By Spencer Glassman ’19, Staff Writer

Edition One: A “No Circle” Take on Jeff Bell

On Monday, September 29, Jeff Bell, the Republican candidate for U.S Senate from New Jersey, arrived at Newark Academy. Bell  has a long history in politics; he spent 30 years in Washington as an advisor to Ronald Reagan, and as a policy maker.  He challenged incumbent Senator (and former Mayor of the city of Newark) Cory Booker. While Booker led in the polls significantly, Mr. Bell emphasized that he still stood a chance. Bell said that because of the open-mindedness of the New Jersey people to his out-of-the-box monetary policy, compared to Booker’s mainstream progressive policy, he could win voters in New Jersey who are looking for refreshing ideas.

Bell opened his presentation with a monologue on his monetary and interest rate policy, which is the key issue he ran on, even though it is not necessarily a topic of great significance currently in New Jersey—-or the United States. His boldest idea was to switch to the gold standard from our current monetary policy and to create an interest rate on loans instead of the zero interest rate and then pay that off from the federal reserve. The zero interest rate is for small businesses taking out loans. His most significant argument for the gold standard was that it would be more stable and would let people know how much their money is going to be worth in five, or maybe even ten years. He says that this will lower “income inequality,” as the lower and middle class will be more confident with taking loans and starting businesses than they currently are. The current system, Bell believes, favors the wealthy; because they are secure financially, they can take a risk on starting a business. A key point he made about the no interest rate is that even though it will be less money that the average citizen has to pay after they take the first loan the bank won’t have substantial money because of the zero rate to continually give the people more capital as they need it for expanding their business.

Besides his main point, Bell answered questions on a range of topics, from social issues to ISIS and taxes. He spoke extensively about taxes and throughout the whole discussion emphasized his ties with “Reaganomics,” and the entirety of the Reagan presidency. His idea was to cut taxes, which he helped make successful in the 1981 and 1982 tax cuts, which cut the taxes by over 30% for the top bracket. On social issues he stayed close to his conservative base; he emphasized evil like ISIS must be stopped even if it means “boots on the ground.” Veering away from his historically conservative base again, he presented his view on immigration, which emphasizes a pathway to citizenship, more greencards, and legal ways to enter the country. He also noted that by making the legal way of immigration easier, fewer people would immigrate illegally.

Bell was able to present a very broad range of topics and establish his views. In my opinion, he seemed very set and not flimsy on his opinions, which would allow him to act fast in an emergency. Even though he would act quickly, though, I am not sure if he would do the right thing. I don’t think he, as well as his opponent, has enough military experience to act in a military situation.   Nonetheless, he was more politically experienced than his opponent overall, and had been a Washington insider for much longer.  With some doubts, especially about the gold standard, my vote would have been a Bell Vote.