The Republican platform is out. I’m skimming now. A few things leapt out at me:

Private Property Rights

The core of ownership in America has always been ownership of private property that a citizen can call his or her own. Republicans respect this tradition. For reasons both Constitutional and environmental, therefore, President Bush and the Republican Congress will safeguard private property rights by enforcing the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment and by providing just compensation whenever private property is needed to achieve a compelling public purpose. We oppose efforts to diminish the rights of private citizens to the land they own.

Good. Maybe we can get some eminent domain reform. And:

Fiscal Discipline and Government Reform

It is important to view the size of the deficit in relation to the size of the nation’s economy. By that measure, today’s deficit, although unwelcome, is well within historical ranges. A deficit that is 3.8 percent of GDP, as is now projected for this year, would be smaller than the deficits in nine of the last 25 years, and far below the peak deficit figure of 6 percent of GDP reached in 1983. This deficit is also in line with what other industrialized nations are facing today. The U.S. deficit matches the average deficit within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and is below the levels of France, Germany, and Japan.

Much more importantly, because the President and Congress enacted pro-growth economic policies, the deficit is headed strongly in the right direction. Next year’s projected deficit, at 2.7 percent of GDP, would be smaller than those in 14 of the last 25 years. As Republicans in Congress work with the President to restrain spending and strengthen economic growth, the federal deficit will fall to 1.5 percent of the nation’s economic output in 2009 – well below the 2.2 percent average of the last 40 years.

Fiscal responsibility? Your record on it hasn’t been so good. And, of course, guns:

Protecting Our Rights, Fighting Criminals, and Supporting Victims Republicans and President Bush strongly support an individual right to own guns, which is explicitly protected by the Constitution’s Second Amendment. Our Party honors the great American tradition of hunting and we applaud efforts by the Bush Administration to make more public lands available to hunters, to increase access to hunting clinics and safety programs for children and adults, and to improve opportunities for hunting for Americans with disabilities.

We believe the Second Amendment and all of the rights guaranteed by it should enable law-abiding citizens throughout the country to own firearms in their homes for self-defense. To protect the rights and safety of law-abiding citizens, the Congress passed and President Bush signed the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, which allows active and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed guns in public while off-duty. We support efforts by the Administration and Congress to enhance the instant background check system for gun purchases and to ensure that records of lawful transactions are destroyed in a timely manner. We applaud Congressional Republicans for seeking to stop frivolous lawsuits against firearms manufacturers, which is a transparent attempt to deprive citizens of their Second Amendment rights. We oppose federal licensing of law-abiding gun owners and national gun registration as a violation of the Second Amendment and an invasion of privacy of honest citizens.

We agree that the best way to deter crime is to enforce existing laws and hand down tough penalties against anyone who commits a crime with a gun. This approach is working. Since Project Safe Neighborhoods was instituted in 2001, hundreds of new federal, state, and local prosecutors have been hired to target criminals who use guns. Prosecutions are up 68 percent, and the violent crime victimization rate is down 21 percent. The Republican Party and President Bush support a federal Constitutional amendment for victims of violent crime that would provide specific rights for victims protected under the U.S. Constitution. We support courts having the option to impose the death penalty in capital murder cases. We praise President Bush and Republicans in Congress for the measures they have taken to protect pregnant women from violent crime by passing Laci and Conner’s law, which recognizes the common-sense proposition that when a crime of violence against a pregnant woman kills or injures her unborn child, there are two victims and two offenses that should be punished.

No mention of the assault weapons ban, which is good. On paper, their gun stuff sounds good. We’ll know if they mean it on September 14, 2004.

Oh, and tax cuts.

Posted in uncategorized on September 1st, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |