- Abortion issues: "Very simply…abortion is illegal." "He has been at the forefront of the fight for the "Right to Life."
- Affirmative action: Mr. Phillips opposes affirmative action stating he is "opposed to all racial, gender and ethnic discrimination promoted by the federal government."
- Campaign finance: "We will abolish the Federal Election Commission. We will eliminate all ceilings on individual contributions. We will require full and immediate disclosure of campaign contributions." "We will also eliminate the corrupt use of your tax dollars by the incumbent political establishment to send more than $100 million every four years to the Republicans and the Democrats for their primaries, their conventions, and their general election campaigns."
- Crime: "Crime, in most cases, is to be dealt with by state and local governments...We favor the unimpeded right of states and localities to execute criminals
convicted of capital crimes and to require restitution for the victims of criminals.
Federal interference with local criminal justice processes should be limited to that
which is constitutionally required." --U.S. Taxpayers Party 1996 National Platform
- Defense spending: Party platform: We call for the maintenance of a strong, state-of-the-art military on land, sea, in the air, and in space. We urge the executive and legislative branches to continue to provide for the
modernization of our armed forces, in keeping with advancing technologies and a constantly
changing world situation.
- Drug policy: The Constitution Party will uphold the right of states and localities to restrict access to drugs
and to enforce such restrictions in appropriate cases with application of the death penalty. We
support legislation to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States from foreign sources.
As a matter of self-defense, retaliatory policies including embargoes, sanctions, and tariffs,
should be considered. At the same time, we will take care to prevent violations of the Constitutional and civil rights of
American citizens. Searches without probable cause and seizures without due process must
be prohibited, and the presumption of innocence must be preserved.
- Homosexual issues: Against special rights for homosexuals. Platform of the party includes: "Under no circumstances should the federal government continue to subsidize activities which have the effect of encouraging perverted or promiscuous sexual conduct.
Criminal penalties should apply to those whose willful acts of omission or commission place
members of the public at risk of contracting AIDS or HIV."
- Education money: All teaching is related to basic assumptions about God and man. Education as a whole,
therefore, cannot be separated from religious faith. The law of our Creator assigns the
authority and responsibility of educating children to their parents. Education should be free
from all federal government subsidies, including vouchers, tax incentives, and loans, except
with respect to veterans.
We support the unimpeded right of parents to provide for the education of their children in the
manner they deem best, including home, private or religious.
So that no parents need defy the law by refusing to send their children to schools of which they
disapprove, compulsory attendance laws should be repealed.
- Environment: Stated in Colorado's Constitution Party Home Page: "It is a prime responsibility of man to
be a prudently productive and efficient steward of God's
natural resources. In that role, man is commanded to be
fruitful, to multiply, to replenish the earth and develop it,
to turn deserts into farms and waste lands into groves.
This requires a proper and continuing dynamic balance
between development and conservation, between use and
preservation. The proper exercise of stewardship
demands that we avoid the extremes; that we escape the
deadly hand of government confiscation; that we
recognize and preserve the right of the individual to
acquire, own and use his property so long as he does not
infringe upon the rights of other individuals to do the
same."
- Evolution: We support the unimpeded right of parents to provide for the education of their children in the manner they deem best, including home, private or religious.
- Foreign policy: "Intervention in the politics of other nations is wrong"
"When the nominees of the Constitution Party take office, there will be no legislation by
Executive Order, there will be no more undeclared wars - there will be no wars at all except
for the purpose of defending our own country. And there will be no commitment of forces
without the prior authorization of the Congress of the United States."
"As faithful stewards, it is our duty to immediately withdraw the United States from all
institutions which challenge and undermine the American system of sovereignty and
accountability - and that includes the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, the Asian Development Bank, the
InterAmerican Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
- and, yes, the Federal Reserve."
- Gun control: Argues that the Second Amendment to the Constitution clearly preserves the right to keep and bear arms.
- Health care: Favors getting the government out of medicine.
- Moral issues: Promotes the following: non-denominational prayer in public schools,
including the Bible in school classrooms, religious displays on public property. Calls for the "the federal government--its legislative, executive and judicial
branches--to cease these attacks on the religious liberties of the people, and to
stop all attempts to interfere with the encouragement of religious and moral
principles by state and local governments. --U.S. Taxpayers Party 1996 National Platform
- Social security: "We will insist that that money be restored to the Social Security Trust Fund so that Americans
who have been required to pay taxes into that system will get back every penny to which they
are entitled - and we will do this even as we move toward the complete privatization of the
Social Security system so that individual Americans may take back from the bureaucrats and
politicians control of their own retirement planning as befits the free citizens of a free society."
- Tax policy: I will work to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment ("Congress has power to lay and collect income taxes"), and I
will strive to persuade Congress that there should be no direct taxation whatsoever by the
Federal government on the American people, with revenues instead to be derived by
excises, imposts, duties and apportionment among the states.
- Trade issues: Stated in Colorado's Constitution Party Home Page: "We oppose the
unconstitutional transfer of authority over U.S. trade
policy from the Congress to agencies, domestic or
foreign, which improperly exercise policy-setting
functions with respect to U.S. trade policy, and the
unconstitutional transfer of authority over copyright and
patent policy from Congress to agencies, domestic and
foreign."
- Howard Phillips is founder of the Conservative Caucus and of the U.S. Taxpayers
Party. He worked in the Nixon administration as Director of the U.S. Office of
Economic Opportunity and resigned when President Nixon reneged on his
commitment to veto further funding of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs.
Starting in 1974 he mobilized opposition to the Panama Canal treaties, the SALT II
arms control treaties, NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, and federal funding of
left-wing activism. A graduate of Harvard University (1962) and twice-elected
president of the Harvard Student Council, he has twice been nominated as the USTP
candidate for President.
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