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Dec. 4, 2002
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The clouds of election contests are behind us and a new Republican
majority in both Houses of Congress will gather in January. It's time
to reaffirm some basic Republican principles and move ahead with
legislative implementation.
Principle #1. The American people, especially middle-class
families, are overtaxed. Congress should accelerate and make permanent
the tax cuts voted in 2001.
In particular, Congress should remedy the ridiculous and deceitful
current law that eliminates the death tax in 2010 but reinstates it at
high levels in 2011 and imposes a brand new tax on the heirs of the
deceased called carryover basis. We don't want an epidemic of
euthanasia in 2010.
Congress should abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax. And Congress
should fulfill the Republican Platform promise to pass "legislation
requiring a super-majority in both houses of Congress to raise taxes."
Principle #2. The chief problem with our health care system and
its rising costs is the pervasive practice of "third party payment":
i.e., the person receiving medical care has little or no control over
how much is spent and for what purposes. Congress should pass genuine,
workable Medical Savings Accounts, which were the alternative
Republicans promised when they defeated Clinton's attempt to inflict us
with universal government health care in 1994.
The time is ripe for individuals to retake control of their own
health care spending. Even Dan Rather's CBS Evening News has been
featuring the new breed of doctors who provide prompt and efficient
medical care for cash while refusing payments by any government or
private insurance.
Principle #3. Our government has the duty to protect the
independence and sovereignty of the United States of America. The
Senate should reject all United Nations treaties because they create
committees of busybody foreigners to monitor U.S. compliance.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) would force us to adopt the radical feminist
agenda from abortion to textbook language revision. The Kyoto Protocol
(Global Warming treaty) would force us to reduce our American standard
of living by denying us the use of our own energy sources.
Neither is a Republican initiative: the former was signed by
Jimmy Carter and the latter by Al Gore for Bill Clinton. We urge
President Bush to unsign both treaties as he did to the Clinton-signed
International Criminal Court Treaty.
Principle #4. Terrorism is primarily a problem of dangerous
aliens coming into America because government policy allows them to
violate and evade current laws, and because many laws and regulations
encourage open-borders policies. America must make a choice: close
our borders to people we suspect of intending to violate our laws OR
put all law-abiding U.S. citizens under suspicion and allow government
to curtail our civil liberties.
Congress should refuse to fund all plans to develop a national
database that would integrate existing public and private databases
containing personal information on American citizens. We don't want
government monitoring our daily activities.
Congress should deny amnesty to illegal aliens and reject any
revival of Section 245(i) amnesty because (as Senator Robert Byrd said)
it is "sheer lunacy," and Congress should repeal Ted Kennedy's
Diversity Visa Lottery immigrant program. Congress should deny visas
to aliens from countries that sponsor terrorism, and order the State
Department to terminate its ridiculous policy that mere advocacy of
terrorism is not sufficient to deny a visa.
Congress should put a moratorium on the numbers of immigrants
admitted until the Immigration and Naturalization Service puts into
effect a system to find and track the thousands of aliens the Justice
Department wants to question about terrorism. Congress should deport
illegal aliens when caught; we don't want another John Lee Malvo.
Principle #5. It's time to put a stop to the era of federal
judges legislating from the bench on social policy. The President
should nominate and the Senate should confirm only judges who respect
the U.S. Constitution as the source of their authority rather than
their own political and social prejudices (e.g., against the Ten
Commandments and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag).
Principle #6. Republicans should remedy Majority Leader Tom
Daschle's obstructionism in the Senate just adjourned. Both Houses
should pass the legislation passed by the House in the last Congress
but which Daschle refused to allow to come to a vote in the Senate,
including a ban on partial-birth abortion, a ban on human cloning, the
Child Custody Protection Act, and the proper definition of abstinence
education for eligibility for federal funding.
Principle #7. The continuation of self-government depends on
honest elections and an informed electorate. Congress should repeal
the 1975 law that requires states to provide foreign-language ballots,
amend the Motor Voter Law to permit states more latitude in cleaning up
registration lists, and abolish provisional voting which amounts to
same-day registration and makes post-election manipulation too easy.
This list is only a start. Stay tuned.
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