TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Restoring
the American Dream: Rebuilding the Economy and Creating
Jobs
We are the
party of maximum economic freedom and the prosperity freedom
makes possible. Prosperity is the product of
self-discipline, work, savings, and investment by individual
Americans, but it is not an end in itself. Prosperity
provides the means by which individuals and families can
maintain their independence from government, raise their
children by their own values, practice their faith, and
build communities of self-reliant neighbors. It is also the
means by which the United States is able to assert global
leadership. The vigor of our economy makes possible our
military strength and is critical to our national
security.
This year's
election is a chance to restore the proven values of the
American free enterprise system. We offer our Republican
vision of a free people using their God-given talents,
combined with hard work, self-reliance, ethical conduct, and
the pursuit of opportunity, to achieve great things for
themselves and the greater community. Our vision of an
opportunity society stands in stark contrast to the current
Administration's
policies that expand entitlements and guarantees, create new
public programs, and provide expensive government bailouts.
That road has created a culture of dependency, bloated
government, and massive debt.
Republicans
believe in the Great American Dream, with its economics of
inclusion, enabling everyone to have a chance to own,
invest, build, and prosper. It is the opposite of the
policies which, for the last three and a half years, have
stifled growth, destroyed jobs, halted investment, created
unprecedented uncertainty, and prolonged the worst economic
downturn since the Great Depression. Those policies have
placed the federal government in the driver's seat, rather
than relying on energetic and entrepreneurial Americans to
rebuild the economy from the ground up. Excessive taxation
and regulation impede economic development. Lowering taxes
promotes substantial economic growth and reducing regulation
encourages business formation and job creation. Knowing
that, a Republican President and Congress will jump-start an
economic renewal that creates opportunity, rewards work and
saving, and unleashes the productive genius of the American
people. Because the GOP is the Great Opportunity Party, this
is our pledge to workers without jobs, families without
savings, and neighborhoods without hope: together we can get
our country back on track, expanding its bounty, renewing
its faith, and fulfilling its promise of a better
life.
Job
Creation: Getting Americans Back to Work
The best
jobs program is economic growth. We do not offer yet another
made-in-Washington package of subsidies and spending to
create temporary or artificial jobs. We want much more than
that. We want a roaring job market to match a roaring
economy. Instead, what this Administration has given us is
42 consecutive months of unemployment above 8 percent, the
longest period of high unemployment since the Great
Depression. Republicans will pursue free market policies
that are the surest way to boost employment and create job
growth and economic prosperity for all.
In all the
sections that follow, as well as elsewhere in this platform,
we explain what must be done to achieve that goal. The tax
system must be simplified. Government spending and
regulation must be reined in. American companies must be
more competitive in the world market, and we must be
aggressive in promoting U.S. products abroad and securing
open markets for them. A federal-State-private partnership
must invest in the nation's infrastructure: roads, bridges,
airports, ports, and water systems, among others. Federal
training programs have to be overhauled and made relevant
for the workplace of the twenty-first century. Potential
employers need certainty and predictability for their hiring
decisions, and the team of a Republican President and
Congress will create the confidence that will get Americans
back to work.
Small
Business and Entrepreneurship
America's
small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy,
employing tens of millions of workers. Small businesses
create the vast majority of jobs, patents, and U.S.
exporters. Under the current Administration, we have the
lowest rate of business startups in thirty years. Small
businesses are the leaders in the world's advances in
technology and innovation, and we pledge to strengthen that
role and foster small business entrepreneurship.
While small
businesses have significantly contributed to the nation's
economic growth, our government has failed to meet its small
business goals year after year and failed to overcome
burdensome regulatory, contracting, and capital barriers.
This impedes their growth.
We will
reform the tax code to allow businesses to generate enough
capital to grow and create jobs for our families, friends
and neighbors all across America. We will encourage
investments in small businesses. We will create an
environment where adequate financing and credit are
available to spur manufacturing and expansion. We will serve
as aggressive advocates for small businesses.
Tax
Relief to Grow the Economy and Create Jobs
Taxes, by
their very nature, reduce a citizen's freedom. Their proper
role in a free society should be to fund services that are
essential and authorized by the Constitution, such as
national security, and the care of those who cannot care for
themselves. We reject the use of taxation to redistribute
income, fund unnecessary or ineffective programs, or foster
the crony capitalism that corrupts both politicians and
corporations.
Our goal is
a tax system that is simple, transparent, flatter, and fair.
In contrast, the current IRS code is like a patchwork quilt,
stitched together over time from mismatched pieces, and is
beyond the comprehension of the average citizen. A reformed
code should promote simplicity and coherence, savings and
innovation, increase American competitiveness, and recognize
the burdens on families with children. To that end, we
propose to:
Extend
the 2001 and 2003 tax relief packages--commonly known as
the Bush tax cuts--pending reform of the tax code, to
keep tax rates from rising on income, interest,
dividends, and capital gains;
Reform
the tax code by reducing marginal tax rates by 20 percent
across-the-board in a revenue-neutral
manner;
Eliminate
the taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains
altogether for lower and middle-income
taxpayers;
End
the Death Tax; and Repeal the Alternative Minimum
Tax.
American
Competitiveness in a Global Economy
American
businesses now face the world's highest corporate tax rate.
It reduces their worldwide competitiveness, encourages
corporations to move overseas, lessens investment, cripples
job creation, lowers U.S. wages, and fosters the avoidance
of tax liability--without actually increasing tax revenues.
To level the international playing field, and to spur job
creation here at home, we call for a reduction of the
corporate rate to keep U.S. corporations competitive
internationally, with a permanent research and development
tax credit, and a repeal of the corporate alternative
minimum tax. We also support the recommendation of the
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, as
well as the current President's Export Council, to switch to
a territorial system of corporate taxation, so that profits
earned and taxed abroad may be repatriated for job-creating
investment here at home without additional
penalty.
Fundamental
Tax Principles
We oppose
retroactive taxation; and we condemn attempts by activist
judges, at any level of government, to seize the power of
the purse by ordering higher taxes. We oppose tax policies
that divide Americans or promote class warfare.
Because of
the vital role of religious organizations, charities, and
fraternal benevolent societies in fostering benevolence and
patriotism, they should not be subject to taxation, and
donations to them should continue to be tax
deductible.
In any
restructuring of federal taxation, to guard against
hyper-taxation of the American people, any value added tax
or national sales tax must be tied to the simultaneous
repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, which established the
federal income tax.
Reining
in Out-of-Control Spending, Balancing the Budget, and
Ensuring Sound Monetary Policy
The massive
federal government is structurally and financially broken.
For decades it has been pushed beyond its core functions,
increasing spending to unsustainable levels. Elected
officials have over-promised and overspent, and now the
bills are due. Unless we take dramatic action now, young
Americans and their children will inherit an unprecedented
legacy of enormous and unsustainable debt, with the interest
alone consuming an ever-increasing portion of the country's
wealth. The specter of national bankruptcy that now hangs
over much of Europe is a warning to us as well. Over the
last three and a half years, while cutting the defense
budget, the current Administration has added an additional
$5.3 trillion to the national debt--now approximately $16
trillion, the largest amount in U.S. history. In fiscal year
2011, spending reached $3.6 trillion, nearly a quarter of
our gross domestic product. Adjusted for inflation, that's
more than three times its peak level in World War II, and
almost half of every dollar spent was borrowed money. Three
programs--Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security-- account
for over 40 percent of total spending. While these levels of
spending and debt are already harming job creation and
growth, projections of future spending growth are nothing
short of catastrophic, both economically and socially. And
those dire projections do not include the fiscal nightmare
of Obamacare, with over $1 trillion in new taxes, multiple
mandates, and a crushing price tag.
We can
preempt the debt explosion. Backed by a Republican Senate
and House, our next President will propose immediate
reductions in federal spending, as a down payment on the
much larger task of long-range fiscal control. We suggest a
tripartite test for every federal activity. First, is it
within the constitutional scope of the federal government?
Second, is it effective and absolutely necessary? And third,
is it sufficiently important to justify borrowing,
especially foreign borrowing, to fund it? Against those
standards we will measure programs from international
population control to California's federally subsidized
high-speed train to nowhere, and terminate programs that
don't measure up.
Balancing
the Budget
Cutting
spending is not enough; it must be accompanied by major
structural reforms, increased productivity, use of
technology, and long-term government downsizing that both
reduce debt and deficits and ignite economic growth. We must
restructure the twentieth century entitlement state so the
missions of important programs can succeed in the
twenty-first century. Medicare, in particular, is the
largest driver of future debt. Our reform of healthcare will
empower millions of seniors to control their personal
healthcare decisions, to cut Medicare in ways that will deny
care for the elderly.
We must also
change the budget process itself. From its beginning, its
design has enabled, rather than restrained, reckless
spending by giving procedural cover to Members of Congress.
The budget process gave us the insidious term "tax
expenditure," which means that any earnings the government
allows a taxpayer to keep through a deduction, exemption, or
credit are equivalent to spending the same amount on some
program. It also lumped a broad range of diverse programs
under the heading of "entitlement," as if veterans' benefits
and welfare checks belong in the same category. Far worse,
the process assumes every spending program will be permanent
and every tax cut will be temporary. It refuses to recognize
the beneficial budgetary impact of lower tax rates, and it
calls a spending increase a cut if it is less than the rate
of inflation.
Republican
Members of Congress have repeatedly tried to reform the
budget process to make it more transparent and accountable,
in particular by voting for a Balanced Budget Amendment to
the Constitution, following the lead of 33 States which have
put that restraint into their own constitutions. We call for
a Constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority for any
tax increase, with exceptions for only war and national
emergencies, and imposing a cap limiting spending to the
historical average percentage of GDP so that future
Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising
taxes.
Inflation
and the Federal Reserve
A sound
monetary policy is critical for maintaining a strong
economy. Inflation diminishes the purchasing power of the
dollar at home and abroad and is a hidden tax on the
American people. Moreover, the inflation tax is regressive,
punishes those who save, transfers wealth from Main Street
to Wall Street, and has grave implications for seniors
living on fixed incomes.
Because the
Federal Reserve's monetary policy actions affect both
inflation and economic activity, those actions should be
transparent. Moreover, the Fed's important role as a lender
of last resort should also be carried out in a more
transparent manner. A free society demands that the sun
shine on all elements of government. Therefore, the
Republican Party will work to advance substantive
legislation that brings transparency and accountability to
the Federal Reserve, the Federal Open Market Committee, and
the Fed's dealings with foreign central banks. The first
step to increasing transparency and accountability is
through an annual audit of the Federal Reserve's activities.
Such an audit would need to be carefully implemented so that
the Federal Reserve remains insulated from political
pressures and so its decisions are based on sound economic
principles and sound money rather than on political
pressures for easy money and loose credit.
Determined
to crush the double-digit inflation that was part of the
Carter Administration's economic legacy, President Reagan,
shortly after his inauguration, established a commission to
consider the feasibility of a metallic basis for U.S.
currency. The commission advised against such a move. Now,
three decades later, as we face the task of cleaning up the
wreckage of the current Administration's policies, we
propose a similar commission to investigate possible ways to
set a fixed value for the dollar.
Ending
the Housing Crisis and Expanding Opportunities for
Homeownership
Homeownership
expands personal liberty, builds communities, and helps
Americans create wealth. "The American Dream' is not a stale
slogan. It is the lived reality that expresses the
aspirations of all our people. It means a decent place to
live, a safe place to raise kids, a welcoming place to
retire. It bespeaks the quiet pride of those who work hard
to shelter their family and, in the process, create caring
neighborhoods. Homeownership is best fostered by a growing
economy with low interest rates, as well as prudent
regulation, financial education, and targeted assistance to
responsible borrowers.
The collapse
of the housing market over the last four years has been not
only a severe blow to the entire economy, but also a
personal tragedy to millions of Americans whose homes have
lost value and to so many others who have lost their homes.
Combined with high unemployment, that decline has left
countless homeowners saddled with mortgages exceeding the
value of their homes. The response of the current
Administration has done little to improve, and much to
worsen, the situation. By discouraging private sector
investment, it has stalled the housing recovery. Its massive
intervention in the housing market, with the Federal Housing
Administration (FHA), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backing
nearly all new mortgages, has hit the taxpayers with a bill
for almost $200 billion to bail out the latter two
institutions. It has spent billions more on poorly designed
and ineffective housing assistance programs. Making matters
worse, the Congress, under Democrat control, enacted the
Dodd-Frank Act, a massive labyrinth of costly new
regulations that deter lenders from lending to creditworthy
home-buyers and that disproportionately harms small and
community banks. As a result, home sales remain weak,
investment in housing remains depressed, construction
industry jobs remain down, and mortgage lending has yet to
recover to pre-crisis levels.
Rebuilding
Homeownership
We must
establish a mortgage finance system based on competition and
free enterprise that is transparent, encourages the private
sector to return to housing, and promotes personal
responsibility on the part of borrowers. Policies that
promote reliance on private capital, like private mortgage
insurance, will be critical to scaling back the federal role
in the housing market and avoiding future taxpayer bailouts.
Reforms should provide clear and prudent underwriting
standards and guidelines on acceptable lending practices.
Compliance with regulatory standards should provide a legal
safe harbor to guard against opportunistic litigation.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a primary cause of the
housing crisis because their implicit government guarantee
allowed them to avoid market discipline and make risky
investments. Their favored political status enriched their
politically-connected executives and their shareholders at
the expense of the nation. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
should be wound down in size and scope, and their officials
should be held to account.
The FHA,
tripled in size to more than $1 trillion under the current
Administration, has crowded out the private sector and is at
risk of requiring a taxpayer bailout. It must be downsized
and limited to helping first-time home-buyers and low-and-
moderate-income borrowers. Taxpayer dollars should not be
used to bail out borrowers and lenders by funding principal
write-downs. While the federal government must prosecute
mortgage fraud and other financial crimes, any settlements
received thereby should be directed to individuals harmed by
the misconduct, not diverted to pay for unrelated
programs.
FDIC
insurance for bank depositors must be preserved. However, to
correct for the moral hazard created by deposit insurance,
banks should be well capitalized, which is the best
insurance against future taxpayer bailouts.
The federal
government has a role in housing by enforcing
nondiscrimination laws and assisting low-income families and
the elderly with safe and adequate shelter, especially
through the use of housing vouchers. Homeownership is an
important goal, but public policy must be balanced to
reflect the needs of Americans who choose to rent. A
comprehensive housing policy should address the demand for
apartments and multifamily housing. Any assistance should be
subject to stringent oversight to ensure that funds are
spent wisely.
Infrastructure:
Building the Future
America's
infrastructure networks are critical for economic growth,
international competitiveness, and national security.
Infrastructure programs have traditionally been nonpartisan;
everyone recognized that we all need clean water and safe
roads, rail, bridges, ports, and airports. The current
Administration has changed that, replacing civil engineering
with social engineering as it pursues an exclusively urban
vision of dense housing and government transit. In the
vaunted stimulus package, less than six percent of the funds
went to transportation, with most of that to cosmetic
"shovel-ready" projects rather than fundamental structural
improvements. All the while, the Democrats' Davis-Bacon law
continues to drive up infrastructure construction and
maintenance costs for the benefit of that party's union
stalwarts.
What most
Americans take for granted--the safety and availability of
our water supply--is in perilous condition. Engineering
surveys report crumbling drinking water systems, aging dams,
and overwhelmed wastewater infrastructure. Investment in
these areas, as well as with levees and inland waterways,
can renew communities, attract businesses, and create jobs.
Most importantly, it can assure the health and safety of the
American people.
The nation's
ports have become a bottleneck in international trade.
America's exporters sometimes use Canadian ports in order to
reach the world market in a timely manner. With the widening
of the Panama Canal, our East Coast and Gulf ports have an
extraordinary opportunity to boost container traffic but
require major improvement to remain competitive receivers of
large vessels.
Interstate
infrastructure has long been a federal responsibility shared
with the States, and a renewed federal-State partnership and
new public-private partnerships are urgently needed to
maintain and modernize our country's travel lifelines to
facilitate economic growth and job creation. In the last two
years, Congressional Republicans have taken the lead with
initiatives like the FAA Modernization and Reform Act; the
Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act;
and the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act. The
recent highway bill reforming the federal highway program
included some key reforms. It will shorten the project
approval process, eliminate unnecessary programs, and give
States more flexibility to address their particular needs.
It is a return to the principles of federalism, and it
contains not a single earmark. It should be followed by
reform of the 42-year old National Environmental Policy Act
to create regulatory certainty for infrastructure projects,
expedite their timetables, and limit litigation against
them.
Securing
sufficient funding for the Highway Trust Fund remains a
challenge given the debt and deficits and the need to reduce
spending. Republicans will make hard choices and set
priorities, and infrastructure will be among them. In some
States with elected officials dominated by the Democratic
Party, a proportion of highway funds is diverted to other
purposes. This must stop. We oppose any funding mechanism
that would involve governmental monitoring of every car and
truck in the nation.
Amtrak
continues to be, for the taxpayers, an extremely expensive
railroad. The public has to subsidize every ticket nearly
$50. It is long past time for the federal government to get
out of way and allow private ventures to provide passenger
service to the northeast corridor. The same holds true with
regard to high-speed and intercity rail across the
country.
International
Trade: More American Jobs, Higher Wages, and A Better
Standard of Living
International
trade is crucial for our economy. It means more American
jobs, higher wages, and a better standard of living. Every
$1 billion in additional U.S. exports means another 5,000
jobs here at home. The Free Trade Agreements negotiated with
friendly democracies since President Reagan's trailblazing
pact with Israel in 1985 facilitated the creation of nearly
ten million jobs supported by our exports. That record makes
all the more deplorable the current Administration's
slowness in completing agreements begun by its predecessor
and its failure to pursue any new trade agreements with
friendly nations.
This
worldwide explosion of trade has had a downside, however, as
some governments have used a variety of unfair means to
limit American access to their markets while stealing our
designs, patents, brands, know-how, and technology--the
"intellectual property" that drives innovation. The chief
offender is China, which has built up its economy in part by
piggybacking onto Western technological advances,
manipulates its currency to the disadvantage of American
exporters, excludes American products from government
purchases, subsidizes Chinese companies to give them a
commercial advantage, and invents regulations and standards
designed to keep out foreign competition. The current
Administration's way of dealing with all these violations of
world trade standards has been a virtual
surrender.
Republicans
understand that you can succeed in a negotiation only if you
are willing to walk away from it. Thus, a Republican
President will insist on full parity in trade with China and
stand ready to impose countervailing duties if China fails
to amend its currency policies. Commercial discrimination
will be met in kind. Counterfeit goods will be aggressively
kept out of the country. Victimized private firms will be
encouraged to raise claims in both U.S. courts and at the
World Trade Organization. Punitive measures will be imposed
on foreign firms that misappropriate American technology and
intellectual property. Until China abides by the WTO's
Government Procurement Agreement, the United States
government will end procurement of Chinese goods and
services.
Because
American workers have shown that, on a truly level playing
field, they can surpass the competition in international
trade, we call for the restoration of presidential Trade
Promotion Authority. It will ensure up or down votes in
Congress on any new trade agreements, without meddling by
special interests. A Republican President will complete
negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership to open rapidly
developing Asian markets to U.S. products. Beyond that, we
envision a worldwide multilateral agreement among nations
committed to the principles of open markets, what has been
called a "Reagan Economic Zone," in which free trade will
truly be fair trade for all concerned.
A
twenty-first Century Workforce
The greatest
asset of the American economy is the hardworking American.
The high rates of unemployment over the last three and a
half years' disastrously high among youth, minorities, and
veterans--have thus been a tragic waste of energy and ideas,
compounded by the waste of billions in "stimulus" funds with
no payoff in jobs. The chief cause has been an unprecedented
uncertainty in the American free enterprise system due to
the overreaching policies of the current Administration.
Nothing matters more than getting the American people back
to work. In addition to cutting spending, keeping taxes low,
and curtailing bureaucratic red tape, we must replace
outdated policies and ineffectual training programs with a
plan to develop a twenty-first century workforce to make the
most of our country's human capital.
It is
critical that the United States has a highly trained and
skilled workforce. Nine federal agencies currently run 47
retraining programs at a total cost of $18 billion annually
with dismal results. Both the trainees in those programs and
the taxpayers who fund them deserve better. We propose
consolidation of those programs into State block grants so
that training can be coordinated with local schools and
employers. That will be critically important if States
establish Personal Reemployment Accounts, letting trainees
direct resources in ways that will steer them toward
long-term employment, especially through on-the-job training
with participating employers.
We can
accelerate the process of restoring our domestic economy and
reclaiming this country's traditional position of dominance
in international trade--by a policy of strategic
immigration, granting more work visas to holders of advanced
degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math from
other nations. Highly educated immigrants can assist in
creating new services and products. In the same way, foreign
students who graduate from an American university with an
advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or math
should be encouraged to remain here and contribute to
economic prosperity and job creation. Highly skilled,
English-speaking, and integrated into their communities,
they are too valuable a resource to lose. As in past
generations, we should encourage the world's innovators and
inventors to create our common future and their permanent
homes here in the United States.
Republicans
believe that the employer-employee relationship of the
future will be built upon employee empowerment and workplace
flexibility, which is why Republicans support employee
ownership. We believe employee stock ownership plans create
capitalists and expand the ownership of private property and
are therefore the essence of a high-performing free
enterprise economy, which creates opportunity for those who
work and honors those values that have made our nation so
strong. Today's workforce is independent, wants flexibility
in working conditions, needs family-friendly options, and is
most productive when allowed to innovate and rethink the
status quo. The federal government should set an example in
making those adaptations, especially in promoting
portability in pension plans and health
insurance.
Freedom
in the Workplace
The current
Administration has chosen a different path with regard to
labor, clinging to antiquated notions of confrontation and
concentrating power in the Washington offices of union
elites. It has strongly supported the antibusiness card
check legislation to deny workers a secret ballot in union
organizing campaigns and, through the use of Project Labor
Agreements, barred 80 percent of the construction workforce
from competing for jobs in many stimulus projects. The
current Administration has turned the National Labor
Relations Board into a partisan advocate for Big Labor,
using threats and coercion outside the law to attack
businesses and, through "snap elections" and "micro unions,"
limit the rights of workers and employers alike.
We will
restore the rule of law to labor law by blocking "card
check," enacting the Secret Ballot Protection Act, enforcing
the Hobbs Act against labor violence, and passing the Raise
Act to allow all workers to receive well-earned raises
without the approval of their union representative. We
demand an end to the Project Labor Agreements; and we call
for repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act, which costs the taxpayers
billions of dollars annually in artificially high wages on
government projects. We support the right of States to enact
Right-to-Work laws and encourage them to do so to promote
greater economic liberty.
Ultimately,
we support the enactment of a National Right-to-Work law to
promote worker freedom and to promote greater economic
liberty. We will aggressively enforce the recent decision by
the Supreme Court barring the use of union dues for
political purposes without the consent of the
worker.
We salute
the Republican Governors and State legislators who have
saved their States from fiscal disaster by reforming their
laws governing public employee unions. We urge elected
officials across the country to follow their lead in order
to avoid State and local defaults on their obligations and
the collapse of services to the public. To safeguard the
free choice of public employees, no government at any level
should act as the dues collector for unions. A Republican
President will protect the rights of conscience of public
employees by proposing legislation to bar mandatory dues for
political purposes.
(return to table of contents)
We
The People: A Restoration of Constitutional
Government
We are the
party of the Constitution, the solemn compact which confirms
our God-given individual rights and assures that all
Americans stand equal before the law. Perhaps the greatest
political document ever written, it defines the purposes and
limits of government and is the blueprint for ordered
liberty that makes the U.S. the world's freest, most stable,
and most prosperous nation. Its Constitutional ideals have
been emulated around the world, and with them has come
unprecedented prosperity for billions of people.
In the
spirit of the Constitution, we consider discrimination based
on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national
origin unacceptable and immoral. We will strongly enforce
anti-discrimination statutes and ask all to join us in
rejecting the forces of hatred and bigotry and in denouncing
all who practice or promote racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic
prejudice, or religious intolerance. We support efforts to
help low-income individuals get a fair chance based on their
potential and individual merit; but we reject preferences,
quotas, and set-asides as the best or sole methods through
which fairness can be achieved, whether in government,
education, or corporate boardrooms. In a free society, the
primary role of government is to protect the God-given,
inalienable, inherent rights of its citizens, including the
rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Merit, ability, aptitude, and results should be the factors
that determine advancement in our society.
The
Republican Party includes Americans from every faith and
tradition, and our policies and positions respect the right
of every American to follow his or her beliefs and
underscore our reverence for the religious freedom
envisioned by the Founding Fathers of our nation and of our
party. As a matter of principle, we oppose the creation of
any new race-based governments within the United
States.
A
Restoration of Constitutional Order: Congress and the
Executive
We salute
Republican Members of the House of Representatives for
enshrining in the Rules of the House the requirement that
every bill must cite the provision of the Constitution which
permits its introduction. Their adherence to the
Constitution stands in stark contrast to the antipathy
toward the Constitution demonstrated by the current
Administration and its Senate allies by appointing "czars"
to evade the confirmation process, making unlawful "recess"
appointments when the Senate is not in recess, using
executive orders to bypass the separation of powers and its
checks and balances, encouraging illegal actions by
regulatory agencies from the NLRB to the EPA, openly and
notoriously displaying contempt for Congress, the Judiciary,
and the Constitutional prerogatives of the individual
States, refusing to defend the nation's laws in federal
courts or enforce them on the streets, ignoring the legal
requirement for legislative enactment of an annual budget,
gutting welfare reform by unilaterally removing its
statutory work requirement, buying senatorial votes with
special favors, and evading the legal requirement for
congressional consultation regarding troop commitments
overseas. A Republican President and Republican Senate will
join House Republicans in living by the rule of law, the
foundation of the American Republic.
Protecting
America is the first and most important duty of our federal
government. The Constitution wisely distributes important
roles in the area of national security to both the President
and Congress.
It empowers
the President to serve as Commander in Chief, making him the
lead instrument of the American people in matters of
national security and foreign affairs. It also bestows
authority on Congress, including the powers to declare war,
regulate commerce, and authorize the funds needed to keep
and protect our Nation. The United States of America is
strongest when the President and Congress work closely
together "in war and in peace" to advance our common
interests and ideals. By uniting our government and our
citizens, our foreign policy will secure freedom, keep
America safe, and ensure that we remain the "last best hope
on Earth."
Defending
Marriage Against An Activist Judiciary
A serious
threat to our country's constitutional order, perhaps even
more dangerous than presidential malfeasance, is an activist
judiciary, in which some judges usurp the powers reserved to
other branches of government. A blatant example has been the
court-ordered redefinition of marriage in several States.
This is more than a matter of warring legal concepts and
ideals. It is an assault on the foundations of our society,
challenging the institution which, for thousands of years in
virtually every civilization, has been entrusted with the
rearing of children and the transmission of cultural
values.
A Sacred
Contract: Defense of Marriage
That is why
Congressional Republicans took the lead in enacting the
Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of States and
the federal government not to recognize same-sex
relationships licensed in other jurisdictions. The current
Administration's open defiance of this constitutional
principle--in its handling of immigration cases, in federal
personnel benefits, in allowing a same-sex marriage at a
military base, and in refusing to defend DOMA in the
courts-- makes a mockery of the President's inaugural oath.
We commend the United States House of Representatives and
State Attorneys General who have defended these laws when
they have been attacked in the courts. We reaffirm our
support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as
the union of one man and one woman. We applaud the citizens
of the majority of States which have enshrined in their
constitutions the traditional concept of marriage, and we
support the campaigns underway in several other States to do
so.
Living
Within Our Means: A Constitutional Budget
Republican
Members of Congress have repeatedly tried to reform the
budget process to make it more transparent and accountable,
in particular by voting for a Balanced Budget Amendment to
the Constitution, following the lead of 33 States which have
put that restraint into their own constitutions. We call for
a Constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority for any
tax increase with exceptions for only war and national
emergencies, and imposing a cap limiting spending to the
historical average percentage of GDP so that future
Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising
taxes.
Federalism
and The Tenth Amendment
We support
the review and examination of all federal agencies to
eliminate wasteful spending, operational inefficiencies, or
abuse of power to determine whether they are performing
functions that are better performed by the States. These
functions, as appropriate, should be returned to the States
in accordance with the Tenth Amendment of the United States
Constitution. We affirm that all legislation, rules, and
regulations must conform and public servants must adhere to
the U.S. Constitution, as originally intended by the
Framers. Whether such legislation is a State or federal
matter must be determined in accordance with the Tenth
Amendment, in conjunction with Article I, Section
8.
When the
Constitution is evaded, transgressed, or ignored, so are the
freedoms it guarantees. In that context, the elections of
2012 will be much more than a contest between parties. They
are a referendum on the future of liberty in
America.
The
Republican Party, born in opposition to the denial of
liberty, stands for the rights of individuals, families,
faith communities, institutions -- and of the States which
are their instruments of self-government. In establishing a
federal system of government, the Framers viewed the States
as laboratories of democracy and centers of innovation, as
do we. To maintain the integrity of their system, they
bequeathed to successive generations an instrument by which
we might correct any misalignment of power between our
States and the federal government, the Tenth
Amendment:
In fidelity
to that principle, we condemn the current Administration's
continued assaults on State governments in matters ranging
from voter ID laws to immigration, from healthcare programs
to land use decisions. Our States are the laboratories of
democracy from which the people propel our nation forward,
solving local and State problems through local and State
innovations. We pledge to restore the proper balance between
the federal government and the governments closest to, and
most reflective of, the American people. Scores of
entrenched federal programs violate the constitutional
mandates of federalism by taking money from the States,
laundering it through various federal agencies, only to
return to the States shrunken grants with mandates attached.
We propose wherever feasible to leave resources where they
originate: in the homes and neighborhoods of the taxpayers.
We call on the federal government to do a systematic
analysis of laws and regulations to eliminate costly
bureaucratic mandates on the States and the
people.
With every
right comes a responsibility. A few States and their
political subdivisions are currently in dire fiscal
situations, largely because of their spending, debt, and
failure to rein in public employee unions. In the event
those conditions worsen, the federal government must not
assume the State governments-- or their political
subdivisions-- financial responsibility or require the
nation--s taxpayers to pay for the misrule of a few State
governments. Nor shall the States assume the federal
government's financial responsibility.
The
Continuing Importance of Protecting the Electoral
College
We oppose
the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or any other
scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral
College. We recognize that an unconstitutional effort to
impose "national popular vote" would be a mortal threat to
our federal system and a guarantee of corruption as every
ballot box in every state would become a chance to steal the
presidency.
Voter
Integrity to Ensure Honest Elections
Honest
elections are the foundation of representative government.
We support State efforts to ensure ballot access for the
elderly, the handicapped, military personnel, and all
authorized voters. For the same reason, we applaud
legislation to require photo identification for voting and
to prevent election fraud, particularly with regard to
registration and absentee ballots. We support State laws
that require proof of citizenship at the time of voter
registration to protect our electoral system against a
significant and growing form of voter fraud. Every time that
a fraudulent vote is cast, it effectively cancels out a vote
of a legitimate voter.
Voter fraud
is political poison. It strikes at the heart of
representative government. We call on every citizen, elected
official, and member of the judiciary to preserve the
integrity of the vote. We call for vigorous prosecution of
voter fraud at the State and federal level. To do less
disenfranchises present and future generations. We recognize
that having a physical verification of the vote is the best
way to ensure a fair election. "Let ambition counter
ambition," as James Madison said. When all parties have
representatives observing the counting of ballots in a
transparent process, integrity is assured. We strongly
support the policy that all electronic voting systems have a
voter verified paper audit trail.
States or
political subdivisions that use all-mail elections cannot
ensure the integrity of the ballot. When ballots are mailed
to every registered voter, ballots can be stolen or
fraudulently voted by unauthorized individuals because the
system does not have a way to verify the identity of the
voter. We call for States and political subdivisions to
adopt voting systems that can verify the identity of the
voter.
Military men
and women must not be disenfranchised from the very freedom
they defend. We affirm that our troops, wherever stationed,
be allowed to vote and those votes be counted in the
November election and in all elections. To that end, the
entire chain of command, from President and the Secretary of
Defense, to base and unit commanders, must ensure the timely
receipt and return of all ballots and the utilization of
electronic delivery of ballots where allowed by State
law.
We support
changing the way that the decennial census is conducted, so
that citizens are distinguished from lawfully present aliens
and illegal aliens. In order to preserve the principle of
one-person, one-vote, the apportionment of representatives
among the States should be according to the number of
citizens.
The First
Amendment: The Foresight of Our Founders to Protect
Religious Freedom
The first
provision of the First Amendment concerns freedom of
religion. That guarantee reflected Thomas Jefferson's
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which declared that
no one should "suffer on account of his religious opinion or
belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by
argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of
religion"." That assurance has never been more needed than
it is today, as liberal elites try to drive religious
beliefs-- and religious believers--out of the public square.
The Founders of the American Republic universally agree that
democracy presupposes a moral people and that, in the words
of George Washington's Farewell Address, "Of all the
dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable
supports."
The most
offensive instance of this war on religion has been the
current Administration's attempt to compel faith-related
institutions, as well as believing individuals, to
contravene their deeply held religious, moral, or ethical
beliefs regarding health services, traditional marriage, or
abortion. This forcible secularization of religious and
religiously affiliated organizations, including faith-based
hospitals and colleges, has been in tandem with the current
Administration's audacity in declaring which faith-related
activities are, or are not, protected by the First
Amendment--an unprecedented aggression repudiated by a
unanimous Supreme Court in its Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC
decision.
We pledge to
respect the religious beliefs and rights of conscience of
all Americans and to safeguard the independence of their
institutions from government. We support the public display
of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and
of our country's Judeo-Christian heritage, and we affirm the
right of students to engage in prayer at public school
events in public schools and to have equal access to public
schools and other public facilities to accommodate religious
freedom in the public square. We assert every citizen's
right to apply religious values to public policy and the
right of faith-based organizations to participate fully in
public programs without renouncing their beliefs, removing
religious symbols, or submitting to government-imposed
hiring practices. We oppose government discrimination
against businesses due to religious views. We support the
First Amendment right of freedom of association of the Boy
Scouts of America and other service organizations whose
values are under assault and condemn the State blacklisting
of religious groups which decline to arrange adoptions by
same-sex couples. We condemn the hate campaigns, threats of
violence, and vandalism by proponents of same-sex marriage
against advocates of traditional marriage and call for a
federal investigation into attempts to deny religious
believers their civil rights.
The First
Amendment: Speech that is Protected
The rights
of citizenship do not stop at the ballot box. They include
the free speech right to devote one's resources to whatever
cause or candidate one supports. We oppose any restrictions
or conditions that would discourage Americans from
exercising their constitutional right to enter the political
fray or limit their commitment to their ideals. As a result,
we support repeal of the remaining sections of
McCain-Feingold, support either raising or repealing
contribution limits, and oppose passage of the DISCLOSE Act
or any similar legislation designed to vitiate the Supreme
Court's recent decisions protecting political speech in
Wisconsin Right to Life v. Federal Election Commission
and Citizens United v. Federal Election
Commission. We insist that there should be no regulation
of political speech on the Internet. By the same token, we
oppose governmental censorship of speech through the
so-called Fairness Doctrine or by government enforcement of
speech codes, free speech zones, or other forms of
"political correctness" on campus.
The
Second Amendment: Our Right to Keep and Bear
Arms
We uphold
the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, a right
which antedated the Constitution and was solemnly confirmed
by the Second Amendment. We acknowledge, support, and defend
the law-abiding citizen's God-given right of self-defense.
We call for the protection of such fundamental individual
rights recognized in the Supreme Court's decisions in
District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v.
Chicago affirming that right, and we recognize the
individual responsibility to safely use and store firearms.
This also includes the right to obtain and store ammunition
without registration. We support the fundamental right to
self-defense wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal
right to be, and we support federal legislation that would
expand the exercise of that right by allowing those with
state-issued carry permits to carry firearms in any state
that issues such permits to its own residents. Gun ownership
is responsible citizenship, enabling Americans to defend
their homes and communities. We condemn frivolous lawsuits
against gun manufacturers and oppose federal licensing or
registration of law-abiding gun owners. We oppose
legislation that is intended to restrict our Second
Amendment rights by limiting the capacity of clips or
magazines or otherwise restoring the ill-considered Clinton
gun ban. We condemn the reckless actions associated with the
operation known as "Fast and Furious," conducted by the
Department of Justice, which resulted in the murder of a
U.S. Border Patrol Agent and others on both sides of the
border. We applaud the Members of the U.S. House of
Representatives in holding the current Administration's
Attorney General in contempt of Congress for his refusal to
cooperate with their investigation into that debacle. We
oppose the improper collection of firearms sales information
in the four southern border states, which was imposed
without congressional authority.
The
Fourth Amendment: Liberty and Privacy
Affirming
"the right of the people to be secure in their houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures," we support pending legislation to prevent
unwarranted or unreasonable governmental intrusion through
the use of aerial surveillance or fly-overs on U.S. soil,
with the exception of patrolling our national borders. All
security measures and police actions should be viewed
through the lens of the Fourth Amendment; for if we trade
liberty for security, we shall have neither.
The Fifth
Amendment: Protecting Private Property
The Takings
Clause of the Fifth Amendment– "nor shall private
property be taken for public use without just compensation"–is
a bulwark against tyranny; for without property rights,
individual rights are diminished. That is why we deplore the
Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision, allowing
local governments to seize a person's home or land, not for
vital public use, but for transfer to private developers. We
call on State legislatures to moot the impact of the Kelo
decision in their States by appropriate legislation or
constitutional amendments. Equally important, we pledge to
enforce the Takings Clause in the actions of federal
agencies to ensure just compensation whenever private
property is needed to achieve a compelling public use. This
includes the taking of property in the form of water rights
in the West and elsewhere and the taking of property by
environmental regulations that destroy its value.
The Ninth
Amendment: Affirming the People's Rights
This speaks
most eloquently for itself: "The enumeration in the
Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to
deny or disparage others retained by the people." This
provision codifies the concept that our government derives
its power from the people and all powers not delegated to
the government are retained by the people. This is an
essential feature of our governmental system, and we
therefore celebrate the grassroots rediscovery of this and
other constitutional guarantees over the last four years and
welcome to our ranks all our fellow citizens who are
determined to reclaim the rights of the people that have
been ignored or violated by government.
The
Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life
Faithful to
the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of
Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and
affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual
right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human
life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation
to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections
apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to
promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which
perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health
care which includes abortion coverage. We support the
appointment of judges who respect traditional family values
and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the
nonconsensual withholding or withdrawal of care or
treatment, including food and water, from people with
disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and
infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and
assisted suicide.
Republican
leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric
practice of partial-birth abortion and permitted States to
extend health care coverage to children before birth. We
urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection
Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties on
healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment and care
to an infant who survives an abortion, including early
induction delivery where the death of the infant is
intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective
abortions -- gender discrimination in its most lethal
form--and to protect from abortion unborn children who are
capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S. House
Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of
pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We
call for a ban on the use of body parts from aborted fetuses
for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell
research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the
killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal
funding of embryonic stem cell research.
We also
salute the many States that have passed laws for informed
consent, mandatory waiting periods prior to an abortion, and
health-protective clinic regulation. We seek to protect
young girls from exploitation through a parental consent
requirement; and we affirm our moral obligation to assist,
rather than penalize, women challenged by an unplanned
pregnancy. We salute those who provide them with counseling
and adoption alternatives and empower them to choose life,
and we take comfort in the tremendous increase in adoptions
that has followed Republican legislative
initiatives.
Respect
for Our Flag: Symbol of the Constitution
The symbol
of our constitutional unity, to which we all pledge
allegiance, is the flag of the United States of America. By
whatever legislative method is most feasible, Old Glory
should be given legal protection against desecration. We
condemn decisions by activist judges to deny children the
opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance in its entirety,
including "Under God," in public schools and encourage
States to promote the pledge. We condemn the actions of
those who deny our children the means by which to show
respect for our great country and the constitutional
principles represented by our flag.
American
Sovereignty in U.S. Courts
Subjecting
American citizens to foreign laws is inimical to the spirit
of the Constitution. It is one reason we oppose U.S.
participation in the International Criminal Court. There
must be no use of foreign law by U.S. courts in interpreting
our Constitution and laws. Nor should foreign sources of law
be used in State courts' adjudication of criminal or civil
matters.
The Lacey
Act of 1900, designed to protect endangered wildlife in
interstate commerce, is now applied worldwide, making it a
crime to use, in our domestic industries, any product
illegally obtained in the country of origin, whether or not
the user had anything to do with its harvesting. This
unreasonable extension of the Act not only hurts American
businesses and American jobs, but also subordinates our own
rule of law to the legal codes of 195 other governments. It
must be changed.
Just as
George Washington wisely warned America to avoid foreign
entanglements and enter into only temporary alliances, we
oppose the adoption or ratification of international
treaties that weaken or encroach upon American
sovereignty.
(return to table of contents)
America's
Natural Resources: Energy, Agriculture and the
Environment
We are the
party of sustainable jobs and economic growth -- through
American energy, agriculture, and environmental policy. We
are also the party of America's growers and producers,
farmers, ranchers, foresters, miners, and all those who
bring from the earth the minerals and energy that are the
lifeblood of our nation's historically strong economy. We
are as well the party of traditional conservation: the wise
development of resources that keeps in mind both the
sacrifices of past generations to secure that bounty and our
responsibility to preserve it for future
generations.
Domestic
Energy Independence: An "All of the Above" Energy
Policy
The
Republican Party is committed to domestic energy
independence. The United States and its neighbors to the
North and South have been blessed with abundant energy
resources, tapped and untapped, traditional and alternative,
that are among the largest and most valuable on earth.
Advancing technology has given us a more accurate
understanding of the nation's enormous reserves that are
ours for the development. The role of public officials must
be to encourage responsible development across the board.
Unlike the current Administration, we will not pick winners
and losers in the energy marketplace. Instead, we will let
the free market and the public's preferences determine the
industry outcomes. In assessing the various sources of
potential energy, Republicans advocate an all-of-the-above
diversified approach, taking advantage of all our American
God-given resources. That is the best way to advance North
American energy independence.
Our policies
aim at energy security to ensure an affordable, stable, and
reliable energy supply for all parts of the country and all
sectors of the economy. Energy security is intimately linked
to national security both in terms of our current dependence
upon foreign supplies and because some of the hundreds of
billions of dollars we pay for foreign oil ends up in the
hands of terrorist groups that wish to harm us. A growing,
prosperous economy and our standard of living and quality of
life, moreover, depend on affordable and abundant domestic
energy supplies.
A strong and
stable energy sector is a job generator and a catalyst of
economic growth, not only in the labor-intensive energy
industry but also in its secondary markets. The Republican
Party will encourage and ensure diversified domestic sources
of energy, from research and development, exploration,
production, transportation, transmission, and consumption in
a way that is economically viable and job-producing, as well
as environmentally sound. When our energy industry is
revitalized, millions more Americans will find work in
manufacturing, food production, metals, minerals, packaging,
transportation and other fields -- because of the jobs that
will be created in, and as a result of, the energy sector.
We are determined to create jobs, spur economic growth,
lower energy prices, and strengthen our energy
industry.
Our
Nation's Energy Abundance
Coal
is a low-cost and abundant energy source with hundreds
of years of supply. We look toward the private sector's
development of new, state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that
will be low-cost, environmentally responsible, and
efficient. We also encourage research and development of
advanced technologies in this sector, including
coal-to-liquid, coal gasification, and related technologies
for enhanced oil recovery.
The current
Administration--with a President who publicly threatened to
bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant--seems
determined to shut down coal production in the United
States, even though there is no cost-effective substitute
for it or for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with
it as the nation's largest source of electricity
generation.
We will end
the EPA's war on coal and encourage the increased safe
development in all regions of the nation's coal resources,
the jobs it produces, and the affordable, reliable energy
that it provides for America. Further, we oppose any and all
cap and trade legislation.
All
estimates of America's oil and natural gas reserves
indicate an incredible bounty for the use of many
generations to come. At a time when unemployment has been
above 8 percent for 42 consecutive months, the longest
stretch since the Great Depression, and some 23 million
Americans are either unemployed, underemployed, or have
given up on finding work, we should be pursuing our oil and
gas resources both on and offshore. It is nonsensical to
spurn real job by putting almost all of our coastal waters
off limits to energy exploration, while urging other nations
to explore their coasts. We call for a reasoned approach to
all offshore energy development on the East Coast and other
appropriate waters, and support the right of States to a
reasonable share of the resulting revenue and royalties. We
support opening the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for energy
exploration and development and ending the current
Administration's moratorium on permitting; opening the
coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
for exploration and production of oil and natural gas; and
allowing for more oil and natural gas exploration on
federally owned and controlled land. We support this
development in accordance with applicable environmental,
health and safety laws, and regulations.
The current
President personally blocked one of the most important
energy and jobs projects in years. The Keystone XL
Pipeline--which would have brought much needed Canadian and
American oil to U.S. refineries--would create thousands of
jobs. The current President's job-killing combination of
extremism and ineptitude threatens to create a permanent
energy shortage. We are committed to approving the Keystone
XL Pipeline and to streamlining permitting for the
development of other oil and natural gas
pipelines.
Nuclear
energy, now generating about 20 percent of our
electricity through 104 power plants, must be expanded. No
new nuclear generating plants have been licensed and
constructed for thirty years. We call for timely processing
of new reactor applications currently pending at the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
The federal
government's failure to address the storage and disposal of
spent nuclear fuel has left huge bills for States and
taxpayers. Our country needs a more proactive approach to
managing spent nuclear fuel, including through developing
advanced reprocessing technologies.
We encourage
the cost creation effective development of renewable
energy, but the taxpayers should not serve as venture
capitalists for risky endeavors. It is important to create a
pathway toward a market-based approach for renewable energy
sources and to aggressively develop alternative sources for
electricity generation such as wind, hydro, solar, biomass,
geothermal, and tidal energy. Partnerships between
traditional energy industries and emerging renewable
industries can be a central component in meeting the
nation's long-term needs. Alternative forms of energy are
part of our action agenda to power the homes and workplaces
of the nation.
Pulling
the Plug on American Energy Independence: The Failure of the
Current Administration
The current
Administration has used taxpayer dollars to pick winners and
losers in the energy sector while publicly threatening to
bankrupt anyone who builds a new coal-fired plant and has
stopped the Keystone XL Pipeline. The current President has
done nothing to disavow the scare campaign against hydraulic
fracturing. Furthermore, he has wasted billions of
taxpayers' dollars by subsidizing favored companies like
Solyndra, which generated bankruptcies rather than
kilowatts.
Since the
current President took office in 2009, consumers pay
approximately twice as much for gas at the pump. Our common
theme is to promote development of all forms of energy,
enable consumer choice to keep energy costs low, and ensure
that America remains competitive in the global marketplace.
We will respect the States' proven ability to regulate the
use of hydraulic fracturing, continue development of oil and
gas resources in places like the Bakken formation and
Marcellus Shale, and review the environmental laws that
often thwart new energy exploration and production. We
salute the Republican Members of the House of
Representatives for passing the Domestic Energy and Jobs
Act, a vital piece of pro-growth legislation now introduced
by Republicans in the Senate.
Agriculture
Abundant
Harvests: Protecting Our Farmers
Agricultural
production and agricultural exports are a fundamental part
of the U.S. economy, and the vigor of U.S. agriculture is
central to our agenda for jobs, growth, and prosperity. Our
farmers and ranchers are responsible for millions of jobs
and for generating a trade surplus of more than $137 billion
annually. Our producers provide America with abundant food,
export food to hungry people around the world, and create a
positive trade balance. Because of their care for the land,
the United States does not depend on foreign imports for
sustenance the way we depend on others for much of our
energy. However, Americans are concerned about the
increasing cost of their food under the current
Administration policies that restrict energy production and
raise costs for producers due to increased regulation. Our
dependence on foreign imports of fertilizer could threaten
our food supply, and we support the development of domestic
production of fertilizer. The success of our system of risk
management policies will enable farmers and ranchers to
continue to feed and fuel the nation and much of the
world.
Restoring
Economic Stability for Our Farmers
Uncertainty
is threatening the survival of our nation's farmers.
America's growers and farmers are aging and much of
America's farmland will be passed to the next generation of
farmers with families. Uncertainties in estate and capital
gains tax laws threaten the survival of multigenerational
family farms. The proposals for tax reforms contained
elsewhere in this document will make certain that family
farms will not be lost.
The
Proper Federal Role in Agriculture
Agricultural
producers and the jobs they generate throughout the entire
food chain must confront volatility in both the weather and
the markets. We support farm programs that enable them to
manage the extraordinary risk they meet in the fields every
year. These programs should be as cost-effective as they are
functional, offering risk management tools that improve
producers' ability to operate when times are
tough.
Just as all
other federal programs must contribute to the deficit
reduction necessary to put our country back on a sound
fiscal footing, so must farm programs contribute to
balancing the budget.
Programs
like the Direct Payment program should end in favor of
those, like crop insurance, that help manage risk and are
countercyclical in nature.
We support
the historic role of the USDA in agricultural research that
has transformed farming here and around the world. Because
food safety is a major concern of the American people, we
urge Congress to ensure adequate resources for the
Department's responsibilities in that regard.
The U. S.
Forest Service controls about 193 million acres of land and
employs 30,000 workers. The Forest Service should be charged
to use these resources to the best economic potential for
the nation. We must limit injunctions by activist judges
regarding environmental management. In order to secure one
of the country's most important natural resources, we will
review the way the Forest Service handles wildfires. This
summer's lack of rainfall over much of agricultural America
highlights the importance of access to water for farmers and
ranchers alike. We stand with growers and producers in
defense of their water rights against attempts by the EPA
and the Army Corps of Engineers to expand jurisdiction over
water, including water that is clearly not
navigable.
The
productivity of America's farmers makes possible the
generosity of U.S. food aid efforts around the world. These
programs are fragmented between the Department of
Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International
Development. They should be streamlined into one agency with
a concentration on reducing overhead to maximize delivery of
the actual goods.
The food
stamp program now accounts for nearly 80 percent of the
entire USDA budget. In finding ways to fight fraud and
abuse, the Congress should consider block-granting that
program to the States, along with the other domestic
nutrition programs.
Protecting
Our Environment
The
environment is getting cleaner and healthier. The nation's
air and waterways, as a whole, are much healthier than they
were just a few decades ago. Efforts to reduce pollution,
encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid
ecological degradation have been a success. To ensure their
continued support by the American people, however, we need a
dramatic change in the attitude of officials in Washington,
a shift from a job-killing punitive mentality to a spirit of
cooperation with producers, landowners, and the public. An
important factor is full transparency in development of the
data and modeling that drive regulations. Legislation to
restore the authority of States in environmental protection
is essential. We encourage the use of agricultural best
management practices among the States to reduce
pollution.
Our
Republican Party's Commitment to
Conservation
Conservation
is a conservative value. As the pioneer of conservation over
a century ago, the Republican Party believes in the moral
obligation of the people to be good stewards of the
God-given natural beauty and resources of our country and
bases environmental policy on several commonsense
principles. For example, we believe people are the most
valuable resource, and human health and safety are the most
important measurements of success. A policy protecting these
objectives, however, must balance economic development and
private property rights in the short run with conservation
goals over the long run. Also, public access to public lands
for recreational activities such as hunting, fishing, and
recreational shooting should be permitted on all appropriate
federal lands.
Moreover,
the advance of science and technology advances
environmentalism as well. Science allows us to weigh the
costs and benefits of a policy so that we can prudently deal
with our resources. This is especially important when the
causes and long-range effects of a phenomenon are uncertain.
We must restore scientific integrity to our public research
institutions and remove political incentives from publicly
funded research.
Private
Stewardship of the Environment
Experience
has shown that, in caring for the land and water, private
ownership has been our best guarantee of conscientious
stewardship, while the worst instances of environmental
degradation have occurred under government control. By the
same token, the most economically advanced countries--those
that respect and protect private property rights--also have
the strongest environmental protections, because their
economic progress makes possible the conservation of natural
resources. In this context, Congress should reconsider
whether parts of the federal government's enormous
landholdings and control of water in the West could be
better used for ranching, mining, or forestry through
private ownership. Timber is a renewable natural resource,
which provides jobs to thousands of Americans. All efforts
should be made to make federal lands managed by the U.S.
Forest Service available for harvesting. The enduring truth
is that people best protect what they own.
It makes
sense that those closest to a situation are best able to
determine its remedy. That is why a site-and-
situation-specific approach to an environmental problem is
more likely to solve it, instead of a national rule based on
the ideological concerns of politicized central planning. We
therefore endorse legislation to require congressional
approval before any rule projected to cost in excess of $100
million to American consumers can go into effect.
The
Republican Party supports appointing public officials to
federal agencies who will properly and correctly apply
environmental laws and regulations, always in support of
economic development, job creation, and American prosperity
and leadership. Federal agencies charged with enforcing
environmental laws must stop regulating beyond their
authority. There is no place in regulatory agencies for
activist regulators.
Reining
in the EPA
Since 2009,
the EPA has moved forward with expansive regulations that
will impose tens of billions of dollars in new costs on
American businesses and consumers. Many of these new rules
are creating regulatory uncertainty, preventing new projects
from going forward, discouraging new investment, and
stifling job creation.
We demand an
end to the EPA's participation in "sue and settle" lawsuits,
sweetheart litigation brought by environmental groups to
expand the Agency's regulatory activities against the wishes
of Congress and the public. We will require full
transparency in litigation under the nation's environmental
laws, including advance notice to all State and local
governments, tribes, businesses, landowners, and the public
who could be adversely affected. We likewise support pending
legislation to ensure cumulative analysis of EPA
regulations, and to require full transparency in all EPA
decisions, so that the public will know in advance their
full impact on jobs and the economy. We oppose the EPA's
unwarranted revocation of existing permits. We also call on
Congress to take quick action to prohibit the EPA from
moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations that will
harm the nation's economy and threaten millions of jobs over
the next quarter century. The most powerful environmental
policy is liberty, the central organizing principle of the
American Republic and its people. Liberty alone fosters
scientific inquiry, technological innovation,
entrepreneurship, and information exchange. Liberty must
remain the core energy behind America's environmental
improvement.
(return to table of contents)
Reforming
Government to Serve the People
We are the
party of government reform. At a time when the federal
government has become bloated, antiquated and unresponsive
to taxpayers, it is our intention not only to improve
management and provide better services, but also to rethink
and restructure government to bring it into the twenty-first
century. Government reform requires constant vigilance and
effort because government by its nature tends to expand in
both size and scope. Our goal is not just less spending in
Washington but something far more important for the future
of our nation: protecting the constitutional rights of
citizens, sustainable prosperity, and strengthening the
American family.
It isn't
enough to merely downsize government, having a smaller
version of the same failed systems. We must do things in a
dramatically different way by reversing the undermining of
federalism and the centralizing of power in Washington. We
look to the example set by Republican Governors and
legislators all across the nation. Their leadership in
reforming and reengineering government closest to the people
vindicates the role of the States as the laboratories of
democracy.
Our
approach, like theirs, is twofold. We look to
government--local, State, and federal-- for the things
government must do, but we believe those duties can be
carried out more efficiently and at less cost. For all other
activities, we look to the private sector; for the American
people's resourcefulness, productivity, innovation, fiscal
responsibility, and citizen-leadership have always been the
true foundation of our national greatness.
For much of
the last century, an opposing view has dominated public
policy where we have witnessed the expansion,
centralization, and bureaucracy in an entitlement society.
Government has lumbered on, stifling innovation, with no
incentive for fundamental change, through antiquated
programs begun generations ago and now ill-suited to present
needs and future requirements. As a result, today's
taxpayers--and future generations--face massive
indebtedness, while Congressional Democrats and the current
Administration block every attempt to turn things around.
This manmade logjam--the so-called stalemate in
Washington--particularly affects the government's three
largest programs, which have become central to the lives of
untold millions of Americans: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social
Security.
Saving
Medicare for Future Generations
The
Republican Party is committed to saving Medicare and
Medicaid. Unless the programs' fiscal ship is righted, the
individuals hurt the first and the worst will be those who
depend on them the most. We will save Medicare by
modernizing it, by empowering its participants, and by
putting it on a secure financial footing. This will be an
enormous undertaking, and it should be a nonpartisan one. We
welcome to the effort all who sincerely want to ensure the
future for our seniors and the poor. Republicans are
determined to achieve that goal with a candid and honest
presentation of the problem and its solutions to the
American people.
Despite the
enormous differences between Medicare and Medicaid, the two
programs share the same fiscal outlook: their current
courses cannot be sustained. Medicare has grown from more
than 20 million enrolled in 1970 to more than 47 million
enrolled today, with a projected total of 80 million in
2030. Medicaid counted almost 30 million enrollees in 1990,
has about 54 million now, and under Obamacare would include
an additional 11 million.
Medicare
spent more than $520 billion in 2010 and has close to $37
trillion in unfunded obligations, while total Medicaid
spending will more than double by 2019. In many States,
Medicaid's mandates and inflexible bureaucracy have become a
budgetary black hole, growing faster than most other budget
lines and devouring funding for many other essential
governmental functions.
The problem
goes beyond finances. Poor quality healthcare is the most
expensive type of care because it prolongs affliction and
leads to ever more complications. Even expensive prevention
is preferable to more costly treatment later on. When
approximately 80 percent of healthcare costs are related to
lifestyle –smoking, obesity, substance abuse–far
greater emphasis has to be put upon personal responsibility
for health maintenance. Our goal for both Medicare and
Medicaid must be to assure that every participant receives
the amount of care they need at the time they need it,
whether for an expectant mother and her baby or for someone
in the last moments of life. Absent reforms, these two
programs are headed for bankruptcy that will endanger care
for seniors and the poor.
The first
step is to move the two programs away from their current
unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a
fiscally sound defined-contribution model. This is the only
way to limit costs and restore consumer choice for patients
and introduce competition; for in healthcare, as in any
other sector of the economy, genuine competition is the best
guarantee of better care at lower cost. It is also the best
guard against the fraud and abuse that have plagued Medicare
in its isolation from free market forces, which in turn
costs the taxpayers billions of dollars every year. We can
do this without making any changes for those 55 and older.
While retaining the option of traditional Medicare in
competition with private plans, we call for a transition to
a premium-support model for Medicare, with an
income-adjusted contribution toward a health plan of the
enrollee's choice. This model will include private health
insurance plans that provide catastrophic protection, to
ensure the continuation of doctor-patient relationships.
Without disadvantaging retirees or those nearing retirement,
the age eligibility for Medicare must be made more realistic
in terms of today's longer life span.
Strengthening
Medicaid in the States
Medicaid, as
the dominant payer in the health market in regards to
long-term care, births, and individuals with mental illness,
is the next frontier of welfare reform. It is simply too big
and too flawed to be managed in its current condition from
Washington. Republican Governors have taken the lead in
proposing a host of regulatory changes that could make the
program more flexible, innovative, and accountable. There
should be alternatives to hospitalization for chronic health
problems. Patients could be rewarded for participating in
disease prevention activities. Excessive mandates on
coverage should be eliminated. Patients with long-term care
needs might fare better in a separately designed
program.
As those and
other specific proposals show, Republican Governors and
State legislatures are ready to do the hard work of
modernizing Medicaid for the twenty-first century. We
propose to let them do all that and more by block-granting
the program to the States, providing the States with the
flexibility to design programs that meet the needs of their
low income citizens. Such reforms could be achieved through
premium supports or a refundable tax credit, allowing
non-disabled adults and children to be moved into private
health insurance of their choice, where their needs can be
met on the same basis as those of more affluent Americans.
For the aged and disabled under Medicaid, for whom monthly
costs can be extremely high, States would have flexibility
to improve the quality of care and to avoid the
inappropriate institutional placing of patients who prefer
to be cared for at home.
Security
For Those Who Need It: Ensuring Retirement
Security
While no
changes should adversely affect any current or near-retiree,
comprehensive reform should address our society's remarkable
medical advances in longevity and allow younger workers the
option of creating their own personal investment accounts as
supplements to the system. Younger Americans have lost all
faith in the Social Security system, which is understandable
when they read the nonpartisan actuary's reports about its
future funding status. Born in an old industrial era beyond
the memory of most Americans, it is long overdue for major
change, not just another legislative stopgap that postpones
a day of reckoning. To restore public trust in the system,
Republicans are committed to setting it on a sound fiscal
basis that will give workers control over, and a sound
return on, their investments. The sooner we act, the sooner
those close to retirement can be reassured of their benefits
and younger workers can take responsibility for planning
their own retirement decades from now.
Unlike
Social Security, the problems facing private pension plans
are both demographic and ethical. While pension law may be
complicated, the current bottom line is that many plans are
increasingly underfunded by overestimating their rates of
return on investments. This in turn endangers the integrity
of the Pension Guaranty Benefit Corporation, which is itself
seriously underfunded. In both cases, the taxpayers will be
expected to pay for a bailout. As the first step toward
possible corrective action, we call for a presidential panel
to review the private pension system in this country of only
those private pensions that are backed by the Pension
Guaranty Benefit Corporation and to make public its
findings.
The
situation of public pension systems demands immediate
remedial action. The irresponsible promises of politicians
at every level of government have come back to haunt today's
taxpayers with enormous unfunded pension liabilities. Many
cities face bankruptcy because of excessive outlays for
early retirement, extravagant health plans, and overly
generous pension benefits. We salute the Republican
Governors and State legislators who have, in the face of
abuse and threats of violence, reformed their State pension
systems for the benefit of both taxpayers and retirees
alike.
Regulatory
Reform: The Key to Economic Growth
The proper
purpose of regulation is to set forth clear rules of the
road for the citizens, so that business owners and workers
can understand in advance what they need to do, or not do,
to augment the possibilities for success within the confines
of the law. Regulations must be drafted and implemented to
balance legitimate public safety or consumer protection
goals and job creation. Constructive regulation should be a
helpful guide, not a punitive threat. Worst of all,
over-regulation is a stealth tax on everyone as the costs of
compliance with the whims of federal agencies are passed
along to the consumers at the cost of $1.75 trillion a year.
Many regulations are necessary, like those which ensure the
safety of food and medicine, especially from overseas. But
no peril justifies the regulatory impact of Obamacare on the
practice of medicine, the Dodd-Frank Act on financial
services, or the EPA's and OSHA's overreaching regulation
agenda. A Republican Congress and President will repeal the
first and second, and rein in the third. We support a sunset
requirement to force reconsideration of out-of-date
regulations, and we endorse pending legislation to require
congressional approval for all new major and costly
regulations.
The bottom
line on regulations is jobs. In listening to America, one
constant we have heard is the job-crippling effect of even
well-intentioned regulation. That makes it all the more
important for federal agencies to be judicious about the
impositions they create on businesses, especially small
businesses. We call for a moratorium on the development of
any new major and costly regulations until a Republican
Administration reviews existing rules to ensure that they
have a sound basis in science and will be
cost-effective.
Protecting
Internet Freedom
The Internet
has unleashed innovation, enabled growth, and inspired
freedom more rapidly and extensively than any other
technological advance in human history. Its independence is
its power. The Internet offers a communications system
uniquely free from government intervention. We will remove
regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and
business plans from innovation and competition, while
preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new and
disruptive technologies such as mobile delivery of voice
video data as they become crucial components of the Internet
ecosystem. We will resist any effort to shift control away
from the successful multi-stakeholder approach of Internet
governance and toward governance by international or other
intergovernmental organizations. We will ensure that
personal data receives full constitutional protection from
government overreach and that individuals retain the right
to control the use of their data by third parties; the only
way to safeguard or improve these systems is through the
private sector.
A Vision
for the twenty-first Century: Technology, Telecommunications
and the Internet
The most
vibrant sector of the American economy, indeed, one-sixth of
it, is regulated by the federal government on precedents
from the nineteenth century. Today's technology and
telecommunications industries are overseen by the Federal
Communications Commission, established in 1934 and given the
jurisdiction over telecommunications formerly assigned to
the Interstate Commerce Commission, which had been created
in 1887 to regulate the railroads. This is not a good fit.
Indeed, the development of telecommunications advances so
rapidly that even the Telecom Act of 1996 is woefully out of
date. An industry that invested $66 billion in 2011 alone
needs, and deserves, a more modern relationship with
the federal
government benefit of consumers here and
worldwide.
The current
Administration has been frozen in the past. It has conducted
no auction of spectrum, has offered no incentives for
investment, and, through the FCC's net neutrality rule, is
trying to micromanage telecom as if it were a railroad
network. It inherited from the previous Republican
Administration 95 percent coverage of the nation with broad
band. It will leave office with no progress toward the goal
of universal coverage -- after spending $7.2 billion more.
That hurts rural America, where farmers, ranchers, and small
business manufacturers need connectivity to expand their
customer base and operate in real time with the world's
producers. We en courage public-private partnerships to
provide predictable support for connecting rural areas so
that every American can fully participate in the global
economy.
We call for
an inventory of federal agency spectrum to determine the
surplus that could be auctioned for the taxpayers' benefit.
With special recognition of the role university technology
centers are playing in attracting private investment to the
field, we will replace the administration's Luddite approach
to technological progress with a regulatory partnership that
will keep this country the world leader in technology and
telecommunications.
Protecting
the Taxpayers: No More "Too Big to Fail"
For more
than a century, the U.S. was the world leader in financial
services. The visionary management of capital was the
lifeblood of the entire economy. By giving responsible
access to credit, it helped small businesses grow, created
jobs, and made Americans the besthoused people in history.
By funding innovation, financial services underwrote our
future. Then came the financial collapse of 2008 and a
critical reassessment of the role and condition of financial
institutions--most of which, it must be said, were
responsible and healthy, especially those closest to their
investors and borrowers.
In cases of
malfeasance or other criminal behavior, the full force
of the law should be used. But in all cases, this rule must
apply: No financial institution is too big to fail. The
taxpayers must never again be on the hook for the losses of
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The public must never again be
left holding the bag for Wall Street giants, which is why we
decry the current Administration's record of overregulation
and selective intervention, which has already frozen
investment and job creation and threatens to make financial
institutions the coddled wards of government.
A far better
approach--protecting consumers and taxpayers alike--is
institutional transparency. Banks need to know that they
could be at risk, and investors need clear rules that are
not subject to political meddling. The same holds true for
the equity market regulated by the Securities and Exchange
Commission. We propose reasonable federal oversight of
financial institutions, practical safeguards for consumers,
and -- what is crucial for this country's economic rebound
-- sound spending, tax, and regulatory policies that will
allow those institutions to once again become the builders
of the next American century. We strongly support tax
reform; in the event we do not achieve this, we must
preserve the mortgage interest deduction.
Judicial
Activism: A Threat to the U.S. Constitution
Despite
improvements as a result of Republican nominations to the
judiciary, some judges in the federal courts remain far
afield from their constitutional limitations. The U.S.
Constitution is the law of the land. Judicial activism which
includes reliance on foreign law or unratified treaties
undermines American law. The sole solution, apart from
impeachment, is the appointment of constitutionalist
jurists, who will interpret the law as it was originally
intended rather than make it. That is both a presidential
responsibility, in selecting judicial candidates, and a
senatorial responsibility, in confirming them. We urge
Republican Senators to do all in their power to prevent the
elevation of additional leftist ideologues to the courts,
particularly in the waning days of the current
Administration.
In addition
to appointing activist judges, the current Administration
has included an activist and highly partisan Department of
Justice. With a Republican Administration, the Department
will stop suing States for exercising those powers reserved
to the States, will stop abusing its preclearance authority
to block photoID voting laws, and will fulfill its
responsibility to defend all federal laws in court,
including the Defense of Marriage Act.
Restructuring
the U.S. Postal Service for the TwentyFirst
Century
The dire
financial circumstances of the Postal Service require
dramatic restructuring. In a world of rapidly advancing
telecommunications, mail delivery from the era of the Pony
Express cannot long survive. We call on Congress to
restructure the Service to ensure the continuance of its
essential function of delivering mail while preparing for
the downsizing made inevitable by the advance of internet
communication. In light of the Postal Service's seriously
underfunded pension system, Congress should explore a
greater role for private enterprise in appropriate aspects
of the mailprocessing system.
Protecting
Travelers and their Rights: Reforming the TSA for Security
and Privacy
While the
aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks brought about a
greater need for homeland security, the American people have
already delivered their verdict on the Transportation
Security Administration: its procedures -- and much of its
personnel -- need to be changed. It is now a massive
bureaucracy of 65,000 employees who seem to be accountable
to no one for the way they treat travelers. We call for the
private sector to take over airport screening wherever
feasible and look toward the development of security systems
that can replace the personal violation of
frisking.
The Rule
of Law: Legal Immigration
The greatest
asset of the American economy is the American worker. Just
as immigrant labor helped build our country in the past,
today's legal immigrants are making vital contributions in
every aspect of our national life. Their industry and
commitment to American values strengthens our economy,
enriches our culture, and enables us to better understand
and more effectively compete with the rest of the world.
Illegal immigration undermines those benefits and affects
U.S. workers. In an age of terrorism, drug cartels, human
trafficking, and criminal gangs, the presence of millions of
unidentified persons in this country poses grave risks to
the safety and the sovereignty of the United States. Our
highest priority, therefore, is to secure the rule of law
both at our borders and at ports of entry.
We recognize
that for most of those seeking entry into this country, the
lack of respect for the rule of law in their homelands has
meant economic exploitation and political oppression by
corrupt elites. In this country, the rule of law guarantees
equal treatment to every individual, including more than one
million immigrants to whom we grant permanent residence
every year. That is why we oppose any form of amnesty for
those who, by intentionally violating the law, disadvantage
those who have obeyed it. Granting amnesty only rewards and
encourages more law breaking. We support the mandatory use
of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements
(S.A.V.E.) program--an internetbased system that verifies
the lawful presence of applicants--prior to the granting of
any State or federal government entitlements or IRS refunds.
We insist upon enforcement at the workplace through
verification systems so that jobs can be available to all
legal workers. Use of the Everify program--an internetbased
system that verifies the employment authorization and
identity of employees--must be made mandatory nationwide.
State enforcement efforts in the workplace must be welcomed,
not attacked. When Americans need jobs, it is absolutely
essential that we protect them from illegal labor in the
workplace. In addition, it is why we demand tough penalties
for those who practice identity theft, deal in fraudulent
documents, and traffic in human beings. It is why we support
Republican leg.islation to give the Department of
Homeland Security longterm detention authority to keep
dangerous but undeportable aliens off our streets, expedite
expulsion of criminal aliens, and make gang membership a
deportable offense.
The current
Administration's approach to immigration has undermined the
rule of law at every turn. It has lessened worksite
enforcement--and even allows the illegal aliens it does
uncover to walk down the street to the next employer--and
challenged legitimate State efforts to keep communities
safe, suing them for trying to enforce the law when the
federal government refuses to do so. It has created a
backdoor amnesty program unrecognized in law, granting
worker authorization to illegal aliens, and shown little
regard for the lifeanddeath situations facing the men and
women of the border patrol.
Perhaps
worst of all, the current Administration has failed to
enforce the legal means for workers or employers who want to
operate within the law.
In contrast,
a Republican Administration and Congress will partner with
local governments through cooperative enforcement agreements
in Section 287g of the Immigration and Nationality Act to
make communities safer for all and will consider, in light
of both current needs and historic practice, the utility of
a legal and reliable source of foreign labor where needed
through a new guest worker program. We will create humane
procedures to encourage illegal aliens to return home
voluntarily, while enforcing the law against those who
overstay their visas.
State
efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged,
not attacked. The pending Department of Justice lawsuits
against Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah
must be
dismissed immediately. The double-layered fencing on the
border that was enacted by Congress in 2006, but never
completed, must finally be built. In order to restore the
rule of law, federal funding should be denied to sanctuary
cities that violate federal law and endanger their own
citizens, and federal funding should be denied to
universities that provide in-state tuition rates to illegal
aliens, in open defiance of federal law.
We are
grateful to the thousands of new immigrants, many of them
not yet citizens, who are serving in the Armed Forces. Their
patriotism should encourage us all to embrace the newcomers
legally among us, assist their journey to full citizenship,
and help their communities avoid isolation from the
mainstream of society. To that end, while we encourage the
retention and transmission of heritage tongues, we support
English as the nation's official language, a unifying force
essential for the educational and economic advancement
of--not only immigrant communities--but also our nation as a
whole.
Honoring
Our Relationship with American Indians
Based on
both treaty and other law, the federal government has a
unique governmenttogovernment relationship with and trust
responsibility for Indian Tribal Governments and American
Indians and Alaska Natives. These obligations have not been
sufficiently honored. The social and economic problems that
plague Indian country have grown worse over the last several
decades; we must reverse that trend.
Ineffective
federal programs deprive American Indians of the services
they need, and longterm failures threaten to undermine
tribal sovereignty itself.
American
Indians have established elected tribal governments to carry
out the public policies of the tribe, administer services to
its tribal member constituents, and manage relations with
federal, State, and local governments. We respect the tribal
governments as the voice of their communities and encourage
federal, State, and local governments to heed those voices
in developing programs and partnerships to improve the
quality of life for American Indians and their neighbors in
their communities.
Republicans
believe that economic selfsufficiency is the ultimate answer
to the challenges confronting Indian country. We believe
that tribal governments and their communities, not
Washington bureaucracies, are best situated to craft
solutions that will end systemic problems that create
poverty and disenfranchisement. Just as the federal
government should not burden States with regulations, it
should not stifle the development of resources within the
reservations, which need federal assistance to advance their
commerce nationally through roads and technology. Federal
and State regulations that thwart job creation must be
withdrawn or redrawn so that tribal governments acting on
behalf of American Indians are not disadvantaged. It is
especially egregious that the Democratic Party has
persistently undermined tribal sovereignty in order to
provide advantage to union bosses in the tribal
workplace.
Republicans
recognize that each tribe has the right of consultation
before any new regulatory policy is implemented on tribal
land. To the extent possible, such consultation should take
place in Indian country with the tribal government and its
members. Before promulgating and imposing any new laws or
regulations affecting trust land or members, the federal
government should encourage Indian tribes to develop their
own policies to achieve program objectives, and should defer
to tribes to develop their own standards, or standards in
conjunction with State governments.
Republicans
reject a onesizefitsall approach to federaltribalState
partnerships and will work to expand local autonomy where
tribal governments seek it. Better partnerships will help us
to expand economic opportunity, deliver topflight education
to future generations, modernize and improve the Indian
Health Service to make it more responsive to local needs,
and build essential infrastructure in Indian country in
cooperation with tribal neighbors. Our approach is to
empower American Indians, through tribal selfdetermination
and selfgovernance policies, to develop their greatest
assets, human resources and the rich natural resources on
their lands, without undue federal interference.
Like all
Americans, American Indians want safe communities for their
families; but inadequate resources and neglect have, over
time, allowed criminal activities to plague Indian country.
To protect everyone--and especially the most vulnerable:
children, women, and elders--the legal system in tribal
communities must provide stability and protect property
rights. Everyone's due process and civil rights must be
safeguarded.
We support
efforts to ensure equitable participation in federal
programs by American Indians, including Alaska Natives, and
Native Hawaiians and to preserve their culture and languages
that we consider to be national treasures. Lastly, we
recognize that American Indians have responded to the call
for military service in percentage numbers far greater than
have other groups of Americans. We honor that commitment,
loyalty, and sacrifice of all American Indians serving in
the military today and in years past and will ensure that
all veterans and their families receive the care and respect
they have earned through their loyal service to
America.
Preserving
the District of Columbia
The nation's
capital city, a special responsibility of the federal
government, belongs both to its residents and to all
Americans, millions of whom visit it every year.
Congressional Republicans have taken the lead in efforts to
foster homeownership and open access to higher education for
Washington residents. Against the opposition of the current
President and leaders of the Democratic Party, they have
fought to establish, and now to expand, the D.C. Opportunity
Scholarship Program, through which thousands of lowincome
children have been able to attend a school of their choice
and receive a quality education.
D.C.'s
Republicans have been in the forefront of exposing and
combating the chronic corruption among the city's top
Democratic officials. We join their call for a nonpartisan
elected Attorney General to clean up the city's political
culture and for congressional action to enforce the spirit
of the Home Rule Act assuring minority representation on the
City Council. After decades of inept oneparty rule, the
city's structural deficit demands congressional
attention.
As the
center of our government, the District contains many
potential targets for terrorist attacks. Federal security
agencies should work closely with local officials and
regional administrations like the Washington Area
Metropolitan Transit Authority. A top priority must be
ensuring that all public transportation, especially Metro
rails, is functioning in the event of an emergency
evacuation. Also, to ensure protection of the fundamental
right to keep and bear arms, we call on the governing
authority to pass laws consistent with the Supreme Court's
decisions in the District of Columbia v. Heller and
McDonald v. Chicago cases, which upheld the
fundamental right to keep and bear arms for
selfdefense.
We oppose
statehood for the District of Columbia.
Modernizing
the Federal Civil Service
The federal
workforce bears great responsibilities and sometimes wields
tremendous power, especially when Congress delegates to it
the execution of complicated and farreaching legislation. We
recognize the dedication of federal workers and the
difficulty of their thankless task of implementing poorly
drafted or openended legislation.
Under the
current Administration, the civil service has grown by at
least 140,000 workers, while the number making at least
$150,000 has doubled. At a time when the national debt has
increased to over $15.9 trillion under the current
Administration, this is grossly irresponsible. The American
people work too hard and too long to support a bloated
government. We call for a reduction, through attrition, in
the federal payroll of at least 10 percent and the
adjustment of pay scales and benefits to reflect those of
the private sector. We must bring the 130year old Civil
Service System into the twentyfirst century. The federal pay
system should be sufficiently flexible to acknowledge and
reward those who dare to innovate, reduce overhead, optimize
processes, and expedite paperwork.
Delinquency
in paying taxes and repaying student loans has been too
common in some segments of the civil service. A Republican
Administration will make enforcement among its own employees
a priority and, unlike the current Administration, will name
to public office no one who has failed to meet their
financial obligations to the government and fellow
taxpayers.
America's
Future in Space: Continuing this Quest
The
exploration of space has been a key part of U.S. global
leadership and has supported innovation and ownership of
technology. Over the last halfcentury, in partnership with
our aerospace industry, the work of NASA has helped define
and strengthen our nation's technological prowess. From
building the world's most powerful rockets to landing men on
the Moon, sending robotic spacecraft throughout our solar
system and beyond, building the International Space Station,
and launching spacebased telescopes that allow scientists to
better understand our universe, NASA science and engineering
have produced spectacular results. The technologies that
emerged from those programs propelled our aerospace
industrial base and directly benefit our national security,
safety, economy, and quality of life. Through its
achievements, NASA has inspired generations of Americans to
study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,
leading to careers that drive our country's technological
and economic engines.
Today,
America's leadership in space is challenged by countries
eager to emulate--and surpass-- NASA's accomplishments. To
preserve our national security interests and foster
innovation and competitiveness, we must sustain our
preeminence in space, launching more science missions,
guaranteeing unfettered access, and maintaining a source of
highvalue American jobs.
Honoring
and Supporting Americans in the Territories
We honor the
extraordinary sacrifices of the men and women of the
territories who protect our freedom through their service in
the U.S. Armed Forces. We welcome their greater
participation in all aspects of the political process and
affirm their right to seek the full extension of the
Constitution, with all the rights and responsibilities it
entails.
U.S.
territories face serious economic challenges as they
struggle to retain existing industries and develop new ones.
Development of local energy options is crucial to reduce
their dependence on imported fuel and promote economic
stability. The Pacific territories should have flexibility
to determine the minimum wage, which has seriously
restricted progress in the private sector. A stronger
private sector can raise wages, reduce dependence on public
sector employment, and lead toward local selfsufficiency.
All unreasonable economic impediments must be removed,
including unreasonable U.S. customs practices.
We support
the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be
admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state if they
freely so determine. We recognize that Congress has the
final authority to define the constitutionally valid options
for Puerto Rico to achieve a permanent nonterritorial status
with government by consent and full enfranchisement. As long
as Puerto Rico is not a State, however, the will of its
people regarding their political status should be
ascertained by means of a general right of referendum or
specific referenda sponsored by the U.S.
government.
(return to table of contents)
Renewing
American Values to Build Healthy Families, Great Schools and
Safe Neighborhoods
We are the
party of independent individuals and the institutions they
create--families, schools, congregations, neighborhoods--to
advance their ideals and make real their dreams. Foremost
among those institutions is the American family. It is the
foundation of our society and the first level of
selfgovernment. Its daily lessons--cooperation, patience,
mutual respect, responsibility, selfreliance -- are
fundamental to the order and progress of our Republic.
Government can never replace the family. That is why we
insist that public policy, from taxation to education, from
healthcare to welfare, be formulated with attention to the
needs and strengths of the family.
Preserving
and Protecting Traditional Marriage
The
institution of marriage is the foundation of civil society.
Its success as an institution will determine our success as
a nation. It has been proven by both experience and endless
social science studies that traditional marriage is best for
children. Children raised in intact married families are
more likely to attend college, are physically and
emotionally healthier, are less likely to use drugs or
alcohol, engage in crime, or get pregnant outside of
marriage. The success of marriage directly impacts the
economic wellbeing of individuals. Furthermore, the future
of marriage affects freedom. The lack of family formation
not only leads to more government costs, but also to more
government control over the lives of its citizens in all
aspects. We recognize and honor the courageous efforts of
those who bear the many burdens of parenting alone, even as
we believe that marriage, the union of one man and one woman
must be upheld as the national standard, a goal to stand
for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage.
We embrace the principle that all Americans should be
treated with respect and dignity.
Creating
a Culture of Hope: Raising Families Beyond
Poverty
The
Republicanled welfare reforms enacted in 1996 marked a
revolution in government's approach to poverty. They changed
the standard for policy success from the amount of income
transferred to the poor to the number of poor who moved from
welfare to economic independence. We took the belief of most
Americans--that welfare should be a hand up, not a hand
out--and made it law. Work requirements, though modest, were
at the heart of this success. That is why so many are now
outraged by the current Administration's recent decision to
permit waivers for work requirements for welfare benefits,
in other words, to administratively repeal the most
successful antipoverty policy in memory. Instead of
undermining the expectation that lowincome parents and
individuals should strive to support themselves, benefit
programs like food stamps must ensure that those benefits
are better targeted to those who need help the
most.
For the sake
of lowincome families as well as the taxpayers, the federal
government's entire system of public assistance should be
reformed to ensure that it promotes work. Each year, this
system dispenses nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer funds across
a maze of approximately 80 programs that are neither
coordinated nor effective in solving poverty and lifting up
families. For many individuals collecting benefits from
multiple categorical programs, efforts to work or earn more
actually result in less money in their pocket through the
resulting loss of benefits. This poverty trap would ensnare
even more Americans if Obamacare were implemented. Taking a
part time job, working an extra shift, or even just marrying
someone who works, would result in a loss of benefits,
thereby discouraging the very acts necessary to achieve the
American Dream.
Adoption
and Foster Care
Families
formed or enlarged by adoption strengthen our communities
and ennoble our nation. We applaud the Republican
legislative initiatives that led to a significant increase
in adoptions in recent years, and we call upon the private
sector to consider the needs of adoptive families on a par
with others. Any restructuring of the federal tax code
should recognize the financial impact of the adoption
process and the commitment made by adoptive
families.
The nation's
foster care system remains a necessary fallback for
youngsters from troubled families. Because of reforms
initiated by many States, the number of foster children has
declined to just over 400,000. A major problem of the system
is its lack of support, financial and otherwise, for teens
who age out of foster care and into a world in which many
are not prepared to go it alone. We urge States to work with
the faithbased and other community groups which reach out to
these young people in need.
Making
the Internet FamilyFriendly
Millions of
Americans suffer from problem or pathological gambling that
can destroy families. We support the prohibition of gambling
over the Internet and call for reversal of the Justice
Department's decision distorting the formerly accepted
meaning of the Wire Act that could open the door to Internet
betting.
The Internet
must be made safe for children. We call on service providers
to exercise due care to ensure that the Internet cannot
become a safe haven for predators while respecting First
Amendment rights. We congratulate the social networking
sites that bar known sex offenders from participation. We
urge active prosecution against child pornography, which is
closely linked to the horrors of human trafficking. Current
laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be
vigorously enforced.
Advancing
Americans with Disabilities
We renew our
commitment to the inclusion of Americans with disabilities
in all aspects of our national life. In keeping with that
commitment, we oppose the nonconsensual withholding of care
or treatment from people with disabilities, including
newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we
oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide, which endanger
especially those on the margins of society. Because
government should set a positive standard in hiring and
contracting for the services of persons with disabilities,
we need to update the statutory authority for the Ability
One program, a major avenue by which those productive
members of our society can offer high quality
services.
The
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has
opened up unprecedented opportunities for many students, and
we reaffirm our support for its goal of minimizing the
separation of children with disabilities from their peers.
We urge preventive efforts in early childhood, especially
assistance in gaining prereading skills, to help many
students move beyond the need for IDEA's protections. We
endorse the program of Employment First, developed by major
disability rights groups, to replace dependency with jobs in
the mainstream of the American workforce.
Repealing
Obamacare
The Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act--Obamacare--was never
really about healthcare, though its impact upon the nation's
health is disastrous. From its start, it was about power,
the expansion of government control over one sixth of our
economy, and resulted in an attack on our Constitution, by
requiring that U.S. citizens purchase health insurance. We
agree with the four dissenting justices of the Supreme
Court: "In our view the entire Act before us is invalid in
its entirety." It was the highwater mark of an outdated
liberalism, the latest attempt to impose upon Americans a
eurostyle bureaucracy to manage all aspects of their lives.
Obamacare has been struck down in the court of public
opinion and is falling by the weight of its own confusing,
unworkable, budgetbusting, and conflicting provisions. It
would tremendously expand Medicaid without significant
reform, leaving the States to assume unsustainable financial
burdens. If fully implemented, it could not function; and
Republican victories in the November elections will
guarantee that it is never implemented. Congressional
Republicans are committed to its repeal; and a Republican
President, on the first day in office, will use his
legitimate waiver authority under that law to halt its
progress and then will sign its repeal. Then the American
people, through the free market, can advance affordable and
responsible healthcare reform that meets the needs and
concerns of patients and providers. Through Obamacare, the
current Administration has promoted the notion of abortion
as healthcare. We, however, affirm the dignity of women by
protecting the sanctity of human life. Numerous studies have
shown that abortion endangers the health and wellbeing of
women, and we stand firmly against it.
Our
Prescription for American Healthcare: Improve Quality and
Lower Costs
We believe
that taking care of one's health is an individual
responsibility. Chronic diseases, many of them related to
lifestyle, drive healthcare costs, accounting for more than
75 percent of the nation's medical spending. To reduce
demand, and thereby lower costs, we must foster personal
responsibility while increasing preventive services to
promote healthy lifestyles. We believe that all Americans
should have improved access to affordable, coordinated,
quality healthcare, including individuals struggling with
mental illness.
Our goal is
to encourage the development of a healthcare system that
provides higher quality care at a lower cost to all
Americans while protecting the patientphysician relationship
based on mutual trust, informed consent, and privileged
patient confidentiality. We seek to increase healthcare
choice and options, contain costs and reduce mandates,
simplify the system for patients and providers, restore cuts
made to Medicare, and equalize the tax treatment of group
and individual health insurance plans. For most Americans,
those who are insured now or who seek insurance in the
future, our practical, nonintrusive reforms will promote
flexibility in State leadership in healthcare reform,
promote a freemarket based system, and empower consumer
choice. All of which will return direction of the nation's
healthcare to the people and away from the federal
government.
To return
the States to their proper role of regulating local
insurance markets and caring for the needy, we propose to
block grant Medicaid and other payments to the States; limit
federal requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid;
assist all patients, including those with preexisting
conditions, through reinsurance and risk adjustment; and
promote nonlitigation alternatives for dispute resolution.
We call on State officials to carefully consider the
increased costs of medical mandates, imposed under their
laws, which may price many lowincome families out of the
insurance market. We call on the government to permanently
ban all federal funding and subsidies for abortion and
healthcare plans that include abortion coverage.
To achieve a
free market in healthcare and ensure competition, we will
promote price transparency so that consumers will know the
actual cost of treatments before they undergo them. When
patients are aware of costs, they are less likely to
overutilize services. We support legislation to cap
noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, thereby
relieving conscientious providers of burdens that are not
rightly theirs and addressing a serious cause of escalating
medical bills. We will empower individuals and small
businesses to form purchasing pools in order to expand
coverage to the uninsured. Individuals with preexisting
conditions who maintain continuous insurance coverage should
be protected from discrimination. We support technology
enhancements for medical health records and data systems
while affirming patient privacy and ownership of health
information.
Ensuring
Consumer Choice in Healthcare
Consumer
choice is the most powerful factor in healthcare reform.
Today's highly mobile work force requires portability of
insurance coverage that can go with them from job to job.
The need to maintain coverage should not dictate where
families have to live and work. Putting the patient at the
center of policy decisions will increase choice and reduce
costs while ensuring that services provide what Americans
actually want. We must end tax discrimination against the
individual purchase of insurance and allow consumers to
purchase insurance across State lines. While promoting
"coinsurance" products and alternatives to "fee for
service," government must promote Health Savings Accounts
and Health Reimbursement Accounts to be used for insurance
premiums and should encourage the private sector to rate
competing insurance plans. We will ensure that America's
aging population has access to safe and affordable care.
Because seniors overwhelmingly desire to age at home, we
will make home care a priority in public policy. We will
champion the right of individual choice in senior care. We
will aggressively implement programs to protect against
elder abuse, and we will work to ensure that quality care is
provided across the care continuum from home to nursing home
to hospice.
Supporting
Federal Healthcare Research and Development
We support
federal investment in healthcare delivery systems and
solutions creating innovative means to provide greater, more
costeffective access to high quality healthcare. We also
support federal investment in basic and applied biomedical
research, especially the neuroscience research that may hold
great potential for dealing with diseases and disorders such
as Autism, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. If we are to make
significant headway against breast and prostate cancer,
diabetes, and other killers, research must consider the
special needs of formerly neglected groups. We call for
expanded support for the stemcell research that now offers
the greatest hope for many afflictions-- with adult stem
cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into
pluripotent stem cells--without the destruction of embryonic
human life. We urge a ban on human cloning and on the
creation of or experimentation on human embryos. We support
restoring the Drug Enforcement Administration ban on the use
of controlled substances for physicianassisted suicide. We
oppose the FDA approval of Mifeprex, formerly known as
RU486, and similar drugs that terminate innocent human life
after conception.
Protecting
Individual Conscience in Healthcare
No
healthcare professional or organization should ever be
required to perform, provide for, withhold, or refer for a
medical service against their conscience. This is especially
true of the religious organizations which deliver a major
portion of America's healthcare, a service rooted in the
charity of faith communities. We do not believe, however,
that healthcare providers should be allowed to withhold
services because the healthcare provider believes the
patient's life is not worth living. We support the ability
of all organizations to provide, purchase, or enroll in
healthcare coverage consistent with their religious, moral
or ethical convictions without discrimination or penalty. We
likewise support the right of parents to consent to medical
treatment for their children, including mental health
treatment, drug treatment, and treatment involving
pregnancy, contraceptives and abortion. We urge enactment of
pending legislation that would require parental consent to
transport girls across state lines for abortions.
Reforming
the FDA
America's
leadership in life sciences R&D and medical innovation
is being threatened. As a country, we must work together now
or lose our leadership position in medical innovation, U.S.
job creation, and access to lifesaving treatments for U.S.
patients. The United States has led the global medical
device and pharmaceutical industries for decades. This
leadership has made the U.S. the medical innovation capital
of the world, bringing millions of highpaying jobs to our
country and lifesaving devices and drugs to our nation's
patients. But that leadership position is at risk; patients,
innovators, and job creators point to the lack of
predictability, consistency, transparency and efficiency at
the Food and Drug Administration that is driving innovation
overseas, benefiting foreign, not U.S., patients.
We pledge to
reform the FDA so we can ensure that the U.S. remains the
world leader in medical innovation, that device and drug
jobs stay in the U.S., that U.S. patients benefit first from
new devices and drugs, and that the FDA no longer wastes
U.S. taxpayer and innovators' resources because of
bureaucratic red tape and legal uncertainty.
Reducing
Costs through Tort Reform
Frivolous
medical malpractice lawsuits have ballooned the cost of
healthcare for the average American. Physicians are
increasingly practicing defensive medicine because of the
looming threat of malpractice liability. Moreover, some
medical practitioners are avoiding patients with complex and
highrisk medical problems because of the high costs of
medical malpractice lawsuits. Rural America is hurt
especially hard as obstetricians, surgeons, and other
healthcare providers are moving to urban settings or
retiring, causing a significant healthcare workforce
shortage and subsequently decreasing access to care for all
patients. We are committed to aggressively pursuing tort
reform legislation to help avoid the practice of defensive
medicine, to keep healthcare costs low, and improve
healthcare quality.
Education:
A Chance for Every Child
Parents are
responsible for the education of their children. We do not
believe in a one size fits all approach to education and
support providing broad education choices to parents and
children at the State and local level. Maintaining American
preeminence requires a worldclass system of education, with
high standards, in which all students can reach their
potential. Today's education reform movement calls for
accountability at every stage of schooling. It affirms
higher expectations for all students and rejects the
crippling bigotry of low expectations. It recognizes the
wisdom of State and local control of our schools, and it
wisely sees consumer rights in education--choice-- as the
most important driving force for renewing our
schools.
Education is
much more than schooling. It is the whole range of
activities by which families and communities transmit to a
younger generation, not just knowledge and skills, but
ethical and behavioral norms and traditions. It is the
handing over of a personal and cultural identity. That is
why education choice has expanded so vigorously. It is also
why American education has, for the last several decades,
been the focus of constant controversy, as centralizing
forces outside the family and community have sought to
remake education in order to remake America. They have not
succeeded, but they have done immense damage.
Attaining
Academic Excellence for All
Since 1965
the federal government has spent $2 trillion on elementary
and secondary education with no substantial improvement in
academic achievement or high school graduation rates (which
currently are 59 percent for AfricanAmerican students and 63
percent for Hispanics). The U.S. spends an average of more
than $10,000 per pupil per year in public schools, for a
total of more than $550 billion. That represents more than 4
percent of GDP devoted to K12 education in 2010. Of that
amount, federal spending was more than $47 billion. Clearly,
if money were the solution, our schools would be
problemfree.
More money
alone does not necessarily equal better performance. After
years of trial and error, we know what does work, what has
actually made a difference in student advancement, and what
is powering education reform at the local level all across
America: accountability on the part of administrators,
parents and teachers; higher academic standards; programs
that support the development of character and financial
literacy; periodic rigorous assessments on the fundamentals,
especially math, science, reading, history, and geography;
renewed focus on the Constitution and the writings of the
Founding Fathers, and an accurate account of American
history that celebrates the birth of this great nation;
transparency, so parents and the public can discover which
schools best serve their pupils; flexibility and freedom to
innovate, so schools can adapt to the special needs of their
students and hold teachers and administrators responsible
for student performance. We support the innovations in
education reform occurring at the State level based upon
proven results. Republican Governors have led in the effort
to reform our country's underperforming education system,
and we applaud these advancements.
We advocate
the policies and methods that have proven effective:
building on the basics, especially STEM subjects (science,
technology, engineering, and math) and phonics; ending
social promotions; merit pay for good teachers; classroom
discipline; parental involvement; and strong leadership by
principals, superintendents, and locally elected school
boards. Because technology has become an essential tool of
learning, proper implementation of technology is a key
factor in providing every child equal access and
opportunity.
Consumer
Choice in Education
The
Republican Party is the party of fresh and innovative ideas
in education. We support options for learning, including
home schooling and local innovations like singlesex classes,
fullday school hours, and yearround schools. School
choice--whether through charter schools, open enrollment
requests, college lab schools, virtual schools, career and
technical education programs, vouchers, or tax credits--is
important for all children, especially for families with
children trapped in failing schools. Getting those
youngsters into decent learning environments and helping
them to realize their full potential is the greatest civil
rights challenge of our time. We support the promotion of
local career and technical educational programs and
entrepreneurial programs that have been supported by leaders
in industry and will retrain and retool the American
workforce, which is the best in the world. A young person's
ability to achieve in school must be based on his or her
Godgiven talent and motivation, not an address, zip code, or
economic status.
In sum, on
the one hand enormous amounts of money are being spent for
K12 public education with overall results that do not
justify that spending. On the other hand, the common
experience of families, teachers, and administrators forms
the basis of what does work in education. We believe the gap
between those two realities can be successfully bridged, and
Congressional Republicans are pointing a new way forward
with major reform legislation. We support its concept of
block grants and the repeal of numerous federal regulations
which interfere with State and local control of public
schools.
The bulk of
the federal money through Title I for lowincome children and
through IDEA for disabled youngsters should follow the
students to whatever school they choose so that eligible
pupils, through open enrollment, can bring their share of
the funding with them. The Republicanfounded D.C.
Opportunity Scholarship Program should be expanded as a
model for the rest of the country. We deplore the efforts by
Congressional Democrats and the current President to kill
this successful program for disadvantaged students in order
to placate the leaders of the teachers' unions. We support
putting the needs of students before the special interests
of unions when approaching elementary and secondary
education reform.
Because
parents are a child's first teachers, we support family
literacy programs, which improve the reading, language, and
life skills of both parents and children from lowincome
families. To ensure that all students have access to the
mainstream of American life, we support the English First
approach and oppose divisive programs that limit students'
ability to advance in American society. We renew our call
for replacing "family planning" programs for teens with
abstinence education which teaches abstinence until marriage
as the responsible and respected standard of behavior.
Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that
is 100 percent effective against outofwedlock pregnancies
and sexuallytransmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS when
transmitted sexually. It is effective, sciencebased, and
empowers teens to achieve optimal health outcomes and avoid
risks of sexual activity. We oppose schoolbased clinics that
provide referrals, counseling, and related services for
abortion and contraception. We support keeping federal funds
from being used in mandatory or universal mental health,
psychiatric, or socioemotional screening
programs.
We applaud
America's great teachers, who should be protected against
frivolous litigation and should be able to take reasonable
actions to maintain discipline and order in the classroom.
We support legislation that will correct the current law
provision which defines a "Highly Qualified Teacher" merely
by his or her credentials, not results in the classroom. We
urge school districts to make use of teaching talent in
business, STEM fields, and in the military, especially among
our returning veterans. Rigid tenure systems based on the
"last in, first out" policy should be replaced with a
meritbased approach that can attract fresh talent and
dedication to the classroom. All personnel who interact with
school children should pass background checks and be held to
the highest standards of personal conduct.
Improving
Our Nation's Classrooms
Higher
education faces its own challenges, many of which stem from
the poor preparation of students before they reach college.
One consequence has been the multiplying number of remedial
courses for freshmen. Even so, our universities, large and
small, public or private, form the world's greatest
assemblage of learning. They drive much of the research that
keeps America competitive and, by admitting large numbers of
foreign students, convey our values and culture to the
world.
Ideological
bias is deeply entrenched within the current university
system. Whatever the solution in private institutions may
be, in State institutions the trustees have a responsibility
to the public to ensure that their enormous investment is
not abused for political indoctrination. We call on State
officials to ensure that our public colleges and
universities be places of learning and the exchange of
ideas, not zones of intellectual intolerance favoring the
Left.
Addressing
Rising College Costs
College
costs, however, are on an unsustainable trajectory, rising
year by year far ahead of overall inflation. Nationwide,
student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt, roughly
$23,300 for each of the 35,000,000 debtors, taking years to
pay off. Over 50 percent of recent college grads are
unemployed or underemployed, working at jobs for which their
expensive educations gave them no training. It is time to
get back to basics and to higher education programs directly
related to job opportunities.
The first
step is to acknowledge the need for change when the status
quo is not working. New systems of learning are needed to
compete with traditional fouryear colleges: expanded
community colleges and technical institutions, private
training schools, online universities, lifelong learning,
and workbased learning in the private sector. New models for
acquiring advanced skills will be ever more important in the
rapidly changing economy of the twentyfirst century,
especially in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Public policy should advance the affordability, innovation,
and transparency needed to address all these challenges and
to make accessible to everyone the emerging alternatives,
with their lower cost degrees, to traditional college
attendance.
Federal
student aid is on an unsustainable path, and efforts should
be taken to provide families with greater transparency and
the information they need to make prudent choices about a
student's future: completion rates, repayment rates, future
earnings, and other factors that may affect their decisions.
The federal government should not be in the business of
originating student loans; however, it should serve as an
insurance guarantor for the private sector as they offer
loans to students. Private sector participation in student
financing should be welcomed. Any regulation that drives
tuition costs higher must be reevaluated to balance its
worth against its negative impact on students and their
parents.
Justice
for All: Safe Neighborhoods and Prison Reform
The most
effective forces in reducing crime and other social ills are
strong families and caring communities supported by
excellent law enforcement. Both reinforce constructive
conduct and ethical standards by setting examples and
providing safe havens from dangerous and destructive
behaviors. But even under the best social circumstances,
strong, welltrained law enforcement is necessary to protect
us all, and especially the weak and vulnerable, from
predators. Our national experience over the last several
decades has shown that citizen vigilance, tough but fair
prosecutors, meaningful sentences, protection of victims'
rights, and limits on judicial discretion can preserve
public safety by keeping criminals off the
streets.
Liberals do
not understand this simple axiom: criminals behind bars
cannot harm the general public. To that end, we support
mandatory prison sentencing for gang crimes, violent or
sexual offenses against children, repeat drug dealers, rape,
robbery and murder. We support a national registry for
convicted child murderers. We oppose parole for dangerous or
repeat felons. Courts should have the option of imposing the
death penalty in capital murder cases.
In
solidarity with those who protect us, we call for mandatory
prison time for all assaults involving serious injury to law
enforcement officers. Criminals injured in the course of
their crimes should not be able to seek monetary damages
from their intended victims or from the public.
While
getting criminals off the street is essential, more
attention must be paid to the process of restoring those
individuals to the community. Prisons should do more than
punish; they should attempt to rehabilitate and institute
proven prisoner reentry systems to reduce recidivism and
future victimization. We endorse State and local initiatives
that are trying new approaches, often called accountability
courts.
Government
at all levels should work with faithbased institutions that
have proven track records in diverting young and first time,
nonviolent offenders from criminal careers, for which we
salute them. Their emphasis on restorative justice, to make
the victim whole and put the offender on the right path, can
give law enforcement the flexibility it needs in dealing
with different levels of criminal behavior. We endorse State
and local initiatives that are trying new approaches to
curbing drug abuse and diverting firsttime offenders to
rehabilitation.
Public
authorities must regain control of their correctional
institutions, for we cannot allow prisons to become ethnic
or racial battlegrounds. Persons jailed for whatever cause
should be protected against cruel or degrading treatment by
other inmates. In some cases, the institution of
familyfriendly policies may curtail prison violence and
reduce the rate of recidivism, thus reducing the enormous
fiscal and social costs of incarceration. Breaking the cycle
of crime begins with the children of those who are
prisoners. Deprived of a parent through no fault of their
own, these youngsters should be a special concern of our
schools, social services, and religious
institutions.
Thirty years
ago, President Reagan's Task Force on Victims of Crime,
calling the neglect of crime victims a "national disgrace,"
proposed a Constitutional amendment to secure their formal
rights. While some progress has been made to rectify that
situation, the need for national action still persists in
the unacceptable treatment of innocent victims. We call on
the States to make it a bipartisan priority to protect the
rights of crime victims, who should also be assured of
access to social and legal services; and we call on the
Congress to make the federal courts a model in this regard
for the rest of the country.
The
resources of the federal government's law enforcement and
judicial systems have been strained by two unfortunate
expansions: the overcriminalization of behavior and the
overfederalization of offenses. The number of criminal
offenses in the U.S. Code increased from 3,000 in the early
1980s to over 4,450 by 2008. Federal criminal law should
focus on acts by federal employees or acts committed on
federal property -- and leave the rest to the States. Then
Congress should withdraw from federal departments and
agencies the power to criminalize behavior, a practice
which, according to the Congressional Research Service, has
created "tens of thousands" of criminal offenses. No one
other than an elected representative should have the
authority to define a criminal act and set criminal
penalties. In the same way, Congress should reconsider the
extent to which it has federalized offenses traditionally
handled on the State or local level.
(return to table of contents)
American
Exceptionalism
We are the
party of peace through strength. Professing American
exceptionalism--the conviction that our country holds a
unique place and role in human history--we proudly associate
ourselves with those Americans of all political stripes who,
more than three decades ago in a world as dangerous as
today's, came together to advance the cause of freedom.
Repudiating the folly of an amateur foreign policy and
defying a worldwide Marxist advance, they announced their
strategy in the timeless slogan we repeat today: peace
through strength--an enduring peace based on freedom and the
will to defend it, and American democratic values and the
will to promote them. While the twentieth century was
undeniably an American century--with strong leadership,
adherence to the principles of freedom and democracy our
Founders' enshrined in our nation's Declaration of
Independence and Constitution, and a continued reliance on
Divine Providence--the twentyfirst century will be one of
American greatness as well.
Today's
adversaries are different, as are their weapons and their
ideology, but this remains the same: the unity of Americans,
beyond party, in gratitude to those who have defended our
country, pursued its attackers to the ends of the earth, and
today stand vigilant guard in our cities, on our coasts, and
in alien lands. We pledge to our servicemen and women the
authority and resources they need to protect the nation and
defend America's freedom. Continued vigilance, especially in
travel and commerce, is necessary to prevent bioterrorism,
cyber terrorism, and other asymmetric or nontraditional
warfare attacks and to ensure that the horror of September
11, 2001 is never repeated on our soil.
Our country
and its way of life have enemies both abroad and within our
shores. We affirm the need for our military to protect the
nation by finding and capturing our enemies and the
necessity for the President to have the tools to deal with
these threats. As history has sadly shown, even our fellow
citizens may rarely become enemies of their country.
Nevertheless, our government must continue to ensure the
protections under our Constitution to all citizens,
particularly the rights of habeas corpus and due process of
law.
History
proves that the best way to promote peace and prevent costly
wars is to ensure that we constantly renew America's
economic strength. A healthy American economy is what
underwrites and sustains American power. The current
Administration is weakening America at home through anemic
growth, high unemployment, and recordsetting debt. We must
therefore rebuild our economy and solve our fiscal crisis.
In an American century, America will have the strongest
economy and the strongest military in the world.
The
Current Administration's Failure: Leading From
Behind
The
Republican Party is the advocate for a strong national
defense as the pathway to peace, economic prosperity, and
the protection of those yearning to be free. Since the end
of World War II, American military superiority has been the
cornerstone of a strategy that seeks to deter aggression or
defeat those who threaten our national security interests.
In 1981, President Reagan came to office with an agenda of
strong American leadership, beginning with a restoration of
our country's military strength. The rest is history,
written in the rubble of the Berlin Wall and the Iron
Curtain.
We face a
similar challenge today. The current Administration has
responded with weakness to some of the gravest threats to
our national security this country has faced, including the
proliferation of transnational terrorism, continued
belligerence by a nucleararmed North Korea, an Iran in
pursuit of nuclear weapons, rising Chinese hegemony in the
Asia Pacific region, Russian activism, and threats from
cyber espionage and terrorism. In response to these growing
threats, President Obama has reduced the defense budget by
over $487 billion over the next decade and fought Republican
efforts to avoid another $500 billion in automatic budget
cuts through a sequestration in early 2013 that will take a
meat ax to all major defense programs.
The
Dangers of A Hollow Force: The Looming
Sequestration
Sequestration--which
is severe, automatic, acrosstheboard cuts in defense
spending over the next decade--of the nation's military
budget would be a disaster for national security, imperiling
the safety of our servicemen and women, accelerating the
decline of our nation's defense industrial base, and
resulting in the layoff of more than 1 million skilled
workers. Opposition to sequester is bipartisan; even the
current Secretary of Defense has said the cuts will be
"devastating" to America's military. Yet the current
President supported sequestration, signed it into law, and
has threatened to veto Republican efforts to prevent it. If
he allows an additional half trillion dollars to be cut from
the defense budget, America will be left with the smallest
ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since
1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history--at a time
when our Nation faces a growing range of threats to our
national security and a struggling economy that can ill
afford to lose 1.5 million defenserelated jobs.
Leaks for
Political Purposes
The current
Administration's leaks of classified information have
imperiled intelligence assets which are vital to American
security. This conduct is contemptible. It betrays our
national interest. It compromises our men and women in the
field. And it demands a full and prompt investigation by a
special counsel. Equally threatening to the longterm
strength and safety of our Armed Forces are the current
Administration's efforts to sacrifice our national security
for political gain and a partisan agenda. We give the
current President credit for maintaining his predecessor's
quiet determination and planning to bring to justice the man
behind the 9/11 attack on America, but he has tolerated
publicizing the details of the operation to kill the leader
of Al Qaeda; those leaks exposed the tactics and techniques
of our Special Operations forces and denied our nation an
unprecedented intelligence opportunity. Subsequent leaks by
senior Administration officials regarding cyber warfare, the
use of drones against Al Qaeda and its operatives, and the
targeting of our enemies--unprecedented leaks that
compromised key sources and methods and damaged our national
security--served the single purpose of propping up the image
of a weak President.
A Failed
National Security Strategy
The current
Administration's most recent National Security Strategy
reflects the extreme elements in its liberal domestic
coalition. It is a budgetconstrained blueprint that, if
fully implemented, will diminish the capabilities of our
Armed Forces. The strategy significantly increases the risk
of future conflict by declaring to our adversaries that we
will no longer maintain the forces necessary to fight and
win more than one conflict at a time. It relies on the good
intentions and capabilities of international organizations
to justify constraining American military readiness.
Finally, the strategy subordinates our national security
interests to environmental, energy, and international health
issues, and elevates "climate change" to the level of a
"severe threat" equivalent to foreign aggression. The word
"climate," in fact, appears in the current President's
strategy more often than Al Qaeda, nuclear proliferation,
radical Islam, or weapons of mass destruction. The phrase
"global war on terror" does not appear at all, and has been
purposely avoided and changed by his Administration to
"overseas contingency operations."
Conventional
Forces in Decline
More than a
century ago, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt
predicted that America's future was in the Pacific. That
future is here today, but it can develop peacefully only
under the shield of American Naval and Air power. Yet the
current Administration plans to significantly curtail
production of our most advanced combat aircraft,
decommission 6 of 60 Air Force tactical squadrons, and
eliminate critical air mobility assets, including 27 giant
C5As and 65 C130s, while divesting the nation of the brand
new C27.
The
President plans to reduce our naval forces by retiring seven
cruisers and slowing work on amphibious ships and attack
submarines, further reducing the Navy that already has the
smallest fleet since the early years of the twentieth
century. And he will reduce ground forces by separating
100,000 soldiers and Marines--many of whom will be
discharged after recently returning from combat--and another
100,000 under the sequester.
These plans
limit our strategic flexibility in an increasingly dangerous
world. The current President is repeating the disastrous
cuts of the postVietnam war era, putting our nation in
danger of returning to the "hollow force" of the Carter
Administration, when the U.S. military was not respected in
the world.
Nuclear
Forces and Missile Defense Imperiled
We recognize
that the gravest terror threat we face--a nuclear attack
made possible by nuclear proliferation--requires a
comprehensive strategy for reducing the world's nuclear
stockpiles and preventing the spread of those armaments. But
the U.S. can lead that effort only if it maintains an
effective strategic arsenal at a level sufficient to fulfill
its deterrent purposes, a notable failure of the current
Administration.
The United
States is the only nuclear power not modernizing its nuclear
stockpile. It took the current Administration just one year
to renege on the President's commitment to modernize the
neglected infrastructure of the nuclear weapons complex--a
commitment made in exchange for approval of the New START
treaty. In tandem with this, the current Administration has
systematically undermined America's missile defense,
abandoning the missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech
Republic, reducing the number of planned interceptors in
Alaska, and cutting the budget for missile defense. In an
embarrassing open microphone discussion with former Russian
President Medvedev, the current President made clear that,
if he wins a second term, he intends to exercise "more
flexibility" to appease Russia, which means further
undermining our missile defense capabilities. A Republican
President will be honest and forthright with the American
people about his policies and plans and not whisper promises
to authoritarian leaders.
A strong and
effective strategic arsenal is still necessary as a
deterrent against competitors like Russia or China. But the
danger in this age of asymmetric or nontraditional warfare
comes from other quarters as well. With unstable regimes in
Iran and North Korea determined to develop nucleartipped
missiles capable of reaching the United States, with the
possibility that a terrorist group could gain control of a
nuclear weapon, it is folly to abandon a missile shield for
the country.
A
TwentyFirst Century Threat: The Cybersecurity
Danger
The
frequency, sophistication, and intensity of cyberrelated
incidents within the United States have increased steadily
over the past decade and will continue to do so until it is
made clear that a cyber attack against the United States
will not be tolerated. The current Administration's cyber
security policies have failed to curb malicious actions by
our adversaries, and no wonder, for there is no active
deterrence protocol. The current deterrence framework is
overly reliant on the development of defensive capabilities
and has been unsuccessful in dissuading cyberrelated
aggression. The U.S. cannot afford to risk the
cyberequivalent of Pearl Harbor.
The
government and private sector must work together to address
the cyberthreats posed to the United States, help the free
flow of information between network managers, and encourage
innovation and investment in cybersecurity. The government
must do a better job of protecting its own systems, which
contain some of the most sensitive data and control some of
our most important facilities. As such, we encourage an
immediate update of the law that was drafted a decade ago to
improve the security of government information systems.
Additionally, we must invest in continuing research to
develop cuttingedge cybersecurity technologies to protect
the U.S. However, we acknowledge that the most effective way
of combating potential cybersecurity threats is sharing
cyberthreat information between the government and industry,
as well as protecting the free flow of information within
the private sector.
The current
Administration's laws and policies undermine what should be
a collaborative relationship and put both the government and
private entities at a severe disadvantage in proactively
identifying potential cyberthreats. The costly and
heavyhanded regulatory approach by the current
Administration will increase the size and cost of the
federal bureaucracy and harm innovation in cybersecurity.
The government collects valuable information about potential
threats that can and should be shared with private entities
without compromising national security. We believe that
companies should be free from legal and regulatory barriers
that prevent or deter them from voluntarily sharing
cyberthreat information with their government
partners.
An
America That Leads: The Republican National Security
Strategy for the Future
We will
honor President Reagan's legacy of peace through strength by
advancing the most costeffective programs and policies
crucial to our national security, including our economic
security and fiscal solvency. To do that, we must honestly
assess the threats facing this country, and we must be able
to articulate candidly to the American people our priorities
for the use of taxpayer dollars to address those
threats.
We must
deter any adversary who would attack us or use terror as a
tool of government. Every potential enemy must have no doubt
that our capabilities, our commitment, and our will to
defeat them are clear, unwavering, and unequivocal. We must
immediately employ a new blueprint for a National Military
Strategy that is based on an informed and validated
assessment of the potential threats we face, one that
restores as a principal objective the deterrence using the
full spectrum of our military capabilities. As Ronald Reagan
proved by the victorious conclusion of the Cold War, only
our capability to wield overwhelming military power can
truly deter the enemies of the United States from
threatening our people and our national
interests.
In order to
deter aggression from nationstates, we must maintain
military and technical superiority through innovation while
upgrading legacy systems including aircraft and armored
vehicles. We must deter the threat posed by rogue aggressors
with the assurance that justice will be served through
stateoftheart surveillance, enhanced special operations
capabilities, and unmanned aerial systems.
We will
employ the full range of military and intelligence options
to defeat Al Qaeda and its affiliates who threaten not just
the West but the community of nations. We will have a
comprehensive and just detainee policy that treats those who
would attack our nation as enemy combatants. We will accept
no arms control agreement that limits our right to
selfdefense; and we will fully deploy a missile defense
shield for the people of the United States and for our
allies.
We will
pursue an effective cybersecurity strategy, supported by the
necessary resources, that recognizes the importance of
offensive capabilities. Whether it is a nationstate actively
probing our national security networks, a terror
organization seeking to obtain destructive cyber
capabilities, or a criminal network's theft of intellectual
property, more must be done to deter, defeat, and respond to
cyberthreats.
We will
restore the morale and advance the capabilities of our
intelligence community to ensure that the President and our
military leaders are fully informed in an uncertain and
increasingly dangerous world. We will restore accountability
to ensure that our nation's most sensitive information and
activities are protected appropriately.
The
Department of Defense, like all government agencies, needs
to be careful to spend taxpayers' dollars wisely. We will
implement sound management policies to ensure the timely,
costeffective delivery of the tools our troops need to
fight. We reject Congressional earmarks that put personal
and parochial interests ahead of military effectiveness and
the best interests of the nation. We recognize the need for,
and value of, competition within a robust industrial base to
most effectively maximize quality and drive down costs in
everything the Department buys.
Supporting
our Troops, Standing By Our Heroes
The
foundation of our military lies in the men and women who
wear our country's uniform, whether on active duty or in the
Reserves and National Guard, and the families who support
them. Under no circumstances will we reveal any secret or
detail of a military operation that could put our people
into additional harm's way. The members of our military
should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity. We
reject the use of the military as a platform for social
experimentation and will not accept attempts to undermine
military priorities and mission readiness.
Consistent
with this commitment, we believe compensation and conditions
for our Armed Forces in place at the time military service
is initiated should be sufficient to attract and retain
quality men and women as we honor our promises and
commitments to veterans, retirees, and their families. These
shall continue and not be reduced or otherwise diminished
while in service, or upon separation, or retirement. The
combat readiness of our Armed Forces is the foundation of
strength and deterrence. Readiness requires a consistent and
sustained investment in the training and reequipping of our
military personnel. We will never assume the risk of reduced
readiness, and we can never return to the "hollow" forces of
the 1970s. Combat readiness also requires that we reserve
troops for truly necessary operations by not overextending
them around the world.
We recognize
that drastic cuts to our military's end strength pose severe
national security challenges. To avoid the overextension of
our forces, we support a larger active force and oppose cuts
to the National Guard and Reserves.
The
allvolunteer force, begun on the watch of Republican
Presidents, has carried America to victory from the
Caribbean and Central America to the Balkans and Southwest
Asia. We oppose the reinstatement of the draft whether
directly or through compulsory national service. We support
the advancement of women in the military, which has not only
opened doors of opportunity for individuals but has also
made possible the devoted, and often heroic, services of
additional members of every branch of the Armed Forces. We
support military women's exemption from direct ground combat
units and infantry battalions. We affirm the cultural values
that encourage selfless service and superiority in battle,
and we oppose anything which might divide or weaken team
cohesion, including intramilitary special interest
demonstrations. We will support an objective and openminded
review of the current Administration's management of
military personnel policies and will correct problems with
appropriate administrative, legal, or legislative
action.
The National
Guard and Reserves are a fully operational and battletested
component of our Armed Forces. Many of them have heroically
served for multiple deployments resulting in inadequate time
between deployments, also known as dwell time. We pledge to
maintain their manpower and equipment strength and to ensure
their members receive the pay, benefits, and adequate
training to continue their service and maintain mission
readiness through Presidential leadership and Congressional
budget support. Their historic and continuing role as
citizensoldiers is a proud tradition linking every community
across America to the cause of freedom. We affirm service
members' legal right to return to their civilian jobs,
whether in government or the private sector, and we urge
greater transition assistance to and from employers as they
return to the civilian world. Especially in light of the
high unemployment rates faced by younger Reserve and Guard
members, we salute those employers who have wisely decided
that it is a smart and patriotic business decision to hire
those who have served above and beyond the call of
duty.
The
spiritual welfare of our troops and retired service members
should be a priority of our national leadership. With
military suicides running at the rate of one a day, with
postservice medical conditions, including addiction and
mental illness, and with the financial stress and
homelessness that is often related to these factors, there
is an urgent need for the kind of counseling that faithbased
institutions can best provide. We support rights of
conscience and religious freedom for military chaplains and
people of faith. A Republican Commander in Chief will
protect religious independence of military chaplains and
will not tolerate attempts to ban Bibles or religious
symbols from military facilities. We will enforce and defend
in court the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the Armed
Forces as well as in the civilian world.
We call upon
the entire chain of command-- from the President and the
Secretary of Defense, to base and unit commanders--to ensure
that our troops and retired service members, wherever
stationed, have the opportunity to vote in the November
elections, and that their ballots will be returned in time
to be properly counted. Those who fight for and defend
freedom around the world must not be
disenfranchised.
Recognizing
and Supporting Military Families
The families
of our military personnel currently serving, retired service
members, and veterans must also be assured of the pay,
health care, housing, education, and overall support they
have earned. We will ensure that the federal government
keeps its commitments to those who signed on the dotted line
of enlistment with the assurance that those promises would
be kept. We must also do more to retain the services of
those service members who have borne the fight since 2001.
We must
acknowledge that as our troops have experienced repeated
deployments, so have their families. We are committed to
providing programs that offer readjustment information and
counseling to our military families, and urge States to
offer support for job programs, license
reciprocity, onestop service cen ters, and education
programs to support these families. The nation must also
recognize the ultimate sacrifice of survivors and protect
their benefits. We will work to protect service members and
their families by not overextending their
deployments.
Honoring
and Supporting Our Veterans: A Sacred
Obligation
America has
a sacred trust with our veterans, and we are committed to
providing them and their families with care and dignity.
This is particularly true because our nation's warriors are
volunteers, who served from a sense of duty. The work of the
Department of Veterans Affairs--with a staff of 300,000--is
essential to meet our obligations to them: providing health,
education, disability, survivor, and home loan benefit
services and arranging memorial services upon death. All its
branches in those various fields must be made more
responsive, moving from an adversarial to an advocacy
relationship with veterans. To that end we will consider a
fundamental change in structure to make the regional
directors of the Department presidential appointees rather
than careerists.
Our wounded
warriors, whether still in service or discharged, deserve
the best medical care our country can provide. The nature of
the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted in an
unprecedented incidence of traumatic brain injury, loss of
limbs, and posttraumatic stress disorder which calls for a
new commitment of resources and personnel for its treatment
and care to promote recovery. We must make military and
veterans' medicine the gold standard for mental health care,
advances in prosthetics, and treatment of trauma and eye
injuries. We must heed Abraham Lincoln's command "to care
for him who bore the battle." To care, as well, for the
families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, who
must be assured of meaningful financial assistance, remains
our solemn duty.
Because the
conditions of warfare have changed dramatically since the
war on terror began, today's veterans face new challenges.
Asymmetrical or nontraditional warfare results in a high
incidence of severe conditions that must receive high
priority and call for continued research into prevention and
treatment.
We are
committed to ending homelessness for our veterans. One key
is to assist their reentry into the job market as soon as
possible after military service ends. A job for a veteran is
more than a source of income. It is a new mission, with a
new status, and the transition can be difficult. It is a
national scandal that veterans are one of the groups with
the highest unemployment rates. We urge the private sector
to make hiring vets a company policy and commend the many
organizations that have specific programs to accomplish
this. But the federal government must take the lead by
simplifying the paper work required for a tax break for
hiring a veteran and by giving vets their assured place at
the head of the training and employment line.
Every State
has an office dealing with veterans. The federal Department
needs to consider these as partners in assisting vets,
recognizing that those closest to the individual can best
diagnose a problem and apply a remedy. This is especially
important with regard to the determination of veterans'
disability claims. If private insurance companies can deal
with car wrecks and hurricanes within weeks or months, it is
inexplicable that the federal government takes, on average,
a year to process a veteran's claim. We urge immediate
action to review the automatic denial of gun ownership to
returning members of our Armed Forces who have had
representatives appointed to manage their financial
affairs.
Sovereign
American Leadership in International
Organizations
Since the
end of World War II, the United States, through the founding
of the United Nations and NATO, has participated in a wide
range of international organizations which can, but
sometimes do not, serve the cause of peace and prosperity.
While acting through them, our country must always reserve
the right to go its own way. There can be no substitute for
principled American leadership.
The United
Nations remains in dire need of reform, starting with full
transparency in the financial operations of its overpaid
bureaucrats. As long as its scandalridden management
continues, as long as some of the world's worst tyrants hold
seats on its Human Rights Council, and as long as Israel is
treated as a pariah state, the U.N. cannot expect the full
support of the American people.
The United
Nations Population Fund has a shameful record of
collaboration with China's program of compulsory abortion.
We affirm the Republican Party's longheld position known as
the Mexico City Policy, first announced by President Reagan
in 1984, which prohibits the granting of federal monies to
nongovernmental organization that provide or promote
abortion.
Under our
Constitution, treaties become the law of the land. So it is
all the more important that the Congress--the Senate through
its ratifying power and the House through its appropriating
power--shall reject agreements whose longrange impact on the
American family is ominous or unclear. These include the
U.N. Convention on Women's Rights, the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities, and the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty as well as
the various declarations from the U.N. Conference on
Environment and Development. Because of our concern for
American sovereignty, domestic management of our fisheries,
and our country's longterm energy needs, we have deep
reservations about the regulatory, legal, and tax regimes
inherent in the Law of the Sea Treaty and congratulate
Senate Republicans for blocking its ratification. We
strongly reject the U.N. Agenda 21 as erosive of American
sovereignty, and we oppose any form of U.N. Global Tax. We
oppose any diplomatic efforts that could result in giving
the United Nations unprecedented control over the Internet.
International regulatory control over the open and free
Internet would have disastrous consequences for the United
States and the world.
To shield
members of our Armed Forces and others in service to America
from ideological prosecutions overseas, the Republican Party
does not accept the jurisdiction of the International
Criminal Court. We support statutory protection for U.S.
personnel and officials as they act abroad to meet our
global security requirements.
Protecting
Human Rights
To those who
stand in the darkness of tyranny, America has always been a
beacon of hope, and so it must remain. That is why we
strongly support the work of the U.S. Commission on
International Religious Freedom, established by
Congressional Republicans to advance the rights of
persecuted peoples everywhere. It has been shunted aside by
the current Administration at a time when its voice more
than ever needs to be heard. Religious minorities across the
Middle East are being driven from their ancient homelands,
fanaticism leaves its bloody mark on both West and East
Africa, and even among America's Western friends and allies,
pastors and families are penalized for their religious
convictions. A Republican Administration will return the
advocacy of religious liberty to a central place in our
diplomacy.
America's
Generosity: International Assistance that Makes a
Difference
Americans
are the most generous people in the world. Apart from the
taxpayer dollars our government donates abroad, our
foundations, educational institutions, faithbased groups,
and committed men and women of charity devote billions of
dollars and volunteer hours every year to help the poor and
needy around the world. This effort, along with commercial
investment from the private sector, dwarfs the results from
official development assistance, most of which is based on
an outdated, statist, governmenttogovernment model, the
proven breeding ground for corruption and mismanagement by
foreign kleptocrats. Limiting foreign aid helps keep taxes
lower, which frees more resources in the private and
charitable sectors, whose giving tends to be more effective
and efficient.
Foreign aid
should serve our national interest, an essential part of
which is the peaceful development of less advanced and
vulnerable societies in critical parts of the world.
Assistance should be seen as an alternative means of keeping
the peace, far less costly in both dollars and human lives
than military engagement. The economic success and political
progress of former aid recipients, from Latin America to
East Asia, has justified our investment in their future.
U.S. aid should be based on the model of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, for which foreign governments must,
in effect, compete for the dollars by showing respect for
the rule of law, free enterprise, and measurable results. In
short, aid money should follow positive outcomes, not pleas
for more cash in the same corrupt official
pockets.
The
effectiveness of our foreign aid has been limited by the
cultural agenda of the current Administration, attempting to
impose on foreign countries, especially the peoples of
Africa, legalized abortion and the homosexual rights agenda.
At the same time, faith-based groups--the sector that has
had the best track record in promoting lasting
development--have been excluded from grants because they
will not conform to the administration's social agenda. We
will reverse this tragic course, encourage more involvement
by the most effective aid organizations, and trust
developing peoples to build their future from the ground
up.
Combating
Human Trafficking
As we
approach the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation
Proclamation, issued by the first Republican President
Abraham Lincoln, we are reminded to be vigilant against
human bondage in whatever form it appears. We will use the
full force of the law against those who engage in modern-day
forms of slavery, including the spending
commercial sexual exploitation of children and the forced
labor of who would attack us or use men, women, and
children. Building on the accomplishments of the last
Republican Administration in implementing the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act of 2000, we call for increased
diplomatic efforts with foreign governments to root out
complicit public officials who facilitate or perpetrate this
evil. We highlight the need for greater
scrutiny of overseas labor contractors to prevent the
imposition of usurious terms on temporary foreign workers
brought to the United States. Our government must address
the increasing role of vicious drug cartels and other gangs
in controlling human smuggling across our southern border.
The principle underlying our Megan's Law-- publicizing the
identities of known offenders--should be extended to
international travel in order to protect innocent children
everywhere.
We affirm
our country's historic tradition of welcoming refugees from
troubled lands. In some cases, they are people who stood
with us during dangerous times, and they have first call on
our hospitality.
Promoting
a Free Marketplace of Ideas: Public Diplomacy
International
broadcasting of free and impartial information during the
Cold War kept truth and hope alive in the Captive Nations.
Today, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio/TV Marti do
the same in other lands where freedom is unknown or
endangered. We support these essential extensions of
American values and culture and urge their expansion in the
Middle East. Recognizing the vital role of social media in
recent efforts to promote democracy, we support unrestricted
access to the Internet throughout the world to advance the
free marketplace of ideas.
Strengthening
Ties in the Americas
We will
resist foreign influence in our hemisphere. We thereby seek
not only to provide for our own security, but also to create
a climate for democracy and selfdetermination throughout the
Americas.
The current
Administration has turned its back on Latin America, with
predictable results. Rather than supporting our democratic
allies in the region, the President has prioritized
engagement with our enemies in the region. Venezuela
represents an increasing threat to U.S. security, a threat
which has grown much worse on the current President's watch.
In the last three years, Venezuela has become a
narcoterrorist state, turning it into an Iranian outpost in
the Western hemisphere. The current regime issues Venezuelan
passports or visas to thousands of Middle Eastern terrorists
offering safe haven to Hezbollah trainers, operatives,
recruiters and fundraisers.
Alternatively,
we will stand with the true democracies of the region
against both Marxist subversion and the drug lords, helping
them to become prosperous alternatives to the collapsing
model of Venezuela and Cuba.
We affirm
our friendship with the People of Cuba and look toward their
reunion with the rest of our hemispheric family. The
anachronistic regime in Havana which rules them is a
mummified relic of the age of totalitarianism, a
statesponsor of terrorism. We reject any dynastic succession
of power within the Castro family and affirm the principles
codified in U.S. law as conditions for the lifting of trade,
travel, and financial sanctions: the legalization of
political parties, an independent media, and free and fair
internationallysupervised elections. We renew our commitment
to Cuba's courageous prodemocracy movement as the
protagonists of Cuba's inevitable liberation and democratic
future. We call for a dedicated platform for the
transmission of Radio and TV Marti and for the promotion of
Internet access and circumvention technology as tools to
strengthen the prodemocracy movement. We support the work of
the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and affirm the
principles of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, recognizing
the rights of Cubans fleeing Communism.
The war on
drugs and the war on terror have become a single enterprise.
We salute our allies in this fight, especially the people of
Mexico and Colombia. We propose a unified effort on crime
and terrorism to coordinate intelligence and enforcement
among our regional allies, as well as militarytomilitary
training and intelligence sharing with Mexico, whose people
are bearing the brunt of the drug cartels' savage
assault.
Our Canadian
neighbors can count on our close cooperation and respect. As
soon as possible, we will reverse the current
Administration's blocking of the Keystone XL Pipeline so
that both our countries can profit from this vital venture
and there will no need for hemispheric oil to be shipped to
China.
Advancing
Hope and Prosperity in Africa
PEPFAR,
President George W. Bush's Plan for AIDS Relief, is one of
the most successful global health programs in history. It
has saved literally millions of lives. Along with the Global
Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, another
initiative of President Bush, it represents America's
humanitarian commitment to the peoples of Africa, though
these are only one aspect of our assistance to the nations
of that continent. From Peace Corps volunteers teaching in
oneroom schools to U.S. Seabees building village projects,
we will continue to strengthen the personal and commercial
ties between our country and African nations.
We stand in
solidarity with those African countries now under assault by
the forces of radical Islam and urge other governments
throughout the continent to recognize this threat to them as
well. We support closer cooperation in both military and
economic matters with those who are under attack by forces
which seek our destruction.
U.S.
Leadership in the AsianPacific Community
We are a
Pacific nation with economic, military, and cultural ties to
all the countries of the oceanic rim, from Australia, the
Philippines, and our Freely Associated States in the Pacific
Islands to Japan and the Republic of Korea. With them, we
look toward the restoration of human rights to the suffering
people of North Korea and the fulfillment of their wish to
be one in peace and freedom. The U.S. will continue to
demand the complete, verifiable, and irreversible
dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs with
a full accounting of its proliferation
activities.
We celebrate
the political and economic development of most of the
nations of Southeast Asia. Their example of material
progress through hard work and free enterprise, in tandem
with greater democracy should encourage their less fortunate
neighbors to set aside crippling ideologies and embrace a
more humane future. While our relations with Vietnam have
improved, and U.S. investment is welcomed, we need unceasing
efforts to obtain an accounting for, and repatriation of the
remains of, Americans who gave their lives in the cause of
Vietnamese freedom. We cannot overlook the continued
repression of human rights and religious freedom, as well as
retribution against ethnic minorities and others who
assisted U.S. forces during the conflict there.
South
Asia
We welcome a
stronger relationship with the world's largest democracy,
India, both economic and cultural, as well as in terms of
national security. We hereby affirm and declare that India
is our geopolitical ally and a strategic trading partner. We
encourage India to permit greater foreign investment and
trade. We urge protection for adherents of all India's
religions. Both as Republicans and as Americans, we note
with pride the contributions to this country that are being
made by our fellow citizens of Indian ancestry.
The
aftermath of the last decade's conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan has put enormous pressure on the political and
military infrastructure of Pakistan, which faces both
internal terrorism and external dangers. The working
relationship between our two countries is a necessary,
though sometimes difficult, benefit to both, and we look
toward the renewal of historic ties that have frayed under
the weight of international conflict.
The imminent
withdrawal from Afghanistan of the 30,000 "surge" troops
sent there two years ago comes weeks before this year's
presidential election and against the advice of the current
President's top military commanders. Future decisions by a
Republican President will never subordinate military
necessity to domestic politics or an artificial timetable.
Afghans, Pakistanis, and Americans have a common interest in
ridding the region of the Taliban and other insurgent
groups, but we cannot expect others to remain resolute
unless we show the same determination ourselves. We will
expect the Afghan government to crackdown on corruption,
respect free elections, and assist our fight against the
narcotic trade that fuels the insurgency. We must likewise
expect the Pakistan government to sever any connection
between its security and intelligence forces and the
insurgents. No Pakistani citizen should be punished for
helping the United States against the terrorists.
Taiwan
We salute
the people of Taiwan, a sound democracy and economic model
for mainland China. Our relations must continue to be based
upon the provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act. America and
Taiwan are united in our shared belief in fair elections,
personal liberty, and free enterprise. We oppose any
unilateral steps by either side to alter the status quo in
the Taiwan Straits on the principle that all issues
regarding the island's future must be resolved peacefully,
through dialogue, and be agreeable to the people of Taiwan.
If China were to violate those principles, the U.S., in
accord with the Taiwan Relations Act, will help Taiwan
defend itself. We praise steps taken by both sides of the
Taiwan Strait to reduce tension and strengthen economic
ties. As a loyal friend of America, Taiwan has merited our
strong support, including free trade agreements status, as
well as the timely sale of defensive arms and full
participation in the World Health Organization,
International Civil Aviation Organization, and other
multilateral institutions.
China
We will
welcome the emergence of a peaceful and prosperous China,
and we will welcome even more the development of a
democratic China. Its rulers have discovered that economic
freedom leads to national wealth. The next lesson is that
political and religious freedom leads to national greatness.
The exposure of the Chinese people to our way of life can be
the greatest force for change in their country. We should
make it easier for the people of China to experience our
vibrant democracy and to see for themselves how freedom
works. We welcome the increase in trade and education
alliances with the U.S. and the opening of Chinese markets
to American companies.
The Chinese
government has engaged in a number of activities that we
condemn: China's pursuit of advanced military capabilities
without any apparent need; suppression of human rights in
Tibet, Xinjiang, and other areas; religious persecution; a
barbaric onechild policy involving forced abortion; the
erosion of democracy in Hong Kong; and its destabilizing
claims in the South China Sea. Our serious trade disputes,
especially China's failure to enforce international
standards for the protection of intellectual property and
copyrights, as well as its manipulation of its currency,
call for a firm response from a new Republican
Administration.
Europe
The West has
been the bulwark of democracy and freedom, providing hope
and faith to the oppressed around the globe. Our historic
ties to the peoples of Europe have been based on shared
culture and values, common interests and goals. Their
endurance cannot be taken for granted, especially in light
of the continent's economic upheaval and demographic
changes. Ensuring the continued vitality of our political
alliance with Europe through NATO will require effort and
understanding on both sides of the Atlantic. We honor our
special relationship with the United Kingdom and appreciate
its staunch support for our fight against terrorism
worldwide. We thank the several other nations of Europe
which have contributed to a united effort in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and Libya. Their sacrifice will not soon be
forgotten. We are heartened by the ongoing reconciliation in
Northern Ireland and hopeful that its success might be
replicated in Cyprus.
Russia
The
heroism--and the suffering--of the people of Russia over the
last century demand the world's respect. As our allies in
their Great Patriotic War, they lost 28 million fighting
Nazism. As our allies in spirit, they ended the Soviet
terror that had consumed so many millions more. They deserve
our admiration and support as they now seek to reestablish
their rich national identity. We do have common imperatives:
ending terrorism, combating nuclear proliferation, promoting
trade, and more. To advance those causes, we urge the
leaders of their government to reconsider the path they have
been following: suppression of opposition parties, the
press, and institutions of civil society; unprovoked
invasion of the Republic of Georgia, alignment with tyrants
in the Middle East; and bullying their neighbors while
protecting the last Stalinist regime in Belarus. The Russian
people deserve better, as we look to their full
participation in the ranks of modern democracies.
Russia
should be granted Permanent Normal Trade Relations, but not
without sanctions on Russian officials who have used the
government to violate human rights. We support enactment of
the Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act as a condition
of expanded trade relations with Russia.
Our
Unequivocal Support of Israel
Israel and
the United States are part of the great fellowship of
democracies who speak the same language of freedom and
justice, and the right of every person to live in peace. The
security of Israel is in the vital national security
interest of the United States; our alliance is based not
only on shared interests, but also shared values. We affirm
our unequivocal commitment to Israel's security and will
ensure that it maintains a qualitative edge in military
technology over any potential adversaries. We support
Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state with secure,
defensible borders; and we envision two democratic states--
Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine-- living
in peace and security. For that to happen, the Palestinian
people must support leaders who reject terror, embrace the
institutions and ethos of democracy, and respect the rule of
law. We call on Arab governments throughout the region to
help advance that goal. Israel should not be expected to
negotiate with entities pledged to her destruction. We call
on the new government in Egypt to fully uphold its peace
treaty with Israel.
The U.S.
seeks a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East,
negotiated between the parties themselves with the
assistance of the U.S., without the imposition of an
artificial timetable. Essential to that process will be a
just, fair, and realistic framework for dealing with the
issues that can be settled on the basis of mutually agreed
changes reflecting today's realities as well as tomorrow's
hopes.
The
Challenges of a Changing Middle East
We recognize
the historic nature of the events of the past two years--the
Arab Spring--that have unleashed democratic movements
leading to the overthrow of dictators who have been menaces
to global security for decades. In a season of upheaval, it
is necessary to be prepared for anything. That is true on
the ground in the Middle East, and it will be equally true
in the next Administration, particularly with a new
President unbound by the failures of the past. We welcome
the aspirations of the Arab peoples and others for greater
freedom, and we hope that greater liberty--and with it, a
greater chance for peace--will result from the recent
turmoil. Many governments in the region have given
substantial assistance to the U.S. over the last decade
because they understood that our struggle against terror is
not an ethnic or religious fight, and that violent
extremists are abusers of their faith, not its
champions.
On the other
hand, radical elements like Hamas and Hezbollah must be
isolated because they do not meet the standards of peace and
diplomacy of the international community. We call for the
restoration of Lebanon's independence, which those groups
have virtually destroyed. We support the transition to a
postAssad Syrian government that is representative of its
people, protects the rights of all minorities and religions,
respects the territorial integrity of its neighbors, and
contributes to peace and stability in the region. We offer a
continuing partnership with the people of Iraq, who have
endured extremist terror to now have a chance to build their
own security and democracy. We urge special efforts to
preserve and protect the ethnic and religious diversity of
their nation.
Iran's
pursuit of nuclear weapons capability threatens America,
Israel, and the world. That threat has only become worse
during the current Administration. A continuation of its
failed engagement policy with Iran will lead to nuclear
cascade. In solidarity with the international community,
America must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building
and possessing nuclear weapons capability. We express our
respect for the people of Iran, who seek peace and aspire to
freedom. Their current regime is unworthy of them. It
exports terror and provided weapons that killed our troops
in Iraq. We affirm the unanimous resolution of the U.S.
Senate calling for "elections that are free, fair, and meet
international standards" and "a representative and
responsive democratic government that respects human rights,
civil liberties, and the rule of law." We urge the next
Republican President to unequivocally assert his support for
the Iranian people as they protest their despotic regime. We
must retain all options in dealing with a situation that
gravely threatens our security, our interests, and the
safety of our friends.
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