50 Shockingly Extreme Right-Wing Proposals in the 2016 Republican Party Platform

greg / CC BY-ND 2.0

The Republican Party platform  is a wish list for what Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump would like to impose on America. 

What’s surprising about it is that it goes further to the right than what’s even been heard on the campaign trail from Trump as he has promised to build a wall along the Mexican border and embrace the religious right’s long-held tenets opposing abortion, LGBT rights, and more.

The GOP 2016 platform would make Christianity the official American religion, English the official American language, replace sex education with abstinence-only advice for teenagers, privatize almost all areas of federal services, cut taxes and regulations for the rich and titans of industry ,and impose a belligerent foreign policy and military build-up.

Here are 50 excerpts from the 2016 GOP platform:      

1. Tax Cuts for the Rich: Wherever tax rates penalize thrift or discourage investment, they must  be  lowered.  Wherever  current  provisions  of  the  code  are  disincentives  for  economic growth,  they  must  be  changed… We propose to level the international playing field by lowering the corporate  tax  rate  to  be  on  a  par  with,  or  below,  the  rates  of  other  industrial  nations.

2. Deregulate The Banks: The  Republican  vision  for  American  banking calls for establishing transparent, efficient markets where consumers can obtain loans they need at reasonable rates based on market conditions. Unfortunately, in response to the financial institutions crisis of 2008-2009, the Democratic-controlled Congress enacted the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, otherwise known as Dodd-Frank.

3. Stop Consumer Protection: The  worst  of  Dodd-Frank  is  the  Consumer  Financial Protection Bureau, deliberately designed to be a rogue agency. It answers to neither Congress nor the executive, has its own guaranteed funding outside  the  appropriations  process… If the Bureau is not abolished, it should be subjected to congressional appropriation.

4. Start Repealing Environmental Laws: We call for a comprehensive review of federal regulations, especially those dealing with the environment,  that  make  it  harder  and  more  costly  for  Americans to rent, buy, or sell homes.

5. Start shrinking unions and union labor: We renew our call for repeal of the Davis-Bacon law, which limits employment and drives up construction and maintenance costs for the benefit of unions… Although  unionization  has  never  been  permitted in any government agency concerned with national  security,  the  current  Administration  has  reversed  that  policy  for  the  Transportation  Security  Administration.  We  will  correct  that  mistake… We  support  the  right  of  states  to  enact  Right-to-Work  laws  and  call  for  a  national law to protect the economic liberty of the modern workforce.  

6. Privatize Federal Railway Service: Amtrak  is  an  extremely  expensive   railroad   for   the   American taxpayers, who must subsidize every ticket. The federal  government  should  allow  private ventures to provide passenger service in the northeast corridor.  The  same  holds  true  with  regard  to  high-speed  and  intercity rail across the country.  We reaffirm our intention to end federal  support  for  boondoggles  like  California’s  high-speed train to nowhere.   

7. No Change in Federal Minimum Wage: Minimum wage is an issue that should be handled at the state and local level.

8. Cut Government Salaries and Benefits: The taxpayers spend an average of $35,000 a year per employee on non-cash benefits, triple  the  average  non-cash  compensation  of  the  average  worker  in  the  private  sector.  Federal  employees receive extraordinary pension benefits and vacation  time  wildly  out  of  line  with  those  of  the  private sector.

9. Appoint Anti-Abortion Supreme Court Justices: Only  a  Republican  president  will  appoint  judges  who  respect  the  rule  of  law  expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of  Independence,  including  the  inalienable  right  to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as did the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

10. Appoint Anti-LGBT and Anti-Obamacare justices: Only such appointments will enable courts to begin to reverse the  long  line  of  activist  decisions  —  including  Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases — that have  usurped  Congress’s  and  states’  lawmaking  authority.

11. Legalize Anti-LGBT Discrimination: We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which  will  bar  government  discrimination  against  individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that  marriage  is  the  union  of  one  man  and  one  woman.  

12. Make Christianity a National Religion: We  support  the  public  display  of  the  Ten  Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities.

13. Loosen Campaign Finance Loopholes and Dark Money: Freedom of speech includes the right to devote resources  to  whatever  cause  or  candidate  one  supports. We oppose any restrictions or conditions that would discourage citizens from participating in the  public  square  or  limit  their  ability  to  promote  their ideas, such as requiring private organizations to publicly disclose their donors to the government.