GOP candidate Ramaswamy stops in Clear Lake

CLEAR LAKE — Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is back in Iowa campaigning for president, making a stop in Clear Lake this morning.

Ramaswamy says if he’s elected, he’ll call for revamping federal agencies who are abusing their power.  “If we see government agencies that should no longer exist because they’ve become so corrupted that they’ve abandoned their purpose, like the FBI, or the IRS, or the ATF, or the CDC, or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or the US Department of Education, we’re not just going to get in there and tinker around the edges. We’re going to get in there and shut it down. That is how you revive the integrity of a constitutional republic.”

Ramaswamy says a majority of policy decisions by federal agencies are unconstitutional.  “I believe that most, that’s to say over 50% of the federal regulations today that have the force of law, are unconstitutional, and we will rescind them on day one, because they fail the test of West Virginia vs. EPA, probably the most important Supreme Court case of our decade. Last year it came out that said that certain regulations of the EPA applying to the coal industry were unconstitutional, that’s what the case said, because Congress never gave the EPA that power.”

Ramaswamy says it’s time to end the overreach of federal agencies.   “Literally most regulations, from the FDA, to the EPA, to the FTC, to the SEC, to the CDC on down, are actually also unconstitutional. That gives me as the president the power on day one to say we’re rescinding those regulations, take a pen to them, they are done across the board, and furthermore, that we are reducing the size of the federal employee headcount by 75%.”

The 38-year-old businessman from Ohio spoke to about 200 people at the Clear Lake VFW.