Posted on 09/22/2002 3:58:25 PM PDT by vannrox
Vermont Democrats base our beliefs on the principles that define and unite our society: democracy and individual liberty as guaranteed by the United States and Vermont Constitutions, equal opportunity for everyone to achieve and to prosper, personal responsibility, respect for all families, the importance of community, and the rule of reason.
BUILDING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES:
We believe that the areas of education, health care, housing, and other essential human services need to be considered as essential components of building healthy communities in Vermont. In these areas, the issues of funding, access, quality and success are all intertwined.
Children and Childcare: The future of Vermont resides in our children. All programs, policies and regulations should be viewed in the context of how they will affect Vermont’s children. In order to allow parents to work, and in order to build a better future for our children, we will implement programs that promote the delivery of affordable, quality childcare.
Education: Education builds the future for Vermont and all Vermonters. It is our best investment. Every child has the right to have an equal opportunity to a quality education, regardless of the town in which they live. We support strengthening education programs for early childhood; we support affordable and accessible higher education; and we support continuing education for adults. We endorse reasonable strategies to provide choice among secondary schools in public education. In accordance with the Vermont Constitution, public funds must be used solely to support non-sectarian schools.
Health Care: Vermonters have a right to accessible, quality, affordable health and dental care, mental health care, long-term home and institutional care, and substance abuse treatment. We are proud of the success Vermont has had under Democratic leadership in extending health care services to most Vermonters, especially our children. We will continue to strive to provide health care services to all Vermonters, to control health care costs, and to improve the quality of health care. We must also continue to find ways to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Housing: Safe and affordable housing is one of the fundamental building blocks for our healthy communities. We will promote the construction of affordable housing, support the construction of housing accessible to the elderly and people with disabilities, and work to uphold minimum housing standards throughout the state.
ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY:
We believe that economic opportunity issues should be treated comprehensively, with business, government, labor and environmental groups working together. A healthy economy is necessary to support jobs and businesses, and to generate the public and private resources that make Vermont a special place to live. We believe that we must employ an economic strategy that incorporates our Vermont values and that seeks to build economic opportunity for all Vermonters.
Regulatory Review: We support the review of economic development programs in order to assess the successful components, to provide accountability, and to streamline the processes that are needlessly cumbersome and bureaucratic. We support the consideration of specific government organizational changes that will create links among agencies where there should be close working partnerships in policy and economic development.
PROTECTION OF RIGHTS:
Our laws and social institutions should protect individual rights and equality regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, health status, sexual orientation, or disability.
Reproductive Education and Choice: We support the right of all to receive complete and accurate information on family planning, pregnancy services, and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. We remain committed to the universal right of women of all ages to make personal, confidential decisions regarding abortion and other issues related to reproductive health, free from harassment and interference.
Workers' Rights: Ensuring the rights of employees in the workplace is an appropriate and necessary function of government. We support worker’s right to organize a union, bargain collectively for pay and benefits, work free from discrimination, and work in safe, healthy and fair conditions. We support Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Civil Unions: We continue to support Vermont’s Civil Unions law.
Equality Before the Law: This national goal, enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, remains unrealized. We support equal rights amendments to the Federal and Vermont Constitutions.
Native Americans: We support measures to ensure the dignity, individuality, and cultural distinctiveness of Vermont's Native American peoples. We also support efforts to resolve the complex legal and public policy questions related to formal recognition of tribal status by the state.
Respect: Respect for the dignity of others is a fundamental building block of healthy communities and a healthy society. We support programs aimed at instilling an understanding of this principle at all levels, including those to combat sexual, racial, physical, cultural, and emotional harassment in our schools and workplaces.
SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT:
Effective environmental protection includes both respect for private property rights and a keen awareness of the public value of a healthy environment in enhancing our economy, public health, and quality of life.
Sprawl: Our goal is to preserve Vermont's unique working landscape and quality of life while encouraging economic vitality in community centers. We support measures intended to: discourage wasteful land consumption; increase public awareness of the environmental costs of sprawl; promote downtowns and village centers; provide more transportation and housing choices; and conserve valuable farmland and forestland.
Environmental Protection: We support the fundamental goals of Vermont's land use planning laws and other foundations of environmental law such as the Endangered Species Act, which are aimed at preserving Vermont's quality of life, the biodiversity of its ecosystems, and the purity of its air, soils, and waters. Accordingly, we also support the designation of a core ecological area within the Champion Lands.
Regulatory Process: Environmental regulations must be enforced fairly and intelligently. We will work to ensure that state agencies are empowered and encouraged to work with businesses to help them comply with necessary regulations as efficiently and inexpensively as possible.
Sustainable Business: We endorse the view that economic development can be carried out in harmony with effective environmental protection. As a first, obvious step toward these goals, we will ensure Vermont should make every affordable effort to attract and encourage environmentally friendly and sustainable businesses such as community-supported agriculture, environmental tourism, energy efficiency, renewable energy, organic farming, green building design, and sustainable forestry.
EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT:
Democrats believe that government should be effective and responsive in protecting and enhancing the public interest. Government cannot and should not try to be the answer to all problems, but open democratic government is essential to protecting and enhancing the public good. Government can provide the context in which communities flourish, individuals grow and gain opportunity, and creative responses to our physical, social and personal needs are supported. Government provides basic services, and should do so with efficiency and fairness. It provides protection, stability, justice and equal opportunity.
Sound Fiscal Policy: Vermont Democrats have an impressive record of sound fiscal policy. We have put in place many protections against revenue shortfalls. We are the party of fiscal responsibility. Sound fiscal policy is based on fair taxation -- reasonably progressive overall, all forms of wealth taxed at moderate rates. Sound fiscal policy is vital to the thoughtful and responsible operation of government and maintenance of social and environmental programs. We must be willing to keep spending restrained, and to use resources to avoid harmful cuts when revenues are down.
Understand and Address the Major Cost Drivers: We need to look at the areas of big government spending to find real economies and efficiencies. Too often government is saddled with “picking up the costs” that other sectors of the economy are unwilling to bear. We need to consider whether there are “least cost” ways of meeting transportation needs, whether prescription drug costs can be lowered, and whether, more generally, the big driving costs such as health care need a whole new approach, both to provide better service and to manage costs. Obviously the goal in a number of these efforts is not just to lower costs, but to find better service at lower cost.
A New Approach to Managing State Government: Democrats believe in consistent, fair enforcement of regulations on the books and in continued improvement in coordination among state agencies. We believe that a top-to-bottom “performance review” of the functions of state government is necessary in order to find creative, smart new ways to make government run more efficiently on the resources we have. We believe that Vermont state government needs to work closely with town government.
Support for Campaign Finance Reform and Public Financing of Campaigns: Democrats took the lead in passing the Campaign Finance law that has been upheld by the decision of the Second Circuit Court in a remarkable landmark decision. We should expand out public financing law to include House and Senate legislative races, along the lines of the Maine model.
Voting Rights: We support measures to encourage maximum voter participation. The Democratic Party supports a change to the Vermont Constitution that will promptly accomplish the election of a governor, lieutenant governor, or treasurer, and fairly reflect the will of the electorate if no candidate receives a majority of the votes.
Sounds good. Only one problem: it's a total lie. Democrats can't come right out and say that their guiding principle is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." So they pay lip service to the principles of the Founding Fathers. But when you get down to the details of their platform, the socialism would bring a smile to Marx's face.
Wouldn't it be nice if both parties shared at least the most basic of premises regarding individual liberty and the proper role of government? How can it be that one of our two parties has gone so totally haywire?
It's not hard to understand given that the other party is willing to go along with 80% of what the Democrats want on just about every issue.
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