Stephen Brown

Stephen Brown
Candidate for
U.S. Senate, Nevada
Party	Democratic
Military service
Service/branch	U.S. Army
Websites
Campaign website

Stephen Brown was a 2012 Democratic candidate seeking election to the U.S. Senate from Nevada.

Biography

Brown was born in Cook, Minnesota. After graduating from high school, he served in the U.S. Army from 1974-1977 in West Germany. He moved to Las Vegas in 1982 to work as a 21 and craps dealer. In 1986, he started his own masonry business.

Issues

Campaign themes

2012

On his campaign website, Brown lists six issues. They are:

• Health Care and Social Security

• Brown would like to allow Medicare administrators to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices. He would also like to pass medical malpractice reform with the aim of eliminating "defensive medicine" and its concomitant costs. He would also endorse a plan to raise the social security retirement age by three years to 68.

• Department of Education

• Brown proposes a shut-down of the Department of Education, the savings of which would be re-allocated to provide more student loans and Pell Grants. In order to reform the student loan industry, Brown proposes a longer waiting period and tougher entrance exams for student loans disbursements. He also suggests that making student loan debt easier to discharge in bankruptcy courts would prevent lenders from giving money to students who shouldn't qualify.

• Military

• Brown proposes a reduction of the defense budget. He says, "Ion [sic] the past, the military has fired troops in order to downsize. That must not happen again. Reduction in troop numbers can be accomplished slowly, through retirements and a reduction in recruiting." He also states on the website that we should reduce the number of foreign countries in which U.S. troops are stationed from 135 to "no more than 10."

• Taxes

• Brown proposes several changes to the tax code:

• Corporate Tax

• The self-employment tax would be eliminated for income under $25,000. Self-employment earnings above $25,000 would be taxed at 10 percent. Additionally, corporations would not pay corporate income on the first $100,000 of net profits.

• Investment Tax

• Capital gains income would be taxed at 10 percent for low-income households and at 20 percent for everyone else, while dividends would again be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income.

• Millionaire Tax

• A new surtax of 5.4 percent would be added on income above $1 million.

• Eliminate Tax Loop Holes

• The elimination of tax loopholes would lower tax rates and raise more revenue.

• Spending Cuts

• Brown states that he would cut the pay of civilian federal workers by 5 percent, reduce the federal workforce by 5 percent, cut 250,000 federal contractors, cut state aid by 5 percent, and reduce the budget of the Department of Homeland Security by $10 billion per year.

• War on Drugs

• Brown considers the War on Drugs a failure and proposes the legalization of marijuana.

Elections

2012

See also: United States Senate elections in Nevada, 2012

Brown ran in the 2012 election for the U.S. Senate, representing Nevada. He was defeated in the Democratic primary on June 12, 2012.

The University of Virginia's Center for Politics published an article called Sabato's Crystal Ball on March 22, 2012 detailing the 8 races in the Senate in 2012 that would impact the political fate of which party ended up with control in 2013. The seat rated a toss-up that Sabato's Crystal Ball believed was most likely to depend on the outcome of the Presidential election in November is the Senate seat in Nevada. According to the article, "the size of the Hispanic vote in Nevada come November may be more of a deciding factor in this contest than any SuperPAC."

External links

• Official Campaign Website
• KLAS Article