EDITORIAL: Four good ideas from Carly Fiorina, and two that need work

Carly Fiorina broke the Fortune 50 glass ceiling and crashed the Republican presidential nominating process. Thanks to two sterling debate performances, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and only female candidate rose from the bottom of the GOP field to the head table.

Her business background and rise through the corporate ranks have helped bring outsider perspective to the race. She met with the Review-Journal's editorial board last month to discuss her candidacy and her intention to win Nevada's first-in-the-West GOP presidential caucuses. In the interest of helping caucus-goers decide which candidate to support Feb. 23, we've outlined some of Ms. Fiorina's positions: ones we support and ones that we don't.

Four issues we agree on:

— Obamacare: President Barack Obama's health care reforms have been disastrous for insurers, employers and American families across the socioeconomic spectrum. Ms. Fiorina wants to replace the Affordable Care Act. "We've never tried the free market," she says. "And you can't allow a pre-existing condition to bankrupt a family." Ms. Fiorina wants to let states manage high-risk pools, put patients and doctors in control of health care decisions, and require disclosure of prices, costs and outcomes to spur the competition required to bring costs down.

— Transparency: Speaking of openness, Ms. Fiorina promises to follow through on one of President Barack Obama's many broken promises: having a transparent administration. And she'll use her corporate experience as a model. "Every 90 days, I had to go on a conference call to report my results and answer all questions in excruciating detail, with the knowledge that I could be held criminally liable for providing false information. You cannot be accountable unless you're transparent." Bravo, Ms. Fiorina.

— ISIS and Middle East policy: Ms. Fiorina wants to shore up national security and America's weakened global leadership by standing up a coalition of our Arab allies and reaffirming our strong alliance with Israel. She vows to deny the Islamic State territory and push the terrorist group out of lands it currently holds. And she said she would tear up the nuclear accord negotiated with Iran under the Obama administration and demand it be replaced with one that requires "real anytime, anywhere inspections and denies them the ability to move money to fund terrorism."

— Fixing Washington: The federal government is broken, and voters are incredibly frustrated that the White House and Congress continue to make things worse by making Washington ever-larger and more powerful. "Please fix something," is the message Ms. Fiorina says she hears from Americans. "Please simplify the tax code. Please fire 400 VA administrators." She vows to get the bureaucracy out of the way so that long-suppressed economic growth finally can take off. "We're going to take back our country. … Every problem can be solved."

Two issues we don't agree on:

— Marijuana: The country already is well on its way toward complete decriminalization of marijuana, one state at a time. Voters not only approve of marijuana use for medicinal purposes, but recreational use as well. The immense social and fiscal costs of the country's war on drugs has convinced Americans that regulated, taxed sales of the drug will be less harmful than overly aggressive policing and over-capacity jails and prisons. But Ms. Fiorina isn't among them. While acknowledging the current national strategy doesn't work, "I don't support the legalization of marijuana," she said. "I think we are misleading our young people by telling them that smoking a joint is like drinking a beer."

— Entitlement reform: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending already consumes about half the federal budget. According to the Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget, all federal tax revenue will be consumed by Social Security, debt interest, Medicare, Medicaid and other health care programs by 2033, leaving the government to borrow to fund national defense and all other discretionary spending. Reforming federal entitlements by reducing their cost growth is essential to balancing the budget in the long term and halting the growth of the national debt. But entitlement reform is not one of Ms. Fiorina's policy priorities. She has no plan to do a job that can't wait any longer.

— Disclosure: The Review-Journal is owned by the Adelson family, which is the majority owner of casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. and a financial and political supporter of Israel.