A platform is a list of values and positions. It’s what a party stands for…now just at election time but always. The New American Party’s platform is common sense and also a work in progress. We have positions on issues, but we want to hear your opinions too.
Here are a few of ours…
Positions on the Issues
Common sense is too uncommon these days. Let’s use some sense on the issues facing our country.
You don’t pollute the air. You don’t clear-cut forests. You don’t dump pollutants into the earth, air or oceans. We need to dramatically reduce waste plastics. Working conditions should be safe, education and healthcare affordable, retirement investments required and secure. Taxation must be simple, impartial and without exceptions or exemptions. And the most vulnerable in our society – children, elderly and the mentally ill – protected. These are things that everyone can agree on. Of course, the devil is in the details…or is it really that hard?
You may not agree with 100 percent of what you find on this website, but we bet you can go along with 75 to 80 percent. Our is intent is to be a voice of reason in an an all to often unreasonable, obstructionist political climate. Some of the HOT topics include:
Career Politicians
Politics should not be a career; it is public service. An elected leader or representative should be successful elsewhere and in a non-political job elsewhere before going to their statehouse or Washington to represent people from back home. Membership in the House or Senate shouldn’t be the best job or the only job a person has ever had. And, it should only be a temporary job of no more than two terms.
Balanced Budget
Our country can’t continue to spend more than it has. You can’t fund prosperity with ever greater debt. Accumulated interest in killing our budget. Sooner or later the creditors will come knocking to collect. Then watch out! Deficit spending buys votes with promissory notes. And taxpayers get saddled with the credit card bills. No household or business can survive running the way the federal government does, and it is illegal for states to not have balanced budgets. What does that tell you?
So what is with Washington? Is running a deficit any way to run a country? America has to tighten its belt and spend only what it can afford to spend and only on things it really needs. This means things like closing military bases and not buying weapons our Generals say we don’t need, sun-setting departments that serve no real benefit for dollars spent, ending subsidies and special tax breaks to special interests to name a few. No more pushing the debt burden onto future generations.
Truth-in-Legislation
This one is simple. Legislation not specifically related to a particular bill’s main issue should never be part of that bill. Items in Congressional bills must be directly related to the purpose of the bill. No riders. No pork. No bullshit. If it’s an environmental bill, there shouldn’t be an attachment to fund a museum, special weapons system or a “bridge to nowhere” or any other non-related item. Legislators can always create “omnibus” spending bills and barter a bridge for a dam or highway. It is time to stop the passing and killing of bills because of unrelated pork that is included far too often.
Government Waste
The U.S. Senate just spent $78 million to build a museum honoring itself. Named for the late Senator Ted Kennedy, this institute’s opening comes at a time when the Senate can’t get anything done and obstructionism is the order of the day. Instead of building monuments to millionaires’ egos, how about spending that money on the people who need it most. How might that $78 million have benefited a host of well deserving recipients, or even dented the deficit.? How many teacher’s or policemen’s salaries could this pay for? How many much needed Behavioral Health beds could this money pay for? Our legislators have lost sight of what’s really important when spending “other people’s borrowed money.”
Immigration
America is an nation of immigrants and the majority arrived here legally and once eagerly embraced American values and its “Melting Pot”. They learned English and often worked tirelessly to assimilate into the American culture. And they are people who played by the rules, respected our laws, and often wait years to legally enter the country. It’s neither fair nor American for anyone to enter illegally to benefit from a system paid for by hard working Americans and legal resident. Those who enter illegally should should be sent home or leave and return legally. Those who can’t, or who have been here for years and have not committed crimes, and perhaps with children, should come out of the shadows, pay fines and earn legal residence WITHOUT the right to citizenship or the right to vote. There is no reason to cruelly tear families apart. But it is time to stop politicians from pandering to immigrants to simply to win more votes for their own benefit. By not taking a firm position on addressing illegal immigration they aren’t solving the problem; they are perpetuating it.
Abortion
Abortion is a polarizing issue in America. Human life is a miracle. But what do you say to a girl or woman who becomes pregnant by an act of rape or incest? Do you add an even greater violation by forcing that person to put their life at stake and carry that pregnancy to term? And what about a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother-to-be? The Pro-life or Pro-choice arguments have been sadly reduced to position of “No abortion ever” and “Abortion anytime”. We think most American’s believe that human creation is unique and special, and that no abortion should take place after the point of viability. But we also think most Americans believe that that are situations where a woman’s right-to-choose, without interference or imposing judgement on motives, remains paramount. That’s where we stand, and these are just some of the thoughts to consider when tackling one of our nation’s most divisive issues. Abortion should be safe, legal, rare before the point of viability outside of the womb and just maybe a little sooner.
Health Care
If you’re a working adult, you should be able to get affordable health care. You should be able to get catastrophic insurance that will protect your life savings. And hospitals and doctors should be required by law to charge everyone the same rates. No more discounts for insurances companies and absurd, premium prices that bankrupt individuals. Insurance companies welcomed the Affordable Care Act as it stabilized and guaranteed their revenue stream at higher levels. The Affordable Care Act got some things right, but a lot of things wrong. We believe we can do better starting with mandatory Health Savings Accounts and catastrophic insurance set up for working people just like Social Security. Pick your own doctor or a network with uniformly published pricing, and pick an insurance plan of your choice. Allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines to improve competition. And let citizens buy the plans that work for them.
Treatment of the Elderly
The people who came before helped build this nation and give us all our start. It’s true of every generation. What do we owe them? It is time for this country to treat our senior citizens with the respect they deserve for a life-time of work and often service and sacrifice to make a better world for all of us. We must take steps to ensure that our elderly, especially those who can no longer care for themselves, are well taken care of without the fear of having proper medical care wipe out their life savings. They shouldn’t have to worry about going hungry to pay for prescriptions. Our seniors deserve our attention and respect. They have earned the right to live their golden years with dignity and our gratitude, and to be able to leave the product of their life’s work to their beneficiaries.
Gay Marriage
Isn’t this just a war over the meaning of the word marriage? Marriage is something sacred between a man and a woman to many with that religious view. But committed gay couples want the recognition, respect and legal rights granted to heterosexual couples. Should they not have the same legal protection for their unions? Since the dispute over gay marriage is most often over the traditional, religious definition of marriage, we believe the government should get out of the “marriage” business altogether, and replace it with civil union contracts that would provide legal rights and benefits to any two people who chose to enter into the agreement. Then, leave “marriage” ceremonies to churches, courthouses, or in a backyard among close friends where they belong.
Environment
We’re killing ourselves slowly and Washington isn’t doing enough about it. We only have one planet and a fragile one at that. But we continue to allow pollution of the land, sea and air. Some scientists believe we have already reached a “point-of-no-return”. Can we stop it? If so, how?
1. Protect the Oceans. The use of plastic bottles, bags and containers has exploded the past 25 years. There are plastics and plastic nano-particles in the oceans that are being consumed by sea life and birds. Those in fish go right into our food supply. Beer cans, styrofoam, plastic bottles, fishing line and trash wash up on our beaches. A Texas size island of plastic and trash is floating in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Fish and sea turtles are being found with tumors that were never seen a few years ago. Our oceans are acidifying slowly (remember “Acid Rain”?) and our coral reefs and habitats are dying off. We are over fishing our oceans, species are collapsing and it’s getting worse every single day. Is anyone paying attention? We need to turn this around.
2. Protect the Forests. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. But loggers are cutting down thousands of acres of trees every day. Our rainforests are being laid bare and the deforestation leads to erosion, mudslides, and water pollution. Lack of vegetation also helps to trigger more droughts as moisture isn’t retained in the soil. And our forests are home to a multitude of species that are dying off at alarming rates. Is anyone paying attention?
3. Protect the Climate. Climate change is real. A look at any graph of human population growth coincides with the exponential growth in greenhouse gas production since the beginning of the industrial age. The impact is global warming, melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps, and both the warming and rising of our oceans. We humans, our machines and our chemicals are having a detrimental impact on the environment. We can’t continue to heap all of this waste into our contained environment without dire consequences. Is anyone paying attention?