Gary Johnson Is Unqualified. Here's Why I Just Voted For Him

A lot of friends and family have asked me who Im supporting this cycle.

Today I cast my ballot for Governor Gary Johnson. As I filled in the bubble of my yellow absentee ballot, even I was a bit surprised by my choice. Ive never been much of a fan of Governor Johnson. I dont see him as a particularly appealing commander-in-chief. Im 100 percent confident I made the right choice though. To paraphrase Ted Cruz, I voted my conscience.

This wasnt a matter of voting against corruption . This wasnt about my distrust of Hillary Clinton, or my disgust with the rhetoric of this cycle . This was a matter of deciding what I believe the best path for our country is, what we need, and which candidates policies best represents that vision.

When the government approaches a problem, it approaches it with a very singular mindset. Who do we give tax dollars to to temporarily solve this problem?. Its the give-a-man-a-fish approach, except that giving the man a fish requires collecting 30-40 percent of the fishes from all the other men with fish. Working in government this summer, I saw this fish-giving up close.

Temporary solutions become permanent, and spending on entitlements ends up growing 9 percent a year, while the problems theyve set out to solve get worse.

When private industry approaches the same problems, they find real, sustainable solutions. If they dont, they go out of business.

The governments solution to affordable housing is to use taxpayer dollars to build government-owned housing and pay peoples rent. Public housing spending is inefficient, the waiting lists are long, and they dont come close to meeting the demand for housing assistance . And yet, when private sector companies like AirBnb help hundreds of thousands of Americans pay their rent, without using taxpayer dollars, Democratic administrations try to run them into the ground .

Governments answer to transportation is the taxi and the bus. Taxis are low-quality, expensive, and corrupt . Buses and trains are more affordable, but only because theyre heavily subsidized by your tax dollars. And the experience still sucks.

Uber , Lyft, and dozens of companies have addressed this problem. Theyve made transportation more affordable, more comfortable, and more equitable (Ubers go places where taxi drivers wont ).

Theyve provided thousands of college students, teachers, and immigrants with well-paying work on their own schedule. Theyve lowered pollution by taking wasteful cars off the road, and subsidized car purchases for many who couldnt otherwise afford one. Theyve even lowered drunk-driving deaths . Ridesharing companies have done everything that Democrats aspire to do, without taxpayer dollars. And yet, Hillary Clintons answer , and the Democratic partys answer to ridesharing has been to attack these companies, and to sue and regulate them out of existence.

Even as cybersecurity becomes as pressing a threat as terrorism, candidates from both major parties demand that private-sector companies compromise the security of their users .

We have seen in the last 10 years just how much private-sector innovation can make life better. The gig economy can provide for flexible, well-paying work. Driverless cars can prevent up to 90 percent of traffic fatalities , and make transportation more affordable . New medical procedures can restore senses and motion, and cure diseases that humans have fought unsuccessfully for thousands of years, but under either of the two major candidates, I worry that the cumbersome regulations they will enact will stop these innovators in their tracks.

Democratic candidates love to lecture on clean energy, but the way in which the government uses tax dollars and regulations to pick winners and losers in the energy industry has set us back years and years.

The reality that we as a country need to come to grips with is that government cannot solve problems, no matter how much tax money they take from the American people in income taxes, sales taxes, and random single-purpose taxes. This is not just a conservative position. In many of his talks, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, one of the most well-known social entrepreneurs in the world, says just that. We need to fix the broken, corrupt tax code, but we also need to let Americans decide where more of their earnings go. The amount of your money government spends right now is neither normal, nor just.

In education, we need serious unfunded mandate reform. We need to restore power to administrators and teachers at the local level. One of the reasons that American schools are struggling is that, in order to qualify for the government funding that they rely on, theyre forced to comply with ridiculous, cumbersome and costly regulations. We need to empower schools to spend more time thinking about their students, and less time thinking about whether they comply with federal guidelines for funding.

In other areas of life, we need to protect or restore choice to the individual. How you use the internet, what sort of insurance you buy, what you write, or who you marry should be your business, not governments.

Governor Johnson calls for a very different approach to all of these issues than his opponents. He supports individual liberties, free trade, removing burdensome regulatory gobbledygoop, and getting big-government out of your life. He calls for significant spending cuts across the board, and lower taxes for all Americans.

I disagree significantly with Governor Johnson on foreign policy. I think that our strong role in foreign affairs has served us well, and that the United States needs to continue to lead abroad. When our allies are threatened, we need to defend them. These are fundamental values of our nation.

That said, weve tried 80 years of managed bureaucracy, and it hasnt worked. Weve tried and failed to solve our countrys problems by taxing more and spending more. Now, its imperative that we learn from our mistakes, move on, and restore the liberties that our forefathers demanded, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

This election will not yield the change I think we so desperately need, but I hope that by the collective vote of every disgruntled American out there, we can start a conversation about what is really, truly broken in this amazing country, and the path to recovery.