Pennacchio: What of it?

Some of the ideas Joe Pennacchio wrote 17 years ago may seem unusual – or to Republican rival Murray Sabrin, even “fascist.”

But Pennacchio said they’re nothing more than ideas he penned years before he held public office. Some, he says, have been proven to be good ideas. Others he’s “evolved” beyond.

The important thing, Pennacchio says, is that even before he entered the political realm, he was thinking of ways to help his country.

“Keep in mind that was written by a non-politician as a series of position papers for my own edification. I bound them together, paid for it myself and it wasn’t published,” said Pennacchio. “All it shows is that even 18 years ago I was thinking about the problems that affect this country and how we deal with them.”

Perhaps the most controversial idea raised in the booklet is to house the homeless population on military bases on a temporary basis. Pennacchio insists that he did not intend for it to be mandatory—that the homeless could come and go as they pleased.

“It’s not internment,” he said.

Moreover, Pennacchio said, changing the color of money every couple years isn’t that bad an idea, and noted that the government has recently redesigned currency several times to thwart Counterfeiters.

Although Pennacchio frequently cites what he says is the positive legacy of Ronald Reagan on the campaign trial, in the paper he dismisses Reagan’s trickle-down theory as “voodoo economics.” But Pennacchio said that he was really criticizing George H. W. Bush, who was president at the time he wrote the work.

Pennacchio also noted that he included several ideas in which to seek alternatives to fossil fuel – a good idea that holds true today.

But there were some ideas expressed in the book that Pennacchio has since left behind. He no longer supports reevaluating the second amendment, for instance, and says that he no longer believes that the drug RU-486 provides an alternative to surgical abortions.

“If anything there are more 'therapeutic' abortions than there are surgical abortions, and that’s now how I thought it would evolve,” he said. “It wound up being another form of birth control, and that’s not what the intent was.”

Pennacchio said that his rival for the GOP nomination, Murray Sabrin, is not one to talk, considering he once ran for governor as a Libertarian.

“Murray Sabrin was part of a third party himself that promulgates legalized drug use and prostitution,” he said.

EARLIER: Sabrin calls for Pennacchio to drop out

EARLIER: Jersey Joe's '91 "Nationalist Agenda"