Kenneth Stepp Answers the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth

The following are my responses to the questionnaire sent to me by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth dated February 1, 2018.

1.  Kenneth Stepp
2. Ken
3. kenneth_stepp@yahoo.com
4. (606)596-0360
5. Photo will be provided later under separate cover.
6. http://www.steppforcongress.blogspot.com
7. As a candidate who had been a Republican, but is now a Democrat, I believe that we should be guided by the strengths of both major parties.  We need strong defense, but we also need progressive social programs.  The current impasse hurts everybody.  If I’m elected, I will support the successful programs so that two years after I am elected Kentuckians will be more prosperous and have a brighter future, and better skill training and job-related education.
8. Education is the best solution to the problems of poverty, poor jobs, and poor quality of life.  With better educations, with Federal education subsidies, Kentuckians will be better able to fill the higher paying engineering and technological jobs of the future, putting poverty behind us.  Better jobs mean better quality of life as people with high job skills are better able to afford things that create a better quality of life.
9. Affordable Health Care would result from better immigration laws—allowing more health care specialists into the United States, and allowing more prescription medications imported into the United States.  Also I would support more Federal subsidies for the education and training of health care specialists, including, but not limited to Doctors, Nurses, and pharmacists.
10. I support comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.  Of course, as John F. Kennedy pointed out, we are a nation of immigrants.  Some Americans, or ancestors of Americans, arrived earlier than others, but we are Americans all.  Of course, immigrants with proper documentation are free to compete equally with others for jobs, housings, education, and other advantages of living in the U.S.A.  Undocumented immigrants who have not been convicted of felonies should be given a pathway to citizenship.  We should recognize that able-bodied people in the U.S.A. are assets, and not liabilities.  America’s strength is in our people.  I would make our programs more inclusive of more people who live here.
11. Kentucky has energy resources in the forms of coal, natural gas, wind, water power, solar power, ethanol, wood and other types of energy.  Energy can be conserved with many devices including batteries, hydroelectric dams, storage facilities and other devices.  Coal smoke can be scrubbed to remove many impurities before the smoke leaves the power plant and passes into the atmosphere.  Tax laws can be rewritten to present incentives for energy facilities  to produce cleaner energy for market, and that would help create new jobs and energy savings for Kentuckians.
12. Of course, people should not be denied jobs nor positions because of their ancestry or racial background.   I would vote to leave the Civil Rights laws on the books.  Some say that those attitudes that made people feel that the Fourteenth Amendment and the resulting Civil Rights laws were necessary, no longer exist.  Perhaps affirmative action and other such programs are no longer necessary; perhaps not.  We should be slow to remove those measures that were created to be barriers to white supremacy and to racial inequality.  Much progress has been made, but greater racial justice will require continued vigilance in future years, even as past misdeeds become forgotten.
13. Of course, for the first time in human history, in this twenty-first century, city dwellers have a longer life expectancy than their country cousins.  Fighting against various forms of pollution, particularly in crowded cities, has resulted in better health for Kentuckians than in ages past.  We should continue having inspections for toxins and other noxious chemicals in our drinking water, air, and food, because that is the way to reduce toxins and other noxious chemicals and get rid of them, one at a time.
14. We should try and get formerly incarcerated individuals who have served their full sentence re-integrated into society.  That would include restoring voting rights to such people.  America probably has the highest percentage of population incarcerated.  Once a person has paid his debt to society, his or her right to vote should be restored, so that he or she feels they have a stake in the democratic process.

                                                              Yours truly,

                                                              /s/ Kenneth S. Stepp

                                                              Kenneth Stepp

KSS/ks