Mike Coffman

Mike Coffman has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 6th district of the State of Colorado, since 2009.

Abortion
Coffman supports making abortions legal when the life of the woman is endangered. He supports making Medicare, Medicaid, and federal subsidies prohibited from being used on abortion procedures.

Spending
Coffman seeks to increase spending on education, environment, and international aid. He supports maintaining current levels of spending on defense, FEMA, homeland security, both state and federal law enforcement, medical research, national parks, public health services, scientific research, space exploration, and transportation and highway infrastructure. He supports cuts to agriculture, United Nations, welfare, and the elimination of arts funding.

Taxes
Coffman supports slight decreases in family income taxes across the income board. He also supports maintaining the current alcohol, cigarette and gasoline taxes but wants to greatly decrease the capital gains, inheritance and corporate taxes.

Campaign Finance and Government Reform
Coffman supports increasing the amount individuals are permitted to contribute to federal campaigns.

Education
Coffman supports allowing parents to use vouchers to send their children to any public, private, or religious school. He supports increasing Pell Grant programs and decreasing Stafford Loans. He supports banning university financial aid officers from owning stock in or accepting gifts from student loan lenders and requiring universities to disclose financial relationships with lenders. He supports eliminating all federal education standards and testing requirements for K-12 students (No Child Left Behind).

Employment
Coffman supports increasing funding for national job-training programs that retrain displaced workers or teach skills needed in today's job market. He supports reduced government regulation of the private sector and encourages employers to offer child care services, flex-time scheduling, comp-time, and unpaid leave for family emergencies.

Environment and Energy
Coffman supports increased development of traditional energy resources (e.g. coal, natural gas, oil) and domestic oil exploration in areas that are currently restricted. He supports further development and use of alternative fuels, research and development of nuclear reactors as an alternative energy source and international voluntary emission targets to limit global warming.

Health Issues
Coffman supports expanding eligibility for tax-free medical savings accounts, allowing the importation of prescription drugs into the United States and offering tax credits to individuals and small businesses to offset the cost of insurance coverage.

Immigration
Coffman supports decreasing the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country but supports merit-based visas over family-based visas. He supports harsher financial penalties for those knowingly employing illegal immigrants but does support a temporary worker program.

International Policy
Coffman supports the United States granting aid to countries when extraordinary circumstances cause disaster and threaten civilian lives and when the security interests of the United States are involved. He supports U.S. leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He is in support of imposing greater international sanctions on Iran if it continues to defy United Nations mandates. He supports using greater economic and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea if it fails to abide by its agreement to suspend its nuclear program. He supports continued military support in Afghanistan and U.S. involvement in ending the violence in Darfur. He supports a more conservative American Foreign Policy that is less reliant on nation building as a principle tool for achieving America's foreign policy objectives. Coffman supports the U.S. imposing trade trade sanctions on Venezuela. He supports U.S involvement in free trade agreements and intergovernmental organizations dedicated to trade.

Iraq War
Coffman is opposed to a fixed timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq. "However, having served in Iraq with the U.S. Marines, I do believe that the process can be moved along faster than it currently is."

National Security Issues
Coffman supports allowing law enforcement agencies to have greater discretion to monitor domestic communications, to prevent future terrorist attacks. He believes the U.S. should hold foreign states accountable for terrorists who operate in their country and is willing to use support preemptive military strikes against countries deemed to be a threat to United States national security. He supports expanding the missile defense shield.

Social Issues
Coffman does not believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry and supports a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. He does not support federal funding for research on new or existing embryonic stem cell lines. He believes the federal government should stop affirmative action programs.

Bio
Coffman was born March 19, 1955, in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. He enlisted in the U.S. Army when he was 17 and earned his high school diploma through the Army. He later graduated from the University of Colorado. Coffman was a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from 1989 to 1994, a member of the Colorado Senate from 1994 to 1998, the Colorado State Treasurer from 1999 to 2007 and the Colorado Secretary of State from 2007 to 2008. In 2006, he completed a tour of duty in Iraq. He is married to Cynthia Coffman.

2008 elections
Coffman won the Republican nomination and was seeking to replace retiring incumbent Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) in the 2008 congressional elections. He went on to defeat Democratic challenger Henry Eng in November 2008 general elections.

Money in politics
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Committees in the 110th Congress (2007-2008)
Coffman will be assigned committees if and when he is elected to Congress.

External resources

 * Mike Coffman for Congress campaign website