The Fairness Agenda for America

You will come to realize as you read this agenda that it advocates total government domination over your life and liberty

1. Enact a Fairness Budget for America

In the richest nation on earth, there are abundant resources to build a decent society. These resources can be freed by eliminating enormous waste in the current federal budget in two categories: defense spending and "corporate welfare," and by reinstating Progressive taxation, and investing the savings in America and her people. We pledge to carry out a detailed analysis of the federal budget to ensure that it meets the test of fairness, economic and social justice. A fairness budget for America would be based on:

Cut Military Spending: This budget will be based on a careful assessment of cuts that can be made in the defense budget over the next five years.

Cut Corporate Welfare.

Reinstate Progressive Taxation: It will also include a thorough review of a tax system which contributes to widen the gap between rich and poor in America. Corporations should pay their fair share; a share that has dropped from 32 percent of federal revenues in 1952 to 9 percent in 1992.

Invest in America and Her People: It will also be based on a national needs assessment to repair the nation's decaying physical and environmental plant. We need expansion of federal support for vital community institutions like public schools, mass transit, microenterprises, job training, child care, and defense conversion.

2. Ensure Jobs and Worker Rights for All

The nation depends on a vigorous, creative, and innovative workforce that is assured basic rights. To overcome the destructive wave of denial of jobs, living wages, benefits, and freedom to organize, we propose:

Establishing in law the principles envisioned in President Roosevelt's Economic Bill of Rights.

Creating several million new jobs to restore decaying infrastructure and provide critical human and environmental services in areas of high unemployment.

Removing obstacles to workers' use of their right to associate, to freely organize and bargain for wages, health care, pensions, safe working conditions, and other needs. We will also work with groups around the world to fight for these rights in all nations.

3. Promote a Just and Sustainable Global Economy

Free trade agreements that offer new protections to corporations without any protections to workers, communities and the environment have been a major failure at home and abroad. World Bank and IMF programs that focus on adjusting economies through privatization, slashing government programs, and trade and investment liberalization have widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots and between men and women. We propose:

Halting NAFTA expansion to other countries as we initiate discussions in the Western Hemisphere over the creation of a "Just and Sustainable Trade and Development Initiative" that encompasses the protection of worker rights, women's rights, environmental standards, food security, and tackles the issues of immigration and how to reduce inequalities among nations.

Reexamining the proposed free trade areas in Africa and Asia in this context.

Suspending new funding for the World Bank and IMF pending a thorough review of their impact on growing income and gender inequality and environmental destruction in the world.

4. Fight for Equity for All

While the nation over recent decades has made great progress in eliminating legal and political disadvantage based on race and gender, much still remains to be done. Hyper-segregation of millions of African-Americans in our large cities isolates them from the rest of society and produces inadequate education and job opportunities, poor housing and health conditions, and a non-supportive social structure. Widespread discrimination in the economic and social sphere still exists, with adverse impacts on poor women of all ethnicities, people of color, older people, lesbians and gay men, people with disabilities, and immigrants. Immigration patterns have tended to exacerbate prevalent racism and produce inter-ethnic tensions. Wage gaps between women and men are still substantial. Women continue to bear disproportionate family responsibilities, and lack of childcare inhibits their employment possibilities.

These inequalities must be subject national debate and widespread education. Legislation is needed to narrow and overcome remaining inequalities. Other programs are needed to reverse current patterns of racial isolation.

5. Promote a Foreign Policy which includes Demilitarization, Human Rights and a New Internationalism

Just and sustainable trade and development must be accompanied by a new foreign policy in which the Untied States acts as a responsible global leader and global partner. We propose:

That the Defense budget be capped at $230 billion, by eliminating unneeded next-generation weapons, and then gradually brought down as funds are shifted from military to peacekeeping efforts and into pressing domestic social and infrastructure programs.

That the United States take the lead in negotiations with the Russians to eliminate completely all nuclear weapons, withdraw its nuclear weapons from Europe, convert the national laboratories to clean-up and safe nuclear material storage programs, and close the Nevada test site.

That R&D priorities be reoriented towards pressing domestic needs for clean transportation, energy systems, and manufacturing processes.

That plans to expand NATO be stopped because of its high cost to the U.S. taxpayer and new member countries and because it will decrease, not increase, security in the region and that assistance be doubled for non-proliferation programs in the former Commonwealth of Independent States.

That arms export promotion and subsidy programs be eliminated and Congress enact a Code of Conduct for conventional Arms Transfers to prohibit weapons sales to undemocratic governments.

That Congress enact a new National Security Act and National Security Adjustment Act which will ban covert operations as incompatible with constitutional democracy and world peace; end secrecy, publicly disclose and debate the intelligence budget, and release all historical files; confine intelligence gathering, except in rare, pre-approved instances, to overt methods; and enable national security workers to convert to private and socially responsible employment.

That the United States shift from unilateral military, aid, and peacekeeping missions abroad to multilateral responses with our allies, the United Nations and regional organizations. - that the United States promote real human rights abroad, which include economic, social, and cultural rights as well as the right to assembly and protest, free speech, and a democratically elected government.

6. Fight for Sustainable Communities and Environmental Justice

Sustainable Communities: Strong sustainable communities are essential partners in solving the nation's pressing social, economic, and political problems. In recent years, the federal government has given states and localities more responsibilities, but without more power and more money. We propose to remedy this imbalance through:

Reenactment of general revenue sharing in a Progressive way that distributes more no-strings federal funds to every community, but especially poor ones.

Revisions in international trade agreements that allow communities to enact strong environmental and labor laws and to invest in and purchase from any businesses they see fit.

Reform banking laws to retarget federal insurance, subsidies, loans, and loan guarantees to community development financial institutions, and to strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act.

Environmental Justice and Protection.

7. Make Social Investment a Priority

Preserve Social Security: Social Security, the nation's largest anti-poverty program, keeps some 16 million senior citizens from falling below the poverty line each year. Yet it is under heavy attack. We must defend Social Security against a host of these attacks, ranging from the calls for privatization to such "technical fixes" as cutting the Cost-of-Living Allowance for Social Security benefits. We oppose regressive changes proposed by the Social Security Advisory Council in January 1997, particularly the partial privatization plans; the proposal to raise the retirement age, which hits African-American men and low-income workers much harder than other employees; and a change in the formula for computing benefits that hits low- income and women retirees the hardest. In addition to defending the current system against these attacks, we promote Progressive reform of Social Security.

Remake Welfare: millions of Americans who have been recipients of U.S. welfare programs are in jeopardy due to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which was signed by President Clinton in August of last year. The Act repealed the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and replaced it with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The law also made significant changes to Food Stamps and all benefits for legal immigrants. We must remedy these problems through an omnibus welfare reparations bill that addresses the needs of those in America who live in poverty.

Ensure Health Care for All: Universal access to affordable quality health care should be a fundamental human right in this country. Today, 41 million Americans have no health insurance, including 10 million children and millions more are under-insured. The existing national health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid which offer a basic level of protection to seniors, people with disabilities and low-income families are under attack. The rapid corporatization of the health industry threatens access to affordable quality care. Structural changes such as Medical Savings Accounts and for-profit managed care create incentives for delivery of less care while siphoning health care dollars away for higher administrative costs. The concept of social insurance must be reaffirmed as a national priority. Proposals that pull the healthy and the wealthy from the risk pool undermine the long-term solvency of the health care system and the opportunity to achieve universal coverage in the future. We propose:

To expand, not cut existing national health programs. Efforts to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid through block grants, vouchers, Medical Savings Accounts (MSA's) and inadequate funding must be opposed.

To restore the long-term efficiency and fairness of Medicare as a social insurance program by expanding eligibility to people of all ages and income regardless of health or employment status. By creating an improved Medicare-for-all that provides comprehensive benefits, the federal government can serve as the "single payer" to control costs and guarantee universal access to affordable quality care.

To create and enforce a comprehensive managed care bill of rights to protect health care consumers.

8. Get Money out of Politics

Perhaps no single factor more threatens democracy in this nation that the control of private money over public elections. The public has grown increasingly outraged over the flagrant abuse of loopholes, systematic influence peddling, and political favors granted to special interests in Washington.

We support measures like the Maine Clean Money Campaign Reform initiative that voters approved last November that offers full public financing to candidates who reject special-interest contributions and agree to campaign spending limits.