My friend, Pat Buchanan, fervently hopes that disgruntled Republicans will leave the Big Tent and join the Big Zoo of the Reform Party. Pat seeks salvation through Federal subsidies. That's why, he told me personally, he sought the Reform Party nomination rather than to go with the Constitution Party whose principles far more nearly correspond to those which Pat, over the years, espoused, than does the anti-Constitutional populism of Ross Perot's political creation. But, as the saying goes, those who live by the sword die by the sword. As a matter of core principle, the Constitution Party neither seeks nor accepts Federal subsidies.
Liberty of conscience is fundamental to our platform.
In office, we intend to cut off all U.S. treasury funds for the propagation of ideas. We don't wish to be labeled hypocrites, and, so that we may restore Constitutional government with clean hands, we have resisted the temptation of putting our hands into the Federal cookie jar. That makes it more difficult for us in the short run, but it will enable us to be more effective in the long term. The key purpose of my Presidential candidacy is to lay the groundwork for the success of the Constitution Party in 2004 as an available instrument for those who wish to limit the Federal government to its delegated, enumerated Constitutional powers and restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical, common law foundations, by ending Federal interference with state and local lawmaking. We will build support for our policy agenda by replacing the present system of direct taxation on American citizens with a revenue regimen based on the design of the Framers, which was duties, excises, imposts and apportionment among the states.