Bforex लोकतांत्रिक पक्ष

आज की डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी: अमेरिका की चुनौतियां, अमेरिका के मूल्यों की सुरक्षा, परिचय 1996 में, अमेरिका राष्ट्रपति का चयन करेगा जो हमें सहस्राब्दियों से नेतृत्व करेंगे, जिसने हमारे राष्ट्र का जन्म देखा होगा, और भविष्य में जो हमारे पास से भी अधिक हो शानदार अतीत आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी उस भविष्य के लिए तैयार है हमारी दृष्टि सरल है हम एक अमरीका चाहते हैं कि सभी अमेरिकियों को अपने सपनों को जीवित रहने और अपने देवता-प्राप्त क्षमता को प्राप्त करने का अवसर प्रदान करता है। हम एक अमरीका चाहते हैं जो अभी भी शांति और स्वतंत्रता के लिए दुनिया की सबसे मजबूत बल है। और हम एक ऐसा अमेरिका चाहते हैं जो अलग-थलग होने के बजाय हमारे स्थायी मूल्यों के साथ एक साथ आ रहा है। आज का डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी अमेरिका को सबसे बुनियादी सौदा नवीनीकृत करने के लिए निर्धारित है: हर अमेरिकी का मौका, और प्रत्येक अमेरिकी से जिम्मेदारी। और आज का डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी अमेरिकी समुदाय की महान भावना को पुनः प्राप्त करने के लिए निर्धारित है। अवसर। ज़िम्मेदारी। समुदाय। ये ऐसे मूल्य हैं जो अमेरिका को मजबूत बनाते हैं। ये डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी के मूल्य हैं ये मूल्य हैं जो हमें भविष्य में मार्गदर्शन करना चाहिए। आज, अमेरिका आगे बढ़ रहा है मजबूत राष्ट्रपति के नेतृत्व के साथ इसे हकदार। अर्थव्यवस्था मजबूत है, घाटा कम है, और सरकार छोटी है। शिक्षा बेहतर है, हमारा वातावरण क्लीनर है, परिवार स्वस्थ हैं, और हमारी सड़कों को सुरक्षित है। अमेरिका में और अवसर हैं, हमारे घरों में और ज़्यादा ज़िम्मेदारी है, और दुनिया में ज्यादा शांति है। आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी गर्व से पिछले चार वर्षों के रिकॉर्ड पर खड़ा है। हम एक बड़ी संभावना के युग में रह रहे हैं, और हम यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए काम कर रहे हैं कि सभी अमेरिकियों में इसका सबसे ज्यादा फायदा हो सकता है। अमेरिका सही दिशा में आगे बढ़ रहा है अब हमें आगे बढ़ना चाहिए, और हम जानते हैं कि हमें जिस कोर्स का अनुसरण करना चाहिए। हमें एक छोटे, अधिक प्रभावी, अधिक कुशल, कम नौकरशाही सरकार की आवश्यकता है जो हमारे समय-सम्मानित मूल्यों को दर्शाती है। अमेरिकी लोग बड़े सरकारी समाधान नहीं चाहते और वे खाली वादे नहीं चाहते वे एक सरकार चाहते हैं जो उनके लिए है, उनके खिलाफ नहीं जो कि उनके जीवन में हस्तक्षेप करती है, लेकिन उनकी गुणवत्ता की गुणवत्ता को बढ़ाती है वे एक ऐसा कोर्स चाहते हैं जो उचित है, वह यथार्थवादी, और समाधान जो कि वितरित किए जा सकते हैं - एक मध्यम, प्राप्त करने योग्य, सामान्य ज्ञान वाला एजेंडा है जो लोगों के दैनिक जीवन में सुधार लाएगा और सरकार के आकार में वृद्धि नहीं करेगा। यही आज की डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी की पेशकश है: बड़ी सरकार के युग का अंत और गुमराह वाले कॉल का अंतिम अस्वीकार करने के लिए अपने नागरिकों को खुद के लिए रुकने के लिए छोड़ देना - और भविष्य में बोल्ड नेतृत्व: अमेरिका की चुनौतियों से निपटने के लिए, अमेरिका के मूल्यों की रक्षा करना, और अमेरिकी सपनों को पूरा करें अवसर 220 साल के लिए, अमेरिका को एक आदर्श द्वारा परिभाषित किया गया है: सभी को जो इसे जब्त करने की ज़िम्मेदारी लेते हैं, उनके लिए अवसर। 1 99 6 में डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी का मिशन यह सुनिश्चित करना है कि सभी के लिए शानदार अमेरिकी सपने का मौका सभी के लिए पहुंच के भीतर है, और यह हमारे साथ पूर्ण और अखंड रहता है, जैसा कि हम कल में एक साथ चलते हैं आर्थिक विकास। चूंकि बिल क्लिंटन राष्ट्रपति बन गए हैं, इसलिए अमेरिका ने नौकरी की वृद्धि, आर्थिक नवीनीकरण और अवसर का विस्फोट देखा है। अमेरिकी लोगों ने 10 मिलियन से अधिक नई नौकरियां बनाई हैं जापान के लिए 14 वर्षों का पीछा करने के बाद, 1 99 4 में अमेरिका एक बार फिर ऑटोमोबाइल की अग्रणी निर्माता बन गया और पिछले साल एक नंबर बना रहा। मुद्रास्फीति, बेरोजगारी और बंधक ब्याज दरों की संयुक्त दर तीन दशकों में सबसे कम है। अब, 4.4 मिलियन अधिक अमेरिकियों का अपना घर है, और अमेरिकियों ने पिछले तीन वर्षों में से प्रत्येक में नए छोटे व्यवसायों की संख्या दर्ज की है। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन ने पदभार ग्रहण करने से पहले 12 साल में, व्हाइट हाउस में रिपब्लिकन ने घाटे को नियंत्रण से बाहर जाने की इजाजत दी और आम अमेरिकियों के आर्थिक हितों को नजरअंदाज कर दिया। बिल क्लिंटन ने चीजों को बदलने के लिए और एक नई दिशा में अमेरिका को स्थानांतरित करने के लिए निर्धारित किया था। उनके नेतृत्व के साथ, हम आर्थिक विकास के लिए एक व्यापक रणनीति तैयार कर चुके हैं। आज का डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी जानता है कि निजी क्षेत्र आर्थिक विकास का इंजन है, और हम अमेरिका के आर्थिक घर को क्रम में रखने के लिए लड़े हैं ताकि निजी व्यवसाय समृद्ध हो सके। हमने खुली और निष्पक्ष व्यापार के माध्यम से एक नई वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था की पूर्ण क्षमता को टैप करने के लिए काम किया। हम अमेरिकी लोगों में निवेश करने के लिए लड़े हैं इसलिए उनकी नई अर्थव्यवस्था की मांगों को पूरा करने की क्षमता होगी। और हमने सड़कों, पुलों और राजमार्गों में निवेश किया है जो अमेरिकी वाणिज्य की जीवनरेखा हैं। कांग्रेस में डेमोक्रेट ने इस पाठ्यक्रम का समर्थन किया और अमेरिका बेहतर है क्योंकि उन्होंने किया रिपब्लिकन ने हमारी आर्थिक योजना का विरोध किया है पिछले चार वर्षों में अमेरिका का आर्थिक विकास यह स्पष्ट करता है कि वे गलत थे। हमारी रणनीति जगह में है, और यह काम कर रही है। हमें पिछले चार वर्षों में हमारे आर्थिक रिकॉर्ड पर गर्व है - और हम जानते हैं कि हमारे रिकॉर्ड को बनाने का रिकॉर्ड है, आराम करने के लिए नहीं। हमें आगे बढ़ना होगा, यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कि हर अमेरिकी को कड़ी मेहनत करने के लिए तैयार किया गया है, उसे एक अच्छा जीवन बनाने और आर्थिक सफलता के लाभों में हिस्सा लेने का अवसर मिला है। पिछले चार सालों में हमने अमेरिकी अर्थव्यवस्था को प्राप्त करने के लिए काम किया: घाटे में कमी, व्यापार का विस्तार, और हमारे लोगों में निवेश। अगले चार सालों में हमें सभी अमेरिकियों के लिए नई अर्थव्यवस्था का काम करना है: बजट को संतुलित करना, अधिक नौकरियां बनाना, यह सुनिश्चित करना कि सभी परिवार अच्छे स्वास्थ्य देखभाल और सुरक्षित सेवानिवृत्ति पर भरोसा कर सकते हैं, और सबसे अधिक, शैक्षणिक अवसरों का विस्तार करना सभी अमेरिकियों को उन कौशलों को सीखना चाहिए जिन्हें उन्हें सबसे अच्छा संभव भविष्य बनाने की जरूरत है। बजट को संतुलित करना 12 वर्षों के लिए, रिपब्लिकन ने गुलामी परिदृश्यों के पीछे छिपा रखा, जबकि राष्ट्रीय ऋण चौगुना। हमें पता था कि इसे रोकना पड़ा था। 1 99 2 में, हमने आधे से अधिक चार वर्षों में घाटे में कटौती करने का वादा किया था। हमने किया। हमारी 1993 की आर्थिक योजना पांच साल में एक चौथाई खरब डॉलर से अधिक काट रही है। आज ही एकमात्र घाटा शेष 12 रिपब्लिकन वर्षों में कर्ज पर ब्याज का भुगतान है, इससे पहले कि वित्तीय जिम्मेदारी व्हाइट हाउस में लौट आई है। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन पहले राष्ट्रपति हैं, जो कि सिविल युद्ध से पहले एक घाटी में चार साल तक कटौती कर रहे हैं। अब डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी काम खत्म करने और बजट को संतुलित करने के लिए निर्धारित है। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन ने 2002 तक बजट को संतुलित करने की योजना बनाई है, जबकि हमारे वृद्ध और हमारे बच्चों के प्रति हमारी प्रतिबद्धताओं को पूरा करते हुए और मजबूत आर्थिक विकास बनाए रखना। रिपब्लिकन कांग्रेस अपने अर्थशास्त्री मानते हैं कि राष्ट्रपतियों की योजना 2002 तक बजट को संतुलित करेगी। यह सैकड़ों बेकार और पुरानी कार्यक्रमों में कटौती करता है, लेकिन यह मेडिक्केयर और मेडिकाइड को संरक्षित करता है, यह शिक्षा और पर्यावरण की सुरक्षा करता है, और यह कार्यरत परिवारों के बचाव में है। राष्ट्रपति की योजना अमेरिका के मूल्यों को दर्शाती है रिपब्लिकन योजना नहीं है आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी का मानना ​​है कि हमारे माता-पिता की देखभाल करने का हमारा कर्तव्य है, ताकि वे अपने जीवन को गरिमा में जीवित कर सकें। उस कर्तव्य में मेडिकर और मेडिकेड हासिल करना शामिल है, गुणवत्ता को कम करने के बिना बचत खोजना, और भविष्य की पीढ़ियों के लिए सामाजिक सुरक्षा की रक्षा करना। रिपब्लिकन एजेंडा बड़े पैमाने पर चिकित्सा कटौती, इतिहास में सबसे बड़ी चिकित्सा कटौती की तुलना में तीन गुना अधिक है, जिसमें वरिष्ठ नागरिकों पर नया प्रीमियम बढ़ता है, और मेडिकाइड में भारी बदलाव शामिल हैं जो बच्चों और वरिष्ठ नागरिकों की स्वास्थ्य देखभाल को खतरे में डालेगा। आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी का मानना ​​है कि सभी बच्चों को अपने जीवन का सबसे ज्यादा फायदा उठाने का मौका और शिक्षा होनी चाहिए। हमें विश्वास है कि स्कूलों को शिक्षकों और प्रिंसिपलों द्वारा चलाया जाना चाहिए, वाशिंगटन द्वारा नहीं। रिपब्लिकन एजेंडे कॉलेज छात्रवृत्ति और कॉलेज ऋण को घटाता है, हेड स्टार्ट में कटौती करता है, और वर्ग के आकार को कम करने और शिक्षक के मानकों में सुधार करने के लिए धन में कटौती करता है। आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी का मानना ​​है कि भविष्य की पीढ़ियों के लिए भगवान की धरती और अमेरिकी गुणवत्ता की गुणवत्ता को बनाए रखने का हमारा कर्तव्य है। हम सुधार करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध हैं, इसलिए हम अपने पर्यावरण की रक्षा करते हैं, लेकिन हम लाल टेप की उलझन में कारोबार नहीं फेंकते रिपब्लिकन बजट हिम्मत पर्यावरण संरक्षण आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी का मानना ​​है कि कामकाजी लोगों को गरीबी में नहीं लगाया जाना चाहिए। रिपब्लिकन बजट लाखों कार्यरत परिवारों पर करों को बढ़ाता है आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी का मानना ​​है कि अमेरिका को हमारे परिवारों को सबसे पहले रखना चाहिए। रिपब्लिकन बजट ने बिग बर्ड को 5 साल के बच्चों से दूर करने की कोशिश की, 10 साल के बच्चों से स्कूल लंच दूर, 15 साल के बच्चों से गर्मी की नौकरियां, और 20 साल के बच्चों से दूर कॉलेज ऋण दूर। आज के डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी एक ऐसी सरकार में विश्वास करती है जो बेहतर काम करती है और कम खर्च करती है। हम जानते हैं कि सरकारी कर्मचारी खराब सिस्टम में फंसे अच्छे लोग हैं, और हम उन सिस्टम को सुधारने के लिए सरकार को दोबारा बदलने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध हैं। हमारा मानना ​​है कि सार्वजनिक कर्मचारियों को अनुचित राजनीतिक रूप से आलोचना से उनके मनोबल को नष्ट करने और निजी क्षेत्र की कार्यवाही करने की उनकी क्षमता में बाधा आने से बहुत अधिक समय का सामना करना पड़ रहा है। रिपब्लिकन बजट में कटौती सरकार जहां हमारे मूल्यों की रक्षा के लिए आवश्यक है, और वे भी पूरी तरह से अमेरिकी लोगों पर अपने बजट को बल देने के लिए सरकार को बंद करने के लिए तैयार थे। कार्यरत परिवारों और छोटे व्यवसायों के लिए कर राहत। कांग्रेस में राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और डेमोक्रेट ने अर्जित आयकर क्रेडिट का विस्तार किया, 15 मिलियन कामकाजी परिवारों में 40 मिलियन अमरीकी लोगों की सहायता के लिए करों में कटौती - एक ही रिपब्लिकन वोट के बिना। डोले-गिंगरिक बजट को सबसे धनी अमेरिकियों को बड़े पैमाने पर टैक्स को तोड़ने के लिए डिजाइन किया गया था, और सामान्य अमेरिकियों पर करों में बढ़ोतरी और बुजुर्गों के लिए स्वास्थ्य देखभाल में कमी करके इसके लिए भुगतान किया गया था। अमेरिका कुछ समय के लिए वापसी नहीं कर सकता- कुछ भी नहीं कर कटौती और धुआं और दर्पण लेखांकन जो घाटे में विस्फोट का एक दशक का उत्पादन किया। आज की डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी टैक्स कटौती को लक्षित करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है जो काम करने वाले अमेरिकियों को अपने भविष्य में निवेश करने में सहायता करती है, और हम जोर देते हैं कि किसी भी कर कटौती का भुगतान पूरी तरह से किया जाता है, क्योंकि हम बजट को संतुलित करने के लिए निर्धारित हैं। हम बच्चों के लिए 500 कर कटौती प्रदान करके मध्यवर्गीय परिवारों को मजबूत करना चाहते हैं। हम हाई स्कूल के बाद परिवार के लिए शिक्षा के लिए भुगतान करने के लिए करों में कटौती करना चाहते हैं और कॉलेज के पहले दो वर्षों की गारंटी देना चाहते हैं। हम चाहते हैं कि लोग अपने IRAs का उपयोग पहले घर खरीदने, चिकित्सा आपातकालीन स्थिति से निपटने, या शिक्षा प्रदान करने के लिए कर सकें। हम छोटे व्यवसायों के लिए करों में कटौती करना चाहते हैं जो भविष्य में निवेश करते हैं और अपने कर्मचारियों के लिए पेंशन की स्थापना करते हैं। और हम उन लोगों के लिए करों में कटौती करना चाहते हैं जो स्व-नियोजित और आत्म-बीमा हैं ताकि उनकी स्वास्थ्य देखभाल अधिक किफायती हो। प्रौद्योगिकी। हम प्रौद्योगिकी के विकास में आर्थिक विकास को जानते हैं, नए ज्ञान उत्पन्न करते हैं, नई उच्च मजदूरी की नौकरियां बनाते हैं, नए उद्योगों का निर्माण करते हैं, और हमारे जीवन की गुणवत्ता में सुधार करते हैं। अमेरिका में नवप्रवर्तन के प्रति समर्पण को कम करने के लिए रिपब्लिकन प्रयासों के चेहरे में, राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी ने विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी में महत्वपूर्ण निवेश बनाए रखने के लिए लड़े हैं। हमें याद है कि प्रौद्योगिकी में सरकारी निवेश कंप्यूटर के लिए, जेट विमानों के लिए, और इंटरनेट के लिए जिम्मेदार है - कोई भी निवेश कभी भी बेहतर, नौकरी, अवसर या विकास में बंद नहीं हुआ है। हम सरकारी नीतियों का समर्थन करते हैं जो एक स्थायी विकास और विकास टैक्स क्रेडिट की तरह एक समर्थक विकास आर्थिक जलवायु बनाने के लिए निजी क्षेत्र के निवेश और नवीनता को प्रोत्साहित करती हैं। हम चाहते हैं कि प्रौद्योगिकी नौकरियों का निर्माण करे और अमेरिकन श्रमिकों के लिए जीवन की गुणवत्ता में सुधार करे। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और उपराष्ट्रपति गोर के लिए लड़े और राष्ट्रपति ने हस्ताक्षर किए, एक व्यापक दूरसंचार सुधार बिल जो सूचना उद्योग की रचनात्मक शक्ति को लाखों उच्च मजदूरी अमेरिकी नौकरियों बनाने के लिए प्रेरित करेगा। हम यह मानते हैं कि विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी के क्षेत्र में अमेरिकी नेतृत्व के शोध महाविद्यालयों और विश्वविद्यालयों का आधार है। जब हम अपने शोध संस्थानों में निवेश करते हैं तो हम अमेरिकी वैज्ञानिकों और इंजीनियरों की अगली शानदार पीढ़ी को प्रशिक्षित करने के लिए वाकई अपने भविष्य में निवेश कर रहे हैं। जैसा कि हम 21 वीं सदी में प्रवेश करते हैं, हम अमेरिकी व्यापार के साथ साझेदारी में विश्वस्तरीय अनुसंधान और विकास, परिवहन, सूचना, और अन्य उद्योगों, और कृषि और पर्यावरण अनुसंधान में उन्नत प्रौद्योगिकियों में निवेश करना जारी रखेंगे। हम राष्ट्रीय प्रयोगशालाओं को फिर से बदलने और अंतरिक्ष स्टेशन के लिए समर्थन सहित अमेरिका अंतरिक्ष कार्यक्रम को पुनर्जीवित करने के लिए काम कर रहे हैं। व्यापार के माध्यम से नौकरियां बनाना हमारा मानना ​​है कि अगर हम चाहते हैं कि अमेरिकी अर्थव्यवस्था मजबूत विकास जारी रखे, तो हमें व्यापार का विस्तार करना जारी रखना चाहिए, और दुनिया से पीछे हटना नहीं चाहिए। अमेरिका के बाजार दुनिया के लिए खुले हैं, इसलिए अमेरिका को यह मांग करने का अधिकार है कि दुनिया के बाज़ार हमारे उत्पादों के लिए खुले हैं। अमेरिकी उत्पादों दुनिया में सबसे अच्छे हैं जब अमेरिकी कर्मचारी और अमेरिकी कंपनियों को दुनिया भर में प्रतिस्पर्धा करने का मौका मिलता है, तो हम दूसरी जगह नहीं लेते हैं। पिछले चार वर्षों में, क्लिंटन-गोर प्रशासन ने नाफ्टा और जीएटीटी समेत 200 व्यापार समझौतों पर हस्ताक्षर किए हैं, ताकि वे दुनिया भर के अमेरिकी उत्पादों को बाजार में खोल सकें, और उन लोगों के लिए ज्यादा नौकरियां बना सकें जो उन्हें घर पर बनाते हैं। हमने आधुनिक अमेरिका के इतिहास में किसी भी प्रशासन के विदेशी व्यापार अवरोधों को कम करने के लिए सबसे व्यापक समझौते किए हैं, जिसमें जापान के साथ 20 ऐसे समझौतों शामिल हैं- और उन समझौतों के अंतर्गत आने वाले क्षेत्रों में जापान को अमेरिकी निर्यात में 85 प्रतिशत की वृद्धि हुई है। संपूर्ण दुनिया में, अमेरिकी उत्पादों के लिए बाधाएं कम हो गई हैं, निर्यात हर समय उच्च रहे हैं - और हमने एक लाख से अधिक उच्च-भुगतान निर्यात संबंधी नौकरियां बनाई हैं। अगले चार सालों में, हमें विदेशी व्यापार बाधाओं को कम करने के लिए काम करना जारी रखना चाहिए कि विदेशी कंपनियों ने घर पर और विदेशों में उचित नियमों के जरिये खेलना जारी रखा है, जो विश्व अर्थव्यवस्था को धोखाधड़ी और खतरनाक अस्थिरता से सुरक्षित रखने के लिए विदेशों में अमेरिकी वाणिज्यिक हितों की अगुवाई करता है और यह सुनिश्चित करता है कि नए वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था सीधे अमेरिकी कार्यरत परिवारों के लिए फायदेमंद है जैसा कि हम नए बाजारों को खोलने के लिए काम करते हैं, हमें गारंटी देने के लिए बातचीत करना चाहिए कि सभी व्यापार समझौतों में बच्चों, श्रमिकों, सार्वजनिक सुरक्षा और पर्यावरण की रक्षा के लिए मानक शामिल हैं। विश्व अर्थव्यवस्था में प्रतिस्पर्धा और वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था में जीतने के लिए हमें पर्याप्त व्यापार समायोजन सहायता और शिक्षा और प्रशिक्षण कार्यक्रमों को सुनिश्चित करना चाहिए। शिक्षा। आज का डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी जानता है कि शिक्षा अवसरों की कुंजी है। नई वैश्विक अर्थव्यवस्था में, यह पहले से कहीं ज्यादा महत्वपूर्ण है। आज शिक्षा, गलती की रेखा है, जो उन लोगों से अलग हो सकती है जो उनको नहीं समझा सकते हैं। कांग्रेस में राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और डेमोक्रेट ने पिछले चार सालों में अमेरिकी शिक्षा की गुणवत्ता में सुधार करने और सभी अमेरिकियों को शिक्षा हासिल करने के लिए अवसरों का विस्तार करने के लिए कोई प्रयास नहीं छोड़ा है। रास्ते में हर कदम, हम शिक्षा काटने पर रिपब्लिकन के इरादे से विरोध किया गया है। अब, वे हेड स्टार्ट से कॉलेज छात्रवृत्ति के माध्यम से शिक्षा में कटौती करना चाहते हैं वे हमारे पब्लिक स्कूलों को कमजोर करना चाहते हैं और लाखों छात्रों के लिए कॉलेज के लिए उधार लेना मुश्किल बनाते हैं। आज की डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी शिक्षा पर रिपब्लिकन हमले के खिलाफ दृढ़ता से खड़ी होगी। जैसा कि हम 21 वीं सदी में आगे बढ़ते हैं, शिक्षा को कम करना शीत युद्ध की ऊंचाई पर रक्षा खर्च को कम करना होगा। शिक्षा के अवसरों को बढ़ाने के लिए हमें कुछ और करना होगा - कम नहीं सार्वजनिक स्कूलों को सुदृढ़ बनाना हम उन बच्चों की आवश्यकता के लिए प्रारंभिक शिक्षा का विस्तार करने के लिए हेड स्टार्ट फंडिंग बढ़ाना चाहते हैं, जिनकी आवश्यकता है। हमने उच्च स्तरों को स्थापित करने में स्कूलों को मदद करने के लिए लक्ष्य 2000 पारित किया, और जिन संसाधनों की उन्हें आवश्यकता है उन्हें ढूंढें: सर्वश्रेष्ठ किताबें, प्रतिभाशाली शिक्षक, सबसे आधुनिक तकनीक हमने संघीय शिक्षा कार्यक्रमों का पुनर्गठन किया और स्थानीय स्कूलों, शिक्षकों और प्रिंसिपलों को लचीलेपन देने और उन मानकों को पूरा करने के लिए उन्हें मदद करने के लिए संघीय नियमों का सफाया कर दिया। शिक्षक शिक्षा का विस्तार करके हमारे बच्चों के पास सबसे अच्छे शिक्षक हैं यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए हमने काम किया है। हम राज्य और स्थानीय डेमोक्रेट्स के कामों की सराहना करते हैं, ताकि ये सुनिश्चित हो सके कि हमारे बच्चों को बेहतरीन शिक्षा मिल सके। अगले चार वर्षों में, हमें यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए और भी ज़रूरी करनी चाहिए कि अमेरिका पृथ्वी पर सबसे अच्छा सार्वजनिक स्कूल है अगर हम सबसे अच्छे से बनना चाहते हैं, तो हमें सबसे अच्छा उम्मीद करनी चाहिए: हमें छात्रों, शिक्षकों और स्कूलों को उच्चतम मानकों में रखना चाहिए। हर बच्चे को तीसरे ग्रेड के अंत तक पढ़ने में सक्षम होना चाहिए। छात्रों को पदोन्नति या पदोन्नति के लिए योग्यता और उपलब्धि प्रदर्शित करने की आवश्यकता होनी चाहिए। इस देश के शिक्षकों में हमारे पास सबसे प्रतिभावान पेशेवर हैं। उन्हें पेशेवर प्रदर्शन के लिए उच्च मानकों को पूरा करना होगा और उन्हें अच्छी नौकरी के लिए पुरस्कृत किया जाना चाहिए। कुछ ऐसे लोगों के लिए जो उन उच्च मानकों तक नहीं मापते हैं, उन्हें कक्षा और पेशे से बाहर निकालने के लिए एक उचित प्रक्रिया होनी चाहिए। और हमें उन बाधाओं से छुटकारा मिलना चाहिए जो प्रतिभाशाली युवा लोगों को पहले स्थान पर शिक्षक बनने से हतोत्साहित करते हैं। हमें शिक्षकों को नहीं मारना चाहिए हमें उन्हें सराहना, और कक्षा में श्रेष्ठ शिक्षकों को रखने के तरीके ढूंढने चाहिए। परिणामों के लिए स्कूलों को उत्तरदायी होना चाहिए। हमें स्कूलों को फिर से डिज़ाइन या ओवरहाल करना चाहिए, जो असफल हों I हमें पब्लिक स्कूल पसंद का विस्तार करना चाहिए, लेकिन हमें पब्लिक स्कूलों से अमेरिकी कर डॉलर नहीं लेना चाहिए और उन्हें निजी स्कूलों में देना चाहिए। हमें सार्वजनिक चार्टर स्कूलों को बढ़ावा देना चाहिए जो उत्तरदायित्व और पहुंच के उच्चतम मानकों में हैं। और हमें यह सुनिश्चित करना जारी रखना चाहिए कि अमेरिका विकलांग बच्चों के लिए गुणवत्ता की शिक्षा प्रदान करता है, क्योंकि उच्च गुणवत्ता वाली सार्वजनिक शिक्षा सभी बच्चों के लिए अवसर की कुंजी है। स्कूलों में मूल्यों को पढ़ाना आज का डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी जानता है कि जब तक वे अच्छे मूल्यों को सीख न लें, तब तक हमारे बच्चों की शिक्षा पूरी नहीं होती है। हम अपने स्कूलों में चरित्र शिक्षा को बढ़ावा देने के लिए क्लिंटन-गोर प्रशासन के प्रयासों की सराहना करते हैं। अमेरिकी शिक्षा के अच्छे मूल्यों, मजबूत चरित्र और नागरिकता की जिम्मेदारी का एक अनिवार्य हिस्सा होना चाहिए। सुरक्षित विद्यालय और स्वस्थ छात्र यदि युवा लोगों को सुरक्षा में जानने की स्वतंत्रता नहीं है, तो उनके पास पूरी तरह से सीखने की स्वतंत्रता नहीं है। पिछले चार वर्षों में, हमने स्कूलों को सुरक्षित और नशीली दवाओं से मुक्त रखने के लिए कड़ी मेहनत की है, और छात्रों को स्वस्थ जब सीनेटर डोले और स्पीकर गिंगरिच ने स्कूल सुरक्षा वित्तपोषण में कटौती करने के लिए रिपब्लिकन प्रयासों का नेतृत्व किया, तो राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और कांग्रेस में डेमोक्रेट उन्हें इसके साथ भागने नहीं दे पाएंगे। जब सीनेटर डोले और स्पीकर गिंगरिच ने राष्ट्रों के स्कूल के दोपहर के भोजन कार्यक्रम को नष्ट करने के लिए रिपब्लिकन प्रयासों का नेतृत्व किया, तो कांग्रेस क्लिंटन और कांग्रेस में डेमोक्रेट ने उन्हें ठंडा ठहराया। अब, हमें यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए एक प्रमुख पुनर्निर्माण प्रयास शुरू करने के लिए सरकार के प्रत्येक स्तर पर एक साथ काम करना चाहिए ताकि हमारे बच्चे उच्च गुणवत्ता वाले सुविधाओं में स्कूल जा सकें जहां वे सीख सकते हैं। हमें अपने स्कूलों में अच्छे व्यवहार और अनुशासन के लिए उच्चतम मानकों को निर्धारित करने में मदद करनी चाहिए। बच्चे सीख नहीं सकते हैं - और कक्षाएं बिना आदेश के - शिक्षक शिक्षकों को नहीं सिखा सकते कक्षा में प्रौद्योगिकी हमें 21 वीं सदी अमेरिका में हर कक्षा में लाने चाहिए। हमारे बच्चों को टैप करने के लिए ज्ञान का एक विशाल क्षेत्र है। कंप्यूटर शक्तिशाली उपकरण हैं ताकि छात्रों को बेहतर पढ़ने, बेहतर लिखने और गणित समझ सकें। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और उपराष्ट्रपति गोर समझते हैं कि नई अर्थव्यवस्था में सफलता के लिए तकनीकी साक्षरता आवश्यक है। हर छात्र के लिए यह हासिल करने का एकमात्र तरीका है कि वह कंप्यूटर, अच्छे सॉफ़्टवेयर, प्रशिक्षित शिक्षकों और इंटरनेट पर सभी का उपयोग करें - और राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और उपराष्ट्रपति गोर ने उच्च तकनीक कंपनियों, स्कूलों, राज्यों , और स्थानीय सरकारें हर कक्षा और लाइब्रेरी को वर्ष 2000 तक सूचना सुपरहाइव में तार करने के लिए तैयार की गईं। हम स्कूल-टू-वर्क पारित कर चुके हैं ताकि युवा लोगों को उन कौशलों को सीख सकें जिनकी उन्हें ज़्यादा मजदूरी पाने और रखने की जरूरत है। रिपब्लिकन कांग्रेस इसे नष्ट करने की कोशिश कर रही है, और हम उन्हें रोकने की प्रतिज्ञा करते हैं। हम निजी क्षेत्र के साथ काम करना जारी रखना चाहते हैं, ताकि सामुदायिक साझेदारी को प्रोत्साहित किया जा सके जो अच्छी शिक्षा और एक अच्छी नौकरी के बीच के पुल का निर्माण करते हैं। सभी अमेरिकियों के लिए उच्च शिक्षा अंत में, हमें यह सुनिश्चित करना होगा कि प्रत्येक अमेरिकी को कॉलेज जाने का मौका मिले। 21 वीं सदी में एक सफल भविष्य की उच्च शिक्षा उच्च है कॉलेज शिक्षा के साथ विशिष्ट कार्यकर्ता बिना किसी एक से अधिक 73 प्रतिशत कमाता है। अमेरिका में दुनिया में सबसे अच्छी उच्च शिक्षा है हमें इसे बदलने की आवश्यकता नहीं है - हमें इसे सभी अमेरिकियों के लिए उपलब्ध कराने की आवश्यकता है। हमारा लक्ष्य 13 वें और 14 वें वर्ष की शिक्षा के रूप में पहले 12 के रूप में सार्वभौमिक बनाने के लिए कुछ भी नहीं होना चाहिए। पिछले चार वर्षों में, राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन के तहत डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी ने एक अभूतपूर्व कॉलेज मौका रणनीति बनाई है: हमने छात्र ऋण कार्यक्रम, 5.5 लाख छात्रों के लिए कॉलेज को और अधिक किफायती बनाने के लिए - और हम मध्यस्थ को नष्ट करके, लाल टेप को काटने और आधे में छात्र ऋण के चूक की लागत से करदाताओं के लिए पैसे बचाए। हमने योग्य छात्रों के लिए पेले ग्रांट कॉलेज छात्रवृत्ति का विस्तार किया है। और राष्ट्रपतियों राष्ट्रीय सेवा कार्यक्रम ने पहले ही 45,000 अमेरिकियों को अपने समुदायों की सहायता करके कॉलेज के लिए पैसा कमाया है। कॉलेज के लिए कर कटौती अगले चार वर्षों में, हम आगे भी आगे बढ़ना चाहते हैं: हमें कार्य-अध्ययन का विस्तार करना चाहिए ताकि साल में 1 लाख छात्र वर्ष 2000 तक कॉलेज के माध्यम से अपना रास्ता बना सकें। हमें लोगों को अपने आईआरए से धन का उपयोग करने की अनुमति देनी चाहिए कॉलेज। हमें हर हाईस्कूल में शीर्ष 5 प्रतिशत स्नातकों के लिए 1000 सम्मान छात्रवृत्ति देना चाहिए। और हमें 14 साल की शिक्षा हर अमेरिकी के लिए मानक बनाना चाहिए डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी उच्च विद्यालय के बाद शिक्षा के लिए भुगतान करने में मदद करने के लिए परिवारों के लिए 10,000 कर कटौती बनाना चाहता है। और हम अमेरिकियों के लिए 1,500 कर कट बनाना चाहते हैं, जो जॉर्जिया के सफल होप छात्रवृत्ति के बाद तैयार किए गए हैं, एक विशिष्ट सामुदायिक कॉलेज में ट्यूशन के पहले वर्ष की गारंटी देने के लिए, और दूसरे वर्ष अगर व्यक्ति बी औसत बनाए रख कर इसे कमाते हैं। महाविद्यालय के लिए भुगतान करने के लिए कर कटौती की तुलना में अमेरिकी आय बढ़ाने के लिए कोई कर कटौती नहीं होगी। 21 वीं सदी में अमेरिकी परिवारों के लिए आर्थिक सुरक्षा पुरानी अर्थव्यवस्था में, अधिकांश श्रमिक जीवन के लिए एक नौकरी पर भरोसा कर सकते हैं। वे जानते थे कि कड़ी मेहनत को उठाया और स्थिर नौकरियों के साथ पुरस्कृत किया गया था क्योंकि उन्हें विश्वास था कि कंपनी उनकी देखभाल करेगा, उनके परिवारों, उनकी स्वास्थ्य और उनकी सेवानिवृत्ति। सफलता उनके नियोक्ता की सफलता से जुड़ी हुई थी: बलि जब बार मुश्किल थे और जब समय अच्छे थे तो धन का हिस्सा था। नई अर्थव्यवस्था में, नियम बदल गए हैं। काम करने वाले परिवारों को आर्थिक सुरक्षा प्राप्त करने में मदद करने के लिए नए तरीके खोजने की जरूरत है: बेहतर प्रशिक्षण, श्रमिकों को अच्छी और अच्छी तरह से काम करने के लिए अच्छे स्वास्थ्य देखभाल और सुरक्षित पेंशन की सुरक्षा पाने के लिए कौशल सीखने के लिए, ताकि वे स्वयं और उनके परिवारों की देखभाल कर सकें। यह एक चुनौती है कि अमेरिकी श्रमिक और प्रबंधकों का सामना करने के लिए तैयार हैं, और डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी से निपटना जारी रहेगा। फायदेमंद काम हम अमेरिका में काम का सम्मान करते हैं अमेरिकियों कड़ी मेहनत करते हैं, और उन्हें उम्मीद है कि काम का भुगतान करना होगा। हम अस्सी के दशक की प्रवृत्ति को पीछे रखना जारी रखना चाहते हैं, इसलिए सभी अमेरिकियों को निरंतर आर्थिक विकास और बढ़ती मजदूरी से लाभ होगा। कांग्रेस में राष्ट्रपति और डेमोक्रेट ने न्यूनतम मजदूरी बढ़ाकर 5.15 एक घंटे कर दी, सीनेटर डोले और स्पीकर गिंगरिच की अगुवाई में हिंसक रिपब्लिकन विपक्ष को हराकर हमारा मानना ​​है कि न्यूनतम मजदूरी एक मजदूरी होनी चाहिए जिस पर आप रह सकते हैं। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और कांग्रेस के डेमोक्रेट ने 15 मिलियन कार्यकर्ता परिवारों के लिए कर कटौती के इतिहास में अर्जित आयकर क्रेडिट का सबसे बड़ा विस्तार किया और जीत हासिल की, क्योंकि पूर्ण माता-पिता को पूर्ण समय काम करने की जिम्मेदारी नहीं लेने वाले बच्चों को गरीबी में बच्चों को उठाना चाहिए। हम परिवारों को मजबूत करना चाहते हैं, और हम अपने कर्मचारियों को एक परिवार के समर्थन में पर्याप्त सहायता के लिए निजी क्षेत्र को चुनौती देते हैं। स्वास्थ्य देखभाल। डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है कि अमेरिकियों को सस्ती, उच्च गुणवत्ता वाली स्वास्थ्य देखभाल तक पहुंच है। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटंस ने कांग्रेस में डेमोक्रेट के नेतृत्व और अथक प्रयासों के कारण निर्धारित किया है, हमने कैनेडी-कासाबौम स्वास्थ्य सुधार बिल पारित कर दिया, ताकि बीमा कंपनियों को उन परिवारों को कवर करने से इनकार करने से रोक दिया जाए जहां एक सदस्य की स्थिति पहले से है और यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कि लोग अपना जब वे नौकरी बदलते हैं तो उनके साथ स्वास्थ्य बीमा अब और अमेरिकियों को बेहतर काम नहीं करना चाहिए, क्योंकि वे अपना स्वास्थ्य देखभाल खो देंगे। हमने महिलाओं, शिशुओं और बच्चों के कार्यक्रमों का विस्तार किया है जो जन्मपूर्व और प्रारंभिक बचपन के पोषण प्रदान करता है, ताकि सभी पात्र महिलाओं, शिशुओं और बच्चों को स्वास्थ्य और पोषण संबंधी सेवाओं तक पहुंच प्राप्त हो सके। हमने सीनेटर डोले के नेतृत्व में रिपब्लिकन विपक्ष को हराने के बाद, बच्चों को प्रतिरक्षित करने के लिए एक व्यापक प्रयास की स्थापना की। पिछले साल, अमेरिका में दो साल के बच्चों का प्रतिशत जो पूरी तरह से प्रतिरक्षित किया गया था एक ऐतिहासिक उच्च पर पहुंच गया क्लिंटन-गोर प्रशासन ने नाटकीय रूप से खाद्य और औषधि प्रशासन में नई लाइफिंग दवाओं की स्वीकृति प्रक्रिया को छोटा कर दिया है और आगे की प्रक्रिया को सरल बनाने के लिए काम करना जारी रखेगा और हमने एड्स अनुसंधान, रोकथाम और उपचार को सर्वोच्च प्राथमिकता दी है, लगभग 40 प्रतिशत, जिनमें एड्स से ग्रस्त लोगों की देखभाल में मदद करने के लिए रयान व्हाइट केयर अधिनियम को दोगुने से अधिक शामिल है हम एड्स के इलाज के लिए एचआईवी-संबंधित भेदभाव से लड़ने, एड्स से पीड़ित लोगों के आवास के लिए सहायता करने के लिए एचओपीडब्ल्यूए वित्तपोषण का समर्थन करने और एड्स के साथ जी रहे सभी अमेरिकियों को नए और संभावित रूप से जीवनरक्षक दवाओं की गंभीर जैव चिकित्सा अनुसंधान जो कई बीमारियों के लिए सफलता का वादा करता है और सभी अमेरिकियों को लंबे समय तक, स्वस्थ जीवन में रहने में मदद करने के लिए और अधिक कर रहा है। हम अपने शिक्षण अस्पतालों और चिकित्सा विद्यालयों के भारी योगदान को पहचानते हैं - वे दुनिया में सबसे अच्छी चिकित्सा देखभाल की नींव रखते हैं, और हम उन नीतियों को बढ़ावा देना जारी रखेंगे जो उन्हें मजबूत करते हैं। हमने महिलाओं के स्वास्थ्य संबंधी मुद्दों पर विशेष ध्यान दिया है, जिनमें स्तन कैंसर की शोध में 65 प्रतिशत वृद्धि शामिल है। हम स्तन कैंसर का इलाज खोजने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध हैं और हम अभिनव अनुसंधान के लिए धन का समर्थन जारी रखने और सभी महिलाओं को उच्च गुणवत्ता वाले उपचार और देखभाल के लिए उपयोग करने की प्रतिज्ञा करते हैं। डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी को इस बात पर गर्व है कि हम रिपब्लिकन के मध्य-उत्साही मेडिकार और मेडिकाइड कटौती के खिलाफ लाइन का आयोजन करते हैं जो शिशुओं से वरिष्ठ नागरिकों तक लाखों अमेरिकियों की स्वास्थ्य देखभाल का जोखिम उठाएंगे। सीनेटर डोले ने मेडिकर के खिलाफ मतदान किया जब इसे पहली बार बनाया गया था, आज इसके बारे में दावा किया जाता है, और अब रिपब्लिकन नेताओं ने दाखमधु पर मैडिकार की तरफ जाना चाहता है। डोले-गिंग्रिच मेडिकेयर योजना ने लाखों माता-पिता को अपने जीवन में पहली बार एक दूसरे वर्ग स्वास्थ्य देखभाल प्रणाली में रखा होगा, और हम इसके लिए खड़े नहीं होंगे। डोले-गिंगरिक मेडिकाइड योजना लाखों बच्चों, पुराने अमेरिकियों और विकलांग लोगों के लिए सार्थक स्वास्थ्य लाभ के लिए गारंटी समाप्त कर देगी। राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन ने रिपब्लिकन को अनुदान मेडिकाड को ब्लॉक करने के अपने प्रयास को एकजुट करने के लिए मजबूर कर दिया और कल्याण सुधार ने महिलाओं और बच्चों को मेडिकेड गारंटी बनाए रखने के लिए ज़ोर दिया। डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी चाहता है कि अमेरिका मेडिकार और मेडिकाइड को बनाए रखे और मजबूत करे, इसलिए हम अपने मूल्यों का सम्मान करते हैं और हमारे बच्चों, माता-पिता और दादा दादी के स्वास्थ्य की रक्षा करते हैं, यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए कि वे लंबे समय तक देखभाल करने वाले डॉक्टरों से मिलने वाले स्वास्थ्य देखभाल की आवश्यकता कर सकते हैं। 1 99 3 में - एक रिपब्लिकन वोट के बिना - राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन और कांग्रेस में डेमोक्रेट ने 21 वीं सदी में मेडिकेयर ट्रस्ट फंड को बढ़ा दिया। सार्थक लाभ की गारंटी बनाए रखते हुए हमने 12 राज्यों को अपने मेडिकाइड कार्यक्रमों को अधिक कुशलता से चलाने और कवरेज बढ़ाने का अधिक लचीलापन दिया है। जब इन योजनाओं को लागू किया जाता है, तो उनमें से 20 लाख अमेरिकियों के पास स्वास्थ्य बीमा होगा। हमने मेडिकेयर लाभार्थियों को अधिक स्वास्थ्य योजना के विकल्प और बढ़े हुए लाभ दिए हैं। हमने स्वास्थ्य देखभाल बर्बाद, धोखाधड़ी और दुरुपयोग पर तीन साल में 15 अरब से ज्यादा बचत की है। अब हमें नौकरी खत्म करनी होगी - हम बजट को संतुलित कर सकते हैं, जबकि हम अपने माता-पिता, बच्चों या विकलांग परिवारों के लिए स्वास्थ्य देखभाल लागत से लाखों मध्यवर्गीय परिवारों की रक्षा करते हुए लाखों लोगों की रक्षा करते हैं और मेडिकायर और मेडिकाइड को मजबूत करते हैं। अगले चार वर्षों में, हमें यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए और कदम उठाने होंगे कि अमेरिकियों की गुणवत्ता, सस्ती स्वास्थ्य देखभाल तक पहुंच हो। हमें यह सुनिश्चित करके शुरू करना चाहिए कि लोगों को प्रीमियम का भुगतान करने में सहायता मिलती है, इसलिए वे एक नई नौकरी की तलाश करते समय स्वास्थ्य देखभाल नहीं खोते। हम होम केयर, हॉस्पीस, वयस्क डे केयर, और सामुदायिक-आधारित सेवाओं के विस्तारित कवरेज का समर्थन करते हैं, इसलिए सभी उम्र के बुजुर्ग और विकलांग लोगों को अपने समुदायों में और संभवतः स्वतंत्र रूप से रह सकते हैं। हमें निराश हैं कि मानसिक स्वास्थ्य की स्थिति को प्रदान करने के लिए कांग्रेस द्विदलीय प्रयासों से दूर चली गई, हम मानते हैं कि मानसिक स्वास्थ्य देखभाल के लिए स्वास्थ्य बीमा कवरेज अत्यंत महत्वपूर्ण है और हम मानसिक स्वास्थ्य देखभाल के लिए समानता का समर्थन करते हैं। सेवानिवृत्ति। पिछले चार वर्षों में, राष्ट्रपति क्लिंटन ने संघीय पेंशन बीमा प्रणाली को तय करके 40 मिलियन से अधिक श्रमिकों और सेवानिवृत्त लोगों के पेंशन की रक्षा के लिए ठोस कदम उठाए और मांग की कि कंपनियां अपनी सेवानिवृत्ति योजना को पूरी तरह से निधि देती हैं। हम धोखाधड़ी और दुरुपयोग से श्रमिकों 401 के सेवानिवृत्ति बचत की रक्षा के लिए एक राष्ट्रव्यापी सेवानिवृत्ति सुरक्षा कार्यक्रम की स्थापना की। जब हम रिटायरमेंट की तैयारी के लिए आते हैं और महिलाओं के पेंशन अधिकारों की रक्षा के लिए काम करते हैं तो हम महिलाओं की अनूठी चिंताओं को पहचानते हैं। अगले चार वर्षों में, हम यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए और कदम उठाना चाहते हैं कि जो अमेरिकियों ने अपनी पूरी ज़िंदगी के लिए कड़ी मेहनत की है, वे कमाई और सुरक्षा में सेवानिवृत्ति का आनंद ले सकते हैं। हम यह सुनिश्चित करना चाहते हैं कि जब लोग नौकरी बदल दें, पेंशन को और भी आगे बनाए रखें, और पेंशन कवरेज के साथ श्रमिकों की संख्या का विस्तार करें, तो उनके साथ अपने पेंशन जारी रख सकते हैं। हम रेल सेवानिवृत्ति प्रणाली का समर्थन करना जारी रखेंगे। डेमोक्रेट ने सामाजिक सुरक्षा का निर्माण किया है, हम इसे खत्म करने के प्रयासों का विरोध करते हैं, और हम उसे बचाने के लिए लड़ेंगे। हमें यह सुनिश्चित करना चाहिए कि यह अगली शताब्दी में अच्छी वित्तीय स्थिति पर है। हम रिपब्लिकन को राजनीति को एक साथ रखने और एक गंभीर द्विदलीय प्रयास में शामिल होने के लिए कहते हैं कि सामाजिक सुरक्षा भविष्य की पीढ़ियों के लिए सच्ची सुरक्षा प्रदान करना जारी रखेगी, क्योंकि उसने दशकों के लिए लाखों पुराने अमेरिकियों के लिए किया है। प्रशिक्षण। हमें यह सुनिश्चित करने के लिए अधिक प्रयास करना चाहिए कि सभी अमेरिकियों को उन कौशलों को प्रतिस्पर्धा करने की आवश्यकता है। हमें एक जी.आई. चाहिए कामगारों के लिए बिल संघीय प्रशिक्षण कार्यक्रमों के भ्रमित उलझाने को एक साधारण नौकरी प्रशिक्षण कौशल अनुदान में बदलने के लिए जो सीधे बेरोजगार श्रमिकों को जाएंगे, ताकि वे उनके लिए सही प्रशिक्षण प्राप्त कर सकें। हम विकलांग लोगों के लिए प्रशिक्षण के अवसरों को मजबूत करना चाहते हैं, ताकि वे स्वतंत्र, उत्पादक जीवन जीने के लिए आवश्यक कौशल सीख सकें। काम कर रहे अमेरिकियों के लिए खड़े हो रहे हैं हम बेदखल कार्यकर्ता कार्यक्रम के लिए लगभग दोगुनी धन जुटाए और आधार बंद होने, प्राकृतिक आपदाओं और बड़े पैमाने पर छंटनी से विस्थापित श्रमिकों की मदद के लिए विशेष परियोजनाएं शुरू की। हम ओएसएएच में सुधार कर रहे हैं, ताकि कम लाल टेप के साथ कर्मचारियों की सुरक्षा की रक्षा के लिए हम एक बेहतर काम कर सकें, और हम रिपब्लिकन प्रयासों का विरोध करना जारी रखेंगे। हम श्रमिकों के गठन के अधिकारों को कमजोर करने और यूनियनों में शामिल होने और राष्ट्रीय श्रम संबंध बोर्ड की प्रवर्तन शक्तियों को नष्ट करने के प्रयासों को कम करने के प्रयासों को हरा दिया। डेमोक्रेटिक पार्टी एफएए और एफआरए की गति, दक्षता, अधिकार और प्रभावकारिता में सुधार के साथ श्रमिकों की सुरक्षा, निष्पक्ष, निष्पक्ष, सुरक्षा और यात्रा और शिपिंग सार्वजनिक करने के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है। We vigorously oppose Republican efforts to pass Right-to-Work legislation, and we are proud the President vetoed efforts to undermine collective bargaining through the TEAM Act. We are working to eradicate sweatshops in the U. S. apparel industry by stepping up enforcement and public education. We oppose the hiring of permanent workers to replace lawful economic strikers we support the Presidents action to stop the government from procuring goods and services from companies that do so and we support legislation to prohibit the permanent replacement of lawfully striking workers. We believe in equal pay for equal work and pay equity. Promoting economic growth and opportunity for all Americans. We know that it is good for America when small, minority, and women-owned businesses have the opportunity to grow and prosper. These business-owners create new jobs, expand opportunities, and serve as powerful role models for young people. Over the last four years, the President has transformed the Small Business Administration to eliminate burdensome paperwork and deliver real assistance to entrepreneurs as they work to start or expand their businesses. At the same time, since Bill Clinton became President, we have more than doubled the number of loans to small businesses, nearly tripled loans to minority businesses, and quadrupled loans to women-owned businesses. The President ordered all federal agencies to comply with laws designed to ensure that small, minority, and women-owned businesses can compete for their fair share of procurement dollars. We are committed to continued efforts to expand opportunity for small, minority, and women business owners. Clean, affordable energy. Clean, abundant, and reliable energy is essential to a strong American economy. We support investment in research and development to spur domestic energy production and enhance efficiency. New technologies -- natural gas, energy efficiency, renewable energy -- developed in partnership with American industries and scientists are increasing productivity and creating jobs. We believe America should reduce its dependence on foreign energy sources. Corporate citizenship. Employers have a responsibility to do their part as well. President Clinton and the Democratic Party stand on the side of working families. We believe that values like loyalty, fairness, and responsibility are not inconsistent with the bottom line. The Democratic Party insists that corporate leaders invest in the long-term, by providing workers with living wages and benefits, education and training, a safe, healthy place to work, and opportunities for greater involvement in company decision making and ownership. Employers must make sure workers share in the benefits of the good years, as well as the burdens of the bad ones. Employers must offer employees the opportunity to share in the profits they help create. Employers must respect the commitment of workers to their families, and must work to provide good pensions and health care. When CEOs put their workers and long-term success ahead of short-term gain, their workers will do better and so will they. Responsibility Todays Democratic Party knows that the era of big government is over. Big bureaucracies and Washington solutions are not the real answers to todays challenges. We need a smaller government. and we must have a larger national spirit. Governments job should be to give people the tools they need to make the most of their own lives. Americans must take the responsibility to use them, to build good lives for themselves and their families. Personal responsibility is the most powerful force we have to meet our challenges and shape the future we want for ourselves, for our children, and for America. Fighting crime. Todays Democratic Party believes the first responsibility of government is law and order. Four years ago, crime in America seemed intractable. The violent crime rate and the murder rate had climbed for seven straight years. Drugs seemed to flow freely across our borders and into our neighborhoods. Convicted felons could walk into any gun shop and buy a handgun. Military-style assault weapons were sold freely. Our people didnt feel safe in their homes, walking their streets, or even sending their children to school. Under the thumb of special interests like the gun lobby, Republicans talked tough about crime but did nothing to fight it. Bill Clinton promised to turn things around, and that is exactly what he did. After a long hard fight, President Clinton beat back fierce Republican opposition, led by Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, to answer the call of Americas police officers and pass the toughest Crime Bill in history. The Democratic Party under President Clinton is putting more police on the streets and tougher penalties on the books we are taking guns off the streets and working to steer young people away from crime and gangs and drugs in the first place. And it is making a difference. In city after city and town after town, crime rates are finally coming down. Community policing. Nothing is more effective in the fight against crime than police officers on the beat, engaged in community policing. The Crime Bill is putting 100,000 new police officers on the street. We deplore cynical Republican attempts to undermine our promise to America to put 100,000 new police officers on the street. We pledge to stand up for our communities and stand with our police officers by opposing any attempt to repeal or weaken this effort. But we know that community policing only works when the community works with the police. We echo the Presidents challenge to Americans: If 50 citizens joined each of Americas 20,000 neighborhood watch groups, we would have a citizen force of one million strong to give our police forces the backup they need. Protecting our children, our neighborhoods, and our police from criminals with guns. Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, and George Bush were able to hold the Brady Bill hostage for the gun lobby until Bill Clinton became President. With his leadership, we made the Brady Bill the law of the land. And because we did, more than 60,000 felons, fugitives, and stalkers have been stopped from buying guns. President Clinton led the fight to ban 19 deadly assault weapons, designed for one purpose only -- to kill human beings. We oppose efforts to restrict weapons used for legitimate sporting purposes, and we are proud that not one hunter or sportsman was forced to change guns because of the assault weapons ban. But we know that the military-style guns we banned have no place on Americas streets, and we are proud of the courageous Democrats who defied the gun lobby and sacrificed their seats in Congress to make America safer. Todays Democratic Party stands with Americas police officers. We are proud to tell them that as long as Bill Clinton and Al Gore are in the White House, any attempt to repeal the Brady Bill or assault weapons ban will be met with a veto. We must do everything we can to stand behind our police officers, and the first thing we should do is pass a ban on cop-killer bullets. Any bullet that can rip through a bulletproof vest should be against the law that is the least we can do to protect the brave police officers who risk their lives to protect us. Tough punishment. We believe that people who break the law should be punished, and people who commit violent crimes should be punished severely. President Clinton made three-strikes-youre-out the law of the land, to ensure that the most dangerous criminals go to jail for life, with no chance of parole. We established the death penalty for nearly 60 violent crimes, including murder of a law enforcement officer, and we signed a law to limit appeals. The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion, and we respect the conscience of all Americans on this issue. We provided almost 8 billion in new funding to help states build new prison cells so violent offenders serve their full sentences. We call on the states to meet the Presidents challenge and guarantee that serious violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentence. The American people deserve a criminal justice system in which criminals are caught, the guilty are convicted, and the convicted serve their time. Fighting youth violence and preventing youth crime. Nothing we do to fight crime is more important than fighting the crime and violence that threatens our children. We have to protect them from criminals who prey on them -- and we have to teach them good values and give them something to say yes to, so they stay away from crime and trouble in the first place. The Democratic Party understands what the police have been saying for years: The best way to fight crime is to prevent it. That is why we fought for drug-education and gang-prevention programs in our schools. We support well thought out, well organized, highly supervised youth programs to provide young people with a safe and healthy alternative to hanging out on the streets. We made it a federal crime for any person under the age of 18 to possess a handgun except when supervised by an adult. Democrats fought to pass, and President Clinton ordered states to impose, zero tolerance for guns in school, requiring schools to expel for one year any student who brings a gun to school. At the same time, when young people cross the line, they must be punished. When young people commit serious violent crimes, they should be prosecuted like adults. We established boot camps for young non-violent offenders. If Senator Dole and the Republicans are serious about fighting juvenile crime, they should listen to Americas police officers and support the steps Democrats have taken, because they are making a difference, and then they should join us as we work to do more. We want parents to bring order to their childrens lives and teach them right from wrong, and we want to make it easier for them to take that responsibility. We support schools that adopt school uniform policies, to promote discipline and respect. We support community-based curfews to keep kids off the street after a certain time, so theyre safe from harm and away from trouble. We urge schools and communities to enforce truancy laws: Young people belong in school, not on the street. We also know that we must do everything we can to help families protect their children, especially from dangerous criminals who have made a dark habit of preying on young people. Study after study shows that sex offenders are likely to repeat their crimes again and again. Under President Clinton, we have taken strong steps to help keep children safe. We required every state in the country to compile a registry of sex offenders. The President signed Megans Law to require that states tell a community whenever a dangerous sexual predator enters its midst. We support the Presidents directive to the Attorney General, calling on her to work with the states and Congress to develop a national sex offender registry. This will ensure that police officers in every state can get the information they need from any state to track sex offenders down and bring them to justice when they commit new crimes. Battling illegal drugs. We must keep drugs off our streets and out of our schools. President Clinton and the Democratic Party have waged an aggressive war on drugs. The Crime Bill established the death penalty for drug kingpins. The President signed a directive requiring drug testing of anyone arrested for a federal crime, and he challenged states to do the same for state offenders. We established innovative drug courts which force drug users to get treatment or go to jail. We stood firm against Republican efforts to gut the Safe and Drug Free Schools effort that supports successful drug-education programs like D. A.R. E. The Clinton Administration went to the Supreme Court to support the right of schools to test athletes for drugs. The President launched Operation Safe Home to protect the law-abiding residents of public housing from violent criminals and drug dealers who use their homes as a base for illegal activities. We support the Presidents decision to tell those who commit crimes and peddle drugs in public housing: You will get no second chance to threaten your neighbors it is one strike and youre out. We are making progress. Overall drug use in America is dropping the number of Americans who use cocaine has dropped 30 percent since 1992. Unfortunately casual drug use by young people continues to climb. We must redouble our efforts against drug abuse everywhere, especially among our children. Earlier this year, the President appointed General Barry McCaffrey to lead the nations war on drugs. General McCaffrey is implementing an aggressive four part strategy to reach young children and prevent drug use in the first place to catch and punish drug users and dealers to provide treatment to those who need help and to cut drugs off at the source before they cross the border and pollute our neighborhoods. But every adult in America must take responsibility to set a good example, and to teach children that drugs are wrong, they are illegal, and they are deadly. Ending domestic violence. When it strikes, nothing is a more dangerous threat to the safety of our families than domestic violence, because it is a threat from within. Unfortunately, violence against women is no stranger to America, but a dangerous intruder we must work together to drive from our homes. We know that domestic violence is not a family problem or a womens problem. It is Americas problem, and we must all fight it. The Violence Against Women Act in the 1994 Crime Bill helps police officers, prosecutors, and judges to understand domestic violence, recognize it when they see it, and know how to deal with it. In February, the President launched a 24 hour, seven-day, toll-free hotline so women in trouble can find out how to get emergency help, find shelter, and report abuse to the authorities. The number is 1 800 799-SAFE. Everyone who knows it should pass it on to anyone who might need it. Every American must take the responsibility to stop this terrible scourge. As we fight it, we must remember that the victims are not to blame. This is a crime to be punished, not a secret to be concealed. We must do everything we can to make sure that the victims of violent crime are treated with the respect and the dignity they deserve. We support the Presidents call for a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of victims. We believe that when a plea bargain is entered in public, a criminal is sentenced, or a defendant is let out on bail, the victims ought to know about it, and have a say. A constitutional amendment is the only way to protect those rights in every courtroom in America. Immigration. Democrats remember that we are a nation of immigrants. We recognize the extraordinary contribution of immigrants to America throughout our history. We welcome legal immigrants to America. We support a legal immigration policy that is pro-family, pro-work, pro-responsibility, and pro-citizenship, and we deplore those who blame immigrants for economic and social problems. We know that citizenship is the cornerstone of full participation in American life. We are proud that the President launched Citizenship USA to help eligible immigrants become United States citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service is streamlining procedures, cutting red tape, and using new technology to make it easier for legal immigrants to accept the responsibilities of citizenship and truly call America their home. Todays Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again. President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent in El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone, the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country. Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported. However, as we work to stop illegal immigration, we call on all Americans to avoid the temptation to use this issue to divide people from each other. We deplore those who use the need to stop illegal immigration as a pretext for discrimination. And we applaud the wisdom of Republicans like Mayor Giuliani and Senator Domenici who oppose the mean-spirited and short-sighted effort of Republicans in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from schools -- it is wrong, and forcing children onto the streets is an invitation for them to join gangs and turn to crime. Democrats want to protect American jobs by increasing criminal and civil sanctions against employers who hire illegal workers, but Republicans continue to favor inflammatory rhetoric over real action. We will continue to enforce labor standards to protect workers in vulnerable industries. We continue to firmly oppose welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. We believe family members who sponsor immigrants into this country should take financial responsibility for them, and be held legally responsible for supporting them. Welfare reform. Todays Democratic Party knows there is no greater gap between mainstream American values and modern American government than our failed welfare system. When Bill Clinton became President, the welfare system undermined the very values -- work, family, and personal responsibility -- that it should promote. The welfare system should reflect those values: we want to help people who want to help themselves and their children. Over the past four years, President Clinton has dramatically transformed the welfare system. He has freed 43 states from federal rules and regulations so they can reform their welfare systems. The Clinton Administration has granted 77 waivers -- more than twice as many waivers as granted in the Reagan-Bush years. For 75 percent of all Americans on welfare, the rules have changed for good already, and welfare is becoming what it should be: a second chance, not a way of life. Welfare rolls are finally coming down -- there are 1.8 million fewer people on welfare today than there were when President Clinton took office in January 1993. Now, because of the Presidents leadership and with the support of a majority of the Democrats in Congress, national welfare reform is going to make work and responsibility the law of the land. Thanks to President Clinton and the Democrats, the new welfare bill includes the health care and child care people need so they can go to work confident their children will be cared for. Thanks to President Clinton and the Democrats, the new welfare bill imposes time limits and real work requirements -- so anyone who can work, does work, and so that no one who can work can stay on welfare forever. Thanks to President Clinton and the Democrats, the new welfare bill cracks down on deadbeat parents and requires minor mothers to live at home with their parents or with another responsible adult. We are proud the President forced Congressional Republicans to abandon their wrong-headed and mean-spirited efforts to punish the poor. Republicans wanted to eliminate the guarantee of health care for the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. They were wrong, and we stopped them. Republicans wanted to destroy the food stamp and school lunch programs that provide basic nutrition to millions of working families and poor children. They were wrong, and we stopped them. Republicans wanted to gut child abuse prevention and foster care. They were wrong, and we stopped them. Republicans wanted to cut off young, unwed mothers -- because they actually thought their children would be better off living in an orphanage. They were dead wrong, and we stopped them. The bill Republicans in Congress passed last year was values-backward -- it was soft on work and tough on children, and we applaud the President for stopping it. We know the new bill passed by Congress is far from perfect -- parts of it should be fixed because they go too far and have nothing to do with welfare reform. First, Republicans cut too far into nutritional assistance for working families with children we are committed to correcting that. Second, Republicans insisted on using welfare reform as a vehicle to cut off help to legal immigrants. That was wrong. Legal immigrants work hard, pay their taxes, and serve America. It is wrong to single them out for punishment just because they are immigrants. We pledge to make sure that legal immigrant families with children who fall on hard times through no fault of their own can get help when they need it. And we are committed to continuing the Presidents efforts to make it easier for legal immigrants who are prepared to accept the responsibilities of citizenship to do so. But the new welfare plan gives America an historic chance: to break the cycle of dependency for millions of Americans, and give them a real chance for an independent future. It reflects the principles the President has insisted upon since he started the process that led to welfare reform. Our job now is to make sure this welfare reform plan succeeds, transforming a broken system that holds people down into a working system that lifts people up and gives them a real chance to build a better life. States asked for this responsibility -- now we have to make sure they shoulder it. We must make sure as many people as possible move from welfare to work. We must make sure that children are protected. In addition to health care and nutritional assistance, states should provide in-kind vouchers to children whose parents have reached the time limit. We challenge states to exempt battered women from time limits and other restrictions. We challenge states to ensure that hard-earned, federal taxpayer dollars are spent effectively and fraud and abuse are prevented. We challenge the business community to provide more of the private sector jobs people on welfare need to build good lives and strong families. We know that passing legislation is not enough we must make sure people get the skills they need to get jobs, and that there are jobs for them to go to so they leave welfare and stay off. We want to make sure welfare reform will put more people to work and move them into the economic mainstream, not take jobs away from working families. We call on all Americans to make the most of this opportunity -- never to use welfare reform as an excuse to demonize or demean people, but rather as a chance to bring all our people fully into the economic mainstream, to have a chance to share in the prosperity and the promise of American life. Child support. Nobody has the right to walk away from the responsibility to care for his or her children. If you owe child support, paying it fully and promptly is just the first step in living up to your responsibility as a parent. The Clinton Administration has made a determined effort to crack down on deadbeat parents, collecting a record 11 billion in 1995 through tough enforcement -- almost a 40 percent increase over 1992. President Clinton issued an Executive Order to track down federal workers who fail to pay child support, and force them to pay. The Clinton Administration is working to put wanted lists of parents who owe child support in the post office and on the Internet. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress insisted that the toughest possible child support enforcement be part of the new welfare reform plan -- including the Presidents plan to deny drivers licenses and professional licenses to people who do not pay their child support. We are telling deadbeats: If you neglect your responsibility to your children, we will suspend your license, garnish your wages, track you down, and make you pay. Teen pregnancy. For the first time in years, the teen pregnancy rate has leveled off and begun to drop. But we all know it is still far too high. Government alone cannot solve this problem. That is why President Clinton challenged community, business, and religious leaders together to form a national campaign to keep the teen pregnancy rate going down. And he expanded support for community-based prevention programs that teach abstinence and demand responsibility. We must send the strongest possible signal to young people that it is wrong to get pregnant or father a child until they are married and ready to support that child and raise that child. We also know that half of all underage mothers were made pregnant by a man in his twenties, or even older. Statutory rape is a crime, but unfortunately the laws that protect young women from it are almost never enforced. We echo the Presidents call to Americas prosecutors: Enforce the statutory rape laws vigorously against men who prey on underage women. Choice. The Democratic Party stands behind the right of every woman to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of ability to pay. President Clinton took executive action to make sure that the right to make such decisions is protected for all Americans. Over the last four years, we have taken action to end the gag rule and ensure safety at family planning and womens health clinics. We believe it is a fundamental constitutional liberty that individual Americans -- not government -- can best take responsibility for making the most difficult and intensely personal decisions regarding reproduction. The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party. Our goal is to make abortion less necessary and more rare, not more difficult and more dangerous. We support contraceptive research, family planning, comprehensive family life education, and policies that support healthy childbearing. For four years in a row, we have increased support for family planning. The abortion rate is dropping. Now we must continue to support efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies, and we call on all Americans to take personal responsibility to meet this important goal. Reinventing government. The American people have a right to demand that responsibility is the order of the day in Washington. The mission of todays Democratic Party is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy. We have worked hard over the last four years to rein in big government, slash burdensome regulations, eliminate wasteful programs, and shift problem-solving out of Washington and back to people and communities who understand their situations best. In the last four years, President Clinton, working with the National Performance Review chaired by Vice President Gore, has cut the federal government by almost 240,000 positions, making the smallest federal government in 30 years. We did it the right way, treating workers with respect. The federal government is eliminating 16,000 pages of outdated and unnecessary regulations, has abolished 179 programs and projects, and saved taxpayers billions of dollars. The President fought for and signed unfunded mandates legislation. This stops Congress from requiring state and local governments to implement expensive policies without providing any means to pay for them, and encourages better partnerships and more balance of resources and responsibilities. Beginning with Ulysses S. Grant, Presidents have tried to get the line-item veto and failed President Clinton signed landmark legislation that will give him and his successors this powerful tool to cut pork-barrel spending from bills passed by Congress. For years, Republicans talked about making government smaller while letting it grow -- Democrats are doing it. For years, Republicans talked about cutting the deficit while letting it climb -- Democrats are doing it. For years, Republicans talked about shifting power back to states and communities -- Democrats are doing it. For years, Republicans talked about making government more businesslike and efficient -- Democrats are doing it. Democrats are bringing responsibility back to Washington. In the last two years, Republicans under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich shut the federal government down in an irresponsible attempt at partisan blackmail. Democrats under President Clinton said, and America agreed: Partisan threats are no way to run a government. Nobody should ever shut down the government again. The Republican shutdown cost the taxpayers 1.4 billion. Democrats believe government should work better and cost less -- not work less and cost more. The Republican shutdown was an affront to the hardworking public servants in our cities, towns, states, and nation who devote their lives to improving life in our country. Thanks to them our streets are safer, our water is cleaner, and our nation is secure. We condemn Republican tactics to sow cynicism and mistrust by scapegoating those government workers. Front-line federal workers committed to providing quality services have joined the Presidents efforts to make government work better for the American people. With their help, we are saving money for the taxpayers and improving services for our people. Those workers who are doing more with less deserve our respect and admiration. In the last four years, we have transformed the Federal Emergency Management Agency from an outdated bureaucracy into a swift and effective agent of relief for victims of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, or other disasters. Americans with life-threatening diseases like cancer and AIDS gain access to new drugs faster, because the Food and Drug Administration has streamlined its approval process, become more flexible in certifications, and eliminated unnecessary paperwork. The Small Business Administration has eliminated half of its regulations, cut loan applications as long as 100 pages down to one, and doubled its loan volume -- all helping Americans to produce record numbers of small businesses in each of the last three years. American homebuyers are saving an average of 1,000 in closing costs because the Department of Housing and Urban Development has eliminated paperwork and other unnecessary burdens. Over the next four years, the Democratic Party will continue to make responsibility the rule in Washington: cutting bureaucracy further, improving customer service, demanding better performance, holding people and agencies accountable for producing the best results, ensuring all Americans have access to high quality public services, whether they reside in inner cities, suburbs, or rural communities, and forging new partnerships with the private sector including small, minority, and women-owned businesses, and with state and local governments to enhance opportunities for all Americans from technology to transportation to travel and tourism. We concur with the unanimous findings and recommendations of the Department of Labor Task Force on Excellence in State and Local Government outlining further ways to improve the functions of government through labor-management partnerships. Political reform. Todays Democratic Party knows we have a responsibility to make our democracy work better for America, by limiting the influence of special interests and expanding the influence of the American people. Special interests have too much power in the halls of government. They often operate in secret and have special privileges ordinary Americans do not even know exist. Elections have become so expensive that big money can sometimes drown out the voices of ordinary voters -- who should always speak the loudest. Shortly after Bill Clinton took office, he implemented the toughest ethics code on executive officials in history: Senior appointees are barred from lobbying their own agencies for five years after they leave, and they can never lobby for foreign governments. After years of Republican delay, Democrats passed and the President signed the Motor Voter Bill to make it easier for people to participate in our democracy and exercise their civic responsibility in the voting booth. The President led the fight to repeal the tax loophole that let lobbyists deduct the cost of their activities, and prevailed. In 1995, after a Republican filibuster, Congress finally answered the Presidents call to stop taking gifts, meals, and trips from lobbyists to bring lobbyists out from dark rooms and into the bright light of public scrutiny by requiring full disclosure and to apply to itself the laws that apply to the rest of the country. But we must take further strong action. The President and the Democratic Party support the bipartisan McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. It will limit campaign spending, curb the influence of PACs and lobbyists, and end the soft money system. Perhaps most important of all, this bill provides free TV time for candidates, so they can talk directly to citizens about real issues and real ideas. Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress will not even let this bill come up for a vote. We call on them to stop stonewalling. It is time to take the reins of democracy away from big money and put them back in the hands of the American people, where they belong. We applaud efforts by broadcasters and private citizens alike, to increase candidates direct access to voters through free TV. Finally, we believe all Americans have a right to fair political representation -- including the citizens of the District of Columbia who deserve full self-governance, political representation, and statehood. We recognize the existing status of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the strong economic relationship between the people of Puerto Rico and the United States. We pledge to support the right of the people of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to choose freely, and in concert with the U. S. Congress, their relationship with the United States, either as an enhanced commonwealth, a state, or an independent nation. We support fair participation for Puerto Rico in federal programs and are committed to providing effective incentives for investment based on preserving and creating jobs in the islands. We pledge just and fair treatment under federal policies to the peoples of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands we respect their right to be consulted on policies that affect them directly, and to choose freely their future political status and we will continue to work with Guam to reach agreement on establishing a Commonwealth of Guam. Security, Freedom, and Peace The firm, sustained use of American might and diplomacy helped win the greatest victory for freedom in this half of the century -- the end of the Cold War. But to meet the challenges of this new era of promise and peril, America needed leadership that was able to see the contours of the new world -- and willing to act with steadiness, strength, and flexibility in the face of change to make the most of it. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have seized the opportunities of the post Cold War era. Over the past four years, their leadership has made America safer, more prosperous, and more engaged in solving the challenges of a new era. Four years ago, thousands of Russian nuclear weapons were aimed at American cities. Today, not a single Russian missile points at our children, and through the START treaties, we will cut American and Russian nuclear arsenals by two-thirds from their Cold War height. Four years ago, the forces of reform in the former Soviet Union were embattled. Today, U. S. initiatives are helping democracy and free markets take root throughout the region, Russian troops are out of the Baltics, and democracy has triumphed in Russias elections. Four years ago, the Middle East process had not moved beyond a set of principles, and there were no signs of peace in Northern Ireland. Today, in the Middle East we have seen real agreements toward peace, and handshakes of history, and the people of Northern Ireland have seen a 17 month cease-fire and historic negotiations among the parties. Four years ago, the North Koreans were operating a dangerous nuclear program. Today, that program is frozen, under international inspection, and slated to be dismantled. Four years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- the bulwark of Western security during the Cold War -- was losing direction and support. Today, NATO is keeping the peace in Bosnia with its Partnership for Peace allies and, as a result of American leadership, preparing to welcome new members from Central Europe. Four years ago, America stood aloof as war and genocide spread through the former Yugoslavia. Today, thanks to NATO airstrikes, American diplomacy and the deployment of troops from the U. S. and other nations, the war has stopped and Bosnia has its first real chance for a lasting peace. Four years ago, dictators ruled in Haiti, abusing human rights and leaving thousands of its citizens desperate to flee to our shores. Today, the dictators are gone, democracy has been restored, and Haitis mass-exodus has stopped. Four years ago, South Africa was struggling under political violence associated with apartheid. Now, following the 1994 elections -- which the United States strongly supported -- there is a national unity government and South Africa is free and democratic. Four years ago, there was good reason to worry that the world was dividing into separate, isolated, regional trading blocks. Today, thanks to Clinton Administration efforts to find new markets for American products and strengthen our existing ties, Americas relations with our trading parties around the world are stronger than ever. We applaud efforts like the Summit of the Americas, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, and, especially, the extraordinary leadership of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown on behalf of American industry and workers everywhere. Ron Brown will always be remembered with great pride and the deepest gratitude by the Democratic Party and by all Americans. The Clinton-Gore Administrations record of leadership has deterred Americas adversaries and earned respect from our allies and partners. The Dole-Gingrich Congress and the Republican Party have a different approach to Americas security. Too often they would force America to go it alone -- or not at all. Their shortsighted approach has cut resources for diplomacy that could strengthen our security, and reflects an inadequate understanding of the threats and opportunities of this new era. Todays Democratic Party is unwilling to surrender to the voices of retreat and indifference. We believe the only way to ensure Americas security and prosperity over the long run is to continue exerting American leadership across a range of military, diplomatic, and humanitarian, challenges around the world. Led by President Clinton and Vice President Gore, todays Democratic Party has set a far reaching agenda to strengthen our security, and promote peace and freedom. Strengthening our security . The highest imperative for our security is the protection of our people, our territory, and our key interests abroad. While both parties share a commitment to strong security, there is a real difference. The Republican desire to spend more money on defense than the Pentagon requests cannot obscure their inability to recognize the challenges of a new era and build the balanced defenses we need to meet them. Todays Democratic Party is committed to strengthening our military and adapting it to new challenges reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction and meeting new challenges to our security such as terrorism, international crime, and drug trafficking. Strengthening our military. Over the past four years, the Administration has undertaken the most successful restructuring of our military forces in history. Even as the size of our forces has decreased, their capabilities, readiness and qualitative edge have increased. The Administration has ensured that America is prepared to fight alongside others when we can, and alone when we must. We have defeated attempts to cut our defense budget irresponsibly. Three times in three years, President Clinton has increased our defense spending plans -- a total of almost 50 billion -- for readiness, force modernization, and quality of life improvements. We will continue our work to ensure that the men and women who wear American uniforms receive adequate pay and support, including: childcare, education, housing, access to quality health care for themselves and their families, and protection against sexual harassment. The Administration defense plan reverses the downward trend in procurement with a 40 real increase for weapons modernization by 2001. At the same time, as part of its reinventing government program, the Administration has fundamentally reformed government procurement rules in order to get the most for our money. We should also work to increase our efforts to convert unnecessary or obsolete military facilities to serve important economic needs of local communities and, while maintaining military readiness, to continue our initiatives to make our defense industrial base and products applicable to domestic commercial markets. Repeatedly during the past four years -- from the Persian Gulf to Bosnia -- our men and women in uniform have proven they are the best trained, best equipped, best prepared fighting force in the world. The Democratic Party is committed to build on this record by fully funding the Pentagons 5-year defense plan undertaking a second fundamental review of our defense structure finding new ways for our service branches to work jointly to increase our war fighting capabilities and ensuring that our troops can dominate the battlefield of the future. We honor Americas veterans they put their lives on the line to protect our way of life and promote our values around the world. Todays Democratic Party will stand by Americas duty to our veterans. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have fought hard to protect veterans benefits to expand disability benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange aggressively responding to veterans of the Persian Gulf War suffering from undiagnosed illnesses promoting veterans employment and improving and strengthening the medical system of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Strengthening our security also requires an aggressive effort against weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear, chemical, and biological -- and their means of delivery. From the nuclear weapons programs in Iraq and North Korea to the Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, our nation has seen that this threat is clear and present. To meet it, we must seize the opportunities presented by the end of the Cold War to cut weapons of mass destruction stockpiles while working to prevent lethal weapons and materials from falling into the wrong hands. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have pursued the most far reaching arms control and non-proliferation agenda in history. They negotiated an agreement to end the targeting of Russian nuclear missiles on American cities and citizens. They secured ratification of START II which, along with START I, will reduce Russian and American arsenals by two-thirds. They prevented the breakup of the Soviet Union from yielding three new nuclear weapons states, by convincing Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan to give up the nuclear weapons left on their territories when the Soviet Union collapsed. They secured the indefinite and unconditional extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They acted to freeze North Koreas nuclear program. The Democratic Party supports efforts to sign a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty this year and to bring it into force as soon as possible. We support immediate ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention -- delayed too long by the Dole Senate. We support full funding of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to eliminate former Soviet nuclear and chemical weapons and support funds to ensure that nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union are secure and do not fall into the wrong hands. We support vigilant efforts, in cooperation with the Republic of Korea, Japan, and others, to ensure North Korea fully abides by its agreements to dismantle its nuclear program, and we support the Administrations vigorous efforts to prevent Iraq, Iran, and other dangerous states from acquiring or developing weapons of mass destruction. The Democratic Party is committed to a strong and balanced National Missile Defense (NMD) program. The Administration is spending 3 billion a year on six different systems to protect our troops in the field and our allies from short and medium range missiles. To prepare for the possibility of a long range missile attack on American soil by a rogue state, the Clinton Administration is committed to developing by the year 2000 a defensive system that could be deployed by 2003, well before the threat becomes real. The Democratic Party opposes the Republican NMD plan -- spending up to 60 billion on a revival of the Star Wars program that would force us to choose a costly system today that could be obsolete tomorrow. The Republican plan would waste money, weaken Americas defenses and violate existing arms control agreements that make us more secure. It is the wrong way to defend America. Meeting new challenges. Todays Democratic Party knows that stronger security requires vigorous efforts to address the new dangers of this era. Chief among these are the interwoven threats of terrorism, drug trafficking, and international crime. We have seen the terrible toll they have exacted -- the murder of American soldiers in their barracks in Saudi Arabia and of innocent civilians on buses in Israel corruption and crime from the former Soviet Union to Latin America. We know these vicious criminals may come from within or without and pay no heed to borders we have seen firsthand the awful, evil work of the forces of terror at the World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City. And we know all too well the havoc drugs wreak when they cross our borders and flow through our neighborhoods. The Clinton-Gore Administration has mounted the most aggressive effort in American history to combat terrorism, drug trafficking, and international crime. We captured and convicted the perpetrators of the World Trade Center bombing. We enacted a strong new anti-terrorism law, in spite of foot dragging by the Republican Congress now, President Clinton and Democrats are fighting to take further steps to protect American citizens. We convened an historic summit of Mideast leaders at Sharm el-Sheik to coordinate anti-terrorism efforts, and made anti-terrorism a centerpiece of the 1996 G-7 summit. We imposed or maintained strong sanctions against states that sponsor terrorism, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan, and made clear to Syria that normal relations depend on concrete steps to end its support for groups involved with terrorism. We opposed irresponsible cuts to U. S. intelligence programs and supported efforts to reorganize and strengthen the full range of intelligence agencies and programs. We opened FBI centers to provide anti-crime and anti-terrorism training. We made Colombia ineligible for most American assistance after that countrys leadership failed to cooperate with American anti-narcotics efforts. Our three front war on terrorism -- abroad, through greater cooperation with our allies at home, by giving law enforcement the most powerful tools available to fight terrorism and in our airports and on airplanes, through tough air travel security measures -- is producing results. President Clinton asked the Vice President to chair a commission on the future of air traffic security and safety. We will work to increase the security of our air travel system, the safety of our airplanes, and the safety and security of our air traffic control system. Todays Democratic Party is determined to keep the war on global terrorism, narcotics, and crime at the center of our security agenda. We will seek increased cooperation from our allies and friends abroad in fighting these threats. We will continue to work aggressively to shut off foreign drug flows, eradicate foreign drug crops, and assist countries that demonstrate active cooperation. Promoting peace and democracy. Todays Democratic Party knows that peace and democracy are products of decisive strength and active diplomacy. That diplomacy must protect our interests while also projecting our values. The Republican Party too often has neglected diplomatic opportunities, slashed the budgets necessary for diplomatic successes, and overlooked the importance to our own security of democracy and human rights abroad. At its core, the Republican Party is locked in a Cold War mentality, and lacks a coherent strategy to nurture and strengthen the global progress toward peace and democracy. The Democratic Party believes a key to strengthening peace is stable and peaceful relations among the worlds major powers. That has been the driving force behind much of the Clinton-Gore Administrations work, from its peace initiative in Bosnia to new security agreements with Japan. We are committed to promoting democracy in regions and countries important to Americas security, and to standing with all those willing to take risks for peace, from the Middle East to Northern Ireland, where President Clinton was the first U. S. president to engage directly in the search for peace, including making an historic visit to Northern Ireland. And we are committed to doing it with all the tools we have: with diplomacy where possible, with force where necessary, and working with others where appropriate -- our allies, willing partners, the U. N. and other security organizations -- to share the risks and costs of our leadership. Europe and the former Soviet Union. Todays Democratic Party knows that the security of Europe remains a vital American interest, and that we must remain engaged in Europe, a region in which we have fought the two world wars and the Cold War this century. It is our vision to see, one day, a community of free, democratic, and peaceful nations, bound by political, security, cultural, and economic ties, spanning across North America and Europe. We applaud the Clinton-Gore Administrations efforts to foster a peaceful, democratic and undivided Europe -- including expanded support for reform in former communist states dramatically increased assistance to Ukraine the Partnership for Peace program of military cooperation with Europes new democracies its steady, determined work to add new Central European members to NATO in the near future and its efforts to resolve regional disputes such as between Greece and Turkey. We support continued efforts to secure a just and lasting peace in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and Cyprus. We are committed to the success of independence in Ukraine and the Baltics. And we support the continuing evolution of a prosperous and peaceful Russia. And as part of our effort to support we will pursue a relationship in which we seek cooperation when we can, and frankly express disagreements where they exist, such as on Chechnya. Asia. We know that many of Americas most pressing security challenges and most promising commercial opportunities lie in the Asia Pacific region. The Democratic Party applauds the important new security charter with Japan, the Administrations close cooperation with the Republic of Korea toward the goal of a unified and non-nuclear peninsula, and the deployment of an American naval task force to the Taiwan Straits to ensure that Chinas military exercises did not imperil the security of the region. The Party supports the Administrations policy of steady engagement to encourage a stable, secure, open and prosperous China -- a China that respects human rights throughout its land and in Tibet, that joins international efforts against weapons proliferation, and that plays by the rules of free and fair trade. Todays Democratic Party strongly supports continued American troop presence in East Asia and efforts to promote increased regional security. And we are committed to building long-term relationships with India, Pakistan, and others in South Asia in order to advance Americas diverse interests in that region, from democracy and commerce to nuclear non-proliferation. The Middle East. President Clinton has overseen a remarkable record of achievement toward peace and security in the Middle East -- the Israeli-Palestinian accords the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan new regional security and investment summits Israels increased acceptance throughout the Middle East and the world the dual containment of Iraq and Iran. The Democratic Party is committed to help build on this record, knowing that peace and security are indivisible, and supports the efforts by the Clinton-Gore Administration to achieve a comprehensive and lasting peace among Israel and all its neighbors, including Lebanon and Syria. The Democratic Party remains committed to Americas long-standing special relationship with Israel, based on shared values, a mutual commitment to democracy and a strategic alliance that benefits both nations. The United States should continue to help Israel maintain its qualitative edge. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths. We are also committed to working with our Arab partners for peace to build a brighter, more secure and prosperous future for all the people of the Middle East. To that end, we seek to further and enhance our close ties with states and peoples in the Arab and Islamic world committed to non-aggression and willing to take risks for peace. Latin America and the Caribbean. The Clinton-Gore Administration forged an historic partnership with the democracies of the Western Hemisphere, as reflected in the 1994 Summit of the Americas. Today, every country in the Hemisphere is a democracy except Cuba. Because democratic stability and prosperity in the countries to our south are in our interest and theirs, President Clinton took bold steps to bolster Mexicos economy when it was threatened by crisis worked to resolve internal and border conflicts in the Hemisphere joined with regional partners to combat narcotics trafficking and tightened the tough sanctions against the repressive Castro regime and those who support that regime, while reaching out to the people of Cuba in their quest for democracy, human rights, and freedom. The Democratic Party is committed to further consolidating democracy, stability, and open markets throughout the hemisphere. अफ्रीका। The Clinton Administration championed South Africas democratic transition supported Africas many emerging democracies and led international efforts to speed the return of democracy in Nigeria helped save countless lives in Somalia, Rwanda, and elsewhere through conflict resolution, removal of landmines, and humanitarian relief and took steps to help sub-Saharan Africas 700 million people develop into strong economies and markets. The Democratic Party believes that continuing to help the people of Africa nurture their continents extraordinary potential and address its serious problems is both the right thing to do and profoundly in Americas interest. Promoting democracy. America remains a beacon of hope to all who cherish democracy and human rights, and Americas security benefits from the enlargement of the community of market democracies. The Clinton-Gore Administration has actively promoted the consolidation and spread of democracy and human rights: in Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union, Central Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. President Clinton directed Vice President Gore to lead bi-national efforts to establish trading relationships to help promote democracy in three strategic areas: Russia, South Africa, and Egypt. The Democratic Party supports the aspirations of all those who seek to strengthen civil society and accountable governance. To this end, we support the MacBride Principles of equal access to regional employment in Northern Ireland. We are committed to the human rights and well-being of Jewish people and other minorities in the countries of the former Soviet Union. We support continued funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, Radio Free EuropeRadio Liberty, the Asia Pacific Network, Radio Marti and other efforts to promote democracy and the free flow of ideas. We recognize the Information Age offers new opportunities and responsibilities for our democracy and diplomacy that we must seize and meet. Resources for diplomacy. There is a price to be paid for Americas security and its leadership in world affairs -- and the Republican Party now refuses to pay that price. Even though less than one percent of the federal budget goes to foreign policy spending, the Republican Party has savaged our diplomatic readiness, defaulted on treaty obligations to pay dues to the United Nations, slashed assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable populations on earth, and pushed the United States to dead last among developed nations in the global fight against starvation, infant mortality, natural disasters and environmental degradation and other worldwide problems. The Democratic Party is committed to resist these irresponsible cuts that undermine our security and Americas ability to lead. We are committed to strengthen our security and express our values, by strongly supporting the Clinton-Gore Administrations work to ensure adequate resources for American foreign policy. Across America, in far too many places, the bonds of community that tie us together and remind us that we rise or fall together, have too often frayed. Todays Democratic Party believes we must reawaken the strong sense of community that has helped America to prosper for 220 years. America is uniquely suited to lead the world into the 21st century because of our great diversity and our shared values. We must never let our differences divide us from each other instead we must come together on a new common ground, based on the enduring values we share. When Americans work together -- in our homes, our schools, our houses of worship, our civic groups, our businesses, labor unions and professional associations -- we can meet any challenge, and realize every dream. Putting families first. The first and most sacred responsibility of every parent is to cherish our children and strengthen our families. The family is the foundation of American life. After 12 years of all family-values-talk and no family-values-action by the Republicans, President Clinton took office determined to put families first. We support the fundamental themes of the Families First Agenda -- promoting paycheck, health care, retirement, and personal security creating greater educational and economic opportunity and requiring greater responsibility from individuals, businesses, and government. Standing up for parents. In the first month of Bill Clintons Presidency, the Democratic Party ended eight years of Republican gridlock and enacted the Family and Medical Leave Act. Americans blessed with a new child or troubled by a family health crisis can no longer be forced to choose between their families and their jobs. A bipartisan panel reported that 12 million workers have already been able to live up to their family obligations without risking their jobs. And almost 90 percent of businesses found that complying with this law cost them little or nothing. Despite how important this is to American families, Senator Dole led Republican opposition to it and still insists it was wrong. This law is good for families, it is good for America, and it would not be the law today without the Democratic Party. President Clinton fought for and secured tax credits to encourage adoption, and stood firm against Republican attempts to undermine adoption assistance. Now we want to take the next step. We believe parents should be able to take unpaid leave from work and choose flex time so they can do their job as parents: to do things like go to parent-teacher conferences or take a child to the doctor. We challenge employers to plan and schedule work to allow parents to have time with their children and to afford employees the opportunity to see their families. Responsible entertainment. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have led the fight to help parents control what their children see on television. Because of their leadership, Congress passed a law requiring all new televisions to include a device called a V-chip that will block violent programs when it is activated by an adult. Senator Dole likes to talk about TV violence, but when it came time to act, he stood with a small minority to oppose the bipartisan V-chip bill. The President achieved a breakthrough agreement with the media and entertainment industries to develop a rating system for TV shows similar to the motion picture rating system, so parents can make informed decisions about what they want their children to watch. When parents control the remote, it is not censorship, it is personal responsibility for their childrens upbringing. We believe in public support for the arts, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Public and private investment in the arts and humanities and the institutions that support them is an investment in the education of our children, the strength of our economy, and the quality of American life. We support high-quality, family-friendly programming. America is the leading exporter of intellectual property built on a strong foundation of artistic freedom. We are proud to have stopped the Republican attack on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- we want our children to watch Sesame Street, not Power Rangers. And we echo the Presidents call to the entertainment industry: Work harder to develop and promote movies, music, and TV shows that are suitable -- and educational -- for children. President Clinton has revived and restored the Consumer Product Safety Commission as an effective guardian of children and families in and around their homes. We will continue to work with industry and consumers to protect children and other Americans from dangerous toys and hazardous products. Tobacco. Cigarette smoking is rapidly becoming the single greatest threat to the health of our children. We know that 3,000 young people start smoking every day, and 1,000 of them will lead shorter lives because of it. Despite that, Senator Dole and other Republicans continue to ignore volumes of medical research to make baffling claims that cigarettes are not addictive. They even argue with distinguished Republican experts like President Reagans Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. President Clinton and Vice President Gore understand that we have a responsibility to protect our childrens future by cracking down on illegal sales of tobacco to minors and by curbing sophisticated advertising campaigns designed to entice kids to start smoking before they are old enough to make an informed decision. The President has proposed measures to cut off childrens access to cigarettes, crack down on those who sell tobacco to minors illegally, and curtail advertising designed to appeal to children. Tobacco companies may market to adults if they wish, but they must take the responsibility to draw the line on children. Parents responsibility. Todays Democratic Party knows that governments do not raise children, parents do. That is why President Clinton and Vice President Gore took action to order all federal agencies to make sure everything government does for children promotes responsibility from all parents, fathers as well as mothers. Now we challenge every parent to put their children first: to help them with their homework, to read to them, to know their teachers, and above all, to teach their children right from wrong, set the best example, and teach children how to make responsible decisions. Community empowerment and cities. Todays Democratic Party understands that we cannot rebuild our poorest communities by imposing cookie-cutter solutions from Washington. We have to give communities the tools they need to create opportunity. Citizens, local government, the private sector, and civic groups must come together and take the responsibility to rebuild their communities from the bottom up. Encouraging private sector investment, and community-based solutions. After over a decade of sustained Republican neglect and empty Republican promises, President Clinton and Democrats in Congress launched a comprehensive strategy to unleash economic growth and restore opportunity to our distressed neighborhoods. Without a single Republican vote, we created 105 Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities. This effort, chaired by Vice President Gore, is bringing jobs and businesses to our poorest urban and rural areas. Thousands of new businesses have already moved into these areas, or expanded existing operations, bringing new hope and new jobs to these neighborhoods. We reformed the Community Reinvestment Act to shift the focus from process toward results we implemented low income mortgage purchase requirements on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and we created a Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. Together, these efforts are unleashing billions of dollars in new private sector lending and investment for housing and economic development in our inner cities and poorest rural areas. The President and Vice President have created a brownfields initiative to bring life back to abandoned and contaminated property by reforming outdated regulations and providing incentives for cleanup. Over the next four years, we want a second round of Empowerment Zones to bring economic growth to more American communities a significant expansion of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund to spur more private sector investment in local economies and a new tax incentive to encourage further cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields. We are committed to American cities. We believe that vast opportunities for private investment exist in Americas cities. We want to leverage federal investment to maximize private sector investments in our urban centers and support a comprehensive approach to urban problems. Todays Democratic Party knows that the best way to bring jobs and growth back to our poorest neighborhoods is to harness the job-creating power of the private sector. Helping people afford safe, secure housing. Safe, secure housing is an essential part of strong communities and strong families. We are proud that after four years of a Democrat in the White House, the percentage of people who own their own house climbed faster than it has in 30 years. Bill Clinton took executive action to make it easier and cheaper for working and middle-class homebuyers to get a home loan. We pledge to stand against Republican efforts to repeal the deductibility of home mortgage interest payments. Fulfilling his 1992 pledge, President Clinton made the low-income housing tax credit permanent, encouraging private developers to build more affordable housing. This tax credit is making it easier for families to get housing, and we will stand against Republican attacks on it. The Clinton Administration has made sweeping changes to transform the nations public housing system after decades of neglect. In the last four years, Democrats demolished more units of unlivable public housing than Republicans did in the previous twelve years, replacing them with lower-density developments that can serve as anchors for neighborhood renewal. In the next four years, we want to transform the worst public housing from a system that traps people in rundown, crime-ridden projects into one which gives families the freedom to choose where they live by providing vouchers to help them with housing costs. We have dramatically increased help for the homeless, and shifted focus from temporary shelters toward permanent solutions designed to move people back into the mainstream, into jobs and a home of their own. Agriculture and the rural community. America has the most abundant agricultural economy on earth, and it must be preserved and strengthened as we enter a new century. President Clinton and the Democrats have worked hard to promote economic growth in rural areas, protect the family farm, and ensure that farmers get a fair return for their labor and investment and consumers can continue to count on safe and nutritious foods. We support changes to the Farm Bill that would improve the safety net for family farmers. In the face of Republican efforts to gut food safety, the Clinton Administration has revolutionized meat inspection and set a new standard of consumer protection. President Clinton has reinvented the Agriculture Department, reducing regulations and bureaucracy and improving service. The Clinton Administration has cracked down on food stamp fraud, and approved experiments in state after state to reform the food stamp program. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress supported new voluntary conservation programs and saved economic development programs for rural areas through the 1996 Farm Bill. We are committed to expanding agricultural exports by reducing unfair subsidies and trade barriers around the world and protecting our farmers from predatory trade practices. Protecting our environment. Todays Democratic Party wants all Americans to be able to enjoy Americas magnificent natural heritage -- and we want our people to know that the air they breathe is pure, the water they drink is clean, and the land they live on is safe from hazard. We understand we have a sacred obligation to protect Gods earth and preserve our quality of life for our children and our childrens children. For the 12 Republican years before Bill Clinton and Al Gore took office, protecting the environment was far from a priority. And in the last two years, 25 years of bipartisan environmental progress -- started by a Democratic Congress under a Republican President -- has come under attack from the far right. Time and again, President Clinton and the Democratic Party have stood firm against this onslaught. The Republican Congress, under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, voted to cut environmental enforcement resources by 25 percent. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress said no. We believe government has a responsibility to enforce the laws that help keep toxic chemicals from our water, pesticides from our food, and smog from our air. The Republican Congress, under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, let lobbyists for the polluters write their own loopholes into bills to weaken laws that protect the health and safety of our children. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress said no. We believe Americas elected officials have a responsibility to protect Americas families from threats to their health, and that trust must never be abdicated -- especially not by placing control of environmental safeguards in the hands of the very polluters those safeguards are meant to keep in line. The Republican Congress, under Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, tried to make taxpayers pick up the tab for toxic wastes, and let polluters who caused the problem and can afford to fix it off the hook. President Clinton and Democrats in Congress said no. We believe America should insist that toxic waste cleanup is paid for by those responsible for it in the first place -- and not foisted off on the taxpayers. In the last four years, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have taken strong action to make our air and water cleaner. They reformed the Superfund program -- in each of the last two years nearly as many toxic dumps were cleaned as in the previous decade. They dramatically strengthened Community Right-to-Know efforts, because Americans should be informed about toxic chemicals being released into the air and water so they can take steps to protect themselves and their families. They took measures to cut toxic air pollution from chemical plants by 90 percent, and after years of Republican neglect they cleaned up hundreds of nuclear weapons sites and are committed to finishing the job. Todays Democratic Party knows that we can protect the environment and expand the economy. We believe we can create more jobs over the long run by cleaning the environment. We want to challenge businesses and communities to take more initiative in protecting the environment, and we want to make it easier for them to do it. President Clinton and Vice President Gore launched Project XL which tells businesses: If you can find a cheaper, more efficient way than government regulations require to meet even tougher pollution goals, do it as long as you do it right. This new approach offers business flexibility, incentives, and accountability. Environmental protection should include more education on compliance for small and medium sized business, more strategies to increase compliance for all businesses, and tough enforcement -- including criminal prosecution -- for those who put human health and the environment at risk. We are committed to protecting the majestic legacy of our National Parks and enhancing recreational opportunities. We are determined to continue working to restore the Florida Everglades, to preserve our wildlife refuges, and to fight any effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. We will be good stewards of our old-growth forests, oppose new offshore oil drilling and mineral exploration and production in our nations many environmentally critical areas, and protect our oceans from oil spills and the dumping of toxic and radioactive waste. The President and Vice President announced an historic partnership with the Big Three American automakers to develop the technology to produce cars up to three times more fuel efficient than those made today -- cleaner cars for a cleaner environment. We will continue to support responsible recycling, and encourage energy efficiency that makes our economy more efficient and less reliant on foreign oil. We believe that adequate investments in better mass transit, cleaner cars, and renewable energy sources are good for the environment and good for the economy. After years in which Republicans neglected the global environment, the Clinton Administration has made America a leader in the fight to meet environmental challenges that transcend national borders and require global cooperation. The Clinton-Gore Administration led the world in calling for a global ban on ocean-dumping of low-level radioactive waste and for a legally binding treaty to phase out persistent organic pollutants such as DDT and PCBs. We will seek a strong international agreement to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and protect our global climate. We are committed to preserving the planets biodiversity, repairing the depleted ozone layer, and working with other nations to stabilize population growth. Democrats recognize that sustainable development is the key to protecting the environment and promoting economic growth. That is why the Clinton-Gore Administration has reformed our foreign aid programs to focus on sustainable development. At home, Democrats know that sound economic development means sound environmental protection. The American community. Todays Democratic Party knows that when America is divided we will likely fail, but when America is united we will always prevail. Americans will always have differences, and when we reach across those differences, we are stronger for it. And we share an abiding set of values that define us as Americans. Our task is to draw strength from both -- from our great diversity and our constant values -- to fashion the future we want for our children. Fighting discrimination and protecting civil rights. Todays Democratic Party knows we must renew our efforts to stamp out discrimination and hatred of every kind, wherever and whenever we see it. We deplore the recent wave of burnings that has targeted African-American churches in the South, as well as other houses of worship across the country, and we have established a special task force to help local communities catch and prosecute those responsible, prevent further arsons, and rebuild their churches. We believe everyone in America should learn English so they can fully share in our daily life, but we strongly oppose divisive efforts like English-only legislation, designed to erect barriers between us and force people away from the culture and heritage of which they are rightly proud. The Clinton Administration is committed to strengthening the government-to-government relationship between the federal government and the American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments. The President will continue implementation of the Self-GovernanceSelf-Determination Act amendments which he signed in 1994 that will eventually open up the self-governance program to all tribal governments who wish to participate, giving these governments full control of where and how certain federal resources are spent on their reservations. We must remember we do not have an American to waste. We continue to lead the fight to end discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, age, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation. The Democratic Party has always supported the Equal Rights Amendment, and we are committed to ensuring full equality for women and to vigorously enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act. We support continued efforts, like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to end discrimination against gay men and lesbians and further their full inclusion in the life of the nation. Over the last four years, President Clinton and the Democrats have worked aggressively to enforce the letter and spirit of civil rights law. The President and Vice President remain committed to an Administration that looks like America, and we are proud of the Administrations extraordinary judicial appointments -- they are both more diverse and more qualified than any previous Administration. We know there is still more we can do to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans, so all people willing to work hard can build a strong future. President Clinton is leading the way to reform affirmative action so that it works, it is improved, and promotes opportunity, but does not accidentally hold others back in the process. Senator Dole has promised to end affirmative action. Hes wrong, and the President is right. When it comes to affirmative action, we should mend it, not end it. Religious freedom. Todays Democratic Party understands that all Americans have a right to express their faith. The Constitution prohibits the state establishment of religion, and it protects the free exercise of religion. The President fought for and signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to reaffirm the great protection the Constitution gives to religious expression, and to recognize the historic role people of faith have played in America. Americans have a right to express their love of God in public, and we applaud the Presidents work to ensure that children are not denied private religious expression in school. Whenever the religious rights of our children -- or any American -- are threatened, we will stand against it. Responsibility to our community and our country. Todays Democratic Party believes every American has a duty and a responsibility to give something back to their community and their country. In the past three years, 45,000 Americans have performed national service as part of the AmeriCorps program President Clinton and the Democrats fought so hard to create -- and we applaud those Republicans who joined a bipartisan effort to preserve AmeriCorps when Speaker Gingrichs House tried to kill it. We applaud the American spirit of voluntarism and charity. As we balance the budget, we must work even harder in our own lives to live up to the duties we owe one another. We must shrink the government, but we cannot shrink from our challenges. We believe every school and college in America should make service a part of its basic ethic, and we want to expand national service by helping communities give scholarships to high school students for community service. We challenge Americans in all walks of life to make a new commitment to taking responsibility for themselves, their families, their communities, and their country. If we do our job, we will make the next American century as great as each one that has come before it. We will enter the 21st century with the American Dream alive for all, with America still the worlds strongest force for peace and freedom, and with the American community coming together, enriched by our diversity and stronger than ever. Americas best days lie ahead, as we renew our historic pledge to uphold and advance the promise of America -- One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. APP Note: The American Presidency Project used the first day of the national nominating convention as the date of this platform since the original document is undated. Citation: Democratic Party Platforms: 1996 Democratic Party Platform, August 26, 1996. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project . presidency. ucsb. eduwspid29611.The American Presidency Project Promote Your Page Too In 1796, in Americas first contested national election, our Party, under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson, campaigned on the principles of The Rights of Man. Ever since, these four words have underscored our identity with the plain people of America and the world. In periods of national crisis, we Democrats have returned to these words for renewed strength. We return to them today. In 1960, The Rights of Man are still the issue. It is our continuing responsibility to provide an effective instrument of political action for every American who seeks to strengthen these rights-everywhere here in America, and everywhere in our 20th Century world. The common danger of mankind is war and the threat of war. Today, three billion human beings live in fear that some rash act or blunder may plunge us all into a nuclear holocaust which will leave only ruined cities, blasted homes, and a poisoned earth and sky. Our objective, however, is not the right to coexist in armed camps on the same planet with totalitarian ideologies it is the creation of an enduring peace in which the universal values of human dignity, truth, and justice under law are finally secured for all men everywhere on earth. If America is to work effectively for such a peace, we must first restore our national strength-military, political, economic, and moral. National Defense The new Democratic Administration will recast our military capacity in order to provide forces and weapons of a diversity, balance, and mobility sufficient in quantity and quality to deter both limited and general aggressions. When the Democratic Administration left office in 1953, the United States was the pre-eminent power in the world. Most free nations had confidence in our will and our ability to carry out our commitments to the common defense. Even those who wished us ill respected our power and influence. The Republican Administration has lost that position of pre-eminence. Over the past 7 12 years, our military power has steadily declined relative to that of the Russians and the Chinese and their satellites. This is not a partisan election-year charge. It has been persistently made by high officials of the Republican Administration itself. Before Congressional committees they have testified that the Communists will have a dangerous lead in intercontinental missiles through 19638212and that the Republican Administration has no plans to catch up. They have admitted that the Soviet Union leads in the space race8212and that they have no plans to catch up. They have also admitted that our conventional military forces, on which we depend for defense in any non-nuclear war, have been dangerously slashed for reasons of economy8212and that they have no plans to reverse this trend. As a result, our military position today is measured in terms of gaps8212missile gap, space gap, limited-war gap. To recover from the errors of the past 7 12 years will not be easy. This is the strength that must be erected: 1. Deterrent military power such that the Soviet and Chinese leaders will have no doubt that an attack on the United States would surely be followed by their own destruction. 2. Balanced conventional military forces which will permit a response graded to the intensity of any threats of aggressive force. 3. Continuous modernization of these forces through intensified research and development, including essential programs now slowed down, terminated, suspended, or neglected for lack of budgetary support. A first order of business of a Democratic Administration will be a complete re-examination of the organization of our armed forces. A military organization structure, conceived before the revolution in weapons technology, cannot be suitable for the strategic deterrent, continental defense, limited war, and military alliance requirements of the 1960s. We believe that our armed forces should be organized more nearly on the basis of function, not only to produce greater military strength, but also to eliminate duplication and save substantial sums. We pledge our will, energies, and resources to oppose Communist aggression. Since World War II, it has been clear that our own security must be pursued in concert with that of many other nations. The Democratic Administrations which, in World War II, led in forging a mighty and victorious alliance, took the initiative after the war in creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the greatest peacetime alliance in history. This alliance has made it possible to keep Western Europe and the Atlantic Community secure against Communist pressures. Our present system of alliances was begun in a time of an earlier weapons technology when our ability to retaliate against Communist attack required bases all around the periphery of the Soviet Union. Today, because of our continuing weakness in mobile weapons systems and intercontinental missiles, our defenses still depend in part on bases beyond our borders for planes and shorter-range missiles. If an alliance is to be maintained in vigor, its unity must be reflected in shared purposes. Some of our allies have contributed neither devotion to the cause of freedom nor any real military strength. The new Democratic Administration will review our system of pacts and alliances. We shall continue to adhere to our treaty obligations, including the commitment of the UN Charter to resist aggression. But we shall also seek to shift the emphasis of our cooperation from military aid to economic development, wherever this is possible. Civil Defense We commend the work of the civil defense groups throughout the nation. A strong and effective civil defense is an essential element in our nations defense. The new Democratic Administration will undertake a full review and analysis of the programs that should be adopted if the protection possible is to be provided to the civilian population of our nation. Arms Control A fragile power balance sustained by mutual nuclear terror does not, however, constitute peace. We must regain the initiative on the entire international front with effective new policies to create the conditions for peace. There are no simple solutions to the infinitely complex challenges which face us. Mankinds eternal dream, a world of peace, can only be built slowly and patiently. A primary task is to develop responsible proposals that will help break the deadlock on arms control. Such proposals should include means for ending nuclear tests under workable safeguards, cutting back nuclear weapons, reducing conventional forces, preserving outer space for peaceful purposes, preventing surprise attack, and limiting the risk of accidental war. This requires a national peace agency for disarmament planning and research to muster the scientific ingenuity, coordination, continuity, and seriousness of purpose which are now lacking in our arms control efforts. The national peace agency would develop the technical and scientific data necessary for serious disarmament negotiations, would conduct research in cooperation with the Defense Department and Atomic Energy Commission on methods of inspection and monitoring arms control agreements, particularly agreements to control nuclear testing, and would provide continuous technical advice to our disarmament negotiators. As with armaments, so with disarmament, the Republican Administration has provided us with much talk but little constructive action. Representatives of the United States have gone to conferences without plans or preparation. The Administration has played opportunistic politics, both at home and abroad. Even during the recent important negotiations at Geneva and Paris, only a handful of people were devoting full time to work on the highly complex problem of disarmament. More than 100 billion of the worlds production now goes each year into armaments. To the extent that we can secure the adoption of effective arms control agreements, vast resources will be freed for peaceful use. The new Democratic Administration will plan for an orderly shift of our expenditures. Long-delayed reductions in excise, corporation, and individual income taxes will then be possible. We can also step up the pace in meeting our backlog of public needs and in pursuing the promise of atomic and space science in a peaceful age. As world-wide disarmament proceeds, it will free vast resources for a new international attack on the problem of world poverty. The Instruments of Foreign Policy American foreign policy in all its aspects must be attuned to our world of change. We will recruit officials whose experience, humanity, and dedication fit them for the task of effectively representing America abroad. We will provide a more sensitive and creative direction to our overseas information program. And we will overhaul our administrative machinery so that America may avoid diplomatic embarrassments and at long last speak with a single confident voice in world affairs. The Image of America First, those men and women selected to represent us abroad must be chosen for their sensitive understanding of the peoples with whom they will live. We can no longer afford representatives who are ignorant of the language and culture and politics of the nations in which they represent us. Our information programs must be more than news broadcasts and boastful recitals of our accomplishments and our material riches. We must find ways to show the people of the world that we share the same goals8212dignity, health, freedom, schools for children, a place in the sun8212and that we will work together to achieve them. Our program of visits between Americans and people of other nations will be expanded, with special emphasis upon students and younger leaders. We will encourage study of foreign languages. We favor continued support and extension of such programs as the East-West cultural center established at the University of Hawaii. We shall study a similar center for Latin America, with due consideration of the existing facilities now available in the Canal Zone. National Policy Machinery In the present Administration, the National Security Council has been used not to focus issues for decision by the responsible leaders of Government, but to paper over problems of policy with agreed solutions which avoid decisions. The mishandling of the U-2 espionage flights8212the sorry spectacle of official denial, retraction, and contradiction8212and the admitted misjudging of Japanese public opinion are only two recent examples of the breakdown of the Administrations machinery for assembling facts, making decisions, and coordinating action. The Democratic Party welcomes the study now being made by the Senate Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery. The new Democratic Administration will revamp and simplify this cumbersome machinery. World Trade World trade is more than ever essential to world peace. In the tradition of Cordell Hull, we shall expand world trade in every responsible way. Since all Americans share the benefits of this policy, its costs should not be the burden of a few. We shall support practical measures to case the necessary adjustments of industries and communities which may be unavoidably hurt by increases in imports. World trade raises living standards, widens markets, reduces costs, increases profits, and builds political stability and international economic cooperation. However, the increase in foreign imports involves costly adjustment and damage to some domestic industries and communities. The burden has been heavier recently because of the Republican failure to maintain an adequate rate of economic growth, and the refusal to use public programs to ease necessary adjustments. The Democratic Administration will help industries affected by foreign trade with measures favorable to economic growth, orderly transition, fair competition, and the long-run economic strength of all parts of our nation. Industries and communities affected by foreign trade need and deserve appropriate help through trade adjustment measures such as direct loans, tax incentives, defense contracts priority, and re-training assistance. Our Government should press for reduction of foreign barriers to the sale of the products of American industry and agriculture. These are particularly severe in the case of fruit products. The present balance-of-payments situation provides a favorable opportunity for such action. The new Democratic Administration will seek international agreements to assure fair competition and fair labor standards to protect our own workers and to improve the lot of workers elsewhere. Our domestic economic policies and our essential foreign policies must be harmonious. To sell, we must buy. We therefore must resist the temptation to accept remedies that deny American producers and consumers access to world markets and destroy the prosperity of our friends in the non-Communist world. Immigration We shall adjust our immigration, nationality and refugee policies to eliminate discrimination and to enable members of scattered families abroad to be united with relatives already in our midst. The national-origins quota system of limiting immigration contradicts the rounding principles of this nation. It is inconsistent with our belief in the rights of man. This system was instituted after World War I as a policy of deliberate discrimination by a Republican Administration and Congress. The revision of immigration and nationality laws we seek will implement our belief that enlightened immigration, naturalization and refugee policies and humane administration of them are important aspects of our foreign policy. These laws will bring greater skills to our land, reunite families, permit the United States to meet its fair share of world programs of rescue and rehabilitation, and take advantage of immigration as an important factor in the growth of the American economy. In this World Refugee Year it is our hope to achieve admission of our fair share of refugees. We will institute policies to alleviate suffering among the homeless wherever we are able to extend our aid. We must remove the distinctions between native-born and naturalized citizens to assure full protection of our laws to all. There is no place in the United States for second-class citizenship. The protections provided by due process, right of appeal, and statutes of limitation, can be extended to non-citizens without hampering the security of our nation. We commend the Democratic Congress for the initial steps that have recently been taken toward liberalizing changes in immigration law. However, this should not be a piecemeal project and we are confident that a Democratic President in cooperation with Democratic Congresses will again implant a humanitarian and liberal spirit in our nations immigration and citizenship policies. To the peoples and governments beyond our shores we offer the following pledges: The Underdeveloped World To the non-Communist nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America: We shall create with you working partnerships, based on mutual respect and understanding. In the Jeffersonian tradition, we recognize and welcome the irresistible momentum of the world revolution of rising expectations for a better life. We shall identify American policy with the values and objectives of this revolution. To this end the new Democratic Administration will revamp and refocus the objectives, emphasis and allocation of our foreign assistance programs. The proper purpose of these programs is not to buy gratitude or to recruit mercenaries, but to enable the peoples of these awakening, developing nations to make their own free choices. As they achieve a sense of belonging, of dignity, and of justice, freedom will become meaningful for them, and therefore worth defending. Where military assistance remains essential for the common defense, we shall see that the requirements are fully met. But as rapidly as security considerations permit, we will replace tanks with tractors, bombers with bulldozers, and tacticians with technicians. We shall place our programs of international cooperation on a long-term basis to permit more effective planning. We shall seek to associate other capital-exporting countries with us in promoting the orderly economic growth of the underdeveloped world. We recognize India and Pakistan as major tests of the capacity of free men in a difficult environment to master the age-old problems of illiteracy, poverty, and disease. We will support their efforts in every practical way. We welcome the emerging new nations of Africa to the world community. Here again we shall strive to write a new chapter of fruitful cooperation. In Latin America we shall restore the Good Neighbor Policy based on far closer economic cooperation and increased respect and understanding. In the Middle East we will work for guarantees to insure independence for all states. We will encourage direct Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, the resettlement of Arab refugees in lands where there is room and opportunity for them, an end to boycotts and blockades, and unrestricted use of the Suez Canal by all nations. A billion and a half people in Asia, Africa and Latin America are engaged in an unprecedented attempt to propel themselves into the 20th Century. They are striving to create or reaffirm their national identity. But they want much more than independence. They want an end to grinding poverty. They want more food, health for themselves and their children, and other benefits that a modern industrial civilization can provide. Communist strategy has sought to divert these aspirations into narrowly nationalistic channels, or external troublemaking, or authoritarianism. The Republican Administration has played into the hands of this strategy by concerning itself almost exclusively with the military problem of Communist invasion. The Democratic programs of economic cooperation will be aimed at making it as easy as possible for the political leadership in these countries to turn the energy, talent and resources of their peoples to orderly economic growth. History and current experience show that an annual per capita growth rate of at least 2 is feasible in these countries. The Democratic Administrations assistance program, in concert with the aid forthcoming from our partners in Western Europe, Japan, and the British Commonwealth, will be geared to facilitating this objective. The Democratic Administration will recognize that assistance to these countries is not an emergency or short-term matter. Through the Development Loan Fund and otherwise, we shall seek to assure continuity in our aid programs for periods of at least five years, in order to permit more effective allocation on our part and better planning by the governments of the countries receiving aid. More effective use of aid and a greater confidence in us and our motives will be the result. We shall establish priorities for foreign aid which will channel it to those countries abroad which, by their own willingness to help themselves, show themselves most capable of using it effectively. We shall use our own agricultural productivity as an effective tool of foreign aid, and also as a vital form of working capital for economic development. We shall seek new approaches which will provide assistance without disrupting normal world markets for food and fiber. We shall give attention to the problem of stabilizing world prices of agricultural commodities and basic raw materials on which many underdeveloped countries depend for needed foreign exchange. We shall explore the feasibility of shipping and storing a substantial part of our food abundance in a system of food banks located at distribution centers in the underdeveloped world. Such a system would be an effective means of alleviating famine and suffering in times of natural disaster, and of cushioning the effect of bad harvests. It would also have a helpful anti-inflationary influence as economic development gets under way. Although basic development requirements like transport, housing, schools, and river development may be financed by Government, these projects are usually built and sometimes managed by private enterprise. Moreover, outside this public sector a large and increasing role remains for private investment. The Republican Administration has done little to summon American business to play its part in this, one of the most creative tasks of our generation. The Democratic Administration will take steps to recruit and organize effectively the best business talent in America for foreign economic development. We urge continued economic assistance to Israel and the Arab peoples to help them raise their living standards. We pledge our best efforts for peace in the Middle East by seeking to prevent an arms race while guarding against the dangers of a military imbalance resulting from Soviet arms shipments. The Atlantic Community To our friends and associates in the Atlantic Community: We propose a broader partnership that goes beyond our common fears to recognize the depth and sweep of our common political, economic, and cultural interests. We welcome the recent heartening advances toward European unity. In every appropriate way, we shall encourage their further growth within the broader framework of the Atlantic Community. After World War II, Democratic statesmen saw that an orderly, peaceful world was impossible with Europe shattered and exhausted. They fashioned the great programs which bear their names8212the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan8212by which the economies of Europe were revived. Then in NATO they renewed for the common defense the ties of alliance forged in war. In these endeavors, the Democratic Administrations invited leading Republicans to full participation as equal partners. But the Republican Administration has rejected this principle of bi-partisanship. We have already seen how the mutual trust and confidence created abroad under Democratic leadership have been eroded by arrogance, clumsiness, and lack of understanding in the Republican Administration. The new Democratic Administration will restore the former high levels of cooperation within the Atlantic Community envisaged from the beginning by the NATO treaty in political and economic spheres as well as military affairs. We welcome the progress towards European unity expressed in the Coal and Steel Community, Euratom, the European Economic Community, the European Free Trade Association, and the European Assembly. We shall conduct our relations with the nations of the Common Market so as to encourage the opportunities for freer and more expanded trade, and to avert the possibilities of discrimination that are inherent in it. We shall encourage adjustment with the so-called Outer Seven nations so as to enlarge further the area of freer trade. The Communist World To the rulers of the Communist World: We confidently accept your challenge to competition in every field of human effort. We recognize this contest as one between two radically different approaches to the meaning of life8212our open society which places its highest value upon individual dignity, and your closed society in which the rights of men are sacrificed to the state. We believe your Communist ideology to be sterile, unsound, and doomed to failure. We believe that your children will reject the intellectual prison in which you seek to confine them, and that ultimately they will choose the eternal principles of freedom. In the meantime, we are prepared to negotiate with you whenever and wherever there is a realistic possibility of progress without sacrifice of principle. If negotiations through diplomatic channels provide opportunities, we will negotiate. If debate before the United Nations holds promise, we will debate. If meetings at high level offer prospects of success, we will be there. But we will use all the power, resources, and energy at our command to resist the further encroachment of Communism on freedom 8212 whether at Berlin, Formosa, or new points of pressure as yet undisclosed. We will keep open the lines of communication with our opponents. Despite difficulties in the way of peaceful agreement, every useful avenue will be energetically explored and pursued. However, we will never surrender positions which are essential to the defense of freedom, nor will we abandon peoples who are now behind the Iron Curtain through any formal approval of the status quo. Everyone proclaims firmness in support of Berlin. The issue is not the desire to be firm, but the capability to be firm. This the Democratic Party will provide as it has done before. The ultimate solution of the situation in Berlin must be approached in the broader context of settlement of the tensions and divisions of Europe. The good faith of the United States is pledged likewise to defending Formosa. We will carry out that pledge. The new Democratic Administration will also reaffirm our historic policy of opposition to the establishment anywhere in the Americas of governments dominated by foreign powers, a policy now being undermined by Soviet threats to the freedom and independence of Cuba. The Government of the United States under a Democratic Administration will not be deterred from fulfilling its obligations and solemn responsibilities under its treaties and agreements with the nations of the Western Hemisphere. Nor will the United States, in conformity with its treaty obligations, permit the establishment of a regime dominated by international, atheistic Communism in the Western Hemisphere. To the people who live in the Communist World and its captive nations: We proclaim an enduring friendship which goes beyond governments and ideologies to our common human interest in a better world. Through exchanges of persons, cultural contacts, trade in non-strategic areas, and other non-governmental activities, we will endeavor to preserve and improve opportunities for human relationships which no Iron Curtain can permanently sever. No political platform promise in history was more cruelly cynical than the Republican effort to buy votes in 1952 with false promises of painless liberation for the captive nations. The blood of heroic freedom fighters in Hungary tragically proved this promise a fraud. We Democrats will never be party to such cruel cultivation of false hopes. We look forward to the day when the men and women of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, and the other captive nations will stand again in freedom and justice. We will hasten, by every honorable and responsible means, the arrival of the day. We shall never accept any deal or arrangement which acquiesces in the present subjugation of these peoples. We deeply regret that the policies and actions of the Government of Communist China have interrupted the generations of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples. We reaffirm our pledge of determined opposition to the present admission of Communist China to the United Nations. Although normal diplomatic relations between our Governments are impossible under present conditions, we shall welcome any evidence that the Chinese Communist Government is genuinely prepared to create a new relationship based on respect for international obligations, including the release of American prisoners. We will continue to make every effort to effect the release of American citizens and servicemen now unjustly imprisoned in Communist China and elsewhere in the Communist empire. The United Nations To all our fellow members of the United Nations: We shall strengthen our commitments in this, our great continuing institution for conciliation and the growth of a world community. Through the machinery of the United Nations, we shall work for disarmament, the establishment of an international police force, the strengthening of the World Court, and the establishment of world law. We shall propose the bolder and more effective use of the specialized agencies to promote the worlds economic and social development. Great Democratic Presidents have taken the lead in the effort to unite the nations of the world in an international organization to assure world peace with justice under law. The League of Nations, conceived by Woodrow Wilson, was doomed by Republican defeat of United States participation. The United Nations, sponsored by Franklin Roosevelt, has become the one place where representatives of the rival systems and interests which divide the world can and do maintain continuous contact. The United States adherence to the World Court contains a so-called self-judging reservation which, in effect, permits us to prevent a Court decision in any particular case in which we are involved. The Democratic Party proposes its repeal. To all these endeavors so essential to world peace, we, the members of the Democratic Party, will bring a new urgency, persistence, and determination, born of the conviction that in our thermonuclear century all of the other Rights of Man hinge on our ability to assure mans right to peace. The pursuit of peace, our contribution to the stability of the new nations of the world, our hopes for progress and well-being at home, all these depend in large measure on our ability to release the full potential of our American economy for employment, production, and growth. Our generation of Americans has achieved a historic technological breakthrough. Today we are capable of creating an abundance in goods and services beyond the dreams of our parents. Yet on the threshold of plenty the Republican Administration hesitates, confused and afraid. As a result, massive human needs now exist side by side with idle workers, idle capital, and idle machines. The Republican failure in the economic field has been virtually complete. Their years of power have consisted of two recessions, in 1953-54 and 1957-60, separated by the most severe peacetime inflation in history. They have shown themselves incapable of checking inflation. In their efforts to do so, they have brought on recessions that have thrown millions of Americans out of work. Yet even in these slumps, the cost of living has continued to climb, and it is now at an all-time high. They have slowed down the rate of growth of the economy to about one-third the rate of the Soviet Union. Over the past 7 12-year period, the Republicans have failed to balance the budget or reduce the national debt. Responsible fiscal policy requires surpluses in good times to more than offset the deficits which may occur in recessions, in order to reduce the national debt over the long run. The Republican Administration has produced the deficits8212 in fact, the greatest deficit in any peace-time year in history, in 1958-598212but only occasional and meager surpluses. Their first seven years produced a total deficit of nearly 19 billion. While reducing outlays for essential public services which directly benefit our people, they have raised the annual interest charge on the national debt to a level 3 billion higher than when they took office. In the eight fiscal years of the Republican Administration, these useless higher interest payments will have cost the taxpayers 9 billion. They have mismanaged the public debt not only by increasing interest rates, but also by failing to lengthen the average maturity of Government obligations when they had a clear opportunity to do so. Economic Growth The new Democratic Administration will confidently proceed to unshackle American enterprise and to free American labor, industrial leadership, and capital, to create an abundance that will outstrip any other system. Free competitive enterprise is the most creative and productive form of economic order that the world has seen. The recent slow pace of American growth is due not to the failure of our free economy but to the failure of our national leadership. We Democrats believe that our economy can and must grow at an average rate of 5 annually, almost twice as fast as our average annual rate since 1953. We pledge ourselves to policies that will achieve this goal without inflation. Economic growth is the means whereby we improve the American standard of living and produce added tax resources for national security and essential public services. Our economy must grow more swiftly in order to absorb two groups of workers: the much larger number of young people who will be reaching working age in the 1960s, and the workers displaced by the rapid pace of technological advances, including automation. Republican policies which have stifled growth could only mean increasingly severe unemployment, particularly of youth and older workers. An End to Tight Money As the first step in speeding economic growth, a Democratic president will put an end to the present high-interest, tight-money policy. This policy has failed in its stated purpose8212to keep prices down. It has given us two recessions within five years, bankrupted many of our farmers, produced a record number of business failures, and added billions of dollars in unnecessary higher interest charges to Government budgets and the cost of living. A new Democratic Administration will reject this philosophy of economic slowdown. We are committed to maximum employment, at decent wages and with fair profits, in a far more productive, expanding economy. The Republican high-interest policy has extracted a costly toll from every American who has financed a home, an automobile, a refrigerator, or a television set. It has foisted added burdens on taxpayers of state and local governments which must borrow for schools and other public services. It has added to the cost of many goods and services, and hence has been itself a factor in inflation. It has created windfalls for many financial institutions. The 9 billion of added interest charges on the national debt would have been even higher but for the prudent insistence of the Democratic Congress that the ceiling on interest rates for long-term Government bonds be maintained. Control of Inflation The American consumer has a right to fair prices. We are determined to secure that right. Inflation has its roots in a variety of causes its cure lies in a variety of remedies. Among those remedies are monetary and credit policies properly applied, budget surpluses in times of full employment, and action to restrain administered price increases in industries where economic power rests in the hands of a few. A fair share of the gains from increasing productivity in many industries should he passed on to the consumer through price reductions. The agenda which a new Democratic Administration will face next January is crowded with urgent needs on which action has been delayed, deferred, or denied by the present Administration. A new Democratic Administration will undertake to meet those needs. It will reaffirm the Economic Bill of Rights which Franklin Roosevelt wrote into our national conscience sixteen years ago. It will reaffirm these rights for all Americans of whatever race, place of residence, or station in life: 1. The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation. Full Employment The Democratic Party reaffirms its support of full employment as a paramount objective of national policy. For nearly 30 months the rate of unemployment has been between 5 and 7.5 of the labor force. A pool of three to four million citizens, able and willing to work but unable to find jobs, has been written off by the Republican Administration as a normal readjustment of the economic system. The policies of a Democratic Administration to restore economic growth will reduce current unemployment to a minimum. Thereafter, if recessionary trends appear, we will act promptly with counter-measures, such as public works or temporary tax cuts. We will not stand idly by and permit recessions to run their course as the Republican Administration has done. Aid to Depressed Areas The right to a job requires action to create new industry in Americas depressed areas of chronic unemployment. General economic measures will not alone solve the problems of localities which suffer some special disadvantage. To bring prosperity to these depressed areas and to enable them to make their full contribution to the national welfare, specially directed action is needed. Areas of heavy and persistent unemployment result from depletion of natural resources, technological change, shifting defense requirements, or trade imbalances which have caused the decline of major industries. Whole communities, urban and rural, have been left stranded in distress and despair, through no fault of their own. These communities have undertaken valiant efforts of self-help. But mutual aid, as well as self-help, is part of the American tradition. Stricken communities deserve the help of the whole nation. The Democratic Congress twice passed bills to provide this help. The Republican President twice vetoed them. These bills proposed low-interest loans to private enterprise to create new industry and new jobs in depressed communities, assistance to the communities to provide public facilities necessary to encourage the new industry, and retraining of workers for the new jobs. The Democratic Congress will again pass, and the Democratic President will sign, such a bill. Discrimination in Employment The right to a job requires action to break down artificial and arbitrary barriers to employment based on age, race, sex, religion, or national origin. Unemployment strikes hardest at workers over 40, minority groups, young people, and women. We will not achieve full employment until prejudice against these workers is wiped out. Collective Bargaining The right to a job requires the restoration of full support for collective bargaining and the repeal of the anti-labor excesses which have been written into our labor laws. Under Democratic leadership a sound national policy was developed, expressed particularly by the Wagner National Labor Relations Act, which guaranteed the rights of workers to organize and to bargain collectively. But the Republican Administration has replaced this sound policy with a national anti-labor policy. The Republican Taft-Hartley Act seriously weakened unions in their efforts to bring economic justice to the millions of American workers who remain unorganized. By administrative action, anti-labor personnel appointed by the Republicans to the National Labor Relations Board have made the Taft-Hartley Act even more restrictive in its application than in its language. Thus the traditional goal of the Democratic Party8212to give all workers the right to organize and bargain collectively8212has still not been achieved. We pledge the enactment of an affirmative labor policy which will encourage free collective bargaining through the growth and development of free and responsible unions. Millions of workers just now seeking to organize are blocked by Federally authorized right-to-work laws, unreasonable limitations on the right to picket, and other hampering legislative and administrative provisions. Again, in the new Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, the Republican Administration perverted the constructive effort of the Democratic Congress to deal with improper activities of a few in labor and management by turning that Act into a means of restricting the legitimate rights of the vast majority of working men and women in honest labor unions. This law likewise strikes hardest at the weak or poorly organized, and it fails to deal with abuses of management as vigorously as with those of labor. We will repeal the authorization for right-to-work laws, limitations on the rights to strike, to picket peacefully and to tell the public the facts of a labor dispute, and other anti-labor features of the Taft-Hartley Act and the 1959 Act. This unequivocal pledge for the repeal of the anti-labor and restrictive provisions of those laws will encourage collective bargaining and strengthen and support the free and honest labor movement. The Railroad Retirement Act and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act are in need of improvement. We strongly oppose Republican attempts to weaken the Railway Labor Act. We shall strengthen and modernize the Walsh-Healey and Davis-Bacon Acts, which protect the wage standards of workers employed by Government contractors. Basic to the achievement of stable labor-management relations is leadership from the White House. The Republican Administration has failed to provide such leadership. It failed to foresee the deterioration of labor-management relations in the steel industry last year. When a national emergency was obviously developing, it failed to forestall it. When the emergency came, the Administrations only solution was government-by-injunction. A Democratic President, through his leadership and concern, will produce a better climate for continuing constructive relationships between labor and management. He will have periodic White House conferences between labor and management to consider their mutual problems before they reach the critical stage. A Democratic President will use the vast fact-finding facilities that are available to inform himself, and the public, in exercising his leadership in labor disputes for the benefit of the nation as a whole. If he needs more such facilities, or authority, we will provide them. We further pledge that in the administration of all labor legislation we will restore the level of integrity, competence and sympathetic understanding required to carry out the intent of such legislation. Planning for Automation The right to a job requires planning for automation, so that men and women will be trained and available to meet shifting employment needs. We will conduct a continuing analysis of the nations manpower resources and of measures which may be required to assure their fullest development and use. We will provide the Government leadership necessary to insure that the blessings of automation do not become burdens of widespread unemployment. For the young and the technologically displaced workers, we will provide the opportunity for training and retraining that equips them for jobs to be filled. Minimum Wages 2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation. At the bottom of the income scale are some eight million families whose earnings are too low to provide even basic necessities of food, shelter, and clothing. We pledge to raise the minimum wage to 1.25 an hour and to extend coverage to several million workers not now protected. We pledge further improvements in the wage, hour and coverage standards of the Fair Labor Standards Act so as to extend its benefits to all workers employed in industries engaged in or affecting interstate commerce and to raise its standards to keep up with our general economic progress and needs. We shall seek to bring the two million men, women and children who work for wages on the farms of the United States under the protection of existing labor and social legislation and to assure migrant labor, perhaps the most underprivileged of all, of a comprehensive program to bring them not only decent wages but also adequate standards of health, housing, Social Security protection, education and welfare services. Agriculture 3. The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living. We shall take positive action to raise farm income to full parity levels and to preserve family farming as a way of life. We shall put behind us once and for all the timidity with which our Government has viewed our abundance of food and fiber. We will set new high levels of food consumption both at home and abroad. As long as many Americans and hundreds of millions of people in other countries remain underfed, we shall regard these agricultural riches, and the family farmers who produce them, not as a liability but as a national asset. Using Our Abundance The Democratic Administration will inaugurate a national food and fiber policy for expanded use of our agricultural abundance. We will no longer view food stockpiles with alarm but will use them as powerful instruments for peace and plenty. We will increase consumption at home. A vigorous, expanding economy will enable many American families to eat more and better food. We will use the food stamp programs authorized to feed needy children, the aged and the unemployed. We will expand and improve the school lunch and milk programs. We will establish and maintain food reserves for national defense purposes near important population centers in order to preserve lives in event of national disaster, and will operate them so as not to depress farm prices. We will expand research into new industrial uses of agricultural products. We will increase consumption abroad. The Democratic Party believes our nations capacity to produce food and fiber is one of the great weapons for waging war against hunger and want throughout the world. With wise management of our food abundance we will expand trade between nations, support economic and human development programs, and combat famine. Unimaginative, outmoded Republican policies which fail to use these productive capacities of our farms have been immensely costly to our nation. They can and will be changed. Achieving Income Parity While farmers have raised their productive efficiency to record levels, Republican farm policies have forced their income to drop by 30. Tens of thousands of farm families have been bankrupted and forced off the land. This has happened despite the fact that the Secretary of Agriculture has spent more on farm programs than all previous Secretaries in history combined. Farmers acting individually or in small groups are helpless to protect their incomes from sharp declines. Their only recourse is to produce more, throwing production still further out of balance with demand and driving prices down further. This disastrous downward cycle can be stopped only by effective farm programs sympathetically administered with the assistance of democratically elected farmer committees. The Democratic Administration will work to bring about full parity income for farmers in all segments of agriculture by helping them to balance farm production with the expanding needs of the nation and the world. Measures to this end include production and marketing quotas measured in terms of barrels, bushels and bales, loans on basic commodities at not less than 90 of parity, production payments, commodity purchases, and marketing orders and agreements. We repudiate the Republican administration of the Soil Bank Program, which has emphasized the retirement of whole farm units, and we pledge an orderly land retirement and conservation program. We are convinced that a successful combination of these approaches will cost considerably less than present Republican programs which have failed. We will encourage agricultural cooperatives by expanding and liberalizing existing credit facilities and developing new facilities if necessary to assist them in extending their marketing and purchasing activities, and we will protect cooperatives from punitive taxation. The Democratic Administration will improve the marketing practices of the family-type dairy farm to reduce risk of loss. To protect farmers incomes in times of natural disaster, the Federal Crop Insurance Program, created and developed experimentally under Democratic Administrations, should be invigorated and expanded nationwide. Improving Working and Living on Farms Farm families have been among those victimized most severely by Republican tight-money policies. Young people have been barred from entering agriculture. Giant corporations and other non-farmers, with readier access to credit and through vertical integration methods, have supplanted hundreds of farm families and caused the bankruptcy of many others. The Democratic Party is committed by tradition and conviction to preservation of family agriculture. To this end, we will expand and liberalize farm credit facilities, especially to meet the needs of family-farm agriculture and to assist beginning farmers. Many families in Americas rural counties are still living in poverty because of inadequate resources and opportunity. This blight and personal desperation should have received national priority attention long ago. The new Democratic Administration will begin at once to eradicate long-neglected rural blight. We will help people help themselves with extended and supervised credit for farm improvement, local industrial development, improved vocational training and other assistance to those wishing to change to non-farm employment, and with the fullest development of commercial and recreational possibilities. This is one of the major objectives of the area redevelopment program, twice vetoed by the Republican President. The rural electric cooperatives celebrate this year the twenty-fifth anniversary of the creation of the Rural Electrification Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Democratic Congress has successfully fought the efforts of the Republican Administration to cut off REA loans and force high-interest-rate policies on this great rural enterprise. We will maintain interest rates for REA co-ops and public power districts at the levels provided in present law. We deplore the Administrations failure to provide the dynamic leadership necessary for encouraging loans to rural users for generation of power where necessary. We promise the co-ops active support in meeting the ever-growing demand for electric power and telephone service, to be filled on a complete area-coverage basis without requiring benefits for special-interest power groups. In every way we will seek to help the men, women, and children whose livelihood comes from the soil to achieve better housing, education, health, and decent earnings and working conditions. All these goals demand the leadership of a Secretary of Agriculture who is conversant with the technological and economic aspects of farm problems, and who is sympathetic with the objectives of effective farm legislation not only for farmers but for the best interest of the nation as a whole. Small Business 4. The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home and abroad. The new Democratic Administration will act to make our free economy really free8212free from the oppression of monopolistic power, and free from the suffocating impact of high interest rates. We will help create an economy in which small businesses can take root, grow, and flourish. We Democrats pledge: 1. Action to aid small business in obtaining credit and equity capital at reasonable rates. Small business which must borrow to stay alive has been a particular victim of the high-interest policies of the Republican administration. The loan program of the Small Business Administration should be accelerated, and the independence of that agency preserved. The Small Business Investment Act of 1958 must be administered with a greater sense of its importance and possibilities. 2. Protection of the public against the growth of monopoly. The last 7 12 years of Republican government has been the greatest period of merger and amalgamation in industry and banking in American history. Democratic Congresses have enacted numerous important measures to strengthen our anti-trust laws. Since 1950 the four Democratic Congresses have enacted laws like the Celler-Kefauver Anti-Merger Act, and improved the laws against price discriminations and tie-in sales. When the Republicans were in control of the 80th and 83rd Congresses they failed to enact a single measure to strengthen or improve the antitrust laws. The Democratic Party opposes this trend to monopoly. We pledge vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws. We favor requiring corporations to file advance notice of mergers with the anti-trust enforcement agencies. We favor permitting all firms to have access at reasonable rates to patented inventions resulting from Government-financed research and development contracts. We favor strengthening the Robinson-Patman Act to protect small business against price discrimination. We favor authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to obtain temporary injunctions during the pendency of administrative proceedings. 3. A more equitable share of Government contracts to small and independent business. We will move from almost complete reliance on negotiation in the award of Government contracts toward open, competitive bidding. 5. The right of every family to a decent home. Today our rate of home building is less than that of ten years ago. A healthy, expanding economy will enable us to build two million homes a year, in wholesome neighborhoods, for people of all incomes. At this rate, within a single decade we can clear away our slums and assure every American family a decent place to live. Republican policies have led to a decline of the home building industry and the production of fewer homes. Republican high-interest policies have forced the cost of decent housing beyond the range of many families. Republican indifference has perpetuated slums. We record the unpleasant fact that in 1960 at least 40 million Americans live in substandard housing. One million new families are formed each year and need housing, and 300,000 existing homes are lost through demolition or other causes and need to be replaced. At present, construction does not even meet these requirements, much less permit reduction of the backlog of slum units. We support a housing construction goal of more than two million homes a year. Most of the increased construction will be priced to meet the housing needs of middle8212and low-income families who now live in substandard housing and are priced out of the market for decent homes. Our housing programs will provide for rental as well as sales housing. They will permit expanded cooperative housing programs and sharply stepped-up rehabilitation of existing homes. To make possible the building of two million homes a year in wholesome neighborhoods, the home building industry should be aided by special mortgage assistance, with low interest rates, long-term mortgage periods and reduced down payments. Where necessary, direct Government loans should be provided. Even with this new and flexible approach, there will still be need for a substantial low-rent public housing program authorizing as many units as local communities require and are prepared to build. 6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Illness is expensive. Many Americans have neither incomes nor insurance protection to enable them to pay for modern health care. The problem is particularly acute with our older citizens, among whom serious illness strikes most often. We shall provide medical care benefits for the aged as part of the time-tested Social Security insurance system. We reject any proposal which would require such citizens to submit to the indignity of a means test8212a paupers oath. For young and old alike, we need more medical schools, more hospitals, more research laboratories to speed the final conquest of major killers. Medical Care for Older Persons Fifty million Americans8212more than a fourth of our people8212have no insurance protection against the high cost of illness. For the rest, private health insurance pays, on the average, only about one-third of the cost of medical care. The problem is particularly acute among the 16 million Americans over 65 years old, and among disabled workers, widows and orphans. Most of these have low incomes and the elderly among them suffer two to three times as much illness as the rest of the population. The Republican Administration refused to acknowledge any national responsibility for health care for elder citizens until forced to do so by an increasingly outraged demand. Then, its belated proposal was a cynical sham built around a degrading test based on means or income8212a paupers oath. The most practicable way to provide health protection for older people is to use the contributory machinery of the Social Security system for insurance covering hospital bills and other high-cost medical services. For those relatively few of our older people who have never been eligible for Social Security coverage, we shall provide corresponding benefits by appropriations from the general revenue. We will step up medical research on the major killers and crippling diseases8212cancer, heart disease, arthritis, mental illness. Expenditures for these purposes should be limited only by the availability of personnel and promising lines of research. Today such illness costs us 35 billion annually, much of which could be avoided. Federal appropriations for medical research are barely 1 of this amount. Heart disease and cancer together account for two out of every three deaths in this country. The Democratic President will summon to a White House conference the nations most distinguished scientists in these fields to map a coordinated long-run program for the prevention and control of these diseases. We will also support a cooperative program with other nations on international health research. We will expand and improve the Hill-Burton hospital construction program. Health Manpower To ease the growing shortage of doctors and other medical personnel we propose Federal aid for constructing, expanding and modernizing schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing and public health. We are deeply concerned that the high cost of medical education is putting this profession beyond the means of most American families. We will provide scholarships and other assistance to break through the financial barriers to medical education. Mental Health Mental patients fill more than half the hospital beds in the country today. We will provide greatly increased Federal support for psychiatric research and training, and community mental health programs, to help bring back thousands of our hospitalized mentally ill to full and useful lives in the community. 7. The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accidents, and unemployment. A Program for the Aging The Democratic Administration will end the neglect of our older citizens. They deserve lives of usefulness, dignity, independence, and participation. We shall assure them not only health care but employment for those who want work, decent housing, and recreation. Already 16 million Americans8212about one in ten8212are over 65, with the prospect of 26 million by 1980. As stated, we will provide an effective system for paid-up medical insurance upon retirement, financed during working years through the Social Security mechanism and available to all retired persons without a means test. This has first priority. Half of the people over 65 have incomes inadequate for basic nutrition, decent housing, minimum recreation and medical care. Older people who do not want to retire need employment opportunity and those of retirement age who no longer wish to or cannot work need better retirement benefits. We pledge a campaign to eliminate discrimination in employment due to age. As a first step we will prohibit such discrimination by Government contractors and subcontractors. We will amend the Social Security Act to increase the retirement benefit for each additional year of work after 65, thus encouraging workers to continue on the job full time. To encourage part-time work by others, we favor raising the 1200-a-year ceiling on what a worker may earn while still drawing Social Security benefits. Retirement benefits must be increased generally, and minimum benefits raised from 33 a month to 50. We shall provide decent and suitable housing which older persons can afford. Specifically we shall move ahead with the program of direct Government loans for housing for older people initiated in the Housing Act of 1959, a program which the Republican Administration has sought to kill. Special Services We shall take Federal action in support of state efforts to bring standards of care in nursing homes and other institutions for the aged up to desirable minimums. We shall support demonstration and training programs to translate proven research into action in such fields as health, nutritional guidance, home care, counseling, recreational activity. Taken together, these measures will affirm a new charter of rights for the older citizens among us8212the right to a life of usefulness, health, dignity, independence and participation. Disability Insurance We shall permit workers who are totally and permanently disabled to retire at any age, removing the arbitrary requirement that the worker be 50 years of age. We shall also amend the law so that after six months of total disability, a worker will be eligible for disability benefits, with restorative services to enable him to return to work. Physically Handicapped We pledge continued support of legislation for the rehabilitation of physically handicapped persons and improvement of employment opportunities for them. Public Assistance Persons in need who are inadequately protected by social insurance are cared for by the states and local communities under public assistance programs. The Federal Government, which now shares the cost of aid to some of these, should share in all, and benefits should be made available without regard to residence. Unemployment Benefits We will establish uniform minimum standards throughout the nation for coverage, duration, and amount of unemployment insurance benefits. Equality for Women We support legislation which will guarantee to women equality of rights under the law, including equal pay for equal work. Child Welfare The Child Welfare Program and other services already established under the Social Security Act should be expanded. Federal leadership is required in the nationwide campaign to prevent and control juvenile delinquency. Intergroup Relations We propose a Federal bureau of intergroup relations to help solve problems of discrimination in housing, education, employment, and community opportunities in general. The bureau would assist in the solution of problems arising from the re settlement of immigrants and migrants within our own country, and in resolving religious, social and other tensions where they arise. 8. The right to a good education. Americas young people are our greatest resource for the future. Each of them deserves the education which will best develop his potentialities. We shall act at once to help in building the classrooms and employing the teachers that are essential if the right to a good education is to have genuine meaning for all the youth of America in the decade ahead. As a national investment in our future we propose a program of loans and scholarship grants to assure that qualified young Americans will have full opportunity for higher education, at the institutions of their choice, regardless of the income of their parents. The new Democratic Administration will end eight years of official neglect of our educational system. Americas education faces a financial crisis. The tremendous increase in the number of children of school and college age has far outrun the available supply of educational facilities and qualified teachers. The classroom shortage alone is interfering with the education of 10 million students. Americas teachers, parents and school administrators have striven courageously to keep up with the increased challenge of education. So have states and local communities. Education absorbs two-fifths of all their revenue. With limited resources, private educational institutions have shouldered their share of the burden. Only the Federal Government is not doing its part. For eight years, measures for the relief of the educational crisis have been held up by the cynical maneuvers of the Republican Party in Congress and the White House. We believe that America can meet its educational obligations only with generous Federal financial support, within the traditional framework of local control. The assistance will take the form of Federal grants to states for educational purposes they deem most pressing, including classroom construction and teachers salaries. It will include aid for the construction of academic facilities as well as dormitories at colleges and universities. We pledge further Federal support for all phases of vocational education for youth and adults for libraries and adult education for realizing the potential of educational television and for exchange of students and teachers with other nations. As part of a broader concern for young people we recommend establishment of a Youth Conservation Corps, to give underprivileged young people a rewarding experience in a healthful environment. The pledges contained in this Economic Bill of Rights point the way to a better life for every family in America. They are the means to a goal that is now within our reach8212the final eradication in America of the age-old evil of poverty. Yet there are other pressing needs on our national agenda. Natural Resources A thin layer of earth, a few inches of rain, and a blanket of air make human life possible on our planet. Sound public policy must assure that these essential resources will be available to provide the good life for our children and future generations. Water, timber and grazing lands, recreational areas in our parks, shores, forests and wildernesses, energy, minerals, even pure air8212all are feeling the press of enormously increased demands of a rapidly growing population. Natural resources are the birthright of all the people. The new Democratic Administration, with the vision that built a TVA and a Grand Coulee, will develop and conserve that heritage for the use of this and future generations. We will reverse Republican policies under which Americas resources have been wasted, depleted, underdeveloped, and recklessly given away. We favor the best use of our natural resources, which generally means adoption of the multiple-purpose principle to achieve full development for all the many functions they can serve. Water and Soil An abundant supply of pure water is essential to our economy. This is a national problem. Water must serve domestic, industrial and irrigation needs and inland navigation. It must provide habitat for fish and wildlife, supply the base for much outdoor recreation, and generate electricity. Water must also be controlled to prevent floods, pollution, salinity and silt. The new Democratic Administration will develop a comprehensive national water resource policy. In cooperation with state and local governments, and interested private groups, the Democratic Administration will develop a balanced, multiple-purpose plan for each major river basin, to be revised periodically to meet changing needs. We will erase the Republican slogan of no new starts and will begin again to build multiple-purpose dams, hydroelectric facilities, flood-control works, navigation facilities, and reclamation projects to meet mounting and urgent needs. We will renew the drive to protect every acre of farm land under a soil and water conservation plan, and we will speed up the small-watershed program. We will support and intensify the research effort to find an economical way to convert salt and brackish water. The Republicans discouraged this research, which holds untold possibilities for the whole world. Water and Air Pollution America can no longer take pure water and air for granted. Polluted rivers carry their dangers to everyone living along their courses impure air does not respect boundaries. Federal action is needed in planning, coordinating and helping to finance pollution control. The states and local communities cannot go it alone. Yet President Eisenhower vetoed a Democratic bill to give them more financial help in building sewage treatment plants. A Democratic President will sign such a bill. Democrats will step up research on pollution control, giving special attention to: 1. the rapidly growing problem of air pollution from industrial plants, automobile exhausts, and other sources, and 2. disposal of chemical and radioactive wastes, some of which are now being dumped off our coasts without adequate knowledge of the potential consequences. Outdoor Recreation As population grows and the work week shortens and transportation becomes easier and speedier, the need for outdoor recreation facilities mounts. We must act quickly to retain public access to the oceans, gulfs, rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs, and their shorelines, and to reserve adequate camping and recreational areas while there is yet time. Areas near major population centers are particularly needed. The new Democratic Administration will work to improve and extend recreation opportunities in national parks and monuments, forests, and river development projects, and near metropolitan areas. Emphasis will be on attractive, low-cost facilities for all the people and on preventing undue commercialization. The National Park System is still incomplete in particular, the few remaining suitable shorelines must be included in it. A national wilderness system should be created for areas already set aside as wildernesses. The system should be extended but only after careful consideration by the Congress of the value of areas for competing uses. Recreational needs of the surrounding area should be given important consideration in disposing of Federally owned lands. We will protect fish and game habitats from commercial exploitation and require military installations to conform to sound conservation practices. The Republican Administration would turn the clock back to the days before the New Deal, in an effort to divert the benefits of the great natural energy resources from all the people to a favored few. It has followed for many years a no new starts policy. It has stalled atomic energy development it has sought to cripple rural electrification. It has closed the pilot plant on getting oil from shale. It has harassed and hampered the TVA. We reject this philosophy and these policies. The people are entitled to use profitably what they already own. The Democratic Administration instead will foster the development of efficient regional giant power systems from all sources, including water, tidal, and nuclear power, to supply low-cost electricity to all retail electric systems, public, private, and cooperative. The Democratic Administration will continue to develop yardsticks for measuring the rates of private utility systems. This means meeting the needs of rural electric cooperatives for low-interest loans for distribution, transmission and generation facilities Federal transmission facilities, where appropriate, to provide efficient low-cost power supply and strict enforcement of the public-preference clause in power marketing. The Democratic Administration will support continued study and research on energy fuel resources, including new sources in wind and sun. It will push forward with the Passamaquoddy tidal power project with its great promise of cheaper power and expanded prosperity for the people of New England. We support the establishment of a national fuels policy. The 15 billion national investment in atomic energy should be protected as a part of the public domain. Federal Lands and Forests The record of the Republican Administration in handling the public domain is one of complete lethargy. It has failed to secure existing assets. In some cases, it has given away priceless resources for plunder by private corporations, as in the A1 Sarena mining incident and the secret leasing of game refuges to favored oil interests. The new Democratic Administration will develop balanced land and forest policies suited to the needs of a growing America. This means intensive forest management on a multiple-use and sustained-yield basis, reforestation of burnt-over lands, building public access roads, range reseeding and improvement, intensive work in watershed management, concern for small business operations, and insuring free public access to public lands for recreational uses. America uses half the minerals produced in the entire Free World. Yet our mining industry is in what may be the initial phase of a serious long-term depression. Sound policy requires that we strengthen the domestic mining industry without interfering with adequate supplies of needed materials at reasonable costs. We pledge immediate efforts toward the establishment of a realistic long-range minerals policy. The new Democratic Administration will begin intensive research on scientific prospecting for mineral deposits. We will speed up the geologic mapping of the country, with emphasis on Alaska. We will resume research and development work on use of low-grade mineral reserves, especially oil shale, lignites, iron ore taconite, and radioactive minerals. These efforts have been halted or cut back by the Republican Administration. The Democratic Party favors a study of the problem of non-uniform seaward boundaries of the coastal states. Government Machinery for Managing Resources Long-range programming of the nations resource development is essential. We favor creation of a council of advisers on resources and conservation, which will evaluate and report annually upon our resource needs and progress. We shall put budgeting for resources on a businesslike basis, distinguishing between operating expense and capital investment, so that the country can have an accurate picture of the costs and returns. We propose the incremental method in determining the economic justification of our river basin programs. Charges for commercial use of public lands will be brought into line with benefits received. Cities and Their Suburbs A new Democratic Administration will expand Federal programs to help urban communities clear their slums, dispose of their sewage, educate their children, transport suburban commuters to and from their jobs, and combat juvenile delinquency. We will give the city dweller a voice at the Cabinet table by bringing together within a single department programs concerned with urban and metropolitan problems. The United States is now predominantly an urban nation. The efficiency, comfort, and beauty of our cities and suburbs influence the lives of all Americans. Local governments have found increasing difficulty in coping with such fundamental public problems as urban renewal, slum clearance, water supply, mass transportation, recreation, health, welfare, education and metropolitan planning. These problems are, in many cases, interstate and regional in scope. Yet the Republican Administration has turned its back on urban and suburban America. The list of Republican vetoes includes housing, urban renewal and slum clearance, area redevelopment, public works, airports and stream pollution control. It has proposed severe cutbacks in aid for hospital construction, public assistance, vocational education, community facilities and sewage disposal. The result has been to force communities to thrust an ever-greater tax load upon the already overburdened property taxpayer and to forgo needed public services. The Democratic Party believes that state and local governments are strengthened8212not weakened8212by financial assistance from the Federal Government. We will extend such aid without impairing local administration through unnecessary Federal interference or red tape. We propose a ten-year action program to restore our cities and provide for balanced suburban development, including the following: 1. The elimination of slums and blight and the restoration of cities and depressed areas within the next ten years. 2. Federal aid for metropolitan area planning and community facility programs. 3. Federal aid for comprehensive metropolitan transportation programs, including bus and rail mass transit, commuter railroads as well as highway programs, and construction of civil airports. 4. Federal aid in combating air and water pollution. 5. Expansion of park systems to meet the recreation needs of our growing population. The Federal Government must recognize the financial burdens placed on local governments, urban and rural alike, by Federal installations and land holdings. Transportation Over the past seven years, we have watched the steady weakening of the nations transportation system. Railroads are in distress. Highways are congested. Airports and airways lag far behind the needs of the jet age. To meet this challenge we will establish a national transportation policy, designed to coordinate and modernize our facilities for transportation by road, rail, water, and air. The jet age has made rapid improvement in air safety imperative. Rather than an orderly withdrawal from the airport grant programs as proposed by the Republican Administration, we pledge to expand the program to accommodate growing air traffic. Development of our inland waterways, our harbors, and Great Lakes commerce has been held back by the Republican President. We pledge the improvement of our rivers and harbors by new starts and adequate maintenance. A strong and efficient American-flag merchant marine is essential to peacetime commerce and defense emergencies. Continued aid for ship construction and operation to offset cost differentials favoring foreign shipping is essential to these goals. The Republican Administration has slowed down, stretched out and greatly increased the costs of the interstate highway program. The Democratic Party supports the highway program embodied in the Acts of 1956 and 1958 and the principle of Federal-state partnership in highway construction. We commend the Democratic Congress for establishing a special committee which has launched an extensive investigation of this highway program. Continued scrutiny of this multi-billion-dollar highway program can prevent waste, inefficiency and graft and maintain the publics confidence. The nations railroads are in particular need of freedom from burdensome regulation to enable them to compete effectively with other forms of transportation. We also support Federal assistance in meeting certain capital needs, particularly for urban mass transportation. We will recognize the special role of our Federal Government in support of basic and applied research. The Republican Administration has remained incredibly blind to the prospects of space exploration. It has failed to pursue space programs with a sense of urgency at all close to their importance to the future of the world. It has allowed the Communists to hit the moon first, and to launch substantially greater payloads. The Republican program is a catchall of assorted projects with no clearly defined, long-range plan of research. The new Democratic Administration will press forward with our national space program in full realization of the importance of space accomplishments to our national security and our international prestige. We shall reorganize the program to achieve both efficiency and speedy execution. We shall bring top scientists into positions of responsibility. We shall undertake long-term basic research in space science and propulsion. We shall initiate negotiations leading toward the international regulation of space. Atomic Energy The United States became pre-eminent in the development of atomic energy under Democratic Administrations. The Republican Administration, despite its glowing promises of Atoms for Peace, has permitted the gradual deterioration of United States leadership in atomic development both at home and abroad. In order to restore United States leadership in atomic development, the new Democratic Administration will: 1. Restore truly nonpartisan and vigorous administration of the vital atomic energy program. 2. Continue the development of the various promising experimental and prototype atomic power plants which show promise, and provide increasing support for longer-range projects at the frontiers of atomic energy application. 3. Continue to preserve and support national laboratories and other Federal atomic installations as the foundation of technical progress and a bulwark of national defense. 4. Accelerate the Rover nuclear rocket project and auxiliary power facilities so as to achieve world leadership in peaceful outer space exploration. 5. Give reality to the United States international atoms-for-peace programs, and continue and expand technological assistance to underdeveloped countries. 6. Consider measures for improved organization and procedure for radiation protection and reactor safety, including a strengthening of the role of the Federal Radiation Council, and the separation of quasi-judicial functions in reactor safety regulations. 7. Provide a balanced and flexible nuclear defense capability, including the augmentation of the nuclear submarine fleet. Oceanography Oceanographic research is needed to advance such important programs as food and minerals from our Great Lakes and the sea. The present Administration has neglected this new scientific frontier. Government Operations We shall reform the processes of Government in all branches8212Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. We will clean out corruption and conflicts of interest, and improve Government services. The Federal Service Two weeks before this Platform was adopted, the difference between the Democratic and Republican attitudes toward Government employees was dramatically illustrated. The Democratic Congress passed a fully justified pay increase to bring Government pay scales more nearly into line with those of private industry. The Republican President vetoed the pay raise. The Democratic Congress decisively overrode the veto. The heavy responsibilities of modern government require a Federal service characterized by devotion to duty, honesty of purpose and highest competence. We pledge the modernization and strengthening of our Civil Service system. We shall extend and improve the employees appeals system and improve programs for recognizing the outstanding merits of individual employees. Ethics in Government We reject totally the concept of dual or triple loyalty on the part of Federal officials in high places. The conflict-of-interest statutes should be revised and strengthened to assure the Federal service of maximum security against unethical practices on the part of public officials. The Democratic Administration will establish and enforce a Code of Ethics to maintain the full dignity and integrity of the Federal service and to make it more attractive to the ablest men and women. Regulatory Agencies The Democratic Party promises to clean up the Federal regulatory agencies. The acceptance by Republican appointees to these agencies of gifts, hospitality, and bribes from interests under their jurisdiction has been a particularly flagrant abuse of public trust. We shall bring all contacts with commissioners into the open, and will protect them from any form of improper pressure. We shall appoint to these agencies men of ability and independent judgment who understand that their function is to regulate these industries in the public interest. We promise a thorough review of existing agency practices, with an eye toward speedier decisions, and a clearer definition of what constitutes the public interest. The Democratic Party condemns the usurpation by the Executive of the powers and functions of any of the independent agencies and pledges the restoration of the independence of such agencies and the protection of their integrity of action, The Postal Service The Republican policy has been to treat the United States postal service as a liability instead of a great investment in national enlightenment, social efficiency and economic betterment. Constant curtailment of service has inconvenienced every citizen. A program must be undertaken to establish the Post Office Department as a model of efficiency and service. We pledge ourselves to: 1. Restore the principle that the postal service is a public service. 2. Separate the public service costs from those to be borne by the users of the mails. 3. Continue steady improvement in working conditions and wage scales, reflecting increasing productivity. 4. Establish a long-range program for research and capital improvements compatible with the highest standards of business efficiency. Law Enforcement In recent years, we have been faced with a shocking increase in crimes of all kinds. Organized criminals have even infiltrated into legitimate business enterprises and labor unions. The Republican Administration, particularly the Attorney Generals office, has failed lamentably to deal with this problem despite the growing power of the underworld. The new Democratic Administration will take vigorous corrective action. Freedom of Information We reject the Republican contention that the workings of Government are the special private preserve of the Executive. The massive wall of secrecy erected between the Executive branch and the Congress as well as the citizen must be torn down. Information must flow freely, save in those areas in which the national security is involved. Clean Elections The Democratic Party favors realistic and effective limitations on contributions and expenditures, and full disclosure of campaign financing in Federal elections. We further propose a tax credit to encourage small contributions to political parties. The Democratic Party affirms that every candidate for public office has a moral obligation to observe and uphold traditional American principles of decency, honesty and fair play in his campaign for election. We deplore efforts to divide the United States into regional, religious and ethnic groups. We denounce and repudiate campaign tactics that substitute smear and slander, bigotry and false accusations of bigotry, for truth and reasoned argument. District of Columbia The capital city of our nation should be a symbol of democracy to people throughout the world. The Democratic Party reaffirms its long-standing support of home rule for the District of Columbia, and pledges to enact legislation permitting voters of the District to elect their own local government. We urge the legislatures of the 50 states to ratify the 23rd Amendment, passed by the Democratic Congress, to give District citizens the right to participate in Presidential elections. We also support a Constitutional amendment giving the District voting representation in Congress. Virgin Islands We believe that the voters of the Virgin Islands should have the right to elect their own Governor, to have a delegate in the Congress of the United States and to have the right to vote in national elections for a President and Vice President of the United States. Puerto Rico The social, economic, and political progress of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is a testimonial to the sound enabling legislation, and to the sincerity and understanding with which the people of the 50 states and Puerto Rico are meeting their joint problems. The Democratic Party, under whose administration the Commonwealth status was established, is entitled to great credit for providing the opportunity which the people of Puerto Rico have used so successfully. Puerto Rico has become a show place of world-wide interest, a tribute to the benefits of the principles of self-determination. Further benefits for Puerto Rico under these principles are certain to follow. Congressional Procedures In order that the will of the American people may be expressed upon all legislative proposals, we urge that action be taken at the beginning of the 87th Congress to improve Congressional procedures so that majority rule prevails and decisions can be made after reasonable debate without being blocked by a minority in either House. The rules of the House of Representatives should be so amended as to make sure that bills reported by legislative committees reach the floor for consideration without undue delay. In an age of mass production, distribution, and advertising, consumers require effective Government representation and protection. The Republican Administration has allowed the Food and Drug Administration to be weakened. Recent Senate hearings on the drug industry have revealed how flagrant profiteering can be when essential facts on costs, prices, and profits are hidden from scrutiny. The new Democratic Administration will provide the money and the authority to strengthen this agency for its task. We propose a consumer counsel, backed by a suitable staff, to speak for consumers in the formulation of Government policies and represent consumers in administrative proceedings. The consumer also has a right to know the cost of credit when he borrows money. We shall enact Federal legislation requiring the vendors of credit to provide a statement of specific credit charges and what these charges cost in terms of true annual interest. Veterans Affairs We adhere to the American tradition dating from the Plymouth Colony in New England in 1636: . any soldier injured in defense of the colony shall be maintained completely by the colony for the remainder of his life. We pledge adequate compensation for those with service-connected disabilities and for the survivors of those who died in service or from service-connected disabilities. We pledge pensions adequate for a full and dignified life for disabled and distressed veterans and for needy survivors of deceased veterans. Veterans of World War I, whose Federal benefits have not matched those of veterans of subsequent service, will receive the special attention of the Democratic Party looking toward equitable adjustments. We endorse expanded programs of vocational rehabilitation for disabled veterans, and education for orphans of servicemen. The quality of medical care furnished to the disabled veterans has deteriorated under the Republican Administration. We shall work for an increased availability of facilities for all veterans in need and we shall move with particular urgency to fulfill the need for expanded domiciliary and nursing-home facilities. We shall continue the veterans home loan guarantee and direct loan programs and educational benefits patterned after the G. I. Bill of Rights. American Indians We recognize the unique legal and moral responsibility of the Federal Government for Indians in restitution for the injustice that has sometimes been done them. We therefore pledge prompt adoption of a program to assist Indian tribes in the full development of their human and natural resources and to advance the health, education, and economic well-being of Indian citizens while preserving their cultural heritage. Free consent of the Indian tribes concerned shall be required before the Federal Government makes any change in any Federal-Indian treaty or other contractual relationship. The new Democratic Administration will bring competent, sympathetic, and dedicated leadership to the administration of Indian affairs which will end practices that have eroded Indian rights and resources, reduced the Indians land base and repudiated Federal responsibility. Indian claims against the United States can and will he settled promptly, whether by negotiation or other means, in the best interests of both parties. The arts flourish where there is freedom and where individual initiative and imagination are encouraged. We enjoy the blessings of such an atmosphere. The nation should begin to evaluate the possibilities for encouraging and expanding participation in and appreciation of our cultural life. We propose a Federal advisory agency to assist in the evaluation, development, and expansion of cultural resources of the United States. We shall support legislation needed to provide incentives for those endowed with extraordinary talent, as a worthy supplement to existing scholarship programs. Civil Liberties With democratic values threatened today by Communist tyranny, we reaffirm our dedication to the Bill of Rights. Freedom and civil liberties, far from being incompatible with security, are vital to our national strength. Unfortunately, those high in the Republican Administration have all too often sullied the name and honor of loyal and faithful American citizens in and out of Government. The Democratic Party will strive to improve Congressional investigating and hearing procedures. We shall abolish useless disclaimer affidavits such as those for student educational loans. We shall provide a full and fair hearing, including confrontation of the accuser, to any person whose public or private employment or reputation is jeopardized by a loyalty or security proceeding. Protection of rights of American citizens to travel, to pursue lawful trade and to engage in other lawful activities abroad without distinction as to race or religion is a cardinal function of the national sovereignty. We will oppose any international agreement or treaty which by its terms or practices differentiates among American citizens on grounds of race or religion. The list of unfinished business for America is long. The accumulated neglect of nearly a decade cannot be wiped out overnight. Many of the objectives which we seek will require our best efforts over a period of years. Although the task is far-reaching, we will tackle it with vigor and confidence. We will substitute planning for confusion, purpose for indifference, direction for drift and apathy. We will organize the policy-making machinery of the Executive branch to provide vigor and leadership in establishing our national goals and achieving them. The new Democratic President will sign, not veto, the efforts of a Democratic Congress to create more jobs, to build more homes, to save family farms, to clean up polluted streams and rivers, to help depressed areas, and to provide full employment for our people. Fiscal Responsibility We vigorously reject the notion that America, with a half-trillion-dollar gross national product, and nearly half of the worlds industrial resources, cannot afford to meet our needs at home and in our world relationships. We believe, moreover, that except in periods of recession or national emergency, these needs can be met with a balanced budget, with no increase in present tax rates, and with some surplus for the gradual reduction of our national debt. To assure such a balance we shall pursue a four-point program of fiscal responsibility. First, we shall end the gross waste in Federal expenditures which needlessly raises the budgets of many Government agencies. The most conspicuous unnecessary item is, of course, the excessive cost of interest on the national debt. Courageous action to end duplication and competition among the armed services will achieve large savings. The cost of the agricultural program can be reduced while at the same time prosperity is being restored to the nations farmers. Second, we shall collect the billions in taxes which are owed to the Federal Government but not now collected. The Internal Revenue Service is still suffering from the cuts inflicted upon its enforcement staff by the Republican Administration and the Republican Congress in 1953. The Administrations own Commissioner of Internal Revenue has testified that billions of dollars in revenue are lost each year because the Service does not have sufficient agents to follow up on tax evasion. We will add enforcement personnel, and develop new techniques of enforcement, to collect tax revenue which is now being lost through evasion. Third, we shall close the loopholes in the tax laws by which certain privileged groups legally escape their fair share of taxation. Among the more conspicuous loopholes are depletion allowances which are inequitable, special consideration for recipients of dividend income, and deductions for extravagant business expenses which have reached scandalous proportions. Tax reform can raise additional revenue and at the same time increase legitimate incentives for growth, and make it possible to ease the burden on the general taxpayer who now pays an unfair share of taxes because of special favors to the few. Fourth, we shall bring in added Federal tax revenues by expanding the economy itself. Each dollar of additional production puts an additional 18 cents in tax revenue in the national treasury. A 5 growth rate, therefore, will mean that at the end of four years the Federal Government will have had a total of nearly 50 billion in additional tax revenues above those presently received. By these four methods we can sharply increase the Government funds available for needed services, for correction of tax inequities, and for debt or tax reduction. Much of the challenge of the 1960s, however, remains unforeseen and unforeseeable. If, therefore, the unfolding demands of the new decade at home or abroad should impose clear national responsibilities that cannot be fulfilled without higher taxes, we will not allow political disadvantage to deter us from doing what is required. As we proceed with the urgent task of restoring Americas productivity, confidence, and power, we will never forget that our national interest is more than the sum total of all the group interests in America. When group interests conflict with the national interest, it will be the national interest which we serve. On its values and goals the quality of American life depends. Here above all our national interest and our devotion to the Rights of Man coincide. Democratic Administrations under Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman led the way in pressing for economic justice for all Americans. But man does not live by bread alone. A new Democratic Administration, like its predecessors, will once again look beyond material goals to the spiritual meaning of American society. We have drifted into a national mood that accepts payola and quiz scandals, tax evasion and false expense accounts, soaring crime rates, influence peddling in high Government circles, and the exploitation of sadistic violence as popular entertainment. For eight long critical years our present national leadership has made no effective effort to reverse this mood. The new Democratic Administration will help create a sense of national purpose and higher standards of public behavior. Civil Rights We shall also seek to create an affirmative new atmosphere in which to deal with racial divisions and inequalities which threaten both the integrity of our democratic faith and the proposition on which our nation was founded8212that all men are created equal. It is our faith in human dignity that distinguishes our open free society from the closed totalitarian society of the Communists. The Constitution of the United States rejects the notion that the Rights of Man means the rights of some men only. We reject it too. The right to vote is the first principle of self-government. The Constitution also guarantees to all Americans the equal protection of the laws. It is the duty of the Congress to enact the laws necessary and proper to protect and promote these constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has the power to interpret these rights and the laws thus enacted. It is the duty of the President to see that these rights are respected and that the Constitution and laws as interpreted by the Supreme Court are faithfully executed. What is now required is effective moral and political leadership by the whole Executive branch of our Government to make equal opportunity a living reality for all Americans. As the party of Jefferson, we shall provide that leadership. In every city and state in greater or lesser degree there is discrimination based on color, race, religion, or national origin. If discrimination in voting, education, the administration of justice or segregated lunch counters are the issues in one area, discrimination in housing and employment may be pressing questions elsewhere. The peaceful demonstrations for first-class citizenship which have recently taken place in many parts of this country are a signal to all of us to make good at long last the guarantees of our Constitution. The time has come to assure equal access for all Americans to all areas of community life, including voting booths, schoolrooms, jobs, housing, and public facilities. The Democratic Administration which takes office next January will therefore use the full powers provided in the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to secure for all Americans the right to vote. If these powers, vigorously invoked by a new Attorney General and backed by a strong and imaginative Democratic President, prove inadequate, further powers will be sought. We will support whatever action is necessary to eliminate literacy tests and the payment of poll taxes as requirements for voting. A new Democratic Administration will also use its full powers8212legal and moral8212to ensure the beginning of good-faith compliance with the Constitutional requirement that racial discrimination be ended in public education. We believe that every school district affected by the Supreme Courts school desegregation decision should submit a plan providing for at least first-step compliance by 1963, the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. To facilitate compliance, technical and financial assistance should be given to school districts facing special problems of transition. For this and for the protection of all other Constitutional rights of Americans, the Attorney General should be empowered and directed to file civil injunction suits in Federal courts to prevent the denial of any civil right on grounds of race, creed, or color. The new Democratic Administration will support Federal legislation establishing a Fair Employment Practices Commission to secure effectively for everyone the right to equal opportunity for employment. In 1949 the Presidents Committee on Civil Rights recommended a permanent Commission on Civil Rights. The new Democratic Administration will broaden the scope and strengthen the powers of the present commission and make it permanent. Its functions will be to provide, assistance to communities, industries, or individuals in the implementation of Constitutional rights in education, housing, employment, transportation, and the administration of justice. In addition, the Democratic Administration will use its full executive powers to assure equal employment opportunities and to terminate racial segregation throughout Federal services and institutions, and on all Government contracts, The successful desegregation of the armed services took place through such decisive executive action under President Truman. Similarly the new Democratic Administration will take action to end discrimination in Federal housing programs, including Federally assisted housing. To accomplish these goals will require executive orders, legal actions brought by the Attorney General, legislation, and improved Congressional procedures to safeguard majority rule. Above all, it will require the strong, active, persuasive, and inventive leadership of the President of the United States. The Democratic President who takes office next January will face unprecedented challenges. His Administration will present a new face to the world. It will be a bold, confident, affirmative face. We will draw new strength from the universal truths which the founder of our Party asserted in the Declaration of Independence to be self-evident. Emerson once spoke of an unending contest in human affairs, a contest between the Party of Hope and the Party of Memory. For 7 12 years America, governed by the Party of Memory, has taken a holiday from history. As the Party of Hope it is our responsibility and opportunity to call forth the greatness of the American people. In this spirit, we hereby rededicate ourselves to the continuing service of the Rights of Man-everywhere in America and everywhere else on Gods earth. APP Note: The American Presidency Project used the first day of the national nominating convention as the date of this platform since the original document is undated. Citation: Democratic Party Platforms: 1960 Democratic Party Platform, July 11, 1960. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project . presidency. ucsb. eduwspid29602.