The Our America Initiative is a political organization associated with former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. In the excerpts it appears chiefly as the institutional identity Johnson and his 2012 running mate, Judge Jim Gray, carried between campaigns: Johnson is introduced as its chairperson and honorary chairman, and Gray describes it as the pair’s “home base” for promoting libertarian views at college campuses and elsewhere. Libertarians For Change (2010) We Are All Libertarians (2013)
Johnson’s description of the organization
Johnson introduced the group to Bob Zadek’s audience as OurAmericaInitiative.com, inviting listeners to go online and tell him what they thought. He framed its purpose as putting “a voice to the outrage” he believed citizens were feeling across the country, an outrage he traced to the claim that the country is bankrupt. In the same passage he said that 43 cents out of every dollar then being spent was borrowed, and that the consequence would be a weaker dollar and inflation. Libertarians For Change (2010)
Zadek, for his part, described Johnson as honorary chairman of the OurAmericaInitiative.com movement and directed listeners to the website to learn its and Johnson’s views on issues ranging from the economy to the environment, healthcare and immigration. Libertarians For Change (2010)
Fiscal policy and the case against borrowing
Johnson’s account of his governorship supplied the fiscal argument he attached to the organization. He said his promise in running for office was that everything would be a cost-benefit analysis, and that he believed he was re-elected on the basis of over-delivering on that first promise. He extended the standard to pension funds, saying that about 50 states were underwater on state pension funds and that the federal government had for the same period been making promises it could not deliver on, with the difference that the federal government can print money. Libertarians For Change (2010)
Zadek supplied the framing that printing money devalues the assets people own — houses, cars, salaries — and amounts to a tax on everybody. Johnson’s response was that government does not create jobs, but that it can create a level of confidence by slashing spending, getting spending under control, and looking at lowering taxes. He called raising taxes completely unacceptable, arguing that raised taxes address problems of the day but become largesse that politicians commit to future spending. Libertarians For Change (2010)
Education and the federal role
In a later appearance, Johnson argued for eliminating the federal Department of Education, saying that doing so might do more toward improving education than any other single act. His stated reason was fiscal and structural: the federal government gives about 11 cents out of every dollar that states spend on education, but it comes with about 16 cents worth of strings attached. Zadek added that the 11 cents was taken from residents of the states in the first place, so that the money would otherwise have gone directly from citizens to states for education. A Better America (2010)
Immigration, drug policy and foreign policy
The excerpts identify immigration and drug legalization among the topics the organization and its chairman addressed, though the passages that would carry the arguments are cut off. The episode summary for Johnson’s October 2010 appearance lists the fiscal and social benefits of marijuana legalization via California’s Prop 19 and a pragmatic approach to immigration through work visas rather than walls among the subjects covered, and the earlier episode’s summary likewise lists drug legalization, marijuana, harm reduction, immigration reform and work visas. A Better America (2010) Libertarians For Change (2010)
On foreign policy, the April 2011 episode’s summary attributes to Johnson the position that the U.S. intervention in Libya was illegitimate and that the “Big Four” budget items — Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Defense — would have to be cut to prevent financial collapse. The surviving transcript from that episode is largely the introduction and the closing call. Straight Talk with Gary Johnson (2011)
Judge Gray and the party of responsibility
Judge Jim Gray, Johnson’s running mate in the previous presidential cycle, described the Our America Initiative as the home base he and Johnson used after the election. Gray characterized the libertarian position as both financially responsible and socially accepting, and said he preferred “accepting” to “socially tolerant” because tolerance implies patting people on the head. He said this acceptance includes marriage equality, racial equality and gender equality. We Are All Libertarians (2013)
Gray also described himself as a functional Libertarian and said most people are: one who believes in government — a strong military, court systems, and some regulation when the market does not work — but treats government as the last resort rather than the first. He said he and Johnson would have won the election had they been included in the presidential debates. We Are All Libertarians (2013)
Across episodes
The topic recurs across four episodes spanning 2010 to 2013, and the treatment changes in emphasis rather than in argument. In the 2010 episodes Johnson is introduced as the organization’s chairman and honorary chairman and speaks to the debt, spending and the Department of Education; by April 2011 he is identified as a 2012 presidential candidate as well as chairperson, and the closing segment turns to war powers; by April 2013 Johnson’s running mate Judge Gray carries the organization’s message and recasts it as the party of responsibility. What advanced between the earlier and later treatments was the electoral context — from advocacy organization to presidential campaign to post-campaign speaking — while the underlying positions on spending, taxation and the federal role remained the ones Johnson stated in 2010. Libertarians For Change (2010) Straight Talk with Gary Johnson (2011) We Are All Libertarians (2013)
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when the Our America Initiative was founded, where it was based, how it was funded or governed, or what became of it after 2013. They do not describe any campaign finance activity, endorsement, or ballot measure work by the organization itself, as distinct from the views of Johnson and Gray. The passages that would set out the group’s positions on immigration, marijuana and Libya break off before the arguments are made. No source in the excerpts gives the organization’s legal form or its relationship to the Libertarian Party.