Mass. U.S. senate election: Scott Brown on the issues

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT:

Scott Brown supports reasonable and appropriate development of alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and improved hydroelectric facilities. He opposes a national cap and trade program because of the higher costs that families and businesses would incur.

HEALTH CARE REFORM:

Scott Brown is opposed to health care reform and voted to repeal it and continues to support its repeal in Congress. Brown believes with higher taxes and cuts to Medicare that health care reform is a bad deal for Massachusetts. He introduced multiple bills to repeal the 2.3 percent medical device tax that would crush the more than 200 medical device companies in Massachusetts that provides thousands of good-paying jobs. He believes states should be allowed to implement health care reform that works best for them on an individual basis.

ECONOMY/JOBS:

Scott Brown is free-enterprise advocate who believes that lower taxes can encourage economic growth. He believes raising taxes stifles growth, weakens the economy and puts more people out of work.

During his time in the senate, Brown introduced a wide-ranging Bay State Jobs Agenda targeted at boosting specific sectors of the Massachusetts economy and putting people back to work. Two pieces of his jobs agenda were recently signed into law by President Obama: tax breaks for companies that hire returning veterans and a repeal of a stealth tax that would have impacted small businesses and contractors across the country.

IMMIGRATION:

Brown opposes amnesty and believes in strengthening U.S. border enforcement and instituting an employment verification system with penalties for companies that hire illegal immigrants. He believes it is wrong to provide driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to illegal immigrants because it will act as a magnet in drawing more people here in violation of the law and it imposes new costs on taxpayers.

WOMEN:

Scott Brown fully supports the The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Brown also says he supports abortion but opposes forcing taxpayers to fund it. He is against partial-birth abortions and against federal funding of abortions.