IT'S NOT SO MUCH WHO YOU VOTE FOR, BUT WHAT (CONTINUED)

Today I'm continuing my posting of party platforms.  I'll most likely be interjecting posts about the Presidential candidates in between as news happens.  Here's more of the Democratic party's platform:

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ON CORPORATIONS

Transparency in corporate accounting. (Jul 2004)

End corporate welfare as we know. (Jul 2004)

Tax credits and investment support for small business. (Jul 2004)

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ON CRIME

Crack down on gangs and drugs. (Jul 2004)

Fight crime with prevention, community police. (Aug 2000)

Tougher punishments, including the death penalty. (Aug 2000)

DNA testing & post-conviction reviews in death penalty cases. (Aug 2000)

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ON DRUGS

Bring to justice those bringing drugs to America. (Jul 2004)

Drugs in prison: get clean to get out. (Aug 2000)

Dry up drug demand via more enforcement plus more treatment. (Aug 2000)

Fight drugs and economic hopelessness that fuels it. (Aug 2000)

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ON EDUCATION

Standardized tests to advance learning, not bureaucracy. (Jul 2004)

Charter schools OK, vouchers not. (Jul 2004)

Support lifelong learning and Distance Learning. (Jul 2004)

Bush broke promise of NCLB by not funding it. (Jul 2004)

Education is top priority in Democrat presidency. (Aug 2000)

Character education is an important aspect of education. (Aug 2000)

Accountability is a key to public school success. (Aug 2000)

Reduce class size, modernize facilities, hire new teachers. (Aug 2000)

Enact new tax programs to enable more life-long learning. (Aug 2000)

U.S. needs public school accountability, not vouchers. (Aug 2000)

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ON OIL

We cannot drill our way to energy independence. (Jul 2004)

Energy independence to avoid dealing with repressive regimes. (Jul 2004)

Develop renewable energy and efficient vehicles. (Jul 2004)

Invest in technology & transportation friendly to earth. (Aug 2000)

First is on education.  The Democratic party does not support school vouchers which allows parents to send their children to the school of their choice.  You notice this gives parents freedom to determine what school is best for their children.  School vouchers creates healthy competition among schools in order to vie for students.  Under the current system, public schools do not have to compete for students, but they have a monopoly.  Therefore, no incentive to improve the quality of education.  And with the United States ranking EIGHTEENTH out of TWENTY-FOUR industrialized nations (click HERE for my post about this), I think we need to have vouchers nationally and stop the social experiments that have been going on for the past forty years.

"Enact new tax programs to enable more lifelong learning".  Oh boy, that's just all we need, is yet another "tax program".  And just how is this "lifelong learning" supposed to work?  Unless you make school mandatory throughout adulthood, just where would this tax money go?  Into another black hole where no one could tell you what happened to it as is the case with much of our tax dollars now.

Next, take a look at their stance on oil.  "We cannot drill our way to energy independence."  Oh, really?  The United States is sitting on one of the largest oil reserves in the world.  So large, in fact, that Red China, Cuba, and others are drilling for our oil offshore of the United States.  Your Congress and mine has made it illegal for us to drill offshore for it, so why not just let our sworn enemies have it, and trust them in their drilling practices more than we trust ourselves?  That's how the Democratic Party sees it.

Next point:  "Develop renewable energy and efficient vehicles."  As has been shown over the past thirty plus years since the fuel mileage standards were signed into law in the early 1970's, you can't conserve your way out of a situation.  With the fuel efficiency of vehicles climbing steadily for all this time, our dependence on foreign oil has done what?  If you guessed gone down, wrong!  It was forty percent then, and the last figures I saw was sixty percent.  It may be more than that by now. 

What can be done to start telling the Middle Eastern countries to take a hike?  Increase production here in the States.  There's enough oil in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWAR) alone to supply the equivalent of all the imports from Saudi Arabia for the next thirty years!

Whether you agree with going back to producing our own oil here or not, the politicians (on both sides of the aisle) don't need to be acting like they're out working so hard to fix this problem.  THEY'RE THE ONES WHO CAUSED IT!  We, the people, didn't vote to make it illegal to drill offshore or in ANWAR or anywhere else.  THEY DID!

 

Tags: Democratic Party, Democratic Party Platform, Education, Oil, Corporations, Crime, Drugs, Congress, ANWAR