Political Party Platforms are a joke!

The political parties’ official platforms, written at the national conventions, mean very little or even nothing. These are not things that individual candidates must follow and they are given essentially no attention in the campaigns and certainly not after the votes are cast.

It is very difficult for political parties to maintain discipline over their members.  The people who run for Congress are not picked by the party leadership. They are picked by the voters in primary elections. If the candidates do not want to follow the party platform, there is very little that the party can do about it. We have seen in recent years many examples of “tea party” insurgents defeating Republican incumbents in the primaries even though the party supported the incumbents.

The party cannot force elected officials to follow the party platform and candidates tend to ignore them.  Candidate’s campaign on whatever issues they think will be most effective in getting them elected. Party platforms are no longer important.

Read the 2008 platforms of both parties carefully and you will see they are well-crafted documents that really mean nothing. I am going to use the Democrat Party Platform as an example to prove my point.  

In 2008 the Democratic Party called tax increases ‘investments in America’. They obviously did a good job of making it appear that increasing taxes would increase jobs. Normally voter run from parties that espouse tax increases, but Obama won.   

The Democratic Party stated in the 2008 platform they would provide an immediate energy rebate to American families struggling with the record price of gasoline. Were the rebates for the purpose of helping American families or friends and contributors of Democrat candidates?

The 789 billion dollar ‘Stimulus Package’ they were proud of in 2008 was no longer called the ‘Stimulus Package’ after it failed to stimulate anything, but the bank accounts of Obama’s friends and supporters. The ‘Stimulus Package’ of the 2008 platform became the’ Recover Act’. Stimulus became a dirty word in Washington. Obama joked about ‘shovel ready jobs’ the stimulus money was invested in that turned out not to be not so ‘shovel ready’ after all. I guess it is easy to make jokes about losing money when it is not your money you are losing.

The Democrats in 2008 promised affordable health care, but did we get it. No we did not. Insurance premiums sky rocketed and continues to increase. We cannot keep our doctor as promised or the health insurance policy we had if we were happy with it as promised. In order to have health insurance coverage policy holders had to be satisfied with high deductibles. If you do not have insurance coverage you have to pay a penalty each year. I live in the Philippine and last year I had to pay over $800 in penalties for not having a health insurance policy. I could not afford a U.S. health insurance policy that would pay hospital expenses abroad and Medicare and government insurance policies do not cover anyone outside the continental United States.

Be careful of the word ‘We’ in platforms. You will find the ‘We’ is ‘You’. They write the platform and the legislation and pass the cost on to ‘You’.

Democrat platforms are always committed to an economic policy that produces good jobs with good pay and benefits. That is why they claim they support unions. In reality they support unions in order to get the union bosses to put pressure on union members to vote for them. In 2008 they claimed when unions are allowed to do their job of making sure that workers get their fair share, they pull people out of poverty and create a stronger middle class. Did that happen – wages are stagnated, the middle class is weaker than it has been since the Great Depression. Higher wages are good and needed, but keep in mind higher wages mean higher cost of living. An x-ray in the Philippines cost $7 how much do they cost in the United States? I by no means endorse the low wages paid in the Philippines.

In 2008 the Democrats promised to cut poverty in half within ten year- is that happening? They promised to provide all our children a world-class education, from early childhood through college – college is more expensive now than ever. We will develop innovative transitional job programs that place unemployed people into temporary jobs and train them for permanent ones – are welfare recipients required to participate in work programs or go to school - NO. To help workers share in our country’s productivity, we’ll expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation – they made sure illegal aliens got Earned Income Tax Credit.  The majority of adults in poverty are women, and to combat poverty we must work for fair pay, support for mothers, and policies that promote responsible fatherhood – more homes are without fathers today than ever before.

The Democrats said higher taxes would lower gas prices and they would solve the problem of four-dollar a gallon gas with a comprehensive plan and investment in clean energy. How many of Obama’s investment in cleaner energy went bankrupt costing tax payer? Do you really believe higher taxes and bankrupt clean energy companies brought gas prices down to where they are today?

The Democrats promised to make quality, affordable early childhood care and education available to every American child from the day he or she is born. Their Our Children’s First Agenda, including increases in Head Start and Early Head Start, and investments in high-quality Pre-K, were supposed to improve quality of education and provide learning and support to families with children ages zero to five. Their Our Presidential Early Learning Council was supposed to coordinate these efforts. Regardless of the money the government throws at education we are ranked 27 in education worldwide. The Constitution does not provide for such programs. It is my opinion public school education suffers because of teachers unions the very thing the Democrats support. What incentive does a person have to do a good job if they cannot be fired?

The Democrat platform stated “We will invest in American jobs and finally end the tax breaks that ship jobs overseas. We will create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to provide for our next generation of innovators and job creators; we will expand the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships and create new job training programs for clean technologies. We will bring together government, private industry, workers, and academia to turn around the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy and provide assistance to automakers and parts companies to encourage retooling of facilities in this country to produce advanced technology vehicles and their key components.” General Motors is moving plants to Mexico as I write this. How many manufacturing jobs have return to America, especially from China? How many trillions of dollars remain in banks abroad because manufacturers will not bring the funds back to America because of high Corporate Taxes? This money being kept abroad could boost United States investment in manufacturing jobs.

The Democrats promised to seek a world with no nuclear weapons and take concrete actions to move in this direction. Do you really believe the Iran deal will do that? Their goal was to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. They did a good job of trying to weaken our ability to respond militarily to a crisis, but fail to tell Iran, North Korea and Russia they were supposed to do the same.

A promise they kept was to not develop new nuclear weapons.  But, they failed to get Russia and Putin on board with their plan. Hillary’s ‘restart button’ plan failed.

The Democrats promised to rebuild our military and to prepare it for the missions of the future – NO COMMENT!

In 2008 the Democrats promised to support our friends and participate in their stability. I wonder how Israel feels about that platform promise.

They also kept their promise to eliminate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Program and replace it with a system allowing Individual Soldiers to express their sexual preferences openly. I will give them credit for doing that.

The list goes on and on of failed promises in the Democrat 2008 platform. If you took the Republican platform you would find as many failed promises.  Do you still believe a wise voter votes based on what is in either parties platform. They promise during campaigns and do what they want when elected.