TrotskistMarx
14th March 2012, 07:41
QGDCrR_37hY
Dear friends, watch this cool commercial for Stewart Alexander as president of the Socialist Party of USA in the coming presidential elections. Read his main political ideas here:
http://www.stewartalexanderforpresident2012.org
Immediate Demands
Labor and Jobs
• Recreation of the work relief programs like the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps; also introducing A REAL DEAL for working people
• Grant the right to strike for public sector workers
• Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act which constrains union activity and limit their effectiveness
• Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and require further increases based on the rate of inflation
Economic Policy
• Return copyright law to 14 years on all new media
• Limit bank fees to 10% more than cost to the bank with a $20 million fine per day for attempting to artificially boost cost in order to increase fees. Certain exceptions for ATMs.
• Create an entirely federal administration for direct loans for homes, cars, and small businesses with less than 10 employees which meet and contractually continue to meet certain labor standards.
• Create a federal administration for auto, motorcycle, boat, life, and home insurance.
• Return to the 1980 personal tax scales, adjusted for inflation.
• Institution of a graduated corporate income tax favoring small companies such as ma and pa shops.
• Legalize, tax, and regulate current illegal drugs which meet poison safety standards (i.e. legalize marijuana but not the ingestion of arsenic).
• Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour indexed for inflation
• Not declare a state of emergency so that federal pay is raised to match that of the private sector’s based on studies in the 1990’s. (Every president from Clinton onward has declared such a state of emergency to ensure the law did not take effect)
• Establish a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to help eliminate poverty and to meet the basic needs of working people and the long term needs for seniors
• Withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
• All banks, financial and insurance institutions nationalized and socially owned and operated by a democratically-controlled national banking authority which should include credit unions, mutual insurance cooperatives, and corporate state banks. Offering to extend this across borders through treaty in North America to include other North American countries.
Basic Services
• Replace Obama-care with a single payer system followed up y initiatives to create a national health care system
• Nationalize the pharmaceutical companies to ensure the best drugs at affordable prices
• Outlaw the use of educational assessment tests to direct the flow of public funds into school districts
• Provide free post-secondary education through the doctorate level to all residents
Military and Foreign Policy
• Immediately suspend selective service for the draft
• Complete withdrawal of troops overseas within 60 days
• Unilateral nuclear disarmament to the point where we can destroy the world only once over
• A military personnel buyout plan where we will pay 75% of the wages of approved personnel in return for the early end of their service terms. All veteran benefits which would be made available to them, had they completed their terms, would still be applicable.
• Freeze all aid to Israel until the state legally recognizes the equality of all within and without their borders regardless of race, ethnicity, and religion.
• Indefinite suspension of the drone program.
• End funding for military projects which the Pentagon does not want (i.e. pork)
• Cut military spending by 50% over 2 years time
• Withdraw the US from NATO and encourage the other member nations to do the same
• Lift the economic embargo on Cuba
Social Safety Net
• Increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) income exclusions to $89.22 for unearned income and $289.98 for earned income based on applying the COLA increases since the program’s inception. (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html) The amounts are currently $20 and $85 respectively.
• Increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) resource limits to $6,691.76 for individuals and $10,037.65 for couples based on applying the COLA increases since the program’s inception. (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html) The amounts are currently $2000 and $3000 respectively.
• Extend unemployment benefits indefinitely until further notice
• Remove the cap on Social Security taxes, allowing workers to pay in on amounts of income over $110,100
Civil Liberties and Human Rights
• Democracy halls rolled in over a 10 year period. These will be centers which encourage multi-partisan political discourse and education so as to promote the high level of democratic activity which is necessary for socialism to be successful.
• Scale back the Hatch Act of 1938 to allow federal employees to enjoy their first amendment rights fully: allow them to run for partisan political office and fundraise so long as these activities are not done while on duty, on the property of their agency, or in an official capacity.
• Closure of Guantanamo Bay and the return of the land to Cuba.
• Recognition of the Geneva Convention’s ban on “enhanced interrogation techniques” and other forms of torture.
• Fight for a constitutional amendment requiring a paper trail for all electronic voting systems and ensuring write-in access in all states. Ensure that all prisoners can vote. Prevent the placement of restrictions on voting which targets select voters under the guise of preventing election fraud.
• Repeal of the PATRIOT Act
• End the selective service for the draft
• Require that all searches on probable cause are formally reviewed to ensure that the given justification provides the expected results greater than 50% of the time.
• Extend federally protected status in the workplace to workers on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and political identity.
• Amnesty for all federal prisoners of select drug crimes (i.e. possession, intent to sell, trafficking but not lacing marijuana with cocaine without the buyer’s knowledge)
• Amnesty for all undocumented aliens and easing of immigration limitations on young workers
• Nationally institute same sex marriage with full and equal rights to heterosexual couples
• Ensure that all political campaigns are 100% publicly funded so that money cannot purchase our democracy.
Government Efficiency
• Remove all productivity accountability measures from Federal agencies
• Funding increases to civilian agencies to be spent on massive technology modernization projects
• Eliminate contractor positions for federal agencies
Environment
• Create a $500 billion fund to subsidize local governments who build subway systems using public workers
• Invest $100 billion in the development, manufacture, and sale of electric vehicles through collective and democratic enterprise.
• Suspend all future offshore drilling projects
• Initiation of federal projects of renewable energy generation
• Ban the practices of strip mining and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)
• Provide funding for, and charge the Agricultural Research Service with, a program to genetically engineer crops to weather climate change and perform more efficient photosynthesis. All genetic modifications will be part of the public domain and available for use worldwide.
(Note: The Socialist Party USA specifically calls for the ban of such genetically modified foods)
Science
• Raise funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) by 50% with assurance that all NASA funds go to purely scientific endeavors and not to military contractors. Fund the search for extraterrestrial intelligence of SETI
• Fund high-budget scientific literacy programs to be run on PBS
• Provide an additional $25 billion for the National Laboratories and Technology Centers to research renewable energy advancements.
Long Term Goals
Electoral
• Institute Proportional Representation for a unicameral legislature
• Institute the Single Transferrable Vote for President and base the election on popular vote alone
Military and Foreign Affairs
• Abolition of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction worldwide
• Reduce the military budget to 10% of its current size, in today’s dollars, or less
• Have the United Nations altered to remove permanent seats on its various committees and veto powers
Economy
• Full employment for all residents
• Have all major means of production in the country under democratic control of the people, independent from the political democracy.
Environment
• Have all energy come from renewable energy sources
• Have a national carbon footprint of less than 10% of today’s
.
Dear friends, watch this cool commercial for Stewart Alexander as president of the Socialist Party of USA in the coming presidential elections. Read his main political ideas here:
http://www.stewartalexanderforpresident2012.org
Immediate Demands
Labor and Jobs
• Recreation of the work relief programs like the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps; also introducing A REAL DEAL for working people
• Grant the right to strike for public sector workers
• Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act which constrains union activity and limit their effectiveness
• Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and require further increases based on the rate of inflation
Economic Policy
• Return copyright law to 14 years on all new media
• Limit bank fees to 10% more than cost to the bank with a $20 million fine per day for attempting to artificially boost cost in order to increase fees. Certain exceptions for ATMs.
• Create an entirely federal administration for direct loans for homes, cars, and small businesses with less than 10 employees which meet and contractually continue to meet certain labor standards.
• Create a federal administration for auto, motorcycle, boat, life, and home insurance.
• Return to the 1980 personal tax scales, adjusted for inflation.
• Institution of a graduated corporate income tax favoring small companies such as ma and pa shops.
• Legalize, tax, and regulate current illegal drugs which meet poison safety standards (i.e. legalize marijuana but not the ingestion of arsenic).
• Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour indexed for inflation
• Not declare a state of emergency so that federal pay is raised to match that of the private sector’s based on studies in the 1990’s. (Every president from Clinton onward has declared such a state of emergency to ensure the law did not take effect)
• Establish a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to help eliminate poverty and to meet the basic needs of working people and the long term needs for seniors
• Withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO)
• All banks, financial and insurance institutions nationalized and socially owned and operated by a democratically-controlled national banking authority which should include credit unions, mutual insurance cooperatives, and corporate state banks. Offering to extend this across borders through treaty in North America to include other North American countries.
Basic Services
• Replace Obama-care with a single payer system followed up y initiatives to create a national health care system
• Nationalize the pharmaceutical companies to ensure the best drugs at affordable prices
• Outlaw the use of educational assessment tests to direct the flow of public funds into school districts
• Provide free post-secondary education through the doctorate level to all residents
Military and Foreign Policy
• Immediately suspend selective service for the draft
• Complete withdrawal of troops overseas within 60 days
• Unilateral nuclear disarmament to the point where we can destroy the world only once over
• A military personnel buyout plan where we will pay 75% of the wages of approved personnel in return for the early end of their service terms. All veteran benefits which would be made available to them, had they completed their terms, would still be applicable.
• Freeze all aid to Israel until the state legally recognizes the equality of all within and without their borders regardless of race, ethnicity, and religion.
• Indefinite suspension of the drone program.
• End funding for military projects which the Pentagon does not want (i.e. pork)
• Cut military spending by 50% over 2 years time
• Withdraw the US from NATO and encourage the other member nations to do the same
• Lift the economic embargo on Cuba
Social Safety Net
• Increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) income exclusions to $89.22 for unearned income and $289.98 for earned income based on applying the COLA increases since the program’s inception. (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html) The amounts are currently $20 and $85 respectively.
• Increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) resource limits to $6,691.76 for individuals and $10,037.65 for couples based on applying the COLA increases since the program’s inception. (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html) The amounts are currently $2000 and $3000 respectively.
• Extend unemployment benefits indefinitely until further notice
• Remove the cap on Social Security taxes, allowing workers to pay in on amounts of income over $110,100
Civil Liberties and Human Rights
• Democracy halls rolled in over a 10 year period. These will be centers which encourage multi-partisan political discourse and education so as to promote the high level of democratic activity which is necessary for socialism to be successful.
• Scale back the Hatch Act of 1938 to allow federal employees to enjoy their first amendment rights fully: allow them to run for partisan political office and fundraise so long as these activities are not done while on duty, on the property of their agency, or in an official capacity.
• Closure of Guantanamo Bay and the return of the land to Cuba.
• Recognition of the Geneva Convention’s ban on “enhanced interrogation techniques” and other forms of torture.
• Fight for a constitutional amendment requiring a paper trail for all electronic voting systems and ensuring write-in access in all states. Ensure that all prisoners can vote. Prevent the placement of restrictions on voting which targets select voters under the guise of preventing election fraud.
• Repeal of the PATRIOT Act
• End the selective service for the draft
• Require that all searches on probable cause are formally reviewed to ensure that the given justification provides the expected results greater than 50% of the time.
• Extend federally protected status in the workplace to workers on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and political identity.
• Amnesty for all federal prisoners of select drug crimes (i.e. possession, intent to sell, trafficking but not lacing marijuana with cocaine without the buyer’s knowledge)
• Amnesty for all undocumented aliens and easing of immigration limitations on young workers
• Nationally institute same sex marriage with full and equal rights to heterosexual couples
• Ensure that all political campaigns are 100% publicly funded so that money cannot purchase our democracy.
Government Efficiency
• Remove all productivity accountability measures from Federal agencies
• Funding increases to civilian agencies to be spent on massive technology modernization projects
• Eliminate contractor positions for federal agencies
Environment
• Create a $500 billion fund to subsidize local governments who build subway systems using public workers
• Invest $100 billion in the development, manufacture, and sale of electric vehicles through collective and democratic enterprise.
• Suspend all future offshore drilling projects
• Initiation of federal projects of renewable energy generation
• Ban the practices of strip mining and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”)
• Provide funding for, and charge the Agricultural Research Service with, a program to genetically engineer crops to weather climate change and perform more efficient photosynthesis. All genetic modifications will be part of the public domain and available for use worldwide.
(Note: The Socialist Party USA specifically calls for the ban of such genetically modified foods)
Science
• Raise funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) by 50% with assurance that all NASA funds go to purely scientific endeavors and not to military contractors. Fund the search for extraterrestrial intelligence of SETI
• Fund high-budget scientific literacy programs to be run on PBS
• Provide an additional $25 billion for the National Laboratories and Technology Centers to research renewable energy advancements.
Long Term Goals
Electoral
• Institute Proportional Representation for a unicameral legislature
• Institute the Single Transferrable Vote for President and base the election on popular vote alone
Military and Foreign Affairs
• Abolition of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction worldwide
• Reduce the military budget to 10% of its current size, in today’s dollars, or less
• Have the United Nations altered to remove permanent seats on its various committees and veto powers
Economy
• Full employment for all residents
• Have all major means of production in the country under democratic control of the people, independent from the political democracy.
Environment
• Have all energy come from renewable energy sources
• Have a national carbon footprint of less than 10% of today’s
.