A Tea Party Platform Posted by Judson Phillips

A Tea Party Platform

One of our long time sayings at Tea Party Nation is that the Tea Party should not endorse candidates; candidates should endorse the Tea Party.   We have run around with our speculations and arguments over who is the best candidate.  Is it Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Allen West or someone else?

On Tea Party Nation, we have discussed a Tea Party Platform.  Here is a suggested Tea Party Platform based on comments people have made in response to questions we have asked on TPN.  In creating the platform, we decided the following criteria would apply.  We looked for what is most important to the Tea Party that could be expressed in a Tea Party Platform, that conservative candidates could sign on to and could reasonably be done in the first four years of a conservative administration.  The list is not exhaustive.  We limited the platform to ten issues.

Here is the proposed Tea Party Platform:

1.     Cut spending.   An immediate reduction in spending to 2004 levels.   Government spending in 2004 was approximately $2.3 trillion.   This one action will almost immediately balance the budget. 

2.     Create a commission for the elimination of wasteful spending.  The commission would have six months to go through the federal budget and propose the elimination of spending that is simply wasteful, fraudulent or programs that do not work, have achieved their goals when they were created, or have simply failed.  The commission’s proposal would go to Congress for a straight up or down vote and cannot be amended by Congress.  It would then go to the President for signature.

3.     Close the border with Mexico.  Use military forces to completely seal the border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, illegal narcotics and terrorists from Mexico.

4.     Enforce immigration laws currently on the books.   Have ICE investigate employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and prosecute those who do.

5.     Cut taxes to stimulate the economy.    While our long-term goal needs to be the replacement of the income tax with a consumption based tax, the immediate goal should be to stimulate the economy with tax cuts.   Start with an across the board 30% cut in personal income taxes corporate taxes and the elimination of the capital gains tax.

6.     Elimination of the Department of Education and Energy, which have failed miserably in their jobs, as well as an immediate freeze in hiring new government employees, except in the area of defense and national security.

7.     Create a plan to make American energy self sufficient within four years, by drilling and using the natural resources we have here in America.  This would include repealing laws that allow bureaucrats or liberal activist groups to file lawsuits that stop drilling or the construction of new refineries.   Create rewards for those who can create marketable energy alternatives. 

8.     Repeal NAFTA, CAFTA and all the other free trade agreements.   For America to remain a viable economic superpower, the country must have a manufacturing base.   Not only do we need a manufacturing base to employ Americans, we also have crucial infrastructure components, such as power generators that are no longer made in America.   If these components were destroyed in a terrorist attack, America could be crippled until we could get replacements, assuming that we could. 

9.     Either win Afghanistan or get out.   The purpose of the military is not nation building.  It is to destroy the enemy.    Either we take the gloves off and let the military win in Afghanistan or we pull out. 

10. Put together a commission to provide a plan to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  Social Security and Medicaid are rapidly heading towards insolvency.   We need a plan to reform these programs.

This is a ten-point platform that is the proposed Tea Party Platform.   It will not have everything everyone wants, but remember this is just the first platform.  Two or Four years from now, we will have another plan; building on the successes we have after 2012. 

What does everyone think?