Issues

Boosting Economic Growth for Families and Businesses

Addressing Inflation and Making Life More Affordable for Utahns: Amid rising inflation and escalating living costs, Mike is committed to taking action to help curb these trends and make life more affordable for Utah’s families and businesses. By fostering economic growth, advocating for sensible tax policies, and supporting energy independence, Mike aims to create a stable economic environment that counters inflation and keeps the cost of living in check for our families.

Cutting Through Bureaucracy and Red Tape: Mike will work to free job creators from the heavy load of unnecessary regulations. He’s been in the trenches, working hard to trim down rules that choke innovation and growth. Understanding the importance of fostering an innovative business environment, Mike supported and helped pass the pioneering sandbox legislation in Utah, allowing startups to navigate regulatory hurdles more easily. His goal is crystal clear – create a thriving environment where businesses can easily grow, innovate, and generate good-paying jobs for Utahns.

Advocating for Tax Relief for Everyone: Mike’s efforts with his colleagues in the Utah state legislature have led to significant tax cuts, putting over a billion dollars back into the pockets of Utah families and businesses. Mike champions lower taxes not just to spur economic growth, but to ensure the tax code is fair and straightforward. He is firmly against letting foreign-owned companies benefit from U.S. tax incentives, ensuring those dollars support American growth first and foremost.

Supporting Small Business: From his own experience as a small business owner with a large family, Mike understands the day-to-day challenges people face. He’s committed to easing these burdens through tax and regulatory relief for small businesses and advocating for energy policies that lead to lower costs and a stronger, independent economy. Mike’s life as a doctor, attorney, legislator, and father to a large family has fine-tuned his ability to make careful, thoughtful decisions about resources, a skill he’s eager to use to benefit Utah’s hardworking families.

Ensuring Border Security and Improving Legal Immigration

Securing Our Borders: Mike Kennedy is focused on completing the border wall and using the latest surveillance tech to keep our borders protected. He will work to ensure our border is secure and the immigration system works the way it should—keeping us safe while respecting the law.

Backing Our Border Patrol: Mike is committed to making sure our border patrol and law enforcement are fully equipped with the equipment, technology, staffing, and funding they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. He supports strengthening their capabilities to ensure our borders remain secure.

Improving Legal Immigration: As a first-generation American, Mike values the promise of America. After securing our border, Mike will work to improve and streamline the legal immigration process for law-abiding individuals to contribute to our country and share in the American dream.

Putting Utah Ahead of Special Interests

Prioritizing Utah’s Families, Businesses, and Communities: Mike will always place the interests of Utah above all, focusing on policies that support the state’s families, enhance local businesses, and strengthen communities. His dedication to principled leadership is centered on representing Utah’s values and needs in Washington, D.C., free from the sway of external pressures and interests.

Passing Term Limits and Reducing Lobbyist Power: Mike will champion the passage of term limits for Congress to foster fresh perspectives and prevent career politicians from prioritizing their tenure over the people’s needs. He also proposes stricter regulations on lobbying activities, particularly targeting the influence of lobbyists representing foreign and special interests, to ensure policy-making serves the public good.

Restoring Integrity and Accountability to Washington: Mike is steadfast in his commitment to ethical governance, targeting significant ethics reforms to lessen the grip of special interests on our political system. He will advocate for a mandatory cooling-off period for lawmakers before transitioning into lobbying roles and insists on complete transparency in congressional stock trading, ensuring that the focus of elected officials remains on the needs and welfare of Utahns and Americans, not the agendas of special interests.

Reducing Federal Overreach and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility

Tackling Wasteful Spending and National Debt: Mike Kennedy is on a mission to confront the skyrocketing national debt, now over $34 trillion, head-on. He’s advocating for cuts in wasteful spending and pushing for a leaner, more accountable government by advocating for single-subject legislation. Mike supports rolling back discretionary spending to pre-pandemic levels, freezing it at those levels to make thoughtful decisions about where money should go, and ensuring any future increases are kept below inflation. Additionally, Mike supports a Balanced Budget Amendment, emphasizing it’s not just policy but a principle, to ensure the government can’t spend more than it takes in. This approach isn’t just about saving dollars—it’s about saving the future of our economy.

Cutting Through the Nonsense: With years of experience balancing Utah’s budget and delivering tax cuts to Utah residents, Mike has seen firsthand how a disciplined fiscal approach can lead to prosperity. He’s ready to take this discipline to Washington, cutting through the red tape of continuing resolutions and pork-filled omnibus bills. Mike’s message is clear: It’s time to get serious about our nation’s budgeting process, making it more transparent, more deliberate, and more about the people it’s supposed to serve.

Ensuring Regulatory Accountability: Mike is an advocate for the REINS Act, which demands major regulations get a green light from Congress before they can take effect. This policy is about bringing power back to the people’s representatives and ensuring big decisions that affect the economy and individual freedoms are made openly and democratically. Mike is committed to ensuring the rules we live by are fair, transparent, and accountable to the American public.

Unlocking Federal Lands to Combat Housing Shortages: Mike Kennedy is dedicated to working alongside Utah’s delegation to pass the Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter Act (HOUSES Act), a strategic free-market approach to the national housing shortage. This critical legislation will utilize select federal lands—excluding national parks and protected areas—to increase the availability of affordable housing for young families and seniors on fixed incomes. By championing the HOUSES Act, Mike is committed to empowering state and local governments, ensuring fiscal responsibility, and promoting local solutions to make life more affordable in Utah. This collaboration is a cornerstone of Mike’s vision for a prosperous Utah, where federal resources are leveraged in a way that meets the community’s needs, ensuring housing is more accessible and affordable through wise and conservative governance.

Safeguarding Freedom, Life, and Utah’s Public Lands

Supporting the Second Amendment: As a legislator, Mike Kennedy has a 100% Second Amendment voting record and he firmly upholds the right of every law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms, recognizing it as a foundational element of American freedom and a critical component of personal and community security.

Defending Free Speech and Religious Liberty: Mike stands strongly in support of both free speech and religious freedom, recognizing these rights as foundational to a thriving democracy. He is committed to ensuring individuals can express their beliefs and ideas freely, without fear of censorship or persecution.

Protecting the Right to Life: With a profound respect for the sanctity of life, Mike has a 100% pro-life voting record and champions policies that protect the vulnerable and affirm the value of life at all stages, from conception to a natural end.

Demanding Local Control of Utah’s Public Lands: Recognizing that over 65% of Utah’s lands are under federal control, Mike advocates for a more localized approach to land management. He supports reforms to the Antiquities Act that would ensure local communities, farmers, and ranchers have a greater say in the stewardship of these lands. Mike is committed to the idea of transferring appropriate federal lands to state and private management, believing that those who live closest to these lands are best positioned to oversee their sustainable use and preservation. Furthermore, Mike opposes foreign ownership of American lands, especially by countries with adversarial positions, to safeguard our national security and the interests of local communities.

Achieving American Energy Independence and Dominance

Eliminating Foreign Oil Dependence: Mike will prioritize eliminating America’s reliance on foreign oil, enhancing national security by bolstering our energy independence. His policies aim to strengthen America’s geopolitical stance and ensure a stable energy supply.

Boosting Domestic Energy Production: Mike is committed to expanding domestic fossil fuel production, driving down energy costs, and creating jobs. To facilitate the swift development of energy infrastructure, Mike will champion the simplification and modernization of the energy permitting process and expand federal land leases for energy development. This approach not only supports the American middle class, but also solidifies our energy independence, contributing significantly to our national security and economic prosperity.

Replenishing Strategic Energy Reserves: Mike advocates for policies that increase federal land leasing for energy production, especially in response to the depletion of strategic reserves. This strategy ensures America maintains robust energy reserves, safeguarding against future vulnerabilities.

Leveraging Free Market Principles to Promote Renewable Energy: Mike is also committed to enhancing America’s energy independence by leveraging free market principles to promote the growth of renewable energy. By advocating for the removal of unnecessary regulatory barriers and government picking winners and losers, he aims to foster a competitive environment where renewable energy technologies can thrive on merit and innovation.

Healthcare Reform That Prioritizes Patients

Expanding Health Savings Accounts: Mike will push to give families and individuals more control over their healthcare spending by expanding HSAs, FSAs, QSEHRAs, and additional solutions that allow individuals to set aside pre-tax dollars for medical expenses. It’s about making healthcare more affordable and putting decisions back in the hands of patients.

Increasing Cost Transparency and Competition: Mike will use his unique experience as a Doctor, Attorney, and Conservative Legislator, to help cut through the confusion in healthcare pricing. By increasing transparency and competition among providers and insurers, Mike aims to lower costs and improve the quality of care for everyone.

Boosting Telehealth Services: Understanding the importance of access to care, Mike champions expanding the option of telehealth services. This is especially crucial for improving healthcare access in underserved areas, making sure everyone can get the care they need, when they need it.

Safeguarding Patient Privacy: In today’s digital world, Mike takes patient privacy seriously. He’s committed to enforcing strict protections against data breaches, ensuring personal health information stays secure.

Making Prescription Drugs More Affordable: Mike will focus on tackling high prescription costs head-on through free-market solutions. He supports fostering competition and increasing the availability of generic drugs to make life-saving medications accessible and affordable for all. Mike also supports letting patients purchase prescriptions from other countries when it’s more affordable.

Restoring Educational Control to States and Local Communities

Removing Bureaucratic Control to Improve Education: Mike is dedicated to shifting educational authority away from federal bureaucrats at the Department of Education back to where it belongs: with the states, and, more importantly, with Utah’s own communities.

Directing Funds to Classrooms: Mike advocates for a streamlined approach to educational funding, aiming to cut through federal bureaucracy. His vision focuses on ensuring educational funds are allocated directly to Utah’s classrooms, providing the necessary support to both students and teachers to foster a high-quality educational environment.

Empowering Parents and Educators: Central to Mike’s educational philosophy is the belief that those who are closest to the students—parents, teachers, and local school boards—hold the deepest understanding of the students’ educational needs. He proposes strengthening their capacity to make decisions, offering them the flexibility to develop and implement educational strategies that best prepare students for a range of successful futures.