate, would you support it and if not why?  

Howell: No. Leave the marketplace alone. This is an absurd idea, that telling a business not to charge for a particular service is going to help anything. It’s only going to displace cost. It’s going to make things worse and create new problems, by imposing government regulation. It’s interfering with the free market in an area where the federal government has absolutely no business. 

MassNews: In terms of foreign policy, what do you think the role of the United States, particularly militarily, should be in the rest of the world?  

Howell: Our military should defend American soil and American shores. Our big government meddling in foreign countries is not helping our defense; it is making it worse. It makes America less secure and it puts our boys and girls in the armed services in harm’s way. It also costs huge amounts of money for us to be funding the defense of Europe and Asia and all the other parts of the world where we have intervened. The small government solution is to limit the military to defending America. That is a function authorized by the Constitution. 

MassNews: Would you consider a national missile defense system as part of protecting America’s soil?  

Howell: I would consider anything that is viable and that the experts, upon scrutiny, can substantiate makes America safer.  

MassNews: What is your position on China, and most favored nation trading status? What should America’s foreign policy be in terms of China?  

Howell: Big government wants to intervene militarily and then regulate trade. Small government wants to limit the military to protecting America and open trade. Trade promotes peace between countries. Trade promotes prosperity. The Senate should keep its hands out of trade altogether and allow Americans to trade with the world.  

MassNews: Senator Kennedy has talked a lot about healthcare and the healthcare "crisis." Is there a crisis and what is the solution? Also, who created it?  

Howell: Healthcare in this country is pathetic compared to what it could be. This is a result of big government involvement. Big government accounts for more than 50% of spending on healthcare in this country and it regulates 100% of the dollars spent. It has failed. It has made things worse. People have far fewer health options, less privacy, less control, and pay radically more than they would with small government and free market healthcare. We need to get big government’s hands off healthcare.  

MassNews: What should be done in terms of guns and gun control?  

Howell: Libertarians always put the Second Amendment first. The Constitution gives the federal government no authority to interfere with the private ownership of guns.  

Gun control is gun prohibition. I support the Constitution. I will vote for the free ownership of guns by peaceful, law-abiding citizens without exception, every time.  

MassNews: Does that include gun registration and waiting periods? Is there any middle ground for you on guns?  

Howell: There are 22,000 anti-gun laws on the books in America. We need to repeal these laws and make America freer and safer. There is no justification for these unconstitutional regulations. They don’t help anything. They make things worse. They let government infringe on personal liberty and property ownership.  

MassNews: What is your position on education? Do you support vouchers? Are there any other proposals that you would make or support?  

Howell: Seven cents out of every school dollar spent in Massachusetts comes from the federal government, but they impose the lion’s share of mandates and regulations and strings. The Constitution does not authorize the federal government to involve itself in education in any way, shape or form. Federal involvement makes things worse. Our illiteracy rates keep going up, our dropout rates keep going up. We need to get the federal government completely out of education. 

MassNews: Do you think that as a country we’re at the point where so many people get something from government that it might be impossible to step back and do these things you’re talking about? 

Howell: This is why we need a new bold direction. We need to make government small. We need to remove all the big government programs that don’t work and return the taxes to the people. Allow them to keep the money they have earned. If we try to do it piecemeal, we will get nothing other than what we have been getting which is more big government. It’s time we tell the truth. Government has been "way too big" for "way too long." We need to make it small. And I will go to Washington, DC with an eraser to undo big government federal programs.  

MassNews: How do voters know that once you get to Washington and get a taste of all the trappings of office, you will not end up like a lot of Republicans who went in 1994 on promises of real reform, yet now seem very comfortable as distributors of "pork?" 

Howell: Well that’s a fair question. And people who don’t know me don’t know. But, they do know that the Republican and Democrat politicians they have sent to Washington in this century made government bigger. And when the politicians say "tax cut," their taxes get higher. When the politicians say they’re going to cut spending, big government gets bigger.  

I am making a very specific promise. I promise to propose a dramatic, bold reduction in government and end the federal income tax. I promise that I will vote small government on every issue, every time, no exceptions, no excuses. That is my promise to voters. I am running as a Libertarian, and Libertarian government is small government.  

MassNews: Do you support term limits? If you do, why?  

Howell: Yes, I do support term limits. I understand why some oppose them. But I believe that term limits is a form of limiting the power of government. In particular, limiting the power of individuals to use government. So I do support term limits, I believe they should be applied to judges as well as legislators. 

I promise that, if I am elected, I will serve no more than two terms as US senator from Massachusetts. I ain’t no Marty Meehan. 

MassNews: Do you expect to get into the debates?  

Howell: If we do our job right, we will be included in the US Senate debates. Last year, Libertarians were excluded from the debates because we were not a major party. Now we are a major party.  

Jesse Ventura, who was largely ignored for the first year of his campaign, was permitted into the debates in Minnesota and now he is governor. A third party can win and polls have repeatedly showed that voters want third parties included in debates, overwhelmingly.  

MassNews: As a Libertarian, explain to a Massachusetts grandmother, or any other concerned citizen, why they should want to end the "war on drugs." The idea that drugs would be legal scares a lot of people. Why should it not scare them?  

Howell: The War on Drugs is destroying neighborhoods and ruining families. Drug Prohibition makes it obscenely profitable to push drugs on our children. It encourages many kids to join gangs. That’s why conservative publications like the National Review call for the immediate end to the drug war. 

I encourage parents to find out the consequences of specific illegal drugs and tell their kids the truth: these drugs can ruin your health and your life.  

Alcohol Prohibition didn’t work. Alcohol Prohibition made it profitable for Al Capone and other gangsters to push bad alcohol. With Drug Prohibition, gangs like the Crips and Bloods continue the work of Al Capone. 

Because of the war on drugs, over 50% of all federal prisoners are nonviolent drug offenders. Mandatory minimum sentence laws which were championed by Ted Kennedy have caused murderers, rapists and child molesters to be released early to make room for non-violent drug offenders. This is crazy. Grandmothers, parents, young adults, children everyone should be frightened of the war on drugs. It’s been a terrible failure. Under small government we will be much safer, we will stop wasting money, we will stop trampling on the Constitution. 

MassNews: When you talk about getting rid of whole departments, whether it’s the Department of Education or the Drug Enforcement Administration, there’s thousands of people whose careers are dependent on the existence of these departments. What do you say to them, and also how do you break the huge amount of inertia that keeps failed departments in operation?  

Howell: The American economy created 20 million new jobs in the last ten years. It can easily absorb 2-1/2 million well-educated ex-federal employees.  

There’s only one way to make government small. We must remove big government programs in one big, bold move. We must allow people to keep the money they earn. My small government proposal to immediately end the income tax will free up $1 trillion in taxes and compliance costs. That’s a trillion dollars that Americans can spend or invest or save in their communities for their communities, that they can invest in new businesses and millions of new jobs.  

MassNews: What issues can Libertarians and social conservatives work together on? 

Howell: Make government small. Make government small. Make government small. Because small government means individual liberty and full, personal responsibility. That’s a culture where good values thrive. Where character and virtue thrives. 

In a big government system, individuals are penalized for their virtues and rewarded for their vices. With small government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility, individuals are rewarded for their virtues and penalized for their vices.  

People interested in the Carla Howell Libertarian for U.S. Senate campaign can contact us at our web site: www.carlahowell.org.