Lucas Kunce in 2022 MO Senate race

On Budget & Economy: Abandon the notion that the market is an untouchable force

Abandon the religion of market mysticism. Market mysticism is the idea that "the market," short for the sum of all commercial interactions, is a sacred, natural, and untouchable force. The idea espoused, disingenuously, by the Chinese Communist spokesman that humankind can never govern the market, because it is already perfectly ruled by magical laws like self-interest. On the contrary, the Chinese Communist Party has proved brilliant at governing the market in China's national interest. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Budget & Economy: Acknowledge policy role in market successes

We need to acknowledge that industries, intellectual property, and universities are assets created by national policies and resources, and that they can be answerable to society. Many of the great inventions and products we enjoy are the product of direct market interventions. Sometimes through carrots like government funding and incentives, and sometimes through sticks like antitrust actions that crushed monopolies and allowed new businesses and innovations to sprout from garages and flourish. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Corporations: We need to break the oppressive corporate monopoly structure

[On competition]: "The oppressive corporate monopoly structure we're living under right now, we need to break that," he said, noting a slew of Missouri-based companies, including Anheuser-Busch and Monsanto, have become foreign-owned in recent years. "Pharmaceutical cartels, big agriculture, big tech, defense monopolies--all of them make it hard for a regular person to compete in the economy." Source: Huffington Post on 2022 Missouri Senate race Mar 9, 2021

On Corporations: Corporate self-interest gave China control of supply chain

It's a uniquely modern American mentality that places all other principles behind the greatest principle of all: the pursuit of self-interest. Exploiting that philosophy is the foundation of how China took control of our entire supply chain, numerous industries, and know-how that America, as a society, paid for and developed, and even a huge slice of "materials and technologies deemed strategic and critical to U.S. national security," as outlined in a recent national-security report. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Education: Universities rely on full-paying Chinese STEM students

Higher education is a competitive world, fueled by dollars and discoveries. Our legislatures have defunded higher education for years, and the universities need the full-paying tuition, the STEM students, and the research money that America isn't providing them. So they get them from China. Which allows China to exploit our institutions and federal research funding to leapfrog us in key technologies like quantum computing. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Energy & Oil: We can build the energy of the future in the Heartland

We were willing and will still be willing, it seems like, to spend trillions of dollars over there fighting over this resource for energy when we could actually build the energy of the future right here in the Heartland, in Missouri, and create the jobs of the future where we can become an exporter of energy products. That's the type of thing that I want to do. So, I want to take our money, and not put it in inflating asset bubbles but instead put it into production. Source: The Hill e-zine on 2022 Missouri Senate race Mar 9, 2021

On Energy & Oil: Ditch all fossil fuels the same way we ditched whale oil

The cost of rapidly decarbonizing the power grid is estimated at about $4.5 trillion, plus some amount for accelerating the transition to electric vehicles. That's certainly less than future potential oil conflict would cost. For our national security, we must adopt an industrial policy to rapidly and fully decarbonize our energy and transportation sectors. We need to ditch all fossil fuels, not just oil, the same way we ditched whale oil for petroleum in the late 1800s. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Mar 10, 2021

On Energy & Oil: Impact of climate change taxes the military

Climate change-induced severe weather has caused billions of dollars of damage to defense infrastructure and threatens to damage the majority of Defense Department installations. Sea-level rise is undermining our naval bases. Climate change taxes the military by increasing refugee flows and other events that require humanitarian relief missions. It fuels conflicts over basic resources such as food and water that create instability and lead to military intervention. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Mar 10, 2021

On Free Trade: Reliance on Chinese manufacturing is dangerous

America is completely dependent on Chinese manufacturing for everything, essential things like medicine, electronics, and military components. The scope of what we are currently incapable of doing is astonishing. According to recent congressional hearings on the impact of tariffs, among other things, we cannot print our own Bibles, manufacture rifle scopes, or even make the special ink to print U.S. dollars without Chinese assistance. It is as embarrassing as it is dangerous. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Free Trade: Transfer costs of offshoring to China to corporations

Raise the private cost of offshoring or selling out to China to reflect the true cost of the assets being sold or offshored. The goal here is to transfer external costs from our national ledger onto the companies' balance sheets. We could do this by closing loopholes that allow them to convert national risk into private profit or transfer the fruits of national resources like basic research, infrastructure, or education to adversaries like China for private profit. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Homeland Security: Focused on impact of consolidation on national security

Lucas Kunce is the Director of National Security Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project, a Marine veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and worked as an International Negotiations Officer on the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He is an attorney and a writer focusing on the impact financialization and consolidation have on national security. He has submitted work to the FTC on how the right to repair affects the military. Source: EconomicLiberties.US on 2022 Missouri Senate race Mar 10, 2021

On Immigration: Attracting educated immigrants transfers wealth to US

Attracting immigrants educated elsewhere transfers wealth into the U.S. and lowers the education cost of creating a new industry. Some of America's greatest innovations have been created by immigrants. Attracting wealth and lowering costs like this should be a bipartisan issue. With regard to all those Chinese students and workers here, rather than educating and training them for their return to China, encouraging more to stay would be a huge transfer of wealth to us from a direct competitor. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Dec 9, 2020

On Technology: Tech giants structurally unable to defend American interests

Tech platforms say we should protect their concentrated power for the sake of America's national security. But their history shows tech giants are structurally unable to defend American interests. All calls to preserve massive corporations in the name of national security rely on two problematic assumptions: first, that monopolies can be reliable partners who will look out for America's national security; second, that monopolies are more effective than open markets. Neither is true. Source: ProMarket.org blog on 2022 Missouri Senate race Aug 7, 2020

On War & Peace: Intervene for self-defense, and then we need to leave

I believe that we should intervene when we have a self-defense moment, and we need to protect ourselves. And we need to accomplish that mission immediately, and then we need to leave. And I don't believe in this, you know, this doctrine of like "preemptive self-defense" where we invade Iraq because they might have weapons of mass destruction someday. Source: The American Prospect on 2022 Missouri Senate race Aug 27, 2021

The above quotations are from 2022 Missouri Senate race: debates and news coverage. Click here for other excerpts from 2022 Missouri Senate race: debates and news coverage. Click here for other excerpts by Lucas Kunce. Click here for a profile of Lucas Kunce.
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Abortion Budget/Economy Civil Rights Corporations Crime Drugs Education Energy/Oil Environment Families Foreign Policy Free Trade	Govt. Reform Gun Control Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Jobs Principles Social Security Tax Reform Technology War/Peace Welfare
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Page last updated: Nov 26, 2023