OWL NEWS

Max Gersch, a small-town Pennsylvanian, strongly advocates for the American Dream, attained through limited government action.

​

To ensure equal opportunity in education, Gersch hopes to end teacher tenure in order to increase competition and ensure higher quality teachers. In addition, a large component of his education platform is the increase in vouchers for private and charter schools. Gersch plans to de-fund public schools to increase funds for private schools and lift up the lower-income students.

​

Gersch’s tax policy is simple and clear: cut taxes that long burdened Americans and balance that tax cut with a cut in spending on useless government programs. Cutting spending and taxes is an enshrined goal of many conservatives, including Gersch.

Gersch takes a cautious stance on the Affordable Care Act. While he doesn’t want to completely repeal it, as that will leave millions of Americans uninsured, he doesn’t want it as it is, as the act forces premiums to be very high and unaffordable. Gersch projects that he will implement tax credits for the uninsured while the Republicans come up with a new plan.

​

Gersch is very pro-business, shown by his support for the continuation of industrial processes, like the burning of fossil fuels, that pollute the environment. However, he plans to balance these environmental repercussions out by reducing carbon levels in the atmosphere.

​

Gersch strongly supports the role of the military to attack in the presence of a foreign threat at any time. He believes the American people’s security is the number one priority, and he will do “anything” to protect the American people from terrorism and North Korea.

​

Gersch’s stance on teacher tenure is on the more extreme side of the debate. He wants to reform teacher tenure by getting rid of it completely which, in the past, hasn’t really worked. Former chancellor of DC public schools, Michelle Rhee tried to get teachers to accept high pay in exchange for the opportunity for tenure which did not respond well with her opposition. If Gersch wants to win support from the more moderate voters, he would have to tone down the severity of the complete repeal and focus more on reforming teacher tenure policies such as making it easier to fire bad teachers. Gersch’s tax reform will appeal to many conservatives who support tax cuts on the rich and government programs that aren’t doing their jobs, gaining the support from republicans all around the board and liberals staying far away. In terms of Affordable Healthcare, Gersch doesn’t have a solid platform. He wants to implement tax credits which Republicans come up with a new plan but as seen by this past election, the Republican candidate ran on the fact that he will repeal Obamacare completely and make his own plan but a year after his election, nothing has happened. If Gersch wants to succeed, he will have to come up with what’s going to be in this new plan. When Gersch says that he wants to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere, he doesn’t give an explanation how, contradicting his support for fossil fuels not knowing how sustainable his plan is. Finally, Gersch has the idea that he will do anything to protect his citizens from terrorism being really vague on what the specifically is, possibly making the voters confused and skeptical on the possibly big measures he will take, endangering our country.