Cox Who?

Nashua (NH) Telegraph, 1/4/1007
By Al McKeon

...Cox, 51, bills himself as a genuine conservative, one in the mold of Ronald Reagan. He may lack the Gipper's popularity, but Cox, like Reagan, has wit.

In a free-ranging talk, he sometimes stopped to make jokes. Like Reagan, he also posed arguments with simplified rhetorical questions.

Cox wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and the income tax. The government would collect revenue from a national sales tax, he said, and wage earners would be free from the intrusiveness of filing long and complicated returns. A change in the tax structure would boost the country's economic engine, he said.

Stronger action on illegal immigration would also help the economy, Cox said. Tighter border patrols and a system that punishes businesses that employ illegal immigrants would compel non-residents to return to their homelands, he said.

Cox said the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a sound decision to keep the war against "Islamo-fascists" on their turf. Like President Bush, Cox drew from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to defend the invasion, but he said mistakes have been made in the war's latter stages.

The U.S. must help Iraqis focus on rebuilding infrastructure - including a renewal of oil production - to improve the country, he said.

Cox opposes abortion, and he used his life story to speak against it in an interview following the breakfast. His father walked out on his mother when he was an infant, and her pregnancy was forced on her, he said.

Although Cox said he sympathizes with women in that position, he believes abortion is the wrong choice to make.

"It's not about religion, but about where we're going to be as a society," he said.