Party Principles (or picking sides)
Who are you for? I started thinking, after some discussions with friends and family, that I really don't know what are the important issues to each party. Or how they plan to address them. I know that I see the legislation being passed as being short sighted or ineffective, or in some cases, against the spirit of America. I know that the people that make these ineffective and short sighted bits of legislation have some agenda in mind, either public or private. So I thought I'd look into the platforms of both parties to better understand what it is that drives the minds of those that are passing laws in our names.
This will likely be a multi part piece. The more I read the more confused I am about where the line is drawn between the two major parties. Lately they sound more like good drinking buddies than partisan enemies. It's in the details that you really start to understand the real focus of both parties. I'll try to write about what I see between the lines of both party platforms. For now, the high level points from both parties.
Democratic Platform:
* Keeping America Safe at Home
- Securing Ports, nuclear and chemical facilities, etc
- Immigration reform
- Halt the proliferation of WMD and nuclear materials
* Strength Overseas
- Strengthen Alliances
* Honoring Our Troops, Veterans, and Their Families
* A Strong Economy
- Expanding Economic Opportunities
- Fiscal Responsibility
- Fair Trade
* Education
- School Resources
- Financial Aid
* Retirement Security
- Protect Social Security
- Pension Reform
* Affordable Health Care
* Honest Government
- Government reform
- Protecting civil liberties
- Campaign Finance reform
* Election Reform
- Voting policies and accountability
* Protecting Our Environment
- Clean Air
- Energy Policy
- Raise the Cafe standards
* Civil Rights
Republican Platform:
* Winning the War on Terror
- Halt the proliferation of WMD's
- Strengthen Alliances to win war, promote peace, and build a better world
- Strengthen America's National Security Institutions
- Honoring and Supporting our Armed Forces
* Ushering in an Ownership Era
- Tax Relief (funny, I'm still paying a lot in taxes)
- Personal Retirement Accounts
- Health Savings Accounts
* Building an Innovative, Globally Competitive Economy
- Lower Taxes
- Tax Reform
- Fiscal Discipline and Government Reform
- Enforcing Trade Agreements and Opening new markets
- Affordable, Reliable, More Independant Energy Supply
* Strengthening Our Communities
- Healthcare/Medicare
- Environmental Issues
- Urban Issues - Faith Based and Community Initiatives
* Protecting Our Families
- Welfare Reform
- Promoting Abstinence
- Protecting Privacy
The Republican platform reads like a Fox News list of talking points. It's very heavy on what's been done and light on what they plan to do. The Democratic Adgenda is almost worse in it's lack of detail and over abundance of "Read more about this topic..." links. At least they are embracing hypertext which is way easier than downloading an 800 page PDF file and sifting through talking points and GW quotes to get to the actual adgenda items. This promises to be a very unfulfilling task. Wish me luck.
Read more...
The Democratic Party Platform:
http://www.democrats.org/agenda.html
The Republican Party Platform:
http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf
