A Modest Proposal for a Bold Agenda
1. CHINA
For the last thirty years, the United States has permitted lopsided trade with China. We have made it easy for American businesses to shut down domestic manufacturing and relocate factories in China. We have closed our eyes to technology rip-offs and the wholesale theft of American intellectual property. All this has been justified by the clearly flawed argument that economic engagement will result in political reform. There has been no political reform. We have created a monster that threatens our security even as it undermines the prosperity of our people. It is time to end this lopsided trade and stand up for our own people rather than the limited number of billionaires who are reaping huge short-term profits from trade with China, even as it drags down their fellow Americans and puts our country in jeopardy. All this while Chinese believers continue to be thrown into a murderous prison system.
2. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
We’ve done our best not to confront this thinly veiled power play, but for over a decade, multinational mega-tech electronic companies have been trying to destroy America’s patent system. That, or at least weaken it so our inventors can be robbed, as they are under the weak patent laws found in much of the rest of the world. These mega-tech giants, who don’t want to pay royalties to the little guy, have never been our friend. The so-called patent reform bills of the past 15 years have been aimed not at reforming the patent system, but weakening it, perhaps fatally. The GOP should be the friend of America’s small inventors and all of the other industries and educational institutions that rely on strong patent protection.
3. HEALTHCARE
We must be the party of choice and cost reduction. We must lead the fight against efforts to regulate and control vitamins and food supplements. Sick Americans, especially the terminally ill, should not be denied the right to experiment with drugs that have yet to be approved.
The elongated process of FDA approval costs tens of billions of dollars and is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans. We must champion the freedom of our people as compared to the Democrats who will protect them to death, hurting more people than they are helping while driving costs ever higher.
4. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
President Bush and Senator McCain did America and the GOP a disservice when they smothered the anti-illegal immigration sentiment evident among Republicans. It was one of the few major wedge issues that could have attracted Democrat voters. We have limited health care and education dollars. Insisting those resources go to American citizens and legal immigrants should be a no-brainer. Muddying the water so the voters did not have a clear choice on this issue cost us votes. Again, we need to proudly proclaim we are on the side of the American people if we expect them to be on our side.
5. GLOBAL WARMING
Most of us, even those too cautious to say so, know that Global Warming is a politically motivated hoax, a power grab of historic proportion. We must have the courage to stand up and argue our case. Our positive alternative is that we are targeting pollution here at home, which is a goal we can achieve, rather than attempts to change the climate trends of the entire planet. The global warming agenda will be rejected by the American people if we alert them to the enormous price (money and lifestyle) they are expected to pay. Our members should be thoroughly briefed to meet the rapidly approaching debates on this issue. The American people will suffer as a result of this nonsense. Again, we need to be on their side.
6. GLOBALISTS vs. PATRIOTS
The US should not be granting more power and authority to the United Nations, or any other unelected international body. It threatens the sovereignty of our nation. Nations that have some of the worst human rights records in the world are represented in this body and have a voice in global policy set by the U.N. We should focus our international efforts on bilateral (country to country) rather than multilateral agreement. This fundamental difference between our parties needs to be highlighted whenever possible. American interests, not some globalist dream, should be the major focus of American diplomacy.
7. BAILOUTS
Had McCain opposed the Wall Street bailout, the election would have been different. The majority of our GOP House Members opposed the bailout, yet our leadership used its influence to the contrary. This only solidified the image that there is little or no difference between the parties and reaffirmed what the American people have begun already to believe—that the GOP has become the party of rich wheeler dealers. We should oppose all future bailout proposals and offer less costly alternatives; alternatives we were denied the last time around.
8. EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
Abe Lincoln not only freed the slaves, he was also the father of the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act not only shaped our country into what it is today, but also formed an alliance between Republicans and ordinary Americans that held for fifty years. In an age of bailouts and obvious CEO abuses against their own corporations, stockholders, and employees, we should offer bold alternatives to the Democrat game plan of more and more control by federal bureaucrats. Rather than complain about unions as the problem, which is not always the case, we should offer working people a share of the action. In short, stock given to employees (in a wide distribution to all employees) should not be taxed as income, and if the employee holds it for tens years, there should be no capital gains tax. Expanding employee ownership will have tremendous positive political, economic, and social implications, as did Abe Lincoln’s Homestead Act.
9. PRIVATIZATION THROUGH EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
Let’s give the Post Service and all its assets to the postal employees, and create a new delivery corporation with no debt and lots of assets. Then, let the Post Service compete like everybody else. Overnight, 600,000 people who think of themselves as government employees will become private sector owners anxious to succeed. This same system of privatization may work with other parts of the federal government once it is proven with the Post Service.
10. LIMITED GOVERNMENT AND INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY
In recent years, especially since 9-11, Republicans have ignored our traditional commitment to limited and decentralized government, and in some cases, have compromised our long-term commitment to individual liberty. This loss of fundamental direction was never clearer than when our party championed reauthorizing a version of the Patriot Act which did not include the sunsets that were such an important part of the original legislation. Now the expanded power we granted the executive branch over the years will rest in the hands of our political opponents. When an emergency requires a temporary expansion of federal powers we need to ensure what we do will not lay the foundation for the creation of an all-powerful federal police state never intended by our founding fathers, or any of the liberty loving patriots who followed.
11. LOW TAXES AND A STRONG ROLE FOR STATE GOVERNMENT
This doesn’t require any new suggestions. There are many great Republican ideas in this arena to draw upon.
12. ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL REFERENDUM
The California referendum process, with a few blatant exceptions, has served our state well. Having an issue presented directly to the American people to officially poll them as part of the national debate may well serve America. If one believes our constituents to be instinctively more conservative than the people they elect to go to Washington, a national referendum, or national poll, will help us mobilize votes, as was recently the case with Proposition 8 in California.
13. Energy
The Republicans are, and should continue to be, the champions of prioritizing the development of American domestic energy production. Whether it be oil, gas, coal, nuclear, biomass, solar, wind or any other type of energy, we should be facilitating, utilizing, and putting online domestic sources of energy. The Democrats are so hamstrung on this issue by the radical environmental alliance they can’t support issuing approval for solar plants in vast stretches of desert and wasteland. They are also unable to support nuclear energy, and on that front Republicans should be supporting wonderful technology alternatives provide by the high temperature gas reactor. The reactor is a new system that minimizes waste, maximizes safety, cannot meltdown, and can’t be turned into a weapon. Additionally, utilizing the technology will bring down the waste in Yucca Mountain.
Dana Rohrabacher
For the last thirty years, the United States has permitted lopsided trade with China. We have made it easy for American businesses to shut down domestic manufacturing and relocate factories in China. We have closed our eyes to technology rip-offs and the wholesale theft of American intellectual property. All this has been justified by the clearly flawed argument that economic engagement will result in political reform. There has been no political reform. We have created a monster that threatens our security even as it undermines the prosperity of our people. It is time to end this lopsided trade and stand up for our own people rather than the limited number of billionaires who are reaping huge short-term profits from trade with China, even as it drags down their fellow Americans and puts our country in jeopardy. All this while Chinese believers continue to be thrown into a murderous prison system.
2. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
We’ve done our best not to confront this thinly veiled power play, but for over a decade, multinational mega-tech electronic companies have been trying to destroy America’s patent system. That, or at least weaken it so our inventors can be robbed, as they are under the weak patent laws found in much of the rest of the world. These mega-tech giants, who don’t want to pay royalties to the little guy, have never been our friend. The so-called patent reform bills of the past 15 years have been aimed not at reforming the patent system, but weakening it, perhaps fatally. The GOP should be the friend of America’s small inventors and all of the other industries and educational institutions that rely on strong patent protection.
3. HEALTHCARE
We must be the party of choice and cost reduction. We must lead the fight against efforts to regulate and control vitamins and food supplements. Sick Americans, especially the terminally ill, should not be denied the right to experiment with drugs that have yet to be approved.
The elongated process of FDA approval costs tens of billions of dollars and is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans. We must champion the freedom of our people as compared to the Democrats who will protect them to death, hurting more people than they are helping while driving costs ever higher.
4. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
President Bush and Senator McCain did America and the GOP a disservice when they smothered the anti-illegal immigration sentiment evident among Republicans. It was one of the few major wedge issues that could have attracted Democrat voters. We have limited health care and education dollars. Insisting those resources go to American citizens and legal immigrants should be a no-brainer. Muddying the water so the voters did not have a clear choice on this issue cost us votes. Again, we need to proudly proclaim we are on the side of the American people if we expect them to be on our side.
5. GLOBAL WARMING
Most of us, even those too cautious to say so, know that Global Warming is a politically motivated hoax, a power grab of historic proportion. We must have the courage to stand up and argue our case. Our positive alternative is that we are targeting pollution here at home, which is a goal we can achieve, rather than attempts to change the climate trends of the entire planet. The global warming agenda will be rejected by the American people if we alert them to the enormous price (money and lifestyle) they are expected to pay. Our members should be thoroughly briefed to meet the rapidly approaching debates on this issue. The American people will suffer as a result of this nonsense. Again, we need to be on their side.
6. GLOBALISTS vs. PATRIOTS
The US should not be granting more power and authority to the United Nations, or any other unelected international body. It threatens the sovereignty of our nation. Nations that have some of the worst human rights records in the world are represented in this body and have a voice in global policy set by the U.N. We should focus our international efforts on bilateral (country to country) rather than multilateral agreement. This fundamental difference between our parties needs to be highlighted whenever possible. American interests, not some globalist dream, should be the major focus of American diplomacy.
7. BAILOUTS
Had McCain opposed the Wall Street bailout, the election would have been different. The majority of our GOP House Members opposed the bailout, yet our leadership used its influence to the contrary. This only solidified the image that there is little or no difference between the parties and reaffirmed what the American people have begun already to believe—that the GOP has become the party of rich wheeler dealers. We should oppose all future bailout proposals and offer less costly alternatives; alternatives we were denied the last time around.
8. EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
Abe Lincoln not only freed the slaves, he was also the father of the Homestead Act. The Homestead Act not only shaped our country into what it is today, but also formed an alliance between Republicans and ordinary Americans that held for fifty years. In an age of bailouts and obvious CEO abuses against their own corporations, stockholders, and employees, we should offer bold alternatives to the Democrat game plan of more and more control by federal bureaucrats. Rather than complain about unions as the problem, which is not always the case, we should offer working people a share of the action. In short, stock given to employees (in a wide distribution to all employees) should not be taxed as income, and if the employee holds it for tens years, there should be no capital gains tax. Expanding employee ownership will have tremendous positive political, economic, and social implications, as did Abe Lincoln’s Homestead Act.
9. PRIVATIZATION THROUGH EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
Let’s give the Post Service and all its assets to the postal employees, and create a new delivery corporation with no debt and lots of assets. Then, let the Post Service compete like everybody else. Overnight, 600,000 people who think of themselves as government employees will become private sector owners anxious to succeed. This same system of privatization may work with other parts of the federal government once it is proven with the Post Service.
10. LIMITED GOVERNMENT AND INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY
In recent years, especially since 9-11, Republicans have ignored our traditional commitment to limited and decentralized government, and in some cases, have compromised our long-term commitment to individual liberty. This loss of fundamental direction was never clearer than when our party championed reauthorizing a version of the Patriot Act which did not include the sunsets that were such an important part of the original legislation. Now the expanded power we granted the executive branch over the years will rest in the hands of our political opponents. When an emergency requires a temporary expansion of federal powers we need to ensure what we do will not lay the foundation for the creation of an all-powerful federal police state never intended by our founding fathers, or any of the liberty loving patriots who followed.
11. LOW TAXES AND A STRONG ROLE FOR STATE GOVERNMENT
This doesn’t require any new suggestions. There are many great Republican ideas in this arena to draw upon.
12. ESTABLISHING A NATIONAL REFERENDUM
The California referendum process, with a few blatant exceptions, has served our state well. Having an issue presented directly to the American people to officially poll them as part of the national debate may well serve America. If one believes our constituents to be instinctively more conservative than the people they elect to go to Washington, a national referendum, or national poll, will help us mobilize votes, as was recently the case with Proposition 8 in California.
13. Energy
The Republicans are, and should continue to be, the champions of prioritizing the development of American domestic energy production. Whether it be oil, gas, coal, nuclear, biomass, solar, wind or any other type of energy, we should be facilitating, utilizing, and putting online domestic sources of energy. The Democrats are so hamstrung on this issue by the radical environmental alliance they can’t support issuing approval for solar plants in vast stretches of desert and wasteland. They are also unable to support nuclear energy, and on that front Republicans should be supporting wonderful technology alternatives provide by the high temperature gas reactor. The reactor is a new system that minimizes waste, maximizes safety, cannot meltdown, and can’t be turned into a weapon. Additionally, utilizing the technology will bring down the waste in Yucca Mountain.
Dana Rohrabacher
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