From: eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc
Subject: All right! My fingers are killing me!
Summary: Republican Party Platform ... excerpted and edited
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:47:47 GMT
Followup-To: alt.rush-limbaugh
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

OKAY OKAY OKAY. Some of us do have classes and jobs you know. I finally
get access to a scanner and take 3 hours to get all the stuff on to this
computer. If you find any point-errors like "1"s that should be "l"s,
please oversee these mistakes. Otherwise, don't blame Dessenex.


DATABANK (from American Caucus V.1, Is.12)

The 1992 Republican Party Platform


This is an excerpted version of the Republican
platform as adopted in Houston August 17 by dele-
gates to the party's national convention. It is about a
third of the platform. A complete text is available
from the Republican National Committee, 310 1st
Street S.E., Washington, D.C., 20003, Attn: Infor-
mation Services. - The Editors

Preamble

Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican presi-
dent, expressed the philosophy that inspires Republicans
to this day: "The legitimate object of
government is to do for a community of people
whatever they need to have done, but cannot do
at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their
separate and individual capacities. But in all that
people can individually do as well for themselves,
government ought not to interfere."

   Family: The Home of Freedom

The rights of the family. The Republican
Party responds, as it has since 1980, with an un-
abashed commitment to the family's economic
liberty and moral rights, Republicans trust par-
ents and believe they not courts and lawyers,
know what is best for their children. That is why
we will work to ensure that the Congress and the
states shall enact no law abridging the rights of
the family formed by blood, marriage, adoption
or legal custody rights that are anterior and supe-
rior to those of government. Republicans oppose
and resist the efforts of the Democratic Party to
redefine the traditional American family.
The right to a family. Every child deserves a
family in a home filled with love and free from
abuse. Today, many children do not enjoy that
right. We are determined to change that. While
government cannot legislate love and compas-
sion, we can provide the leadership to encourage
the development of healthy, nurturing families.
We applaud the fine example of family values and
family virtue as lived by the president and the
first lady.

Caring for children. George Bush secured
the American family's most important victory of
the last four years: his child-care bill. He won
landmark legislationQa voucher system of low-income
households, allowing parents to choose
what's best for their children including care given
by neighbors or churches. The Democratic Party
opposed that legislation and instead sought gov-
ernment control of child care and fewer choices
for parents.

The president also advanced equity for fam-
ilies that forgo a second income to care for their
children at home through his Young Child Tax
Credit. Congressional Democrats are already try-
ing to repeal it.

Family security. Over the last several de-
cades, liberal Democrats have increasingly shifted
economic burdens onto the American family. In-
deed, the liberal Democrat tax-and-spend policies
have forced millions of women into the work-
place just to make ends meet. Because of their
policies in Congress, fathers and mothers have a
tougher time bringing home what they work so
hard for.

Achieving educational excellence. Recog-
nizing what every parent knows, that our current
educational system is not educating our children,
President Bush is leading an educational revolu-
tion. We applaud the president's bold vision to
change radically our education system. Our par-
ents want it, our communities want it, our states
want it, and our children want it but the Demo-
crat leadership in the House and Senate continue
to thwart the will of the American people for rad-
ical change in the way we educate our children.
The Republican strategy is based on sound
principle. Parents have the right to choose the
best school for their children.

Schools should teach right from wrong.
Schools should reinforce parental authority, not
replace it. We should increase flexibility from fed-
eral regulation. We should explore a new genera-
tion of break-the-mold new American schools.
Standards and assessments should be raised, not
reduced to a lowest common denominator. Com-
munities should be empowered to find what
works.

Creating the best schools in the world. We
applaud President Bush's consistent and deter-
mined leadership in setting a new direction for
American education. Our overriding purpose is
clear: to create the best schools in the world for
our children by the turn of the century.

To do so, the president has established a
bold strategy, America 2000, which challenges
communities in every state to take charge to
achieve our ambitious national education goals.
The success of America 2000 will depend upon
the local community, where implementation and
ultimate responsibility rest.

Our educational beliefs. Schools should be
as they have been traditionally -- academic institutions.
Families and communities err when by
neglect or design they transfer to the school re-
sponsibilities that belong in the home and in the
community. Schools were created to help and
strengthen families, not to undermine or substi-
tute for them.

Accordingly, we oppose programs in public
schools that provide birth control or abortion ser-
vices or referrals. Instead, we encourage absti-
nence education programs with proven track
records in protecting youth from disease, preg-
nancy and drug use.

Just as spiritual principles -- our moral
compass -- help guide public policy, learning
must have a moral basis. America must remain
neutral toward particular religions, but we must
not remain neutral toward religion itself or the
values religion supports. Mindful of our country's
Judeo-Christian heritage and rich religious plural-
ism, we support the right to students to engage in
voluntary prayer in schools and the right of the
community to do so at commencements or other
occasions. We will strongly enforce the law guar-
anteeing equal access to school facilities. We also
advocate recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in
schools as a reminder of the principles that sus-
tain us as one nation under God.

For healthier families: Promote health,
prevent disease, reform health care. Americans
receive the finest medical care in the world. We
have the best health-care providers, the best hos-
pitals and the best medical technology. People
come here from Canada, from Europe, from every
part of the globe, to seek procedures and treat-
ments that are either unavailable or strictly ra-
tioned in their home countries.

We endorse President Bush's comprehensive
health-care plan, which solves the two major
problems of the current system -- access and af-
fordability -- while preserving the high quality
care Americans now enjoy. The president's plan
will make health care more affordable through tax
credits and deductions that will offset insurance
costs for 95 million Americans. and make health
care more accessible, especially for small busi-
nesses, by reducing insurance costs and eliminat-
ing workers' worries of losing insurance if they
change jobs. This plan will expand access to
health care by:
% Creating new tax credits and deductions to
help low- and middle-income Americans. These
tax credits would be available in the form of
vouchers for low-income people who work.
% Providing insurance security for working
Americans by requiring insurers to cover preexist-
ing conditions.
% Making health insurance premiums fully
deductible for the self-employed.
% Making it easier for small firms to purchase
coverage for their employees. The proposal would
allow small businesses to form health insurance
purchasing pools that would make insurance more
affordable. It also would guarantee the availability
and renewability of insurance for small firms, set
premium standards, pre-empts the mandated-ben-
efit laws, establish minimum coverage plans, and
require states to establish risk pools to spread risks
broadly across health insurers.
% Addressing the medical malpracticeproblem
by a cap on non-economic damage recoveries
in malpractice claims and an alternative dispute
resolution before going to court.

AIDS. AIDS should be treated like any other
communicable or sexually transmitted disease,
while at the same time preserving patient confi-
dentiality. We are committed to ensure that our
nation's response to AIDS is shaped by compas-
sion, not fear or ignorance, and will oppose, as a
matter of decency and honor, any discrimination
against Americans who are its victims.

Healthy families. Responsible families are
the key to wellness. They are the best guard
against infant morality and child abuse. We sup-
port programs to help mothers and their babies
get a good start in life; and we call for strong ac-
tion, at all levels of government, to enforce paren-
tal responsibility with regard to alcohol, drugs,
and neglect.

The homeless. The administration has pro-
posed $4 billion in homeless assistance, an
amount cut back by the Democrat-controlled
Congress. We have also implemented a Shelter
Plus Care program designed to assist homeless
persons who are mentally ill, chemically depen-
dent or stricken with AIDS.

Older Americans. We reaffirm our commit-
ment to a strong Social Security system. To stop
penalizing grandparents and other seniors who
care for children, we pledge to continue the Re-
publican crusade to end the earnings limitation
for Social Security recipients.

Promoting cultural values. The culture of
our nation has traditionally supported those pil-
lars on which civilized society of build: personal
responsibility, morality and the family.

Today, however, these pillars are under as-
sault. Elements within the media, the entertainment
industry, academia and the Democrat Party
are waging a guerrilla war against American val-
ues. They deny personal responsibility, disparage
traditional morality, denigrate religion and pro-
mote hostility toward the family's way of life.
Children, the members of our society most vul-
nerable to cultural influences, are barraged with
violence and promiscuity, encouraging reckless
and irresponsible behavior. This undermines the
authority of parents, the ones most responsible
for passing on to their offspring a sense of right
and wrong. The lesson our party draws is impor-
tant that all of us, individual and corporations
alike, have a responsibility to reflect the values we
expect our fellow citizens to exhibit. And if chil-
dren grow to adulthood reflecting not the values
of their parents but the amorality with which they
are bombarded, those who send such messages
cannot duck culpability.

One example is the advocacy of violence
against law enforcement officers, promoted by a
corporation more interested in profits than the
possible consequences of such a message. We be-
lieve, in a spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, that corporations,
like individuals, have responsibilities to
society, and that conscience alone should prevent
such outrages.

We also stand united with those private or-
ganizations, such as the Boy Scouts of America,
who are defending decency in fulfillment of their
own moral responsibilities. We reject the irresponsible
position of those corporations that have
cut off contributions to such organizations be-
cause of their courageous stand for family values.
Moreover, we oppose efforts by the Democrat Par-
ty to include sexual preference as a protected mi-
nority receiving preferential status under civil
rights statutes at the federal, state and local level.

We oppose any legislation or law that legally
recognizes same-sex marriages and allows such
couples to adopt children or provide foster care.

We must recognize that the time has come
for a national crusade against pornography. Some
would have us believe that obscenity and pornog-
raphy have no social impact. But if hard-core por-
nography does not cheapen the human spirit,
then neither does Shakespeare elevate it. We call
on federal agencies to halt the sale, under govern-
ment auspices, of pornographic materials.

We endorse Republican legislation, the Por-
nography Victims Compensation Act, allowing
victims of pornography to seek damages from
those who make or sell it, especially since the
Commission on Pornography, in 1986, found a
direct link between pornography and violent
crimes committed against women and children.
We also believe that the various state legislatures
should create a civil cause of action against mak-
ers and distributors of pornography when their
material incites a violent crime.

Government has responsibility, as well, to
ensure that it promotes the common moral values
that bind us together as a nation. We therefore
condemn the use of public funds to subsidize ob-
scenity and blasphemy masquerading as art. The
fine arts, including those with public support, c m
certainly enrich our society. However, no artist
has an inherent right to claim taxpayer support
for his or her private vision of art if that vision
mocks the moral and spiritual basis on which our
society is founded. We believe a free market in art
with neither suppression nor favoritism by gov-
ernment is the best way to foster the cultural re-
vival our country needs.

Individual Rights, Good Homes
and Safe Streets

Rebuilding The Dream. Our party has al-
ways championed the American dream of home
ownership. Abraham Lincoln wanted all families
to have access to property, because it would give
them a tangible stake in their family's future. As
families built homes and improved the land, they
built a brighter future for themselves and a legacy
for their children. Lincoln's Homestead Act of
1862 did all this without enlarging government. It
empowered families.

In the tradition of Lincoln, President Bush
has replicated the American dream of home own-
ership. For first-time home buyers, he has pro-
posed a $5,000 tax credit. For lower-income
families, he has worked to restore opportunity
through HOPE, his initiative to help tenants now
dependent on federal aid to buy their own homes;
Mortgage Revenue Bonds, to assist more than 1.9
million families to buy a first home; Low-income
Housing Tax Credits, already producing more
than 420,000 decent apartments at affordable
prices; and HOME, a partnership among all levels
of government to help low-income families secure
better housing.

Ending Dependency. Welfare is the enemy
of opportunity and stable family life. Two decades
ago, decisions about public assistance were taken
away from states and communities and given to
Washington officials. Since then, almost every-
thing has gone wrong. Since 1965, we have spent
$3.5 trillion on welfare. It brought a horrendous
expansion of dependence, especially among
mothers and children.

We believe fathers and mothers must be held
responsible for their children. We support stron-
ger enforcement of child support laws. We call for
strong enforcement and tough penalties against
welfare fraud and insist that work must be a man-
datory part of public assistance for all who are
able to work. Because divorce, desertion and ille-
gitimacy account for almost all the increase in
child poverty over the last 20 years, we put the
highest priority upon enforcement of family
rights and responsibilities.

Safe homes and streets. We must work to
develop community-help projects designed to in-
still a sense of responsibility and pride.... Con-
gressional Democrats reject Republican reform of
the exclusionary rule that prohibits use of rele-
vant evidence obtained in good faith and allows
criminals, even murderers, to go free on a techni-
cality. They reject our reform of habeas corpus
law to prevent the appellate process from becom-
ing a lawyers' game to thwart justice through end-
less appeals and procedural delays. They refuse to
enact effective procedures to reinstate the death
penalty for the most heinous crimes. They reject
tougher, mandatory sentences for career criminals.
Instead, congressional Democrats actually
voted to create more loopholes for vicious thugs
and fewer protections for victims of crime and
have opposed mandatory restitution for victims.
Their crime legislation, which we emphatically
reject, cripples law enforcement by overturning
over 20 United States Supreme Court cases that
have helped to reduce crime and keep violent
criminal offenders off the streets.

The Republican Party is committed to a
drug-free America. During the last 12 years, we
have radically reversed the Democrats' attitude of
tolerance toward narcotics, vastly increased federal
operations against drugs, cleaned up the military,
and launched mandatory testing for
employees in various fields, including White
House personnel. As a result, overall drug abuse
is falling. We urge that states and communities
emphasize anti-drug education by police officers
and others in schools to educate young children
to the dangers of the drug culture. Dope is no
longer trendy.

We oppose legalizing or decriminalizing
drugs. That is a morally abhorrent idea, the last
vestige of an ill-conceived philosophy that coun-
seled the legitimacy of permissiveness.

We... support the stiffest penalties, including
the death penalty, for major drug traffickers.

Drug users must face punishment, including
fines and imprisonment, for contributing to the
demand that makes the drug trade profitable.
Among possible sanctions should be the loss of
government assistance and suspension of drivers'
licenses. Residents of public housing should be
able to protect their families against drugs by
screening out abusers and dealers. We support
grass-roots action to drive dealers and crack
houses out of operation.

New members of the American family. Our
nation of immigrants continues to welcome those
seeking a better life. This reflects our past, when
some newcomers fled intolerance; some sought
prosperity; some came as slaves. All suffered and
sacrificed but hoped their children would have a
better life. All searched for a shared vision and
found one in America. Today we are stronger for
our diversity.

Illegal entry into the United States, on the
other hand, threatens the social compact on
which immigration is based. That is, the nation
accepts immigrants and is enriched by their deter-
mination and values. Illegal immigration, on the
other hand, undermines the integrity of border
communities and already crowded urban neigh-
borhoods. We will build on the already an-
nounced strengthening of the Border Patrol to
better coordinate interdiction of illegal entrants
through greater cross-border cooperation. Specifi-
cally, we will increase the size of the Border Patrol
in order to meet the increasing need to stop ille-
gal immigration and we will equip the Border Pa-
trol with the tools, technologies and structures
necessary to secure the border.

Individual rights. Asserting equal rights for
all, we support the Bush administration's vigorous
enforcement of statutes to prevent illegal
discrimination on account of sex, race, creed or na-
tional origin. Promoting opportunity, we reject
efforts to replace equal rights with quotas or other
preferential treatment. That is why President
Bush fought so long against the Democrat Con-
gress to win a civil rights bill worthy of that
name.

We believe the unborn child has a fundamental
individual right to life that cannot be in-
fringed. We therefore reaffirm our support for a
human life amendment to the Constitution, and
we endorse legislation to make clear that the
Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to un-
born children. We oppose using public revenues
for abortion and will not fund organizations that
advocate it. We commend those who provide al-
ternatives to abortion by meeting the needs of
mothers and offering adoption services. We reaf-
firm our support for appointment of judges who
respect traditional family values and the sanctity
of innocent human life.

Republicans defend the constitutional right
to keep and bear arms. We call for stiff mandatory
sentences for those who use firearms in a crime.
We note that those who seek to disarm citizens in
their homes are the same liberals who tried to dis-
arm our nation during the Cold War and are to-
day seeking to cut our national defense below safe
levels. We applaud congressional Republicans for
overturning the District of Columbia,s law blam-
ing firearm manufacturers for street crime.

We affirm the right of individuals to form,
join or assist labor organizations to bargain col-
lectively, consistent with state laws. We support
the right of states to enact right-to-work laws.

Uniting Our Country

Over the last four years, the United States
has achieved our overriding objective since the
end of World War II. Communism and other
forms of planned economies lie in the ash heap of
history, defeated not only by our military strength
but by the force of our ideas democracy and free
enterprise.

Security and Opportunity
in a Changing Economy

Our economy is people, not statistics. The
American people, not government, rescued the
United States from an economic collapse triggered
by Democrats in the 1970s. Crippled by taxes,
robbed by inflation, threatened by controls,
stunned by interest rates, the people ended 
America's decline and restored hope across our country
and around our world.

We launched an era of growth and prosperi-
ty such as the world had never seen: 20 million
new jobs in the longest peacetime economic ex-
pansion in the history of the Republic. We curbed
the size and power of the federal establishment.
We lowered tax rates. we restored a sound dollar.
We unleashed the might of free people to pro-
duce complete and triumph in free markets. We
gave them the tools; they completed the job.

During the 1980s and into the present de-
cade, the U.S. economy once again became the
engine of global growth. Inflation has fallen to its
lowest level in 30 years. Interest rates dropped I5
percentage points. Productivity has sharply risen.
Exports are booming. Despite a global downturn
in late 1990, real economic growth resumed last
year and has continued for five consecutive quar-
ters. With low interest rates and low inflation, the
American economy is poised for stronger growth
through the rest of the 1990s. Keeping inflation
and interest rates low and stable through a sound
monetary policy is essential for economic growth.

The congressional Democrat leadership
killed the Taxpayer Protection Amendment for a
balanced budget in the Democrat-controlled
House of Representatives. It was supported by 98
percent of the Republican members; 57 percent of
the Democrat members voted no.

Keeping what you earn. In 1990, as the def-
icit was threatening to balloon and further harm
the economy, the president pushed for cuts in
government spending overall and for caps on
mandatory spending.

The Democrat Congress insisted, however,
on a tax hike as their price for controlling spend-
ing. In short, the Democrats held the U.S. econo-
my and U.S. jobs hostage in order to raise taxes,
much as they had done to President Reagan.

Just as they did with President Reagan, the
Democrat-controlled Congress promised Presi-
dent Bush they would abide by binding controls
on federal spending; and just as with President
Reagan, they broke their world. Republicans will
not again agree to such a program.

The choice is clear between George Bush,
who vetoes tax increases, and his opponent, who
proposes a $I50 billion tax increase.

Our Republican position is equally clear: we
will oppose any attempt to increase taxes. Fur-
thermore, Republicans believe that the taxes
insisted on by the Democrats in the 1990 budget
agreement were recessionary. The Democrat Con-
gress held President Bush and indeed all Americans
hostage, refusing to take even modest steps
to control spending unless taxes were increased.
The American economy suffered as a result. We
believe the tax increases of 1990 should ultimately
be repealed.

As the deficit comes under control, we aspire
to further tax rate cuts, strengthening incentives
to work, save, invest and innovate. We also sup-
port President Bush's efforts to reduce federal
spending and to cap the growth of non-Social Se-
curity entitlements.

We support restoring the deductibility of
IRAs for all Americans, including full-time home-
makers and encourage savings for education and
home ownership through Family Savings Ac-
counts. The president's Family Savings Accounts
will be an impetus to the economy. Let families
use their IRAs for first-time home purchases, for
college education and for medical emergencies.

We support further tax simplification. The
tax code should create jobs for Americans, not
profits for tax lawyers, lobbyists, and tax shelters.
Small businesses should spend more time hiring
and producing not filling out IRS forms.

The future is the family. The most dramatic
change in the tax code in our lifetime is one that
has never been explicitly enacted by Congress or
reported as a specific new event. 1t is the gradual,
year-by-year erosion of the personal exemption,
until it was indexed by a Republican administra-
tion in 1986.

Republicans also led the way in the 1980s by
increasing the personal exemption from $1,500 to
$2,000. This platform calls for another immediate
increase of $500, but in the long run we are com-
mitted to fully restoring the inflation-adjusted
value of the personal exemption. This will require
reductions in federal spending, which is why the
best hope for tax fairness for America's families
lies in a Republican Congress.

Liberation through deregulation. We sup-
port President Bush's freeze on new regulations.
We applaud his Competitiveness Council, under
Vice President Quayle, for fighting the regulatory
mania, saving the public $20 billion with its initial
90-day moratorium on new regulations and
billions more under the current 120-day freeze.
We call for a permanent moratorium until our
regulatory reforms are fully in place. They include
market-based regulation, cost-benefit analysis of
all new rule-making, and a regulatory budget that
will make Congress admit and correct the harm it
does by legislation that destroys job and competi-
tiveness.

Homeownership. The best housing policy is
a non-inflationary, growing economy that has
produced low mortgage rates and has made hous-
ing more affordable.

We demand Congress enact President's
Bush,s housing program introduced as part of his
pro-growth package in January. ~ Provide a
$5,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and
allow them penalty-free IRA withdrawals.... Set a
modified 'passive loss rule" for active real estate
investors.... Extend tax preferences for mortgage
revenue bonds and low-income housing ~ And
allow deductions for losses on personal resi-
dences.

Controlling government spending. For 12
years Republicans in the White House and Congress 
have battled a Democrat system corrupt and
contemptuous of the American taxpayer. Our Re-
publican Presidents have vetoed one reckless bill
after another. But liberal Democrats still control a
rigged machine that keeps on spending the public's
money.

The only solution is for the voters to end divided
government so that a Republican Congress
can enact the balanced-budget amendment, re-
quiring a supermajority for any future tax in-
creases. And since the Democrat-controlled
Congress has consistently voted down a line-item
veto amendment for the president to control spe-
cific wasteful pork-barrel spending, a Republican
Congress will adopt a line-item veto for the presi-
dency, restore presidential power to rescind
spending and to lower specific appropriations.

The latest Democrat scam is to raise taxes
for "investment', a code word for more govern-
ment spending. A Republican Congress will foster
investment where it does the most good, by indi-
viduals within the private sector.

Job creation and small business opportu-
nities. The Republican Party enthusiastically en-
courages the passage of federal enterprise zones.
Enterprise zones have been effective programs for
promoting growth in urban and rural America.
Republicans believe that the concept of enterprise
zones is based on unyielding faith in the entrepre-
neurial spirit of all Americans. Enterprise zones
foster individual initiative and government deregulation.
The states have coine a long way in developing
successful enterprise zone programs.
State programs could only benefit from federal ef-
forts. Congress should follow the lead of Presi-
dent Bush and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp in
passing the federal enterprise zone program that
will empower communities by reducing govern-
ment regulation and taxation.

Leading the information age. ...We Repub-
licans believe that full and open competition in
the telecommunications marketplace is the most
effective means for the United States to achieve
our goal of having the most technologically ad-
vanced telecommunications infrastructure in the
world.

Jobs through science and technology. We 
support efforts to promote science and technol-
ogy providing funding for basic research, support-
ing investment in emerging technologies,
improving education in science and engineering,
enhancing tax credits for research and develop-
ment, eliminating unnecessary regulation to cre-
ate competitive markets, and protecting
intellectual property. We further support efforts to
increase a pace of technology transfer from the
government to the private sector, where the fruits
of this research can be used in the free market to
create new processes, products and most impor-
tant, jobs.

Space. The journey to the stars used to be a
bipartisan adventure, but many Democrat office-
holders have jumped ship.

Republicans, by contrast, are determined to
complete space station Freedom within this de-
cade. Our agenda is to lower the cost of access to
space, and to broaden that access to the private
sector, with a family of new launchers; to build
and fly sensors for the global environment. and to
advance cutting-edge capabilities like the Nation-
al Aerospace Plane and single stage-to-orbit rockets
so technological breakthroughs can be
quickly exploited. We will promote space-based
industry and ensure that space remains a frontier
for private enterprise, not a restricted preserve for
government. We will continue international coop-
eration in space ventures and welcome Russia,s
cosmonauts and citizens of other nations to fly
for freedom.

Banking and job creation. Job creation and
economic growth are dependent on a healthy and
competitive financial services system that can re-
spond to the needs of the market. The Democrat
Congress stalled Republican legislation to prevent
the savings and loan crisis. Then, last year, the
Congress refused to pass the Republican adminis-
tration,s comprehensive financial sector reform
bill to strengthen our banking industry and let it
compete, both domestically and internationally
consistent with the principles of safety and
soundness.

Trade: A new world of growth. Four years
ago, the American people faced an historic deci-
sion: compete or retreat. They chose, with Presi-
dent Bush, to compete in the international arena.
Rather than retreat with the Democrats to the
limits of yesteryear, they decided to attack the 
international marketplace with characteristic Amer-
ican vigor. Just as George Bush is a proven world
leader on the military front, equally he is an 
economic world leader.

We are tough free traders, battling to sweep
away barriers to our exports. We are waging the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations to win
worldwide reductions in tariffs, elimination of
subsidies and protection of American intellectual
property rights. We are fighting to reduce farm
subsidies in the European Community and to
break up their government-industry collusion in
production of civil aircraft. We firmly endorse
President Bush's policy to support the Republic of
China on Taiwan in international trade and her
accession to GATT. Major market access gains
have been made with Japan with American 
manufacturing exports tripling since 1985. 
Throughout the world, we enforced greater compliance
with U.5. trade rights. And we are making every
effort to bring home a Uruguay Round agreement
that is not only good for America, but great for
tomorrow's entrepreneurs everywhere.

The free-trade agenda for the next four years
starts with the signing of a North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico, com-
pleting the establishment of a free-trade area
which already includes Canada. NAFTA will cre-
ate the largest market in the world, greater than
the European Community, with 360 million con-
sumers and a total output of six trillion dollars. It
means a net gain of hundreds of thousands of
American jobs.

We acknowledge the possible effects on re-
gional markets, specifically agriculture. We en-
courage our negotiators to be sensitive to those
market concerns.

Reforming Government and
the Legal System

Republicans favor the free-enterprise system.
We choose market forces consumer rights over
red tape. The Democrats argue that government
must constantly override the market. Republicans
regard the worst market failure as the failure to
have a market.

We replace dependency with empowerment.
The Democrats see an America filled with wards
of the state. Republicans see an America peopled
by citizens and consumers eager for the chance to
chart their own course.

We make electoral systems understandable
and accountable to the voter. The Democrats fear
proposals that would limit the tenure and hidden
power of incumbent politicians. Republicans
want the ballot box to prevail over the cloakroom.

Cleaning up the Imperial Congress. The
Democrats have controlled the House of Repre-
sentatives for 38 years -- five years longer than
Castro has held Cuba. They have held the Senate
for 32 of those 38. Their entrenched power has
produced a Congress arrogant, out of touch,
hopelessly entangled in a web of PACs, perks,
privileges, partisanship, paralysis and pork. No
wonder they hid their congressional leaders' 
during the Democrat convention of 1992. They didn't
want Americans to remember who has been run-
ning the Congress.

The Democrats have transformed what the
framers of the Constitution intended as the peo-
ple's House into a pathological institution. They
have grossly increased their staffing, their pay-
rolls, their allied bureaucracies in little-known
congressional agencies. Congress has ballooned to
284 congressional committees and subcommittees,
almost 40,000 legislative branch employees
and staff, and $2.5 billion in taxpayer financing,
amounting to approximately $5 million per law-
maker per year Incumbents have abused free
mailing privileges for personal political gain.
Twenty-two Democrats, with a total of 585 years
in power, rule over a committee system that
blocks every attempt at reform.

The Democrats have trampled the traditions
of the House, rigging rules, forbidding votes on
crucial amendments, denying fair apportionment
of committee seats and resources. They have
stacked campaign laws to benefit themselves. The
Democrat leadership of the House has been taint-
ed with scandal and has resisted efforts to investi-
gate scandals once disclosed. Some in their
leadership have resigned in well-earned disgrace.

The Democrat leadership of the Congress
has turned the healthy competition of constitu-
tional separation of powers into mean-spirited
politics of innuendo and inquisition. Committee
hearings are no longer for fact-finding; they are
political sideshows. "Advise and consent" has
been replaced by "slash and burn."

Republicans want to change all that. We 
reaffirm our support for a constitutional amendment
to limit the number of terms House
members and senators may serve. We want a citizen's
Congress, free of bloated pensions and per-
petual perks.

Congress must stop exempting itself from
laws such as the minimum wage and the civil
rights statutes, as well as laws that apply to the
executive branch. The Independent Counsel Act
is a case in point. 1t has permitted rogue prosecutors
to spend tremendous amounts to hound
some of the nation's finest public servants. 1f that
act is reauthorized, it must be extended to Con-
gress as well. Safety and health regulations, civil
rights and minimum wage laws are further examples
of areas where Congress has set itself apart
from the people. This practice must end.

Reforming the congressional budget process.
Republicans vigorously support a balanced
budget, a balanced-budget constitutional amend-
ment, and a line-item veto for the president.

Republicans believe this balancing of the
budget should be achieved, not by increasing tax-
es to match spending, but by cutting spending to
current levels of revenue. We prefer a balanced-
budget amendment that contains a supermajority
requirement to raise taxes.

We also propose procedural reforms. We
support legislation that would require Congress
to pass a legally binding budget before it can con-
sider spending bills. The budget's spending ceil-
ings shall not be exceeded without a
supermajority vote of both chambers. 1f Congress
fails to pass any appropriation bill, funding for its
programs will automatically be frozen at the pre-
vious year's level. The key to prosperity for the
rest of this century and for the next generation of
Americans is a budget strategy that restores sanity
to the budget process and checks the growth of
government.

Cleaning up politics: The gerrymander. We
support state-level appointment of nonpartisan
redistricting commissions to apply clear standards
for compactness of districts, competitiveness be-
tween the parties and protection of community
interests.

Cleaning up politics: Campaign reform.
We crusade for clean elections. We support state
efforts to increase voter participation but con-
demn Democrat attempts to perpetrate vote fraud
through schemes that override the state's safe-
guards of orderly voter registration And it is crit-
ical that the states retain the authority to tailor
voter registration procedures of unique local cir-
cumstances.

Most of all, we condemn the Democrats'
shameless plots to make taxpayers foot the bills
for their campaigns. Their campaign finance bill
would have given $1 billion, over six years, in
subsidies to candidates. President Bush vetoed
that bill. Campaign financing does need reform. 1t
does not need a hand in the public's pocketbook.

We will require congressional candidates to
raise most of their funds from individuals within
their home constituencies.

We will eliminate political action commit-
tees supported by corporations, unions or trade
associations, and restrict the practice of bundling.

To restore competition in elections by at-
tacking the unfair advantages of incumbency, we
will stop incumbents from warding off challeng-
ers merely by amassing huge war chests.

Congressional candidates will be forbidden
from carrying campaign funds from one election
to the next. We will oppose arbitrary spending
limits cynical devices which hobble challengers to
keep politicians in office.

We will fully implement the Supreme Court's
decision in the Beck case, ensuring that workers
have the right to stop the use of their union dues
for political or other non-collective bargaining
purposes.

Managing government in the public interest.
The focus of government must shift from
quantity to quality, from spending to service.
Americans should expect measurable, published
standards for services provided by government at
all levels. Performance standards and rules com-
monplace in the private sector, must be applied to
government activities as well. Because federal
government employees should not be a privileged
caste, we will remove the bar to garnishing their
wages to ensure payment of their debts.

Where it advances both efficiency and safety,
we will advocate privatization of airport operation
and management.

We deplore the blatant political bias of the
government-sponsored radio and television net-
works. 1t is especially outrageous that taxpayers
are now forced to underwrite this biased broad-
casting through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
(CPB). We call for sweeping reform of
CPB, including greater accountability through 
application of the Freedom of information Act, a
one-year funding cycle and enforcement of rigor-
ous fairness standards for all CPB-supported pro-
gramming. We look forward to the day when
public broadcasting is self-sufficient.

We will not initiate any federal activity that
can be conducted better on the state or local lev-
el. In doing so, we reassert the crucial importance
of the Tenth Amendment. We oppose costly fed-
eral mandates that stifle innovation and force tax
hikes upon states and localities. We require that
Congress calculate the cost of mandated initia-
tives upon communities affected and provide ade-
quate financial support for mandates invoked. We
will continue the process of returning power to
local voters by replacing federal programs with
block grants.

Reforming the legal system. We... endorse
the president's proposals for legal reform as devel-
oped by ~ice President Quayle, and we salute his
principled challenge to the American Bar Associa-
tion to clean up its own house. We support the
Fairness Rule, to allow the winning party to a
lawsuit to recover the costs of litigation from the
losing party. This will discourage needless suits. ...

We believe complainants should have a
choice of ways to settle problems through alterna-
tive dispute programs that will permit parties to
pursue less costly and less complicated ways to
resolve conflicts. We also call for greater use of
judicial sanctions to stop frivolous lawsuits. We
call for changes to the federal Racketeer Influ-
enced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law to
limit its use in civil litigation by requiring proof
of all elements by clear and convincing proof.

We will fight rising health-care costs and
equally important, help dedicated doctors to keep
practicing in critical areas like obstetrics by pro-
viding incentives for states to reform their liability
laws. This will reduce the practice of
"defensive medicine,- requiring patients to be
tested for every conceivable ailment at their own
enormous expense to guard against the mere possibility
of a lawsuit.

Recognizing that legal reform can solve only
parts of the larger problem, we support a federal
product liability law. The cost of product liability
protection is a great expense to the American
consumer and seriously impedes our international
competitiveness. For example, a consumer pays
an additional 17 percent to cover the liability in-
surance of an ordinary stepladder.

The nation's capital. We call for closer and
responsible congressional scrutiny of Washington, D.C,
federal oversight of its law enforcement and courts,
and tighter fiscal restraints over
its expenditures. We oppose statehood as incon-
sistent with the original intent of the framers of
the Constitution and with the need for a federal
city belonging to all the people as our nation,s
capital.

Our Land, Food and Resources

Agriculture and energy remain building
blocks of modern life. Their vitality is crucial to
the nation's growth. Indeed, to its survival. While
supporting conservation, we reject the notion that
there are limits to growth.

Agriculture. Our rural families also deserve
to be brought into the mainstream of health care
with tax policies that provide all who are self-employed
full deductibility of their health insurance
premiums.

We stand with farmers against attempts by
liberal Democrats to repeal the laws of economics
by dictating price levels and restricting production.
We stand with them against agriculture embargoes.
We reject the notion that elected officials
and bureaucrats make better farm managers than
farmers themselves.

We remain strong in our support of livestock
agriculture. We believe in the humane treatment
of animals, but we oppose attempts by animal
rights extremists to impose excessive restrictions
on animal husbandry practices.

We pledge to fight unfair competition and to
bring down the walls of protectionism around the
world that unfairly inhibit competitiveness of U.S.
farm exports. We pledge continued pressure to
open world markets through the Uruguay Round,
the North American Free Trade Agreement and
bilateral negotiations.

We affirm that there will be no GATT agree-
ment unless it improves opportunities for U.S.
farmers to compete in world markets. We repeat
our demands for cutbacks in export subsidies by
the European Community and elsewhere, and we
will fight the use of arbitrary health and sanita-
tion standards to sabotage U.S. exports.

In addition, the Republican Party supports
increased research and development to reduce
ethanol production costs and expand its use in
motor fuel markets. Such use will greatly help
American farmers, improve the rural economy
and reduce our dependence on imported oil.

We value our nation's real wetlands habitat
and the diversity of our native animal and plant
life. We oppose, however, bureaucratic harass-
ment of farm, ranch and timber families under
statutes regarding endangered species and wet-
lands. When actions are required to protect an en-
dangered species, we recognize that jobs can be
lost, communities displaced and economic
progress for all denied. Accordingly, prior to the
implementation of a recovery plan for a species
declared to be endangered, we will require the
Congress to affirm the priority of the species on
the endangered list and the specific measures to
be taken in any recovery plan. These acts should
not rest with the rubber stamp of a bureaucrat.

Power for progress. When Iraq's dictator
moved to seize the world's energy lifeline by con-
trolling the Persian Gulf, George Bush did more
than liberate Kuwait. He prevented energy crisis
and economic shutdown in America. Now his na-
tional energy strategy leads toward continued
growth in the century ahead. It provides the na-
tion with a comprehensive and balanced strategy
for America's energy future. Specifically, it promotes
adequate energy supplies and reduces consumer
costs by relying on market forces,
diversifying domestic energy sources, and im-
proving the efficiency and flexibility of energy
consumption. We seek to foster greater competition
and increased output, in the interest of pro-
ducers and consumers alike.

Crippled by environmental rules and taxes
independent producers have been devastated and
major companies are moving operations overseas.
We will reverse that situation by allowing access
under environmental safeguards, to the coastal
plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, pos-
sibly one of the largest petroleum reserves in our
country, and to selected areas of the outer conti-
nental shelf (QC). We support incentives to en-
courage domestic investment for onshore and
QC oil and gas exploration and development, in-
cluding relief from the alternative minimum tax
credits for enhanced oil recovery and geological
exploration under known geological oil fields and
producing geological structures, and modified
percentage depletion rules to benefit marginal
production. We will ensure that royalty payments
on federal lands remain consistent with changing
economic conditions.

We endorse major national projects, like the
superconducting super collider, which offer the
promise of developing more efficient ways to
store, transport and use energy.

We will hasten development of the next gen-
eration of nuclear power plants one of the
cleanest, safest energy sources of all. Republicans
back reform of the nuclear licensing process. We
will site and license a permanent waste depository
and a monitored retrievable storage facility. We
reject the scare tactics used against nuclear power
by those who want to shut down this essential
contributor to the American future.

We endorse development of renewable ener-
gy sources and research on fuel cells, conserva-
tion, hydra, solar, hydrogen, and wind power as
components of our overall plan for energy securi-
ty and environmental quality.

Public lands. The millions of acres that con-
stitute this nation's public lands must continue to
provide for a number of uses. We are committed
to the multiple use of our public lands. We be-
lieve that recreation, forestry, ranching, mining,
oil and gas exploration, and production on our
public lands can be conducted in a way compati-
ble with their conservation. The United States has
some of the richest mineral resources in the
world. Our public lands should not be arbitrarily
locked up and put off limits to responsible uses.

Environment. Cleaning up America is a la-
bor of love for family, neighborhood and the nation.
In the Republican tradition of conserving
the past to enrich the future, we have made the
United States the world's leader in environmental
progress.

President Bush's landmark Clean Air Act
amendments of 1990, the toughest environmental
law ever enacted, uses an innovative system of
emission credits to achieve its dramatic reduc-
tions. This will save $1 billion over the Demo-
crats, command-and-control approach. Other
provisions of that law will cut acid rain emissions
in half, reduce toxic pollutants by 90 percent, reduce
smog and speed the use of cleaner fuels.

Because the environment knows no bound-
aries, President Bush has accelerated U.S. re-
search on global climate change, spending $2.7
billion in the last three years and requesting
$1.4 billion for 1993, more than the rest of the
world put together. Under his leadership, we
have assisted nations from the Third World to
Eastern Europe in correcting the environmental
damage inflicted by socialism. We proposed a
worldwide forestry convention and gave almost
half a billion dollars to forest conservation. We
won debt-for-nature swaps and environmental
trust funds in Latin America and the Caribbean.
We secured prohibitions against unilateral ex-
port or dumping of hazardous waste. We led the
international ban on trade in ivory, persuaded
Japan to end drift net fishing, streamlined re-
sponse to oil spills and increased environmental
protection for Antarctica.

Adverse changes in climate must be the
common concern of mankind. At the same time
we applaud our president for personally confront-
ing the international bureaucrats at the Rio Con-
ference. He refused to accept their anti-American
demands for income redistribution and won in-
stead a global climate treaty that relies on real ac-
tion plans rather than arbitrary targets hostile to
U.S. growth and workers.

Environmental progress must continue in
tandem with economic growth. Crippling an in-
dustry is no solution at all. Bankrupt facilities
only worsen environmental situations. Unem-
ployment is a form of pollution too, poisoning
families and contaminating whole communities.

Private property rights. We reaffirm our
commitment to the Fifth Amendment to the Con-
stitution: "No person shall be ... deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use,
without just compensation." We support strong
enforcement of this Takings clause to keep citi-
zens secure in the use and development of their
property.

We also seek to reduce the amount of land
owned or controlled by the government, especially
in the Western states.

We insist upon prompt payment for private
lands certified as critical for preserving essential
parks and preserves.

Uniting Our World

The world is now our neighborhood. Its 
triumphs and tragedies affect our communities, our
jobs and the security of our families. That is why
Republicans want America to shape the interna-
tional future: because we put America first.

...Are we safer and stronger today, in 1992,
than we were in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was
the Democrat president?

Republicans are proud to answer ... The na-
tion's international position has not just improved
since the Democrats left office. It has been trans-
formed. Never in this century has the United
States enjoyed such security from foreign ene-
mies. With President Bush leading the free world,
the Soviet empire has collapsed, as Ronald Reagan
predicted, into the dustbin of history. Eastern Eu-
rope is liberated. Germany is peacefully united.
The former Soviet armies are returning home.
Nuclear arsenals are being cut to fractions of their
former size.

A democratically elected Russian president
sits in the Kremlin. Ukraine, Armenia and the
Baltic states take their rightful place among the
family of nations. Israel and all of its Arab neigh-
bors talk face to face for the first time. Nicaragua
and Panama celebrate democracy.

It might very well not have turned out this
way. Only the naive believe that history is an inev-
itable tide or a series of accidents. Our crusade of a
half-century, to champion freedom and civilization
against the dark night of totalitarianism, is now 
victorious. An American president led the free world
to this great triumph. George Bush was that man.

The Triumph of Freedom

No other president in the long history of our
country has achieved so many of the enduring
objectives of American foreign policy in so short a
time as has George Bush. He made it look easy,
even destined. It was neither.

George Bush made it happen.

Yet now that we have won the Cold War, we
must also win the peace. We must not repeat the
mistake of the past by throwing away victory
through complacency. A new world beckons, un-
like any we have ever known, filled with uncer-
tainties. Old passions have re-emerged. New
democracies struggle to decide their destiny. Na-
tions are torn asunder. Migrants and refugees
strain the social fabric of continents. Tyrants work
to build nuclear, chemical and even biological
weapons to threaten us and our neighbors. Drug
trafficking and terrorism, often linked, menace
Americans at home and abroad.

Meeting the challenge. The gulf war
showed the world how much is at stake when
voters choose their president. George Bush had
known war firsthand. So he tried the way of peace
Qmonths of negotiations and economic sanc-
tionsQthen did what a president must do. He
led from powerful convictions based on American
values. The United States, in a pare-eminent posi-
tion of world leadership, forged a new strategy of
collective engagement which invigorated the
United Nations.

Americans will never forget that, of the 323
congressional Democrats, only 96 voted to sup-
port Operation Desert Storm and 227 voted to op-
pose it. 1f the Democrats had prevailed, Sodom
Hussein would still be in Kuwait, armed with 
nuclear weapons. Everyone discovered what differ-
ence a vote for president can make.

Opening the world to American business.
The triumph of democracy is also a victory for
economic freedom. All the world over, people in
search of a better life are rejecting politicians,
control of their future. This will mean a broader
horizon for American opportunity. The whole
world has become our marketplace.

The election of 1992 will determine whether
our country seizes this tremendous opportunity
or retreats from it.

Banishing the nuclear nightmare. We must
assist in dismantling weapons, transforming the
massive Soviet war machine into an engine of
peace and civilian revival. We will cooperate with
our former adversaries both to curtail prolifera-
tion and to move beyond the ABM Treaty toward
effective ballistic missile defenses.

We will not permit the Soviet nuclear night-
mare to be replaced by another one. Outlaw na-
tions -- North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and others
-- lust for weapons of mass destruction.

American Security

Because America won the Cold War, our
homes and neighborhoods are more secure then
they have been for half a century. Our children
are safer. The greatest peace dividend is peace itself.
For it, we thank God.

America challenged. Republicans call for a
controlled defense drawdown, not a free fall. That
is why President Bush proposes to carefully re-
duce defense spending over the next four years by
an additional $34 billion, including $18 billion in
outlays, with a 25 percent reduction in personnel.
He has already eliminated over 100 weapon sys-
tems ~ Yet U.S. forces retain the ability to meet
the challenge of another Desert Storm with equal
success.

U.S. defense spending already has been reduced
significantly. Five years ago, it was more
than a quarter of the federal budget. By 1997 it
will be less than a sixth. Spending on defense and
intelligence, as a proportion of gross domestic
product, will be the lowest it has been since be-
fore World War II.

Yet any defense budget, however lean, is still
too much for the Democrats. They want to start
by cutting defense outlays over the next four
years by nearly $60 billion beyond the president's
cuts, throwing as many as one million additional
Americans out of work.

America secure. Because the United States
will rely on a smaller force of offensive nuclear
weapons to deter aggression in the post-Cold War
era, we will maintain the triad of land, sea, and
air-based strategic forces. We will continue to test
the safety, reliability and effectiveness of our nu-
clear weapons.

The men and women of defense. Republi-
cans created the all-volunteer Army and we hail
its success. We pledge to keep faith with the men
and women volunteers and with their families, for
they are the backbone of the nation's defense. We
oppose Democrat efforts to bring back the draft
whether directly or through the subterfuge of
compulsory domestic service.

...We oppose liberal Democrat attempts to
place women in combat positions just to make an
ideological point. Unlike the Democratic Party
and its candidate, we support the continued ex-
clusion of homosexuals from the military as a
matter of good order and discipline.

Intelligence. Desert Storm reminded us that
our intelligence community is a national asset of
critical importance to our security.

Proven leadership. George Bush has been
the most important architect of Western aspirations
and designs for the challenging world we
are now entering. His record is clear. President
Bush has shown he understands how to lead in
this new era, where the pare-eminent position of
the United States offers new opportunities to
build an international consensus on key issues.

President Bush, with experienced Republi-
can leadership, has proved he knows how to place
our nation at the center of effective coalitions
where our power is multiplied.

The test of international leadership is on the
field, not in a playback. The Oval Office is no
place for on-the-job trainingQnot in carrying
out the presidential duty to protect and defend
our nation, not in managing the arsenal of the su-
preme nuclear power.

There are those who talk and those who per-
form. George Bush has clearly performed for
America, making the right calls in a series of
tough decisions that helped transform the world.

Now that we have won the Cold War, we
must secure the peace that follows. History has
shown that the years following conflict are often
criticalQwhere the choices made can either lay
the foundation for lasting peace or sow the seeds
of the future war. In this period of high hopes and
great challenges ahead, the nation needs the test-
ed and experienced leadership of President Bush
and the Republican Party.
-- 
Emil Thomas Chuck		DUKE BLUE DEVILS: 1992 ACC CHAMPIONS!
Biomedical Engineer 1993	1992 EAST REGIONAL CHAMPIONS!!
Duke University, Durham, NC	AND 1992 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!
August 31, 1992 - May 16, 1993	Taking life pretty seriously. NOT.