Libertarian Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates Gary Johnson and Bill Weld are campaigning in South Dakota.
The former Massachusetts Republican governor Bill Weld says he and Johnson are a viable alternative to the two major party candidates for president.
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson spent a few years in Aberdeen South Dakota during his childhood. Bill Weld says that kind of local connection is part of why he and Johnson are campaigning in the state.
The Libertarian candidates are hoping to gain traction in a presidential campaign where they say the two major party candidates are unpopular choices.
Weld says it’s a wonderful year to run as a libertarian vice presidential candidate. He says libertarians offer an ideological middle ground to American politics. Weld says he and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson are fiscally responsible and socially inclusive.
Weld says they hope to balance the federal budget in a zero-base approach. That means basing budget appropriations on the effectiveness of a department.
“You might multiply that appropriation by 10 because it’s such a good idea," Weld says. "And if you had a much bigger appropriation that created a huge bureaucracy that was somewhere between the treasury department and the labor department and the justice department, homeland security and nobody could tell you what it did, but it was very popular and had a lot of political connections, that would be a candidate for zero. That’s why it’s called zero-based budgeting.”
Weld says that he and Johnson feel the government should stay out of personal decisions, like abortion, marijuana legalization and choice of sexuality…
“Our point is, ‘you’re pro-life? That’s great.’ We’re not going to go tisk-tisk," Weld says. "Everybody should have their own views there and that would extend to the marijuana issue and gay rights, abortion, all self-regarding conduct.”
Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson is set to come through South Dakota this week following Weld’s visit last week.
For an extended interview with Governor Bill Weld click play below.