From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Republican platform (Was: My fingers are killing me!)
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: pubs
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:37:03 CDT


[This is my third attempt to post this.  Problem might derive from original
"Follow-up to: alt.rush-limbaugh" line]

Following is a reformatted version of the Republican platform, entered by Emil
Chuck.


                    THE 1992 REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM


This is an excerpted version of the Republican platform as adopted in Houston
August 17 by delegates 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: Information
Services. -- The Editors


PREAMBLE

Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican president, 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 unabashed commitment to the family's economic liberty and moral rights,
Republicans trust parents 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 superior
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 compassion, 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 families that forgo a second income to
care for their children at home through his Young Child Tax Credit.
Congressional Democrats are already trying to repeal it.

Family security. Over the last several decades, liberal Democrats have
increasingly shifted economic burdens onto the American family. Indeed, the
liberal Democrat tax-and-spend policies have forced millions of women into the
workplace 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. Recognizing what every parent knows, that our
current educational system is not educating our children, President Bush is
leading an educational revolution. We applaud the president's bold vision to
change radically our education system. Our parents want it, our communities want
it, our states want it, and our children want it but the Democrat leadership in
the House and Senate continue to thwart the will of the American people for
radical 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 federal
regulation. We should explore a new generation of break-the-mold new American
schools.  Standards and assessments should be raised, not reduced to a lowest
common denominator. Communities should be empowered to find what works.

Creating the best schools in the world. We applaud President Bush's consistent
and determined 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 responsibilities that belong in the home and in the
community. Schools were created to help and strengthen families, not to
undermine or substitute for them.

Accordingly, we oppose programs in public schools that provide birth control or
abortion services or referrals. Instead, we encourage abstinence education
programs with proven track records in protecting youth from disease, pregnancy
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 pluralism, 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 guaranteeing equal access to
school facilities. We also advocate recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in
schools as a reminder of the principles that sustain 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 hospitals and the best medical technology.
People come here from Canada, from Europe, from every part of the globe, to seek
procedures and treatments that are either unavailable or strictly rationed 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 affordability -- 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 businesses, by reducing insurance costs and
eliminating 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 lowand 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 preexisting 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-benefit 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 confidentiality. 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 support programs to help
mothers and their babies get a good start in life; and we call for strong
action, at all levels of government, to enforce parental responsibility with
regard to alcohol, drugs, and neglect.

The homeless. The administration has proposed $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 dependent or stricken with AIDS.

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

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

Today, however, these pillars are under assault. Elements within the media, the
entertainment industry, academia and the Democrat Party are waging a guerrilla
war against American values. They deny personal responsibility, disparage
traditional morality, denigrate religion and promote hostility toward the
family's way of life.  Children, the members of our society most vulnerable 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 important that all of us, individual and
corporations alike, have a responsibility to reflect the values we expect our
fellow citizens to exhibit. And if children 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 believe, 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 organizations, 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 because of their
courageous stand for family values.  Moreover, we oppose efforts by the Democrat
Party to include sexual preference as a protected minority 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 pornography have no
social impact. But if hard-core pornography does not cheapen the human spirit,
then neither does Shakespeare elevate it. We call on federal agencies to halt
the sale, under government auspices, of pornographic materials.

We endorse Republican legislation, the Pornography 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 makers 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 obscenity 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 government is the best way to foster the cultural
revival our country needs.


INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, GOOD HOMES AND SAFE STREETS

Rebuilding The Dream. Our party has always 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 ownership. For first-time home buyers, he has proposed 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 stronger enforcement of child support laws. We call for strong
enforcement and tough penalties against welfare fraud and insist that work must
be a mandatory part of public assistance for all who are able to work. Because
divorce, desertion and illegitimacy 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 instill a sense of responsibility and pride.... Congressional 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 technicality. They reject our reform of habeas corpus law to prevent
the appellate process from becoming a lawyers' game to thwart justice through
endless 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 counseled 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 determination and values. Illegal immigration, on the
other hand, undermines the integrity of border communities and already crowded
urban neighborhoods. We will build on the already announced strengthening of the
Border Patrol to better coordinate interdiction of illegal entrants through
greater cross-border cooperation. Specifically, we will increase the size of the
Border Patrol in order to meet the increasing need to stop illegal immigration
and we will equip the Border Patrol 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 national 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 Congress 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 infringed. 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 unborn children. We oppose using
public revenues for abortion and will not fund organizations that advocate it.
We commend those who provide alternatives to abortion by meeting the needs of
mothers and offering adoption services. We reaffirm 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 disarm our nation during the Cold War and are today seeking to cut our
national defense below safe levels. We applaud congressional Republicans for
overturning the District of Columbia,s law blaming firearm manufacturers for
street crime.

We affirm the right of individuals to form, join or assist labor organizations
to bargain collectively, 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 prosperity such as the world had never seen: 20
million new jobs in the longest peacetime economic expansion 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 produce complete and triumph in free markets. We gave them the tools;
they completed the job.

During the 1980s and into the present decade, 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 deficit 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 spending. In short, the Democrats held the U.S. economy 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 President 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. Furthermore, 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 support
President Bush's efforts to reduce federal spending and to cap the growth of
non-Social Security entitlements.

We support restoring the deductibility of IRAs for all Americans, including
full-time homemakers and encourage savings for education and home ownership
through Family Savings Accounts. 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. It is the gradual, year-by-year erosion of the personal
exemption, until it was indexed by a Republican administration 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 committed 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 support 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 housing 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 residences.

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 Republican 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, requiring a
supermajority for any future tax increases. And since the Democrat-controlled
Congress has consistently voted down a line-item veto amendment for the
president to control specific wasteful pork-barrel spending, a Republican
Congress will adopt a line-item veto for the presidency, 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 government spending. A Republican Congress will foster investment where it
does the most good, by individuals within the private sector.

Job creation and small business opportunities. The Republican Party
enthusiastically encourages 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 entrepreneurial 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 efforts. Congress should follow the
lead of President Bush and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp in passing the federal
enterprise zone program that will empower communities by reducing government
regulation and taxation.

Leading the information age. ...We Republicans 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
technology providing funding for basic research, supporting investment in
emerging technologies, improving education in science and engineering, enhancing
tax credits for research and development, eliminating unnecessary regulation to
create 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 important, jobs.

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

Republicans, by contrast, are determined to complete space station Freedom
within this decade. 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 National 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 cooperation 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 respond 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 administration,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 decision: compete or retreat. They chose, with President 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 American 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, completing the establishment
of a free-trade area which already includes Canada. NAFTA will create the
largest market in the world, greater than the European Community, with 360
million consumers 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 regional markets, specifically
agriculture. We encourage 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
Representatives 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 running the Congress.

The Democrats have transformed what the framers of the Constitution intended as
the people's House into a pathological institution. They have grossly increased
their staffing, their payrolls, 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
lawmaker 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 tainted with scandal and has resisted
efforts to investigate 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
constitutional 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. It has permitted rogue prosecutors
to spend tremendous amounts to hound some of the nation's finest public
servants. If that act is reauthorized, it must be extended to Congress 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 amendment, and a line-item
veto for the president.

Republicans believe this balancing of the budget should be achieved, not by
increasing taxes to match spending, but by cutting spending to current levels of
revenue. We prefer a balancedbudget 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 consider spending bills.
The budget's spending ceilings shall not be exceeded without a supermajority
vote of both chambers. If Congress fails to pass any appropriation bill, funding
for its programs will automatically be frozen at the previous 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 between 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 condemn Democrat
attempts to perpetrate vote fraud through schemes that override the state's
safeguards of orderly voter registration And it is critical that the states
retain the authority to tailor voter registration procedures of unique local
circumstances.

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. It 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 committees supported by corporations, unions
or trade associations, and restrict the practice of bundling.

To restore competition in elections by attacking the unfair advantages of
incumbency, we will stop incumbents from warding off challengers 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 commonplace 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 networks. It is especially outrageous that taxpayers are now forced
to underwrite this biased broadcasting 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 rigorous fairness standards for all CPB-
supported programming. 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 level. In doing so, we reassert the crucial importance of the
Tenth Amendment. We oppose costly federal mandates that stifle innovation and
force tax hikes upon states and localities. We require that Congress calculate
the cost of mandated initiatives upon communities affected and provide adequate
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 developed by ~ice President Quayle, and we salute his principled
challenge to the American Bar Association 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
alternative 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 Influenced 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 providing
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 insurance 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 agreement 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 sanitation 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 harassment of farm,
ranch and timber families under statutes regarding endangered species and wet-
lands. When actions are required to protect an endangered 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 controlling the Persian Gulf, George Bush did more than liberate
Kuwait. He prevented energy crisis and economic shutdown in America. Now his
national energy strategy leads toward continued growth in the century ahead. It
provides the nation 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 improving the efficiency and flexibility of energy consumption.  We
seek to foster greater competition and increased output, in the interest of
producers 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, possibly one of the largest
petroleum reserves in our country, and to selected areas of the outer conti-
nental shelf (QC). We support incentives to encourage domestic investment for
onshore and QC oil and gas exploration and development, including 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 generation 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 energy sources and research on fuel cells,
conservation, hydra, solar, hydrogen, and wind power as components of our
overall plan for energy security and environmental quality.

Public lands. The millions of acres that constitute 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 believe that recreation, forestry, ranching, mining,
oil and gas exploration, and production on our public lands can be conducted in
a way compatible 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 labor 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 reductions. This will save $1 billion over the Democrats,
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 boundaries, President Bush has accelerated U.S.
research 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 export or dumping of hazardous waste. We led the international ban on
trade in ivory, persuaded Japan to end drift net fishing, streamlined response
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 confronting the international
bureaucrats at the Rio Conference. He refused to accept their anti-American
demands for income redistribution and won instead a global climate treaty that
relies on real action plans rather than arbitrary targets hostile to U.S.
growth and workers.

Environmental progress must continue in tandem with economic growth. Crippling
an industry is no solution at all. Bankrupt facilities only worsen environmental
situations. Unemployment 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 Constitution: "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 citizens 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 international 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 nation's international position has not
just improved since the Democrats left office. It has been transformed.  Never
in this century has the United States enjoyed such security from foreign
enemies. 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 neighbors 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 inevitable 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, unlike any we have ever known, filled with uncertainties.
Old passions have re-emerged. New democracies struggle to decide their destiny.
Nations 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 sanctionsQthen did what a
president must do. He led from powerful convictions based on American values.
The United States, in a pre-eminent position 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 support Operation Desert Storm and 227 voted to oppose it. If the
Democrats had prevailed, Sodom Hussein would still be in Kuwait, armed with
nuclear weapons. Everyone discovered what difference 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
proliferation and to move beyond the ABM Treaty toward effective ballistic
missile defenses.

We will not permit the Soviet nuclear nightmare to be replaced by another one.
Outlaw nations -- 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 reduce 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 systems ~ 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 before 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 nuclear
weapons.

The men and women of defense. Republicans 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 exclusion 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 Republican 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 supreme nuclear power.

There are those who talk and those who perform. 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 tested 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.

Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.environment