What are your top five policy priorities in order of importance? Would you waiver on your stance regarding gay marriage to get campaign finance reform? Would you prioritize the ending of abortion over prayer in schools? What will you not compromise on and what will you?
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Top 5 policy priorities
- Thread starter evearael
- Start date
gnomon
Well-Known Member
1. Ending the drug war.
2. Reforming foreign policy.
3. Immigration reform.
I am actually unable to think of two more which would take precedence over so many other things I can think of that need attention. The above three hit into so many categories and are all actually tied in with our foreign affairs which directly affect our domestic policies.
2. Reforming foreign policy.
3. Immigration reform.
I am actually unable to think of two more which would take precedence over so many other things I can think of that need attention. The above three hit into so many categories and are all actually tied in with our foreign affairs which directly affect our domestic policies.
gnomon
Well-Known Member
evearael said:Thanks for responding! I hope you'll come back and explain more later.
Gnomon, could you expand on 'reforming foreign policy'? What are some particular aspects of it you wish to see reformed?
A couple of problems with foreign policy. Since Wilson the United States has actively supported anti-democratic regimes for the sole purpose of aiding economic interests. This is an affront to the Constitution and the foundation of this country. The federal government should take no part in aiding American business ventures by involving itself in the political affairs of sovereign nations.
The U.S. should not be involved in using its military or federal agents such as the DEA in enforcing laws supporting failed domestic policies. We should not be involved in crop eradication programs.
I don't disagree with the use of our military to aid allies in missions which try to maintain the peace and stop other nations efforts at attempted ethnic cleansing or similar situations. However, the application of such policies has been inconsistent.
doppelganger
Through the Looking Glass
I have to list more than five:
1. Election reform (and especially election finance reform)
2. Affordable healthcare
3. Environmental protection, particularly mercury pollution and CO2 emissions
4. The federal budget deficit and national debt (restoring taxes on highest income categories and capital gains and advancing tax relief primarily for the benefit of working families as federal spending comes under control)
5. Implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission for improving security
6. Immigration reform focusing on prosecuting and fining domestic beneficiaries of illegal immigrant labor
7. Roping in nuclear proliferation through respect for anti-proliferation accords even with our allies, and the disarmament of all nations' nuclear arsenals.
1. Election reform (and especially election finance reform)
2. Affordable healthcare
3. Environmental protection, particularly mercury pollution and CO2 emissions
4. The federal budget deficit and national debt (restoring taxes on highest income categories and capital gains and advancing tax relief primarily for the benefit of working families as federal spending comes under control)
5. Implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission for improving security
6. Immigration reform focusing on prosecuting and fining domestic beneficiaries of illegal immigrant labor
7. Roping in nuclear proliferation through respect for anti-proliferation accords even with our allies, and the disarmament of all nations' nuclear arsenals.
doppelganger
Through the Looking Glass
lunamoth said:
When kids start ice skating on the River Styx.
PureX
Veteran Member
1. Campaign finance/election reform. What we have now is little more than legalized bribery and as a result legislation is routinely being sold to anyone who can pay. The rich are buying laws that enable them to economically rape the middle and working classes for their own profit. And this has to stop, as it will soon destroy us as a nation.
2. No more unrelated riders (earmarks) being secretly attached to necessary legislation and passed on the blind. If a congressmen or senator wants money for a project in their state they will have to propose it in open session, debate and defend it, and then vote on it. Billions of our tax dollars are being siphoned away from vital public services and into obscenely useless pork projects that no politician would dare propose in open session. We have to put a stop to this. We just can't afford it.
3. Instate a progressive flat tax, with no loopholes, and add in a survival minimum to act as welfare. Everyone starts out with 'survival pay'. It's just enough money to keep you alive, but it will at least do that. Whatever more you can earn above that amount is yours and is taxed on a progressive scale. The more you make, the greater the percentage you pay in taxes. If you don't work at all, you still receive your survival pay, but if you're able-bodied, you'll be expected to work on some community projects. If you refuse, you lose your survival pay.
4. Keep a balanced budget. Politicians will no longer be allowed to spend more than we've given them in taxes, except under emergency conditions, like a war or national disaster.
5. Nationalize health care. There are many very good models we can use that will work well in this country. We should be ashamed of ourselves for putting this off until now.
6. OK, now that we've begun to put our own house in order, it's time to begin an intense series of discussions and debates, at a national level, intended to define who we are as a nation, and what our goals will be in the future, regarding our relationship to the rest of the world. The problems in Iraq, and the problem of global warming will have to be the first couple on the list to be addressed, and as we begin to find some concensus on how we wish to position ourselves relative to the rest of the world on these issues, we can begin to make some decisions based on this concensus.
Ultimately, I propose that we begin to clarify some issues that our founding documents left far too vague. And as they are clarified, we will need to add a set of amendments to the Constitution reflecting these further clarifications. If we are wise, doing this will once and for all eliminate some glaring flaws in our system of government that are currently threatening to destroy us. If we can't manage to succeed in doing this, then I suppose we deserve whatever we get.
It will also set out our position relative to the rest of the world for all the world to see, and know. The United States will no longer change it's whole mode of behavior toward the rest of the world with each succeeding presidential administration. Presidents will be expected to carry out the will of the nation toward the rest of the world as prescribed in these new amendments. These amendments will define once and for all what are our unalienable rights as US citizens, and as human beings in the world. And as they do so, they will resolve once and for all issues like homosexual marriages, abortion rights, teatment of foreigners on our soil and abroad, policies on torture and immegration, etc. But it will take some time, some struggle, and many national referendums, I'm sure.
2. No more unrelated riders (earmarks) being secretly attached to necessary legislation and passed on the blind. If a congressmen or senator wants money for a project in their state they will have to propose it in open session, debate and defend it, and then vote on it. Billions of our tax dollars are being siphoned away from vital public services and into obscenely useless pork projects that no politician would dare propose in open session. We have to put a stop to this. We just can't afford it.
3. Instate a progressive flat tax, with no loopholes, and add in a survival minimum to act as welfare. Everyone starts out with 'survival pay'. It's just enough money to keep you alive, but it will at least do that. Whatever more you can earn above that amount is yours and is taxed on a progressive scale. The more you make, the greater the percentage you pay in taxes. If you don't work at all, you still receive your survival pay, but if you're able-bodied, you'll be expected to work on some community projects. If you refuse, you lose your survival pay.
4. Keep a balanced budget. Politicians will no longer be allowed to spend more than we've given them in taxes, except under emergency conditions, like a war or national disaster.
5. Nationalize health care. There are many very good models we can use that will work well in this country. We should be ashamed of ourselves for putting this off until now.
6. OK, now that we've begun to put our own house in order, it's time to begin an intense series of discussions and debates, at a national level, intended to define who we are as a nation, and what our goals will be in the future, regarding our relationship to the rest of the world. The problems in Iraq, and the problem of global warming will have to be the first couple on the list to be addressed, and as we begin to find some concensus on how we wish to position ourselves relative to the rest of the world on these issues, we can begin to make some decisions based on this concensus.
Ultimately, I propose that we begin to clarify some issues that our founding documents left far too vague. And as they are clarified, we will need to add a set of amendments to the Constitution reflecting these further clarifications. If we are wise, doing this will once and for all eliminate some glaring flaws in our system of government that are currently threatening to destroy us. If we can't manage to succeed in doing this, then I suppose we deserve whatever we get.
It will also set out our position relative to the rest of the world for all the world to see, and know. The United States will no longer change it's whole mode of behavior toward the rest of the world with each succeeding presidential administration. Presidents will be expected to carry out the will of the nation toward the rest of the world as prescribed in these new amendments. These amendments will define once and for all what are our unalienable rights as US citizens, and as human beings in the world. And as they do so, they will resolve once and for all issues like homosexual marriages, abortion rights, teatment of foreigners on our soil and abroad, policies on torture and immegration, etc. But it will take some time, some struggle, and many national referendums, I'm sure.
doppelganger
Through the Looking Glass
beckysoup61 said:
Oh, I forgot that one, too. That would be on my list, too.
8. Undoing the chaos created by "No Child Left Behind" and getting our public education system back on track.
