2016 presidential hopeful stumps for votes

Pahrump Valley Republican Women’s Club member Dorothy Oriondo boasted she got a photo of herself with U.S. presidential candidate Kerry Bowers at a recent club meeting at the Pahrump Senior Center.

The memento is just in case he wins.

Bowers’ campaign slogan is “restore America’s blessings.” His website, www.KerryBowers.com, lists his positions on issues like health care and immigration. Bowers retired in 2006 as a lieutenant colonel after 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, from 2006 to 2009 he had a business supplying radar and infrared systems to the military.

Bowers, a North Carolina native now living in Henderson, visited the Artesia Community Center back in February 2011 as part of a nationwide tour promoting a fair tax. It would be a 23 percent sales tax that would replace the federal income tax, payroll tax, alternative minimum tax, gift tax, estate tax and other taxes. Americans would get a monthly rebate for the sales taxes they paid based on the federal poverty level.

In an analysis Americans for Fair Taxation said those earning less than $24,156 per year would benefit and those making more than $200,000. Bowers said the fair tax proposal was based on years of research at many universities, including Nobel laureate in economics Vernon L. Smith.

While on the road as the voluntary spokesman for the fair tax, Bowers began thinking about a run for the top office in the country. He began thinking about the basic issues affecting the country, like the economy and Social Security. Bowers began researching the issues and the Constitution, he said.

His objectives include confining the federal government to its enumerated powers; providing the military with capabilities second to none; replacing the Internal Revenue Code with the fair tax including a repeal of the 16th Amendment eliminating the IRS; a balanced budget; securing the borders and enforcing immigration laws; and implementing an asset producing health care program.

Bowers stressed his campaign is proposing specific ideas as opposed to band-aid solutions. He briefed Republican women on his American Medical Reform Plan, which will address the shortage of doctors.

“Our health care today from the government perspective is focused on the demand side of economics, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, federal funding for Medicaid. But what’s happening to the supply with that demand? It’s decreasing. We have less doctors today and greater demand. What happens to the price when the demand goes up and the supply doesn’t go with it? The price goes up and that’s exactly what’s happening today. So I reshifted that today, I look at the supply side of health care. If you increase the supply you open up borders to insurance, you put your supply out there to operate in a free enterprise environment. What will happen to your prices? They go down. It just makes sense,” Bowers said.

While candidates appealed for voters in this year’s election, Bowers said the voters have two and a half years to examine him before 2016.

“It’s not really so much a matter of whether or not I become president but maybe through I’m doing it helps you establish a standard that you’re going to impose upon all the candidates so we get the right person in the White House that focuses on what’s right in this nation and in accordance with our Constitution,” Bowers said.