PREAMBLE
The Republican Party recognizes the dignity and value of every individual and that a just government is based on the individual and their inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We, the Yakima County Republican Central Committee, affirm our belief in each person's right to the basic freedoms of private property, free enterprise, and the right to keep and bear arms. The Republican Party is strongly committed to preserving the rights for each individual and believes the role of government should preserve and defend those rights.
As Republicans we believe our nation is governed best by limited government, a government which upholds the principles found in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of this great nation under God. We believe our government should uphold and defend this nation against all foreign and domestic enemies to preserve our freedoms. We believe that those who govern least govern best.
Section 1: Economy
Republicans believe Capitalism and Free Enterprise provides individuals the most freedom and opportunity for success. Government must protect those principles as the economic foundation of a free society while government itself must practice fiscal responsibility, allowing citizens to be unfettered by burdensome government regulation. Republicans support principles that create jobs, strengthen the free enterprise system, encourage entrepreneurs, protect our economic base while lowering taxes, and promote a conservative fiscal policy. Believing the power to tax a people is the power to enslave a people; Republicans support initiatives allowing the citizens to determine the need for any new tax by a vote of the people.
Economic opportunity should include:
- Reducing taxes, fees, and excessive regulation on business and individuals.
- Examining government regulations to ensure they reflect the intent of the law and are based on sound peer-reviewed scientific data.
- Making the Bush tax cuts permanent.
- Re-instating tax and spending limitations passed by the voters of
- Reforming the current
- Opposing any form of a state income tax.
Section 2: National Defense
We believe a strong
National defense should include:
- Preventing the subjugation of the national sovereignty of the
- Ensuring that
- An understanding that secure borders are foundational to a secure nation.
- Gaining control of our borders and adopting immigration reform that includes a guest worker program but does not include amnesty for those who are here illegally already.
- Supporting the Patriot Act with all of its provisions as a reasonable and necessary balance between personal freedom and national security.
- Honoring all past and current obligations to our troops, veterans, and their families, and improving pay and allowances to surviving military dependents.
- We believe that terrorists are “enemy combatants” and should be dealt with as such in the appropriate tribunals consistent with the foreign policy interests of the
Section 3: Borders, Immigration, and Language
National security requires that we secure and control our borders. We need to gain control of our borders and enforce our immigration laws while encouraging legal immigrants who come seeking the American Dream. Our current laws and policies must be revised to protect our social services, our jobs, and lessen the burden of the taxpayers. We believe English should be the official language of the
Therefore, we support:
- Securing our borders and ports using all available means such as additional personnel, technology, and physical barriers.
- The use of armed federal and National Guard troops to secure our borders.
- The aggressive enforcement of all immigration laws at all levels of government, and if necessary, the reform of immigration laws so as to be enforceable and to meet our country’s legitimate security and economic interests.
- The legal immigration of those individuals who wish to become
- Enactment of a meaningful guest worker program which includes proper security measures to allow those who wish to participate in our economy to do so legally and responsibly with the requirement that the applicant for a guest worker program initiate and process their application in their native land.
- An immigration policy that includes no amnesty for those persons who are here illegally or who have entered the country illegally in the past.
- No local, county, state, or federal benefits or free health care to illegal aliens.
- The elimination of the “
- The original intent of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868) which declared, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…” and thereby recognized the citizenship of ex-slaves and in no way granted citizenship to the children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens.
- The recognition of English as the official language of the United States with governments, local, county, state, and federal conducting business in English only.
- No special rights or privileges should be granted to any illegal alien from any county that is not granted to a legal immigrant or to a citizen of the
- We do not support any government or private initiative which seeks to undermine the sovereignty of the
Section 4: Marriage, Family, and Human Life
The traditional family unit is the cornerstone of our society, and it is the primary responsibility of parents to guide and discipline their children. We hold that it is a responsibility of a just government to uphold and respect traditional institutions, such as marriage being the union of a man and a woman, and the family which are its foundations. We believe all human life has value and must be protected from conception through the infirmities of age.
We support:
- The parental right and responsibility to direct the upbringing of their children, and to provide care, discipline, and moral training.
- The protection of innocent human life, pre-born or born, through all stages of life, sickness, and disability.
- The existing Washington State Law that defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman.
- An amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
Section 5: Education
The primary authority and responsibility for educating children resides with parents. Government should not determine expenditures and curriculum. Local school boards should establish priorities that focus on basic academics, vocational and technical training opportunities, and the promotion of traditional American values.
We support:
- Providing the highest quality education through offering a broad selection of choices, whether public, private, charter, or home school.
- The right of parents to choose home-based education for their children free from unreasonable restriction.
- Appropriate funding of public schools with tax credits and vouchers for other choices.
- The right of parents to direct the education of their children.
- Teaching English as our official and primary language.
- Concentrated English instruction for non-English speaking students and regular instruction in English for all other subjects which will ensure successful job skills in a diverse but English speaking population.
- Sex education programs that promote abstinence before marriage.
- A policy that public schools not promote or identify homosexuality as a healthy morally acceptable or alternative lifestyle.
- Teaching the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of the
- Religious expression in our public schools should neither be prohibited nor mandated.
Section 6: Health Care
isions about health care are a personal issue and should rest with the individual. Free market solutions reduce health care costs and provide better choices for consumers.
We support:
- Personal/private tax-exempt health savings accounts.
- Increasing competition among health care providers and insurance carriers to promote accountability to patients and provide more options for consumers.
- The reduction of regulation in order to reduce the cost of health care and prescription drugs.
- All prescription drug purchases and health insurance premiums being fully tax deductible.
- Making malpractice liability reform an urgent priority, which will help lower the cost of healthcare.
- Requiring parental consent for minors who seek any medical procedure, treatment, or pharmaceuticals.
Section 7: Property Rights and the Environment
We affirm that the right to own property is foundational to capitalism, free enterprise, and democracy. The right to own property and be free from unreasonable government regulation and intrusion must be protected. In accordance with the Fifth Amendment we advocate just compensation for any property loss or devaluation brought about by government policy or action.
We believe the Growth Management Act violates the property rights guaranteed to state citizens under its Constitution and allows for broad takings of private property without just compensation. Cumbersome and over-reaching land-use regulations are affecting our ability to maintain a sustainable economy.
We support:
- Reasonable limits on environmental regulations to insure that legislative intent is followed.
- The repeal of the Growth Management Act.
- Saving our dams by funding improvements in fish passage, improvements in spawning habitat, and ocean survival.
- The review and reform of the Endangered Species Act, critical area ordinances, and other environmental regulations in order to avoid unnecessary limitations being imposed on the citizens of Washington.
- A balanced approach to salmon recovery in the
- Reforming environmental regulations to allow sustainable forest management practices to be used on state and federal timberlands.
- Legislation that will prohibit all governmental agency use of eminent domain for the development of private property in order to increase revenue.
- Compensating property owners at market value when their property (e.g., timber, water, and mineral rights) is devalued or taken by government action. Any property owner that has lost property to eminent domain shall have the right to redeem the property, for the price they were paid, should the condemning authority sell any or all that land.
- Ensuring that water rights stay with landowners and do not transfer to state or federal ownership.
Section 8: Agriculture
The economy of the
- Establish a strong and secure domestic food supply that is not dependant on foreign products.
- Create tax policies that recognize fluctuations in farm income and assist farmers in surviving low income years.
- Require imported food to meet all
- Require country of origin labeling for the benefit of American consumers.
- Protect individual (including corporate) water rights and value using water resources in food production.
- Support completion of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project.
- Support the development of additional water resources for the
Section 9: Crime and Justice
Government must protect its citizens’ freedoms and property from both foreign and domestic threats. We believe laws should reduce and deter crime through strong and appropriate punishment.
We support:
- Constitutional protections which safeguard our individual liberty, due process, and equal protection under the law.
- The efforts of law enforcement officers who serve and protect our communities.
- The aggressive enforcement of criminal law, by the police, prosecutors, and courts.
- The role of the judiciary, which is to uphold the law in a manner faithful to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, in accordance with legislative intent and established domestic legal precedent as the only legitimate standard.
- The right of individuals to provide for the defense of themselves, their families, and their communities within the bounds of Common Law and the
- The death penalty where appropriate.
Section 10: Energy
We believe the reduction of our dependence on foreign energy is vital to our economy and critical to our independence as a nation. We also:
- Support incentives for the use of renewable fuels.
- Support economically and scientifically viable alternative energy sources developed through free market practices and principles, not government imposed programs.
- Support resumption of safe nuclear power plant construction.
- Oppose removal of dams used for Hydroelectric, irrigation, and transportation.
- Support establishing and maintaining secure broad-based fuel resources within our nation’s jurisdiction.
- Support renewed investment in existing energy resources until alternative sources are economically viable.
Section 11: Transportation
We must invest in our transportation infrastructure to both sustain and improve our local economy.
We support:
- Regular independent performance audits of all publicly funded transportation agencies by the State Auditors office.
- Appropriate targeted funding so revenue collected for specific transportation purposes is allocated to them alone.
- Elimination of costly prevailing wage laws and statutes which needlessly inflate the cost of transportation construction projects.
Section 12: Personal
We have a moral obligation, as free Americans, to defend and preserve the rights and freedoms granted to us in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Government exists by the consent of the governed. Smaller and more effective government will restore civic responsibility and individual freedom.
For ours to remain one nation, where the source of our rights derive from God, not the state, we have a duty and obligation to teach our children the profound meaning behind the simple statement of allegiance to our flag and the ideals our nation were founded upon and to which so many have sacrificed their lives.
We believe in the right to keep and bear arms as stated in the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. We support Right to Carry laws and state reciprocity of a concealed weapons permit.
We support protection of the American firearms industry against frivolous and harassing lawsuits that blame them for the actions of criminals, and we call for increased enforcement of existing laws against criminals, not more laws restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens. We encourage personal responsibility in exercising these rights.
Section 13: Government
We support the following provisions, rights, and responsibilities as those of a just and responsive government.
- Government must be fiscally responsible with the understanding that by taxing its citizens it is removing from them their personal property and gain.
- Congress has a moral obligation to pass a balanced federal budget and reduce the national debt. An exception should be in time of war or national emergency.
- The United States Flag is an important symbol of this nation, deserving of respect and protection from ridicule and abuse.
- A compassionate society must care for those unable to care for themselves. Ideally this care is provided first by the family, church, and then by the community. We continue to encourage efforts to move people from welfare to workforce.
- We encourage the preservation of the term “Under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance and the phrase “In God We Trust” on our coinage and currency.