Ted Cruz (R)

Con
Should Supreme Court Justice Scalia's Replacement Be Chosen by President Obama?

"But it underscores the stakes of this election. We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that will strike down every restriction on abortion adopted by the states. We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that will reverse the Heller decision, one of Justice Scalia's seminal decisions that upheld the Second Amendment right to keep and to bear arms.

We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that would undermine the religious liberty of millions of Americans -- and the stakes of this election, for this year, for the Senate, the Senate needs to stand strong and say, 'We're not going to give up the U.S. Supreme Court for a generation by allowing Barack Obama to make one more liberal appointee.'

And then for the state of South Carolina, one of the most important judgments for the men and women of South Carolina to make is who on this stage has the background, the principle, the character, the judgment, and the strength of resolve to nominate and confirm principled constitutionalists to the court? That will be what I will do if I'm elected president."

Con
Should Any Federal Taxes Be Increased?

"When it comes to jobs and growth and opportunity, the two most effective levers that the federal government has to facilitate small businesses creating new jobs, are tax reform and regulatory reform...

I am campaigning on a flat tax that would allow every American to fill out his or her taxes on a post card that allow us to abolish the IRS."

Con
Are the Common Core Standards Good for Education in America?

"Common Core is a disaster. And if I am elected president, in the first days as president, I will direct the Department of Education that Common Core ends that day.

Now, let me tell you why you can do that, because it's easy to talk about the problem, but you have to understand the solutions. The Obama administration has abused executive power in forcing Common Core on the states. It has used Race-to-the-Top funds to effectively blackmail and force the states to adopt Common Core.

Now, the one silver lining of Obama abusing executive power is that everything done with executive power can be undone with executive power, and I intend to do that.

Beyond that, though, Jake, I intend to work to abolish the federal Department of Education and send education back to the states and back to the local governments. "

Con
Should US Election Campaigns Be Publicly Financed?

"A far better [campaign finance] system would be to allow individuals unlimited contributions to candidates and require immediate disclosure...

Money is, and has always been used, as a critical tool of speech whether publishing books, or putting on events, or broadcasting over the airwaves."

Con
Is the Nuclear Arms Deal with Iran Good for America?

"This Obama Iranian Nuclear Deal is a bad deal. It keeps getting worse. The more you hear about the deal, the less confident you are…

This deal is not materially different than simply calling the Iranian supreme leader, asking if they're developing nuclear weapons, and taking his word for it when he says ‘no.'

The idea that we would trust Iran to inspect their own facilities takes a level of gullibility and naiveté that exceeds the standards even of the Obama Administration. Nobody would sign this agreement without knowing full well that the predictable and certain outcome of this agreement is that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. And no one in their right mind would want a regime that is led by a radical, theocratic Ayatollah, who chants ‘Death to America,' to acquire nuclear weapons...

In my view, the Iranian nuclear deal is catastrophic, and there is no higher priority over the next 60 days than to energize and mobilize the American people to reach out to every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, and urge them to reject this deal."

Con
Should More Gun Control Laws Be Enacted?

"Washington politicians shouldn't be taking advantage of recent tragedy to try to push an aggressive gun control agenda. Real assault weapons--machine guns--are already functionally illegal, and they have been since 1934. This proposal would have done nothing to prevent the terrible murders in Newtown, but it would limit the constitutional liberties of law-abiding citizens. And gun control doesn’t work – the empirical data overwhelmingly demonstrate that strict gun-control laws consistently produce more crime and more murders.

The Second Amendment exists to ensure that law-abiding Americans can protect their homes and families, and I look forward to helping lead the fight to defeat this bill and to protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms."

Con
Should Abortion Be Legal?

"Today marks the dark anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that overturned a Texas law that prohibited abortion on demand. Since that 1973 ruling, more than 55 million lives have been lost to abortion.

Defending life, at its core, includes protecting both the unborn child and his or her mother from an irreversible injustice…

I have been honored to defend the dignity of human life, helping successfully defend the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act, state parental notification laws, and Texas's law prohibiting state funds for groups that provide abortions.

No right is more precious and fundamental than the right to life, and any just society should protect that right at every stage, from conception to natural death."

Con
Is Obamacare Good for America?

"I have made repeal of this disastrous law [Affordable Care Act] a top priority since the first day I arrived in the Senate and have made its repeal central to my campaign. Any candidate not willing to do the same--and campaign on it every day--should step aside...

After today's ruling, Obamacare will now be responsible for imposing illegal taxes on more than 11 million individuals and for burdening hundreds of thousands of businesses with illegal penalties on their workers, killing jobs, and further slowing economic growth. President Obama's health care law remains deeply unpopular and is harming countless Americans by increasing costs and worsening the quality of care.

I remain fully committed to the repeal of Obamacare--every single word of it. And, in 2017, we will do exactly that."

Con
Should Planned Parenthood Receive Federal Funding?

"Planned Parenthood receives about 45% of its funding from government sources. Planned Parenthood has performed more than a million abortions over the past three years, and its work accounts for nearly one-third of all abortions in the United States…

For far too long, Planned Parenthood has hidden behind the well-crafted charade that that it exists to protect women's health. In reality, it is in the business of killing unborn children on an industrial scale…

I intend to lead the fight in the United States Senate to defund Planned Parenthood."

Con
Should Undocumented Immigrants in the United States Be Allowed to Become Legal Residents?

"Look, I understand Marco [Rubio] wants to raise confusion, it is not accurate what he just said that I supported legalization [of immigrants who are in the country illegally]. Indeed, I led the fight against his legalization and amnesty...

I have never supported legalization, and I do not intend to support legalization. Let me tell you how you do this, what you do is you enforce the law...

We can enforce the laws and if we secure the border, that solves the problem. And as president I will solve this problem and secure the border."

Con
Should Sanctuary Cities Continue to Receive Federal Funding for Law Enforcement?

"[T]he scandalously poor enforcement of our immigration laws is made much, much worse by the lawless actions of the roughly 340 so-called sanctuary jurisdictions across the country. Although these jurisdictions are more than happy—eager, even—to take Federal taxpayer dollars, they go out of their way to obstruct and impede Federal immigration enforcement by adopting policies that prohibit their law enforcement officers from cooperating with Federal officers. Some of the jurisdictions even refuse to honor requests from the Federal Government to temporarily hold a criminal alien until Federal officers can take custody of the individual. Not only are these sanctuary policies an affront to the rule of law, but they are extremely dangerous...

These policies are inexcusable. They are a threat to the public safety of the American people, and they need to end. That is why I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors of the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act, which strips certain Federal funds, especially community development block grants, from jurisdictions that maintain these lawless policies. If these jurisdictions insist on making it more difficult to remove criminal aliens from our communities, then these Federal dollars should go instead to jurisdictions that will actually cooperate with the Federal Government, that are willing to enforce the law rather than aid and abet the criminals."

Con
Should the Federal Government Guarantee Paid Family and Medical Leave?

"I think maternity leave and paternity leave are wonderful things. I support them personally. But I don't think the federal government should be in the business of mandating them."

Con
Should the Federal Minimum Wage Be Increased?

"The undeniable truth is if the president succeeded in raising the minimum wage, it would cost jobs from the most vulnerable."

Con
Should the United States Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp?

"You know, just today President Obama announced his plans to try to shut down Guantanamo terrorist detention facility.

Let me say this Mr. President, don't shut down Gitmo, expand it, and let's have some new terrorists there.

How on earth does any President look in the eyes of a mother or father, whose son or daughter lost their lives capturing these terrorists and justify - we're going to release 'em again when we know a very high percentage of them are going to return to waging jihad...

I believe that President Obama intends to try to give the Guantanamo naval facility to Raul and Fidel Castro as a parting gift."

Con
Should the National Security Agency (NSA) Continue to Collect Phone and Email Metadata on US Citizens?

“We need to see the details, but it's an excellent development that the President says he intends to end the government's bulk collection of phone metadata for millions of law-abiding Americans. The federal government must respect the constitutional rights of every American. Our intelligence community is to be praised when it protects our security within the bounds of our Constitution, but I remain deeply concerned that even with our massive surveillance apparatus, we too often fail to connect the dots—and so fail to prevent—terrorist attacks from Fort Hood to Benghazi to Boston. We would do better to focus our efforts squarely on those who are most likely to attack us and less on the activities of law-abiding Americans. We must always be vigilant to protect our nation’s security, and we should not limit those efforts simply because we have greater intelligence capabilities than other countries."

Con
Should Women Be Allowed to Serve in Military Combat Positions?

"Women are capable of doing incredible things, I'm the father of two young daughters, who I think can accomplish whatever they set their hearts desire to, but I also think when it comes to the military that we shouldn't be governed by political correctness... I don't think we ought to be forcibly drafting women, particularly putting them in a position where they are in combat. I don't think that makes sense, I don't think it's beneficial to the military...

If you're looking at close combat, if you're dealing with a 200 pound Jihadist, the idea that we will forcibly take our daughters and put them in a position where they could be in close combat, I don't think that makes sense, and it's not recognizing the realities of combat. You know the Marines recently did studies on this putting women in that position and it ended up increasing causalities both among the women and the men, it decreases military effectiveness, and the job of our war fighters is to defeat the enemy, it's not to be this cauldron for social experiments or social correctness, it is to keep America safe."

Con
Should Colleges and Universities Use Affirmative Action for Admissions?

"Today, by a 7-1 vote, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court ruling upholding the University of Texas's use of racial preferences in admissions. Discriminating because of race is wrong, and this was a victory for our color-blind Constitution. In recent years, universities have made major strides to expand admissions for minorities and low-income students, working hard for the American dream. Universities should continue to do so, expanding opportunity for everyone - but that can be accomplished without discriminating on the basis of race."

Con
Is the Black Lives Matter Movement Good for America?

"[I]t seems to me journalists ought to ask those same Democrats, whether it's the Governor or whether it's Barack Obama, or whether it's Hillary Clinton, whether they believe the inflamed rhetoric of Black Lives Matter has contributed to the targeting and murder of police officers. And one of these seems to be clear. You want to talk about inflamed rhetoric, Black Lives Matter has been caught, their protesters on film, chanting pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon. Now that is hateful rhetoric, and I don’t see any reporters asking Hillary Clinton when she meets with Black Lives Matter whether she agrees with those sentiments that we should be murdering police officers."

Con
Is Human Activity Primarily Responsible for Global Climate Change?

"If you look at global warming alarmists, they don't like to look at the actual facts and the data. The satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years. Now that's a real problem for the global warming alarmists. Because all those computer models on which this whole issue was based predicted significant warming, and yet the satellite data show it ain't happening...

I read this morning a Newsweek article from the 1970s talking about global cooling. And it said the science is clear, it is overwhelming, we are in a major cooling period, and it's going to cause enormous problems worldwide...

Now, the data proved to be not backing up that theory. So then all the advocates of global cooling suddenly shifted to global warming, and they advocated it's warming, and the solution interestingly enough was the exact same solution -- government control of the energy sector and every aspect of our lives...

On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don't engage in reasoned debate. What do they do? They scream, 'You're a denier.' They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier."

Con
Should Genetically Modified (GMO) Foods Have Mandatory Labeling?

"Look, I believe in science, and biotech is a great example of the wonders of science.

It is important that our food be safe and the Federal Government has a very important role in ensuring that our food is safe. But I think we should be celebrating the innovations in science that have expanded the ability to produce food…

We need to stand up to the hysteria. I would note, for families, for parents, that don’t want to feed their kids GMOs, in the private marketplace, there has grown up an abundant market. You can go and purchase organic, if you want to pay more. The market provides for that…

But we shouldn’t let anti-science zealotry shut down the ability to produce low-cost, quality food for billions across the globe."

Con
Should the United States Transition Away from Fossil Fuels and Towards Renewable Energy?

"When it comes to energy, I think we should pursue all of the above. America is blessed with abundant energy sources, and we ought to pursue everything. We ought to pursue oil and gas, and coal, nuclear, wind, and solar, and biofuel and ethanol. All across the board, we ought to use the tremendous resources we have. You look at what this administration has done, it has waged a war on energy. It’s waged a war on oil and gas, and it has waged a war on coal, something fierce."

Con
Was the US Supreme Court Decision Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage a Good Decision?

"Today, the Court doubled down with a 5-4 opinion that undermines not just the definition of marriage, but the very foundations of our representative form of government...

That is unacceptable. On the substantive front, I have already introduced a constitutional amendment to preserve the authority of elected state legislatures to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and also legislation stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction over legal assaults on marriage...

By redefining the meaning of common words, and redesigning the most basic human institutions, this Court has crossed from the realm of activism into the arena of oligarchy...

The decisions that have deformed our constitutional order and have debased our culture are but symptoms of the disease of liberal judicial activism that has infected our judiciary. A remedy is needed that will restore health to the sick man in our constitutional system."