Policies

Josh First stands for the following policy positions:

• Implement the principle of limited government in all aspects of state and federal government.
• Put the US and Pennsylvania Constitutions first in the formation of all law.
• Fight for and demand a balanced budget every year.
• Josh will impose term limits by self-limiting himself to three terms.

Live By Example
Josh will not take the state health care plan, nor the state pension plan, nor a state car, nor per-diems. Being an elected official must not be a career, but a service to fellow citizens.  Reform cost-of-living adjustments (“COLAs”), pension plans, and health care plans for all elected state officials..

Reform Property Taxes
Property taxes have evolved to the point where landowners and homeowners end up, in effect, renting their property from the government, at odds with the founding view of America. Government must be our servant, not our master.

Protect and Bring Back American Jobs
Protect and bring back American jobs by making Pennsylvania a right-to-work state, and ensure that regulation achieves its goals. Too much regulation imposes enormous costs, but achieves marginal returns in protection. I have nothing against unions. Big unions (“Big Labor”) feel like Big Business to me while smaller local unions often feel like family. I do not support forcing any employee, public or private, to join a union or pay union taxes against their will.

Energy Independence & Efficiency
Promote energy independence through wise, careful shale gas development. Help Pennsylvania turn its abundant natural gas into a transportation fuel that offsets imported oil from foreign sources who hate America. I am against forced pooling, where landowners have their oil and gas rights condemned by private companies.

Farmland Preservation
Strongly fund farmland preservation for food independence and the conservation of our traditional rural communities and Central Pennsylvania culture.

Second Amendment to the Constitution
Adamantly protect Second Amendment rights. Josh First is a long-time, proud NRA member, a life-long hunter and gun owner, and a long-time Tree Farmer. All of his children have been shooting and fishing since they could walk.  Josh has been endorsed in this race by Firearms Owners Against Crime. (http://www.foac-pac.org/)

Education Reform
Education reform by pursuing school choice, greater charter school availability and presence, school district consolidation, reducing administrative overhead. Despite dedicated teachers, too many government schools have failed too many communities, especially inner-city populations. To me, school choice is a matter of civil rights for minorities.

Eliminate the Death Tax
It is an unfair, punitive tax designed to punish people for their financial success and take away money that was already taxed twice.

Resist Single Payer Healthcare (“ObamaCare”)
Work with the Attorney General, the Governor, and other leaders to resist “ObamaCare,” which has nothing to do with health care and everything to do with putting the government in charge of every aspect of our lives.

Abortion
Josh is pro-life.

Veterans
US service members deserve our thanks, and they must receive the institutional support they have earned.

Game Commission Merger
Josh opposes merging the PGC with the Pa Dept of Conservation & Natural Resources.

Tort Reform
Outlandish legal judgments and overwhelming medical malpractice insurance costs are decimating our medical care system. Pennsylvanians need doctors as much as anyone.

Carbon
The science behind human-caused global warming is too politicized to be accurate. As an entrepreneurial capitalist, I strongly support voluntary carbon markets (landowners should be able to sell their property rights as they see fit). As a conservative businessman, I strongly oppose compulsory carbon markets, what has now become known as cap-and-trade.

Conservation vs. Environmentalism
Every hunter, fisherman, trapper, bird watcher, hiker, camper, and farmer knows what conservation is: The wise, careful, judicious use of finite natural resources, so that future opportunities will not be lost or squandered. Capitalism and markets are at the core of conservation. Examples include logging, farming, recreation, and non-timber forest products. Josh First is a noted conservationist who has worked at the PA DCNR, the Conservation Fund, the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy, and who as an entrepreneur has explored the creation of new natural resource markets.

Environmentalism, on the other hand, is based on top-down, command-and-control regulations that result in marginal gains in environmental quality, at a huge cost. Josh left the US EPA in 1998, after seven years and three different positions, because of the destructive environmentalist culture at that agency. Environmentalism is bad stuff.

Nanny State Regulations
Josh First is opposed to the creation of a “Nanny State,” where endless regulations severely limit individual liberty by attempting to create zero risk for citizens, who should be free to make their own choices. A classic example is the choice about whether or not to wear a motorcycle helmet.