TRADE POLICY

Citizens Freedom Party supports Fair trade agreements (not free trade agreements)

 America cannot continue to run up record trade deficits and flood our markets with cheap foreign goods.  These free trade agreements contribute to the loss of American jobs by flooding the U.S. markets with cheap foreign goods, which leads to a decline of American manufacturing and the outsourcing of American jobs. Most of our current free trade agreements are with countries that lack or ignore any environmental, social, and/or labor standards. America's current free trade a

ECONOMIC POLICY (GENERAL)

The Citizens Freedom  Party wants to Stop Outsourcing American jobs and technology

We must defend the American Worker by ending the outsourcing of American jobs. America is losing jobs in all forms and sectors to outsourcing. Corporations continue to sell out the American people in order to find cheap labor in foreign markets like China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines.  Americans continue to lose jobs, while we are building the economies of countries who will challenge our superpower status in the future. We must get American on track not to loose jobs to U.S. corporations to flock to other region for the cheap labor.

We must work to keep American companies and technology here. The outsourcing of America's technology and the offshoring of American companies is a recipe for disaster. We must keep our economic and technological advantages in the world, if we are to have any advantages at all. The outsourcing of America's technology puts America's very survival at stake.

If America is to remain strong in the future, we must, as a nation, regain our self-reliance.

We must work to bring good jobs to the American people in safe working conditions. We must also work to shrink the wage gap between men and women by raising women's wages up and not by declining the wages of men.

-  Promote a national manufacturing strategy

-  End tax breaks to companies outsourcing American Jobs

-  Encourage all Americans to buy MADE IN USA goods whenever possible

   No more Wall Street bailouts

-  Protect small business owners

-  Pass real financial reforms (bring back Glass-Steagall Act and end "Too Big to Fail")

-  Fight Employer hiring policies that discriminate against the long term unemployed

-  Get the unemployed back to work (including the long term unemployed - 99ers)

-  Invest in Research and Development

-  Rebuild and redesign our crumbling national infrastructure

-  Keep vital American infrastructure in the hands of American companies

-  Protect homeowners from corporate land stealing (Eminent Domain)

EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT

We are paying for our government to get things done, not to be ineffective and to spend our money on activities and actions motivated by weakening opposing political parties.

It is our responsibility to require that an active voting public has the information needed to make informed decisions.  We invest our time when we make a major financial purchase; we must also invest that time in assuring we have the relevant facts about candidates and how our government is performing.

-  All government employees (elected and appointed) should be publicly measured on qualitative metrics that show how effective they have been serving in office or in their position.  It is our money that is paying for each of our public employees.

-  Provide public metrics showing how well the office or department manages spending verses budget.  Annual accomplishments would show how they have improved services, reduced costs and met sustainability targets.

-  Hosting annual events where officials and departments declare their annual goals and target performance metrics.

-  Beyond campaign finance data, elected officials should report the number of inquires, responses and actions they address each year with improvements made year over year.  Random surveys should be conducted of constituents’ satisfaction with the responses and actions.

-  Officials currently just put their names on a bill or legislation. We need to know the percentage each author contributed to completing this work.

-  More citizen oversight boards for government departments at all levels.  Responsibility will be random, similar to jury duty.  This will engage and educate citizens about how our government is working.  The oversight boards will audit, rate and then report back to the public how well each government group has done in achieving yearly goals.

-  Post all proposed congressional legislation on the internet for at least 10 days prior to a vote to allow public viewing and input.

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT POLICIES

Citizens Freedom Party will Seek U.S. Energy Independence through Clean, Renewable Domestic sources

America must achieve energy independence! We can do so through the reduction in our energy consumption and to utilize domestic renewable energy sources. We must end our funding of terrorists and oppressive regimes by ending our consumption of their oil (America's drug of choice).

We must work to quickly phase in alternative domestic renewable energy resources. Domestic natural gas, wind, and solar power should be a top priority. We must begin the manufacturing of U.S. made electric cars and other technology that will wean us off of oil—especially foreign oil. We have the technology to do this and it would add hundreds of thousands of green jobs. Making America more energy efficient will make American goods more competitive on the global market. It will also make America much safer.

America needs to have a fundamental cultural shift in the way we view energy.  Energy must be viewed as a precious commodity that is used sparingly and that we are constantly looking to reduce.  Between 6% and 10% of our energy use goes to power things we are not using (anything with an LED, phone chargers, the coffee pot, televisions on hot standby, etc.).  The Government can influence and direct the national behaviors through incentives and marketing.  Increased taxes and costs should only apply to those who do not reduce energy consumption.

We support the change over to renewable energy resources for our federal and state governments; this includes their facilities and vehicles. American auto makers in Detroit need to step up to the plate in regards to manufacturing hybrid and fuel efficient vehicles.  Detroit has slipped behind foreign auto makers in hybrid and renewable technologies.  The original Ford Model T achieved roughly 24 miles to the gallon. One hundred years later in the age of technology, our vehicles are doing no better in terms of miles per gallon used.  America must act immediately to embrace the many economically and environmentally sustainable proposals available. Cleaning up America and enforcing environmental laws can be costly at times. However, time and time again we have seen that it is much less costly to prevent environmental problems before they occur than after.

We are concerned with global climate change. We must quickly work to cut vehicle emissions. When we get to the point where global climate change is too unbearable, it would take over 100 years for our proactive changes to start making a difference. Environmental protection must be and always remain a top priority. We support the change over to renewable energy resources for our federal and state governments; this includes their facilities and vehicles.  In fact, the U.S. federal government is our largest national polluter.  State governments should also quickly be transformed. Government vehicles are typically large, costly, and fuel inefficient models. In comparison, hybrids would be cheaper or at least comparable in price. The long term fuel savings in money and emissions make these fuel efficient hybrid vehicles the clear choice.

-  The U.S. federal and state governments should use hybrid vehicles.

-  Airline emissions constitute a large percentage of our overall emissions. We support greatly reducing the amount of passenger and freight flights that cover short distances. For instance, flights traveling from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Philadelphia to New York, New York to Boston, Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles to San Diego could be largely eliminated and replaced by high speed rail. Aircraft emissions could be greatly reduced while the travel times involved would see little difference. Some government subsidies would shift to the railroad industry and this would reduce the amount and frequency of massive government bailouts to the airline industry. Our new high speed rail system could run on renewable energy and create thousands of new jobs.

-  While hybrids are more expensive than non-hybrids, most government vehicles are large, costly, and fuel-inefficient models.  In comparison, hybrids would be cheaper or at least comparable in price. The long term fuel savings in money her education, adult, and continuing education programs.

We do not support affirmative action programs in the admittance of students to colleges and universities. While these programs might have been well intentioned, we feel they are unfair, unequal, and they do not correct the root problems or make things “right”.

-  The now endangered physical education and history curriculums should be restored.

-  We encourage broader access for American high school and college students who wish to study abroad. We strongly encourage cultural exchange which fosters international understanding and cooperation. Cultural exchange and study abroad experiences gives American students a richer and deeper understanding of the world and our place in it, while also giving international students the opportunity to gain a broader understanding of America.

-  Ending illegal immigration into America would reduce education costs and reduce class size all across the country.

-  Educational emphasis should be on the early years to assure every child develops the best possible base and habits for learning. This could be viewed as educational wellness.

-  If a child lacks proper behavior and is disruptive (deprives the other children), there should be focused additional behavioral classes charged base on ability to pay. These requirements need to be financially painful to motivate parents.

-  Excellent and good teachers should be rewarded based on results (individual goals and student results).  Does a tenured teacher provide $40,000 a year more of educational value to the students than a new teacher?  Both should be rewarded by accomplishments each year.

-  High schools should be measured against percentage graduation and placements into next step programs (college, military, City Year, apprenticeship programs, etc.)

-  Develop more aggressive apprentice/training programs for core job skills.

-  The following additional educational requirements should be part of all education:

  -   Students should understand the basics of how local, state and federal governments are measured for performance.

-   Understanding individual responsibility for the evaluation of candidates and focusing on factual information by filtering out persuasive marketing messages.

-   Require basic personal finance education to include retirement planning and home ownership.

-   Health care responsibilities, what they must do to evaluate health care options and to find the best health care match.  

MILITARY

Use our great military only when it is in our national interest 

America has the greatest military on earth. We must use our great military only when it is in our national interest. Our great men and woman are too important to be sent in harms way for political or corporate interests. We support our military as they bravely protect our freedoms and defending us from those who might want to do us harm. We would of course support going to war when it is necessary. We support  goodwill missions in times of large disasters around the world.

..  We will always support our troops even if we do not always support the strategic mission or the politicians that send them to battle.  We fully support taking care of our Veterans through greatly increased Veterans benefits.

 

DOMESTIC SECURITY

Secure the Homeland and stop actual Terrorist threats 

We need to secure our homeland and stop actual terrorist threats toward the U.S.  Our nuclear power plants, ports, borders, trains, and dams are not secure, and the local and state authorities are not getting the funding they need or were promised. This is breaking state and local budgets and putting our citizens in danger. Our borders need to be secure with increased border agents and National Guard troops if need be. The government must work to keep America safe, but must always preserve our individual rights. We strongly oppose many provisions of the hastily passed Patriot Act, which infringes on individual rights and does not make America safer.

-  Give local law enforcement and fire companies the funds they need for security and emergency prevention & response. 

-  Keep Government out of our bedrooms, libraries and phone/web conversations

AGRICULTURE POLICY

For the first time in our nation's history, we are beginning to import more food than we export. This is a disturbing and hazardous trend that we must immediately end and reverse. We also continue to see a growing trend of a concentration of wealth by agribusiness, biotech, chemical, and financial corporations over our nation's vital fiber and food economy. Our heritage of family farms is being choked into extinction. We must pro actively work to save our nation's family farms and end our increasing dependence on foreign agriculture and domestic corporate interests. Low prices and lack of market access due to corporate mergers and acquisitions by big agribusinesses are destroying the ability of family farmers to compete.

Our soil and technology give us a natural advantage for growing food and we are not maximizing a massive economic competitive advantage for our nation.
 As long as there are people on earth who can pay for food or charities who can support them, America should be growing food to meet that demand.

There should be sufficient agriculture so that crops for food have no negative impact on our cost of food or feed.

We seek a return to American agricultural self-reliance.

We support organic agriculture.

We support the legalization of the farming of industrial hemp.

-  No more paying farmers to not grow food

-  Tax incentives should be used to reclaim land for agriculture

-  The government should not be preventing industrial hemp if this crop can be abundant and profitable for US Agriculture.

-  Invest in Research and Development

Legalize the use of industrial hemp to boost the agriculture and industrial sectors

The Citizens Party supports the legalization of the farming of industrial hemp for the production of thousands of items. Industrial Hemp is not the same as marijuana.

FOREIGN POLICY

America can remain the world's leader and a beacon of hope in the eyes of the world by staying engaged in the world and working with allies to solve world issues and regional conflicts, while still always holding our right to act alone if necessary. However, it is not America's mission to shape the rest of the world in our image. Undertaking a mission to "bring freedom, democracy and capitalism to every nation and people of the world" would result in a serious decline in American power and our standing would be dramatically lowered in the long run. An interventionist policy is a recipe for disaster. We need elected officials who will question policies, big or small. That is part of their responsibility as public officials. They have failed to fulfill their duties in the past. Voices of protest have been silenced or sent out to the wilderness, left barking with no one to hear them.

I