SUSTAINABILITY |
III. ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
A. ENERGY POLICY
If we do not alter our energy use soon – and drastically – the ecological crisis may be exacerbated past a point where it can be resolved. A comprehensive energy policy must be a critical element of our environmental thinking. Investing in ENERGY EFFICIENCY and RENEWABLE ENERGY is key to sustainability.
Just as ecological materials management is governed by the concept of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” (in priority order), ecological energy management must be governed by the principle of Conservation, Efficiency, and Clean Renewables. Of highest importance is to use less, then to use wisely, and to have clean production of what is used.
1. Extensive conservation measures will bring huge resource savings for both the economy and the environment. Conservation, along with energy efficiency and renewables, is an essential part of an effective energy policy. The Greens call for pervasive efforts on the energy conservation front. We encourage the creation and design of human environments that are as energy-efficient as possible, recognizing that yet further conservation efforts are a significant means to meeting our future energy needs without further energy production. Similarly, we support the phasing out of the most ecologically harmful sources of energy.
2. We call for the development of STATE ENERGY POLICIES that include taxes and/or fines on energy “waste,” and the funding of energy research, including credits for alternative and sustainable energy use such as solar, wind, hydrogen and biomass.
3. Greens also support enacting mandatory carbon reduction measures and setting the bar for carbon emissions at a percentage well below the best appropriate technology.
4. In order to aid in the rapid replacement of extremely polluting energy systems (nuclear and coal-fired power plants), natural gas power plants could help provide needed replacement power until conservation, efficiency and truly clean renewables are fully phased in. Natural gas power plants should not be used to feed an increase in energy demand.
5. Thanks to technological innovation prompted by regrettably limited federal support, photovoltaic cells now cost one-tenth what they did 20 years ago, and wind-generated power costs one-fifth what it did 10 years ago. It is now estimated that the total RENEWABLE ENERGY contribution to our nation’s energy use could realistically be 10% by the year 2010 and 20% by the year 2020 – but only if increased emphasis is placed on renewable energy. We urge that new construction be required to achieve substantial portions of its heating energy from the sun in the next few years. Incentives/disincentives should be put in place to move utilities toward establishing SOLAR POWER STATIONS to augment and eventually supplant fossil-fuel generated electricity.
6. “TRUE-COST PRICING,” which reflects the “realistic” cost of products including ecological damage and externalities caused during the manufacturing process, must be adopted to achieve accurate financial accounting. Only with a shift in the way we are seeing, can we accurately assess our energy choices and costs – and the long-term impacts of the energy decisions we are making.
B. NUCLEAR ISSUES
1. The Green Party recognizes that there is no such thing as nuclear waste “disposal.” All 6 of the “low-level” nuclear waste dumps in the United States have leaked. There are no technological quick fixes which can effectively isolate nuclear waste from the biosphere for the duration of its hazardous life. Therefore, it is essential that generation of additional nuclear wastes be stopped.
2. The Green Party calls for the early retirement of nuclear power reactors as soon as possible (in no more than 5 years) and for a phase-out of other technologies that use or produce nuclear waste. These technologies include non-commercial nuclear reactors, reprocessing facilities, nuclear waste incinerators, food irradiators and all commercial and military uses of depleted uranium.
3. Current methods of underground storage are a danger to present and future generations. Any nuclear waste management strategies must be aboveground, continuously monitored, retrievable and repackageable, and must minimize transportation of wastes.
4. The Green Party strongly opposes any shipment of high-level nuclear waste across the United States to the proposed Nevada waste “repository” at Yucca Mountain or any other centralized facility. The Green Party believes that this proposal is part of a move to re-fire a fast-track, commercial nuclear industry, if they can get their unsafe waste product “safely disposed of.”
5. We call for cancellation of the WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT (WIPP), the nation’s first weapons complex nuclear dump, in southern New Mexico.
6. We call for independent, public-access radiation monitoring at all nuclear facilities.
7. We support applicable environmental impact statements (EIS) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis with citizen participation at all nuclear sites.
8. We support an immediate and intensive CAMPAIGN TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC about nuclear problems, including disposal, clean-up and long-term dangers.
C. WASTE MANAGEMENT
1. Legal requirements and standards for businesses applying for zoning permits should be formulated to require disclosure of toxics which may be used.
2. Past violations, illegal use and misuse of hazardous materials have to be remedied appropriately. Those responsible for toxic waste dumping, spills, and contamination on or off their sites should be responsible for costs of complete clean-up. In addition, we call for levying sizable fines on those found guilty of violating such standards.
3. We endorse a revisiting of “Superfund” legislation to make these clean up laws more effective.
4. Waste management is a critical challenge to the survival of the modern world. Real reductions in per capita consumption of materials, and significant increases in the efficiency with which materials are used, is a problem that must be faced sooner rather than later. We support RECYCLING at every level of the economy. We endorse SOURCE REDUCTION and municipal programs that particularly focus on household recycling.
5. We oppose INCINERATION of municipal solid waste, sewage, non- biological medical waste, and toxic waste. We support a moratorium on any new incinerators that burn such materials and a rapid shutdown of existing incinerators that do so.
6. We oppose shipping of toxic wastes across national borders, and the SHIPMENT OF TOXIC/HAZARDOUS OR RADIOACTIVE WASTES, without regulation, across any political borders.
7. We oppose the exportation, under any circumstances, of chemicals that are prohibited in the United States.
8. Environmental justice demands that poor communities, minority and under-represented communities not bear an unfair burden when it comes to disposal of toxic wastes.
9. The environmental problems associated with the personal computer and electronics industry are growing worse. The Green Party believes these environmental issues must be identified and addressed:
a.) Pollution. The manufacture of computer chips, computers and peripherals involves a host of chemicals that end up in our water, air, and landfills. Cleanup is a major cost, an "externality" that must be addressed. Health costs associated with the use of computers and electronic devices are not insignificant and range of work-related injuries and illnesses. At work, at home and on the road the digital era is ubiquitous. The shift mandated by the FCC from analog to digital communications systems (including HDTV), as just one example, will produce tens of millions of out-of-date televisions and monitors over the next decade. The chemicals in these devices are dangerous and should not be allowed to simply be deposited in land fills or disposed of in a way that will produce long-term health damaging and adverse environmental effects.
b.) Power. Energy bills associated with the electronics industry are rising and alternative sources of power are needed. Cleaner, cheaper ‘green’ energy has to become a universal goal.
c.) Paper consumption. The demand for printing paper puts pressure on dwindling forests. Clear cutting continues with all the attendant environmental damage. The pollution caused by mills is considerable, and the production of white paper is particularly damaging. Alternative paper stock, and recycled papers, should become the norm.
d.) Packaging. The excessive amounts of plastic, cardboard and Styrofoam many manufacturers use to package computers and software are an increasing problem. These non-biodegradable materials contribute layers to landfills. It’s time to have a complete makeover of the electronics packaging industry.
e.) Recycling. All the materials associated with the personal computer and electronics industry must be identified as recyclable and recycled wherever possible as part of a closed-loop system.
D. FOSSIL FUELS
1. We are aware of the environmental hazards that accompany the use of fossil fuels and of their non-sustainability and eventual depletion. We call for TRANSITION ENERGY STRATEGIES, including the use of relatively clean-burning natural gas, as a way to reorder our energy priorities and over-reliance on traditional fuels.
2. We call for a gradual phase-out of gasoline and other fossil fuels. Until gasoline driven cars can be replaced, we advocate FUEL EFFICIENCY standards, a “gas guzzler” tax on new low mileage vehicles, and a “gas sipper” rebate on high mileage vehicles.
3. We advocate fair “buybacks” of the most polluting and least efficient vehicles to remove these vehicles from the road.
4. We oppose further development of our nation’s outer continental shelf for oil drilling or exploration.
5. We acknowledge the relative benefits that can be achieved in the production of and use of NATURAL GAS in current economic alternatives and transition strategies.
6. Public ownership and/or strong public regulation of UTILITIES should be encouraged to advance energy efficient policies. Appropriate tax-exempt bonds should be authorized to finance public ownership in utilities. Tax-exempt bonds should be authorized to allow publicly owned utilities to finance conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects.
E. RENEWABLE ENERGY
1. Overall, it is essential in the long-term that ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SYSTEMS be put in place that produce goods that are durable, repairable, reusable, recyclable, and energy-efficient, using both non-toxic materials and nonpolluting production methods.
2. We call on regulatory agencies to include “life-cycle” considerations in their standard-setting process for product approval. We promote citizen participation in this process.
3. Ultimately, environmentally destructive technologies, processes, and products should be replaced with alternatives that are environmentally benign. Producers/manufacturers must look to redesigning their products. Legislation that will assist this transition (including bans, taxation, recycled content standards and economic incentives/disincentives such as taxation, special fees, and/or deposits) will be required in a any concerted move toward system-wide sustainability.
F. TRANSPORTATION POLICY
1. We encourage providing a broad range of incentives for ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION, including natural gas vehicles, solar and electric vehicles, bicycles and bikeways, and MASS TRANSIT.
2. As a nation we must push for motor vehicle fuel efficiency, raising the standard to a minimum of 45 miles per gallon by 2005.
3. We must require that an increasing percentage of the Federal motor fleet is converted to natural gas and aims at being pollution free over the next decade.
4. We must expand our country’s network of rail lines, high speed regional passenger service, and urban light rail systems.
5. We support efforts to develop inexpensive, efficient solar cells, chips and panels via “industrial grade” silicon and other advanced materials.
6. We endorse converting our nation’s weapons complex and labs toward civilian RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. We are especially interested in public/private partnerships that work to create breakthrough battery technology which would enable electric cars (and all solar electric applications) to become energy efficient and market competitive.
G. CLEAN AIR / GREENHOUSE EFFECT / OZONE DEPLETION
Climate change presents very real economic and social opportunities for new and sustainable jobs from new energy technologies, including both energy efficiency and renewables. Yet, too often, the focus of debate has been only on the pain of adjustment to carbon reductions, this because of the influence of multinational business on government policies.
With only 4% of the earth’s people, the United States produces more than 20% of emissions. From 1990 to 1996, total U.S. emissions grew by an amount equal to what Brazil and Indonesia produce every year. Per capita, the United States emits 85% more than Germany, twice as much as England and Japan, and currently nearly 10 times as much as China.
The Green Party urges the U.S. Congress to act immediately to address the critical global warming and climate change issues. When the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to oppose any global warming treaty that does not also bind developing countries to specific, if smaller, emissions reductions in the future, which many industrializing countries oppose, it put a roadblock in the way of progress by all nations.
Greens believe the following are possible, if we are to make a start on protecting our global climate. It is imperative that we strive for no less:
1. An early target must still be set to prevent emissions rising so far that future reductions become even more difficult. There must be commitments for 2005.
2. Avoiding loopholes is now even more important than an ambitious target. Unless a very ambitious target is set, which now seems unlikely, allowing sinks and trading within the protocol will create such loopholes that no real reductions will occur. Trading and sinks must be left until there is much more scientific precision about how they are measured.
3. Nuclear power is not an acceptable alternative to fossil energy. We should not accept country commitments that depend on increasing nuclear capability. We must join the solar age.
4. Targets are not enough without credible policies and measures to achieve them. We urge all governments to table a list of the policies and measures they intend to adopt to attain their target, for example eco-taxes and energy performance standards.
5. The Green party endorse the “Contraction and Convergence” model under discussion at international talks, which as proposed would eventually give every human being an equal right to the atmosphere, as the most practical way to achieve justice and participation for developing countries.
6. The strict, comprehensive protections of the “Clean Air Act” must be maintained and enhanced if we are to keep in place effective federal programs that deal with urban smog, toxic air pollution, acid rain and ozone depletion. State and local clean air initiatives should advance and improve national efforts. As an example, California has taken the lead in legislation moving forward stricter clean air and fuel efficiency standards, and vehicle and fleet conversions. These programs should serve as a model for other local, regional and state initiatives.
7. It is said that U.S. industries emit over 20% of greenhouse gases globally. As a nation, we must implement public and private initiatives at every level to support the “GLOBAL CLIMATE TREATY” signed at the “Earth Summit” in 1992, committing industrial nations within a time framework to reducing emissions to 1990 levels.
8. The Earth’s atmosphere, according to informed scientific opinion, is in great danger due to man-made chemicals and hydrocarbon emissions. Chloro-fluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochloro-fluorocarbons (HCFCs), and other related ozone-depleting substances should be banned as soon as is possible.
9. GREENHOUSE GASES and the threat of GLOBAL WARMING must be addressed by the international community in concert, through international treaties and conventions, with the industrial nations at the forefront of this vital effort.
H. LAND USE
Greens are advocates for the Earth. All the rivers, lakes, landscapes, forests, and wildlife. This is our birthright and our home - the green Earth.
When we see the first picture ever taken of our green oasis from space, photographed from the window of the Apollo flight, we marvel at the preciousness of life.
We remember John Muir's and Edward Abbey's call to protect what is critical to our spirit. Experiencing the wilderness calls us to preserve pristine nature. We are advocates for our home. Our advocacy is based on our love of nature and our recognition that it is beyond us.
Greens take a BIOREGIONAL VIEW of the ecosystem, acknowledging political boundaries while noting that the land, air and water, the interconnected biosphere, is a unique and precious "community", deserving careful consideration and protection. Greens support restructuring institutions to conform to bioregional realities. We feel that, just as the planetary ecology consists of nested systems at various scales, so must our programs and institutions of ecological stewardship be scaled appropriately.
Guided by our sense of stewardship, we feel that all land use polices, plans, and practices should be based on sustainable development and production, the reduce-reuse-recycle ethic, and the encouragement of balance between optimum and diverse use of land.
1. Land Ownership and Property Rights
We encourage the social ownership and use of land at the community, local, and regional level, for example in the form of community and conservation land trusts, under covenants of ecological responsibility.)
2. Communities and Urbanism
Greens find inspiration in building healthy, livable communities. Communities must be designed or redesigned so that they are built with energy efficiency in mind, on a human scale, with integrated land uses. Such integrated land uses should provide, for example, ready access between home and work, and to schools, a local supply of food, shopping, worship, medical care, recreation and natural areas. Integrated land use should also de-emphasize individual motorized transport and place more emphasis on ecologically responsible mass transit, bicycling, and the pedestrian.
We promote urban design and architecture that does not alienate, but fulfills, the spirit and that is compatible with human, social, artistic, and environmental values. Greens support the concepts advanced by the NEW URBANISM movement. As there is much to learn about human-scale development and neighborly social interaction from historical patterns of urbanism, we support historic preservation.
Recreational opportunities are the beginning of lifelong appreciation of our natural environment. We should all have opportunities to experience nature firsthand.
3. Land Use Planning
It is imperative that we as a nation find a means to CONTROL URBAN SPRAWL. The ecological, social, and fiscal crises engendered by sprawl are becoming ever-more apparent. Greens enthusiastically endorse the Metropolitics movement, which seeks to control sprawl by integrating such measures as urban growth boundaries, tax base sharing, fair housing, and metropolitan transportation. Urban areas can be revitalized through “brownfields” redevelopment although standards for the clean up of contaminated sites must not be lowered. Rural areas and farmland should be preserved, through such measures as purchase of development rights.
WATERSHED PLANNING should be undertaken to mitigate the impacts of urban development on our streams, rivers, and lakes. Storm water management, soil erosion and sedimentation control, the establishment of vegetative buffers, and performance standards for development are appropriate measures in this area. Special attention must be given to the restoration and protection of riparian areas, which are critical habitats in healthy ecosystems.
4. Natural Resource Management
Greens believe that effective land and resource management practices must be founded on stewardship, such as incorporated in a “land ethic” as articulated by Aldo Leopold.
a.) Stringent natural resource management should serve to prevent activities that adversely affect public and adjacent lands. We call for repeal of the “Mining Act of 1872.” We demand a halt to federal mineral, oil and gas, and resource giveaways, “royalty holidays,” and flagrant concessions to the mining, energy and timber industries; and an immediate crackdown on their evasions and fraudulent reporting.
b.) We call for strict CLEAN-UP ENFORCEMENT of industrial-scale natural resource extraction activities, for example, of tailings, pits and run-off from mining operations via agreement with companies that can include posting of site-restoration bonds prior to commencement of operations. The regional long-term environmental and social impacts of any resource extractions should be minimized, and the land restored to a healthy ecological state.
c.) We call for a halt to all current international funding policies that promote destruction of forest ecosystems and we call for an end to the trade in endangered hardwoods. We support laws that promote paper recycling and mandate SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY practices that promote biodiversity.
d.) We urge protection of “old growth” forests, a zero-cut policy banning industrial timber harvest on federal and state lands, a ban on all clear-cutting, and a reduction of road building on public lands.
e.) We advocate raising grazing fees on public land to approximate fair market value and significant grazing reforms. We support policies that favor small-scale ranchers over corporate operations (which are often used as tax write-offs, a practice which undermines family ranches).
f.) We must promote the preservation and extension of wildlife habitat and biological diversity by creating and preserving large continuous tracts of open space (complete ecosystems so as to permit healthy, self-managing wildlife populations to exist in a natural state. We oppose any selling off of our National Parks, the commercial "privatizing" of public lands; and/or cutbacks or exploitation in our national wilderness areas.
g.) Public involvement in decision making via active and well-funded RESOURCE MANAGEMENT DISTRICTS and COUNCILS will aid a long-term process on the use of federal and state trust lands which are currently controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forest Service, National Park Service, and State Land Offices.
h.) We support banning indiscriminate wildlife “damage control practices” and abolishing the ANIMAL DAMAGE CONTROL agency that has been renamed “Wildlife Services.”
i.) We urge comprehensive baseline mapping of our nation’s biodiversity resources.
I. WATER
Together we must look ahead and plan for future water uses, as well as today’s needs. Who can disagree that clean and sufficient water resources will determine what kind of future we have?
1. With the longer term in mind, we call for elimination of wasteful subsidies on the use of water in agriculture and for municipal water rates to be set high enough, or that other INCENTIVES/DISINCENTIVES be set in place, to discourage the wasteful use of water.
2. We support the federal “Clean Water Act” setting strict requirements for sewage discharges, wetland protection and water quality standards. Recent moves to rollback protections would in effect create a dirty water act. Our right to clean water is non-negotiable.
3. Given the profound importance of clean water, we support the establishment of federal, state, and local GROUNDWATER PROTECTION agencies with authority to establish standards for the use of water; to provide tough and timely enforcement of laws enacted; and to protect our aquifers from overuse, depletion and contamination.
4. We endorse alternative solutions to water treatment and clean-up, for example CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS and biological remediation.
5. We acknowledge Native American rights regarding water, and urge fair and equitable solutions with tribes on the part of the courts and State Water Engineers.
J. AGRICULTURE
The human species is at the top of the food chain and is, therefore, very vulnerable to the degrading of the environment and the loss of species. If for no other reason than our own preservation, we should work to protect our environment and the diversity of our region’s and planet’s rich life forms.
Factory farming (“industrial farming”) threatens to further erode the family farms and the general quality of life in our rural areas. Family farms are the basis of community-based economics and essential to rural development and a healthy, diverse economy.
The consequences of factory farming are devastating. Open pits of putrefying animal wastes are allowed to discharge into rivers and streams, degrading water and air quality, killing aquatic life and posing serious threats to human health and the environment.
Corporate industrial farming practices are inhumane and cause unnecessary suffering to animals. Industrial farming has changed the type of food we eat, and studies are now demonstrating that nutritional value has been decreased, with resultant immune system impacts.
The story of industrial farming needs to be told. The Green Party strongly opposes the rampant and damaging policies of corporate industrial farming and calls for a national shift away from these practices.
The Green Party opposes the “biodevastation” that Monsanto and related “biotech” companies are engaged in. The actions of Monsanto in trying to subvert labeling of RBGH need to be exposed. Monsanto and other biotech companies need to be brought into the light and their actions made public. For example, over half the soybean production in the United States (for example, “Roundup Ready soya”) is the result of genetically modified seeds. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the new stealth product of the U.S. transnational corporations.
The acquiescence of the U.S. government to biotech-friendly capitalism, despite the loud protests of governments and peoples around the world, is a scandal. It is unacceptable that consumers purchasing soy products, for example, do not know whether they are eating or drinking genetically modified organisms. If a fish gene has been transferred to a crop to make it more tolerant of cold, consumers should know that they’re ingesting a genetically modified food organism. If a gene has been added to seed stock to make that crop more capable of being heavily doused with pesticides like “RoundUp,” consumers should be warned.
Genetically modified “Terminator” seeds that are more about “intellectual property rights” and corporate profit than they are about sustainable agricultural practices, Third-world economic independence, and health, should be banned. Labeling should fully disclose where genetically engineered (and/or irradiated) food is being supplied. Consumer choice needs to be based on full and complete disclosure. Whether it is Bt corn, genetically modified maize, or GM oilseed that finds its way into a menu of other products, the consumer needs to know and choose.
Ralph Nader has called for consumer revolts. The time has come. The Green Parties and the Green Platforms around the world are united in opposition to genetically engineered “vat food” that is being shoved down our throats. The arrogance of U.S. biotech firms needs to be shown for what it is – food production for profit, not health. Food will be a key part of the next millenium’s struggle for democracy. The Green Party stands in opposition to a gen-food future as delivered by unaccountable mega-transnational corporations.
1. We call for the establishment of an ecologically based sustainable agricultural system that moves as rapidly as possible towards regional/bioregional self reliance.
2. An adequate FOOD SUPPLY is tied to many of our nation’s domestic, export, foreign aid, geopolitical and related overseas goals. We support anti-hunger and “Food Stamp” programs at home, and support assistance to foreign countries and their people that moves them toward SELF-SUFFICIENCY and sustainability in food production.
3. WORLD HUNGER can be best addressed by FOOD SUPPLY INDEPENDENCE. Population growth and accompanying deprivation, which has led to increased poverty and environmental destruction in the Third World, can be replaced by a decent standard of living, and sustainable populations and growth. Goals and policies that aim at sustainable production to end hunger while preserving the environment are crucial for success of these efforts. Food security is a base-line necessity.
4. We call for phasing out the use of man-made pesticides and artificial fertilizers, and funding for research to find acceptable alternatives.
5. We support “Integrated Pest Management” techniques, as an alternative to current chemical-based agriculture.
6. We support the adoption of “organic certification standards” and support regional efforts to broaden this effort by reaching out to and identifying growers and buyers of organic produce.
7. We call for a reconsideration of the potentially far-reaching and unforeseen effects of seed and plant hybridization and especially of genetic engineering in agricultural systems. We are particularly concerned about loss of and increasing threat posed to plant diversity, which must be saved, maintained and enhanced if we are to have an authentic ALTERNATIVE GREEN REVOLUTION, based on diversity, sustainable agriculture and local self-empowerment.
8. We generally oppose the patenting of life forms, including gene-splicing techniques, and call for a moratorium on agricultural genetic engineering while an evaluation of its effects on ecological and social sustainability is carried out. The implications of a corporate takeover, and resulting monopolization of genetic “intellectual property” by the bioengineering industry, are immense. With the introduction of the world’s first genetically engineered (and duly patented) tomato, we need to re-examine our government’s oversight of this untested, unproven field.
9. We advocate REGIONALIZING our food system and decentralizing agricultural lands, production, and distribution.
10. We support research, within the public and private arenas, including educational institutions, for sustainable, organic, and ecologically balanced agriculture.
11. The Green Party supports the strongest “organic” standards. California has had the highest standards of any state for organic foods labeling. These standards were authored by those in the industry, growers, manufacturers and those in the business of livestock raising and feed production. Proposed USDA standards should be based on the highest standards.
Currently, organic food is priced such that it is beyond the means of low-income consumers. Rather than allow for a system whereby only the wealthier in society get to eat safer and healthier foods, there must be remedies in place to protect all consumers. First, the use of sewage sludge or hazardous wastes as fertilizer, the use of food irradiation and the use of genetic engineering must be banned in ALL food production. Other aspects addressed in organic standards, such as the use of intensive animal confinement and the use of persistent, toxic pesticides must be phased out as well for all food production. Until these take place, there should be an end to government price supports, which aid in non-organic food production and government subsidies should be shifted such that the cost of organic food products is increasingly competitive with pesticide/non-organic crops.
K. BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
Ecological systems are diverse and interlocking, and nature’s survival strategy can best be found in the adaptability that comes as a result of biological diversity. Although many people may think first of tropical rainforests in reference to the richness of (and threat to) biological diversity, we believe diversity close to home is worthy of saving, as are the myriad species within the rainforest and its teeming canopy.
1. The Green Party supports a strong, enforceable “ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT” based on the principles of conservation biology.
2. We look to the “CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY,” first adopted at the “Earth Summit” in 1992, as a primary statement of purpose regarding how we can act to preserve and sustain our common genetic resources. Greens emphasize conservation of “natural” populations and ecosystems, and we seriously question the demands of the US to amend this unprecedented international agreement on behalf of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, with their insistence upon protection of their “intellectual property” and technology transfer rights. Within these demands are inconsistencies which can threaten the Convention’s overall goals.
3. We encourage support of and public access to seed banks and seed collections that emphasize “DEEP DIVERSITY,” particularly through traditional and heirloom seeds.
4. We call for wide-spread education on the critical importance of efforts being made (including “backyard biodiversity” gardening) to replant indigenous plant life where it has dwindled or been lost.
5. Corporate agribusiness is founded on F-1 hybrid seeds, proprietary products that cannot be saved season-to-season and have to be bought from the company store at each new planting. We discourage monopolistic production of high-tech hybrid seeds, the basis of the evolving industry of “MONOCULTURE” agriculture – i.e., agribusiness which relies on NON-SUSTAINABLE METHODS (single crop varieties bred with industrial traits and grown with high energy, chemical and pesticide inputs).
6. We know that agriculture and food comprise the world’s largest economic market. We find it of great concern that the practices of corporate agribusiness are leading, as scientists are beginning to point out, to diminishing yields; increasing petrochemical fertilizer and pesticide costs; serious topsoil loss; non-point, runoff pollution of waterways and aquifers; and the return of resistant pests and blights requiring ever-larger doses of environmentally harmful pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and/or miticides.
7. Monocultures have also led to a massive loss of biodiversity as they have displaced traditional varieties and seed stocks. We encourage the use of diverse natural varieties, those passed down over many generations, called “open-pollinates” because they can be grown out, the best plants’ seeds being saved season to season. In practice, we support this as the basis of an “Alternative Green Revolution,” sustainable agriculture that is closely connected to the environment, and not dependent on outside companies and their industrial monopolies.
8. We oppose in principle international trade agreements (NAFTA, GATT and the WTO in particular) which have precedent-setting provisions protecting transnational, corporate control of the “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY” of genetic material, hybrid seeds and proprietary products.
9. Greens call for a move away from corporate control of agriculture (and the resultant extinction of traditional plant varieties) and instead envision a healthy and sustainable food system, based on crop diversity, community empowerment, self-sufficiency, cooperative marketing, recycling, seed saving, local (and fresh) production, and organic methods.
10. The struggle over the production and quality of our food supply is critical and has yet to be determined. The outcome of this struggle will have an intimate connection to our personal health and the future biological diversity of our environment. We believe strongly that we must work to bring this message every community throughout the world.
11. Cloning is a challenge to basic Green philosophy. Since the efforts to clone animals, and eventually, humans, has been undertaken by profit-making corporations, the purpose behind such projects is to manufacture commodities. To classify a human (or any part thereof, including human DNA or body organ) as a commodity) is to turn human beings into property.
12. Finally, as Greens, we must add that the mark of a humane and civilized society truly lies in how we treat the least protected among us. To extend rights to other sentient, living beings is our responsibility and a mark of our place among all of creation. We find cruelty to animals to be repugnant and criminal. We call for an intelligent, compassionate approach to the treatment of animals.
IV. ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
A. ECO-NOMICS
We can learn from indigenous people who believe that the earth and its natural systems are to be respected and cared for in accordance with ecological principles. Concepts of ownership should be employed in the context of stewardship, and social and ecological responsibility. We support environmental and social responsibility in all businesses, whether privately or publicly owned.
To create an enduring society, we must devise a system of production and commerce where every act is sustainable and restorative. We believe that all business has a social contract with society and the environment (in effect a “fiduciary responsibility”), and that “socially responsible business” and “shareholder democracy” can be models of prospering, successful business.
1. We call for an economic system that is based on a combination of private businesses, decentralized democratic cooperatives, publicly owned enterprises, and alternative economic structures, all of which put human and ecological needs alongside profits to measure success, and are accountable to the communities in which they function.
2. Community-based economics constitutes an alternative to both corporate capitalism and state socialism. It is very much in keeping with the Greens’ valuation of diversity and decentralization.
Recognition of limits is central to a Green economic orientation. The drive to accumulate power and wealth must become recognized for what it is, a pernicious characteristic of a civilization headed, ever more rapidly, in a pathological direction. Greens advocate that economic relations become more
direct, more cooperative, and more egalitarian.
Humanizing economic relations is just one aspect of our broader objective: to consciously and deliberately (albeit gradually) shift toward a different way of life – characterized by sustainability, regionalization, a more harmonious balance between the natural ecosphere and the human-made technosphere, and a revival of community life.
Our communitarian perspective is antithetical to both Big Business and Big Government. It distinguishes the Greens and will enable us to make a unique contribution toward deriving political and economic solutions for the 21st century.
3. Greens support a major redesign of commerce. We endorse “true-cost pricing.” We support production that eliminates waste. In natural systems, everything is a meal for something else. Everything recycles, there is no “waste.” We need to mimic natural systems in the way we manufacture and produce things. “Consumables” need to be designed to be thrown into a compost heap and/or eaten, for example. “Durable goods” would be designed in closed-loop systems, ultimately to be disassembled and reassembled. “Toxics” would be safeguarded and could have “markers” identifying them as belonging, in perpetuity, to their makers.
4. We need to remake commerce to encourage diversity and variety, responding to the enormous complexity of global and local conditions. Big business is not about appropriateness and adaptability, but about power and market control. Greens support small business, responsible “stakeholder capitalism,” and broad and diverse forms of economic cooperation. We argue that economic diversity is more responsive than big business to the needs of diverse human populations. Sustaining our quality of life, eco-nomic prosperity, environmental health, and long-term survival demands that we adopt new ways of doing business.
5. Greens support a definition of sustainability where we openly examine the economy as a part of the ecosystem, not as an isolated subset in which nothing but “resources” come in and products and waste go out and never the economy and the real world shall meet.
B. RE-ASSERTING LOCAL CITIZEN CONTROL OVER CORPORATIONS
Currently, corporations possess more rights and freedoms than natural human persons. Through a series of judicial rulings, and by virtue of their ability to control governments and economies by virtue of wealth, corporations have judicially rewritten our Constitution and have emerged as unaccountable, unelected governments. The Greens, therefore, support all reforms that seek to supplant governmental regulation of corporations with communities that seek to define corporations. In the interim, Greens support measures that hold executives and officers of corporations directly liable for harm that results from their decisions.
When we look at the HISTORY OF our states, we learn that citizens intentionally defined CORPORATIONS through charters – the certificates of incorporation. In exchange for the charter, a corporation was obligated to obey all laws, to serve the common good, and to cause no harm. Early state legislators wrote charter laws to limit corporate authority, and to ensure that when a corporation caused harm, they could revoke its charter.
In the late 19th century, however, corporations claimed special protections under the Constitution. Large companies used legal power to assert legal authority over what to make and how to make it, to move money, influence elections, bend governments to their will. They insisted that once formed, corporations may operate forever, with the privilege of limited liability and freedom from community or worker interference in business judgments.
It is inappropriate for investment and production decisions that can shape our communities and lives to be made essentially from afar, in boardrooms, closed-door regulatory agencies, and prohibitively expensive courtrooms.
It is unacceptable to have the level of influence now being exerted by corporate interests over the public interest. We challenge the propriety and equity of “corporate welfare” in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, payments, grants, bailouts, giveaways, unenforced laws and regulations; and historic, continuing access to our vast public resources, including millions of acres of land, forests, mineral resources, intellectual property rights, and government-created research.
We call for revisiting what one Supreme Court Justice called, when referring to the history of constitutional law, “the history of the impact of the modern corporation upon the American scene.” We believe that corporations are neither inevitable nor always appropriate. Judicial and legislative decisions that have made it possible for big business to stay beyond the reach of democracy need to be re-examined.
Legal doctrines must be continually revised in recognition of the changing needs of an active, democratic citizenry. Huge multi-national corporations are artificial creations, not natural persons uniquely sheltered under constitutional protections. It is time to support local government and state government attempts to DEFINE CORPORATIONS and to prevent these entities from exercising democratic rights which are uniquely possessed by the citizens of the United States.
One point remains unequivocal: Because corporations have become the dominant economic institution of the planet, they must address and squarely face the social and environmental problems that afflict humankind.
C. LIVABLE INCOME
1. We affirm the importance of access to a livable income.
2. Job banks and other innovative training and employment programs which bring together the private and public sectors must become federal, state and local priorities. People who are unable to find decent work in the private sector should have options through publicly funded opportunities.
3. Workforce development programs must aim at moving people out of poverty – a “living wage” campaign and “living wage” standard will go a long way toward achieving this goal.
4. We urge that a national debate be held and broad public mandate be sought regarding (fiscal and monetary) economic strategies and policies as they impact wages. This debate is long overdue. The growing inequities in income and wealth between rich and poor; unprecedented discrepancies in salary and benefits between corporate top executives and line workers; loss of the “American dream” by the young and middle-class – each is a symptom of decisions made by policy-makers far removed from the concerns of ordinary workers trying to keep up.
5. A clear living wage standard should serve as a foundation for trade between nations, and a “floor” of wage protections and worker’s rights should be negotiated and set in place in future trade agreements. The United States should take the lead on this front – and not allow destructive, corporate predatory practices under the guise of “free” international trade.
D. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Reforms to allow communities to have influence in their ECONOMIC FUTURE should be implemented, including:
1. Locally owned small businesses, which are more accessible to community concerns.
2. Local production and consumption where possible.
3. Consumer co-ops, credit unions, incubators, microloan funds, local “currencies,” and other institutions that help communities develop economic projects.
4. Allowing municipalities to approve or disapprove large economic projects case-by-case based on environmental impacts, local ownership, community reinvestment, wage levels, and working conditions.
5. Allowing communities to set environmental, human rights, health and safety standards higher than federal or state minimums.
6. We support a national program of INVESTING IN THE COMMONS; to rebuild the infrastructure of communities; to repair and improve transportation lines between cities; and to protect and restore the environment. A federal capital budget should be put in place and applied in a process that assesses federal spending as capital investment.
7. We endorse DIRECT DEMOCRACY through TOWN MEETINGS, which express a community’s wishes on economic decision-making directly to local institutions and organizations.
E. SMALL BUSINESS AND JOB CREATION
1. Greens support an economic program that combats concentration and abuse of economic power. We support many different initiatives for forming successful, small enterprises that together can become an engine (and sustainable model) of job creation, prosperity and progress. Small business is where the jobs are. Over the past decade and a half, all new net job growth has come from the small business sector.
2. The Green economic model is about true prosperity – “Green means prosperity.” Our goal is to go beyond the dedicated good work being done by many companies (which is often referred to as “SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS” or “VALUE-DRIVEN BUSINESS”) and to present new ways of seeing how business can help create a sustainable world, all the while surviving in a competitive business climate.
3. We believe that conservation should be “profitable” and employment should be creative, meaningful and fairly compensated.
4. ACCESS TO CAPITAL is often an essential need in “growing” a business. There should be a comprehensive set of approaches to making loans available to small business at rates competitive to those offered big business. Financial institutions unfairly favor large corporations and the wealthy when determining how to “work” their loan portfolios. Government needs to reform current lending practices. We support “disclosure laws,” “anti-redlining laws” and a general openness on the part of the private sector as to what criteria are used in making lending decisions.
5. As lending institutions have obligations to the health of their local communities, we oppose arbitrary, or discriminatory practices which act to deny small business access to credit and expansion capital. We oppose “disinvestment” practices, in which lending and financial institutions move money deposited in local communities out of those same communities, in effect often damaging the best interests of their customers and community.
6. The present TAX SYSTEM acts to discourage small business, as it encourages waste, discourages conservation, and rewards consumption. Big business has used insider access to dominate the federal tax code. The tax system needs a major OVERHAUL, to get it up and running in a way that favors the legitimate and critical needs of the small business community. RETENTION OF CAPITAL, through retained earnings, efficiencies, and savings, is central to small business remaining competitive. Current tax policies often act to unfairly penalize small business.
7. Government should reduce wherever possible unnecessary restrictions, fees, and “red tape.” In particular, the “Paper Simplification Act” should be seen as a way to benefit small business and it should be improved in response to the needs of small businesses.
8. We support the full deductibility of health insurance premiums paid by the self-employed.
9. Overall we believe that Federal and State government must pay more attention to putting forward policies that work on behalf of small business, and break their cycle of excessive welfare for big business.
10. State and local government should encourage where appropriate businesses that especially benefit the community. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES should include citizen and community input. The type and size of businesses provided incentives (tax, loans, bonds, etc.) should be the result of local community participation.
11. Pension funds, the result of workers’ investments, should be examined as additional sources of capital for small business. Definitions of “fiscally prudent” need to be broadened within acceptable margins of safety to include investments beyond the current practices (and a credit rating system) almost exclusively benefiting large corporations. Investment managers need to be given discretionary powers to channel these monies, now in the trillions of dollars, into productive small and mid-sized businesses at the local level.
12. Insurance costs need to be brought down by means of active engagement with the insurance industry. Insurance pools, for example, of the kind offered businesses in the association, “Business for Social Responsibility,” need to be expanded.
13. “One-stop” offices should be set-up by government to assist individuals who want to change careers, or go into business for the first time.
14. HOME-BASED BUSINESSES and NEIGHBORHOOD-BASED BUSINESSES need to be assisted by forward-looking planning, not hurt by out-of-date zoning ordinances. “Telecommuting” and “home offices” should be aided, not hindered, by government.
F. TRADE
1. We reject trade agreements negotiated in secret and unduly influenced by corporate attorneys and representatives. In particular, we oppose the NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT (NAFTA), the GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE (GATT), and its progeny, the WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO). They threaten the constitutional power of Congress and local sovereignty, and they effectively limit the participation of citizens in decisions. Instead, they create administrative bureaucracies which will be run by corporate interests unaccountable to public input or even legal challenge.
2. We demand that these agreements be updated to include more specific environmental, worker, health and safety standards in the text itself, not as “side agreements,” and full funding of existing environmental/health commitments (for example, the North American Development Bank and Border Environmental Cooperation Commission).
3. We reject any agreement which threatens the authority of states and local communities to establish more stringent health, safety and environmental standards.
4. We reject agreements that negotiate downward our basic environmental, health, safety and labor standards, including the right to bargain collectively, a reasonable minimum wage, prohibitions against child and forced labor, and which threaten and violate human rights generally. The historic role of the United States has been to raise living standards, not to be dragged down by the lowest common denominator abroad.
5. The Tobin tax, named for the economist who first proposed it, calls for a small sales tax on cross border currency transactions. The purpose is to suppress market volume and volatility and help restore national sovereignty over monetary policy. In view of the growing disparity between the rich and poor in the United States and the world, and in light of the negative impacts of monetary speculation in the “Asian crisis” of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Russia, as well as similar crises in Brazil, Mexico and many other countries in the late ’90s, the Green Party urges that state and international governments work together to impose an effective form of Tobin tax.
In the last ten years, international moneychanging has grown in volume from $200 billion to $1.8 trillion daily with dangerous consequences for countries caught in a speculative riptide. Even a small tax of .01% to .05% would cool the speculative fever and raise between $75 billion and $250 billion annually. While reining in grievous financial abuses, the Tobin tax receipts could be devoted to reducing world poverty, funding international peacekeeping, and attacking environmental problems.
G. RURAL DEVELOPMENT
Economic development in rural areas spans many agencies of government, but eventually comes back to prospering, healthy farms and ranch lands. Recreation, local business, schools and education, health care and energy availability – all are necessary to support diversified, successful rural economies.
1. RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY should begin with the local people. FAMILY FARMS are the backbone of a sustainable rural economy. They are more likely than corporate agribusiness to follow ecological practices that enrich the land; to use labor-intensive rather than energy-intensive farming methods; and to support agricultural biodiversity. Because of their smaller scale and production methods, they are more likely to produce food products that are healthier for consumers. Federal, state and local governments should provide financial assistance to small farmers to help them compete against agribusiness.
2. Price-fixing and anti-competitive actions of the corporate agricultural giants must be confronted aggressively.
3. Programs must be implemented by the federal and state government that add value to the production from family farms to help them remain competitive.
4. Government should encourage BANK POLICIES that spread their loan portfolios beyond corporate agriculture and ranching, and the big, subsidized grazing permit holders, in order to diversify local economies.
5. We support COOPERATIVE VENTURES to broaden markets of local producers.
6. We encourage state-assisted PRODUCT MARKETING EFFORTS and RURAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS.
H. BANKING FOR PEOPLE
1. We support a broad program of reform in the banking and savings and loan industry that acts to ensure that their “COMMONWEALTH” OBLIGATIONS to serve all communities are met. We understand that the present system is skewed to service first and foremost large businesses, transnational corporations and wealthy individuals. Since lending institutions are chartered by the state to serve the best interests of communities, the privileges that come with being given power at the center of commerce carry special responsibilities.
2. The government should take serious steps to ensure that low- and moderate-income persons and communities, as well as small business, have access to banking services, affordable loans and small-business supporting capital.
3. We support the extension of the “COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT” and its key performance data provisions to provide public and timely information on the extent of housing loans, small business loans, loans to minority-owned enterprises, investments in community development projects and affordable housing.
4. We believe Congress should act to charter COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BANKS, which would be capitalized with public funds and work to meet the credit needs of local communities.
I. INSURANCE REFORM
1. We endorse wide ranging INSURANCE INDUSTRY REGULATION to reduce the cost of insurance by reducing its special-interest protections; collusion and over-pricing; and excessive industry-wide practices that too often injure the interests of the insured when they’re most vulnerable and in need.
2. We call for actions at the federal and state level to rein in “bad faith” insurance actions – including the standard practice of attempting legal avoidance of obligations, and the current widespread practice of price fixing.
3. We support federal law that acts to make policies “transportable” from job to job and seeks to prevent insurance companies’ rejection of applicants for “prior conditions.” This is a move in the right direction but in no way addresses the scope of the problem, whether in health insurance, life insurance, business, liability, auto or crop insurance.
4. We support initiatives in secondary insurance markets that work to expand credit – for economic development in inner cities; affordable housing and home ownership among the poor; “transitional” farming to sustainable agriculture; and for rural development maintaining family farms.
J. PENSION REFORM
1. Working people, who own over $3 trillion in pension monies (deferred wages in effect), should have financial options for where their money is invested apart from the current near-monopoly exerted by a handful of managers, banks, insurance companies, and mutual funds. We do not believe the overuse of pension funds for corporate mergers, acquisitions and leveraged buyouts is appropriate or productive.
Yet, the current system has allowed vast amounts of American workers’ hard-earned money to be squandered on job-ending, plant-moving, corporate downsizing. The irony of investing pension funds in corporate decisions that undercut workers rights, employment, and retirement while hugely rewarding non-productive speculation should no longer be ignored.
2. PENSION FUNDS are gigantic capital pools that can, with government support, be used to meet community needs and benefit workers and their families directly.
3. Corporate-sponsored pension funds (the biggest category of funds) should be jointly controlled by management and workers, not exclusively ruled by management.
4. Federal law must be changed so that pension funds need simply seek a reasonable rate of return, not the prevailing market rate, which greatly restricts where investments can be made.
5. A secondary pension market set up by the government to insure pension investments made in socially beneficial programs needs to be considered as one method that could greatly expand the impact of this capital market, as has been demonstrated in the case of federally insured/subsidized mortgage lending.
6. Prudent pension fund investing can and should be made on behalf of those whose best interests are served by having their money both make money and do good work. Creating jobs and supporting employment programs in public/private partnerships can become a priority as we seek to expand opportunities “where the jobs are” (toward small business, not transnational business). Why not look to targeting the under- and un-employed? We believe there are myriad opportunities for a profound shift to occur in how the capital of America’s workers is best put to use.
K. ANTI-TRUST ENFORCEMENT
1. We support strong and effectively enforced ANTI-TRUST REGULATION to counteract the concentration of economic power that carries a severe toll on the economy. The anti-trust division of the Justice Department has had its scope and powers reduced over the past decade. Media mergers concentrating power in the hands of media giants have been ineffectively challenged. An explosion of unregulated mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs and leveraged buy-outs has overwhelmed the federal government’s capacity to provide effective oversight. Financial and trading markets have become particularly vulnerable to “insider trading.” Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation of these markets has seriously fallen short. Overall, what we see in unchecked market power is corruption, self-serving abuse of the democratic, political process, price gouging, loss of productivity and jobs, reduced competitiveness, and an array of predatory market practices that history has documented in detail about monopolies at work.
2. Although the pressure on Congress from the trans- and multi-national corporations is fierce when it involves effective oversight and accountability, we call for the federal government to step up and enforce the existing anti-trust laws and regulations – and tighten the laws as necessary.
3. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) must vigorously oversee mergers where the combined sales of the companyies exceed $1 billion.
4. The Justice Department must redefine its definition of “relevant market share” in assessing mergers.
5. The Congress must enact its calls for “competitiveness” by stopping illegal monopolistic practices.
6. We oppose the largesse of government in the form of massive corporate entitlements.
L. ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY AND DEFENSE CONVERSION
The conversion of defense-related technologies to a peacetime technology-based economy is a major challenge. We must ask ourselves what we are to make of our nation’s defense-related industrial base in the face of the collapse of the Soviet threat to our vital interests and resultant need for a winding down of “national security” spending.
1. CONSOLIDATION of the nuclear weapons complex should move toward alternative civilian technologies and non-proliferation work, not toward a new generation of nuclear weapon design and production.
2. The Green Party, recognizing the need for de-escalating the arms race which continues unabated in spite of the end of the 'Cold War", strongly opposes putting nuclear weapons, lasers and other weapons in space in a new militarization policy that is in clear violation of international law.
3. We generally support defense TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER efforts, particularly new INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS and developments in the areas of advanced communications, alternative energy, and waste management.
4. Let us go forward with government and civilian space programs; RESEARCH INITIATIVES in transportation, advanced products and manufacturing; industrial applications, appropriate technologies and technology transfer; environmental sampling and monitoring; systems testing; laser communications; high speed computers; genetic mapping (with “Genome” project results in the public domain).
5. Let us devote a larger percentage of our nation’s research and development budget, both private and public, toward civilian use and away from military use. Let us become more competitive in developing consumer products and addressing our chronic trade imbalance in this fashion – not by increasing exports of military weapons and technologies.
6. Advanced telecommunications technologies (many of which came originally from defense applications) such as fiber optics, broadband infrastructure, the Internet and the World Wide Web hold great promise for education, decentralized economies, and local control of decision-making. We believe we must move toward decentralization in these efforts – carefully protecting our individual rights as we go forward.
Advanced and high definition TV, digital communications, and wireless communications hold promise and challenge. For example, the public airwaves that will accommodate the new generation of telecommunications technology should not be free giveaways to media giants. An auction and built in requirements that attach to these licenses to act “in the public interest” is needed. Technology provides a tool – we must use these tools appropriately and ethically.
Myriad opportunities for technical excellence and continued economic achievement, apart from strategic, tactical and defense-related weapons systems, are in front of us. We urge Congress, all of government, and a forward-looking private sector to take up this challenge.
7. We call for a federal Technology Assessment Office to examine how technology fits in with life on Earth, in our neighborhoods and the quality of our daily lives.
M. THE NATIONAL DEBT
For many years the federal government borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars. Money that should have been going into a better “safety net” for the poor, homes for the homeless, new business and jobs, research and development, roads and bridges, schools and the technologies of tomorrow, has been lost to servicing the national debt (currently over $5 trillion).
We now have surpluses and projected larger surpluses. However, we cannot ignore the consequences of our nation’s past deficits and the related costs of debt service.
Working people and the small business community are shouldering a disproportionate amount the debt burden. Yet the incurrence of the federal debt was, to a large degree, the end product of those who were on watch during the Cold War and military-defense industry buildup. Hundreds of billions were lost in the savings and loan bailout. The billions upon billions were lost on loopholes, tax breaks, and transnational/multinational corporate tax avoidance. Hundreds of billions were lost due to a failed tax code that has been, in effect, held prisoner to special interests and has produced historic gross inequities between corporate America and working Americans. During the 1980s, our national debt grew from approximately $1 trillion to over $5 trillion.
During that time, we refused to fund Social Security, food stamps, public housing, higher education, public transportation, etc., etc. In effect when you neglect the economic well-being of the society and refuse to protect the environment, the result can hardly be described as a surplus.
1. We must continue to move toward reduction in the national debt and we must make up for the neglect that the deficits caused.
2. We believe a comprehensive approach that forms a basis for a DEBT REDUCTION PLAN would include debt payback; increased revenues; and decreased expenditures in some areas.
3. We support increases in domestic and discretionary spending that is our nation’s essential “safety net,” protecting those most in need. We support increases in the portion of entitlement benefits (one-fifth) that go to the children, the lowest income, aged, blind and disabled. These include food stamps, family assistance, Medicaid, and supplementary security income.
4. We support increased funding for Social Security, public housing, higher education, public transportation, environmental protection, renewable energy and energy conservation.
5. To help make up for our nation’s neglect, we support tax increases on mega-corporate and wealthy interests; defense budget reductions (see FOREIGN POLICY); and entitlement reductions to those who can afford reductions most. Entitlement spending is over one-half of the federal budget. One way to reduce entitlement costs substantially would be by “means testing,” i.e. by scaling back payments to the six million citizens in families with incomes over $50,000 annually.
_______________________________________
FOR MORE INFO:
Visit the National Green Party - Association of State Green Parties
Green Party Platform Website
http://www.gp.org
Green Party Website
http://www.greenparties.org
Links to Green Resources
http://www.greens.org