• Rein in the President’s War Powers
• Stop the Abuse of Executive Orders
• Stop Delegating Lawmaking Authority to the Federal Bureaucracy
• Consider the Constitutionality of Every Proposed Law

• live up to its constitutional obligations and cease the practice of delegating legislative powers to administrative agencies; legislation should be passed by Congress, not by unelected administration officials;
• before voting on any proposed act, ask whether that exercise of power is authorized by the Constitution, which enumerates the powers of Congress;
• exercise its constitutional authority to approve only those appointees to federal judgeships who will take seriously the constitutional limitations on the powers of both states and the federal government; and
• pass and send to the states for their approval a constitutional amendment limiting senators to two terms in office and representatives to three terms, in order to return the legislature to citizen legislators.

• encourage constitutional debate in the nation by engaging in constitutional debate in Congress, as was urged by the House Constitutional Caucus during the 104th Congress;
• enact nothing without first consulting the Constitution for proper authority and then debating that question on the floors of the House and the Senate;
• move toward restoring constitutional government by carefully returning power wrongly taken over the years from the states and the people; and
• reject the nomination of judicial candidates who do not appreciate that the Constitution is a document of delegated, enumerated, and thus limited powers.

• allow young workers to redirect their payroll taxes to individually owned, privately invested retirement accounts.

• enact a five-year tax cut of at least $2 trillion; the tax cut bill should
  • repeal the Bush and Clinton tax increases of 1990 and 1993, thus returning to two income tax rates, 15 and 28 per-cent;
  • abolish the capital gains and estate taxes;
  • create a $25,000 per household tax-free universal savings account; and
  • index the income tax brackets for real income growth so that tax liabilities do not rise faster than Americans’ incomes;
• not allow states to unfairly tax the Internet;
• end the withholding tax;
• send an annual tax disclosure form to all taxpayers;
• require a two-thirds supermajority vote to raise taxes;
• enact an alternative maximum tax for individuals and businesses; the MAXTAX should be set at 25 percent of gross income and replace the filer’s income and payroll taxes;
• replace the income tax with a national sales tax and close down the Internal Revenue Service; and
• refund taxes to Americans if tax revenue grows faster than personal income.

• terminate programs that provide direct grants to businesses;
• eliminate programs that provide research and other services for industries;
• end programs that provide subsidized loans or insurance to businesses;
• eliminate trade barriers designed to protect U.S. firms in specific industries from foreign competition at the expense of higher prices for American consumers;
• base defense procurement contract decisions on national security needs, not on the number of jobs created in key members’ districts; and
• eliminate the income tax loopholes carved out solely for specific companies or industries and substantially lower the tax rate so that there is no net revenue increase.

• insist that U.S. armed forces not be deployed to areas where hostilities are likely or imminent unless and until both houses of Congress have approved such action,
• defund any such deployment that lacks the prior approval of Congress,
• insist that no aggressive action be taken by U.S. armed forces unless and until Congress has passed a declaration of war, and
• impeach any president who orders aggressive action by U.S. armed forces without a declaration of war.

• require all "lawmaking" regulations to be affirmatively approved by Congress and signed into law by the president, as the Constitution requires for all laws; and
• establish a mechanism to force the legislative consideration of existing regulations during the reauthorization process.

• commit to be a citizen legislator by limiting his or her time in office to no more than three additional terms in the House of Representatives and no more than two additional terms in the Senate and
• keep that commitment.

• recognize the conflict of interest inherent in its writing campaign finance regulations,
• reject proposals to further regulate campaign financing,
• remove the current limits on campaign contributions, and
• reduce opportunities for corruption by restoring constitutional limits on government.

• identify and list all federal education programs;
• abolish all programs and agencies (including the Department of Education) not provided for by the Constitution; and
• return education to the state, local, and family level.

• close the Department of Commerce and, in particular,
• make the Bureau of the Census a small, independent agency;
• restrict the census to enumerating the population, make answering other census questions voluntary, bar statistical sampling, and scrub the planned annual American Community Survey;
• make the Patent and Trademark Office a small, independent agency or self-financing government corporation;
• eliminate programs that inhibit or subsidize trade;
• end all Commerce Department corporate subsidies and wealth transfer programs, including the Economic Development Administration, the Minority Business Development Administration, and the Technology Administration;
• eliminate the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; and
• phase out the functions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, allowing them to be supplied by the private sector.

• eliminate the U.S. Department of Energy;
• transfer the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is responsible for managing the DOE’s nuclear-industrial complex, to the Department of Defense;
• renegotiate the DOE’s nuclear weapons cleanup programs to reflect prioritization of containment and neutralization of risk rather than removal and return of sites to pristine conditions and transfer cleanup responsibilities to the NNSA;
• privatize all laboratories, except two of the three weapons laboratories, managed by the DOE;
• eliminate all research and development programs overseen by the DOE or, failing that, transfer those programs to the National Science Foundation where they would compete with nonenergy research for financial support;
• sell the assets held by the power marketing administrations to the highest bidders;
• sell the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; and
• spin off the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Energy Information Administration, and the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (which is responsible for regulating the long-term disposal of high-level nuclear waste) as independent agencies within the executive branch.

• eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts,
• eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities, and
• defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

• eliminate the Departments of Agriculture, Interior, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs;
• close down major independent agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Small Business Administration, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Legal Services Corporation, and the Appalachian Regional Commission; and
• terminate obscure independent agencies like the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Japan–United States Friendship Commission, the Marine Mammal Commission, America’s Education Goals Panel, the State Justice Institute, and the United States Institute of Peace.

• reject all new proposals to make existing state crimes federal crimes;
• repeal all federal criminal laws that address conduct that takes place solely in one state, unless the conduct involves uniquely federal concerns, such as destruction of federal property; and
• adopt the proposal of the congressionally created Commission on Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement for five-year sun-set reviews of all new and existing federal criminal laws.

17. Privacy and Private-Sector Databases

• leave well enough alone and allow the market to address people’s privacy concerns.

• lift all technical review requirements for encryption software and hardware;
• reject attempts to foist key escrow, or key recovery, on the market;
• reject a strong federal role in standardizing digital signatures;
• repeal the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which treats every U.S. citizen like a suspect and phones as tracking devices; and
• prohibit the FBI from deploying Carnivore-type systems.

• phase out compulsory licensing for all communications content industries,
• repeal must-carry rules for cable television and satellite net-works, and
• eliminate the Federal Communications Commission’s power to control broadcast content in the name of the ‘‘public interest.’’

• enact legislation that specifies the constitutional rights of property owners under the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause;
• follow the traditional common law in defining ‘‘private property,’’ ‘‘public use,’’ and ‘‘just compensation’’;
• treat property taken through regulation the same as property taken through physical seizure; and
• provide a single forum in which property owners may seek injunctive relief and just compensation promptly.

• deny funding for the Justice Department’s suit against cigarette makers,
• enact, under the Commerce Clause, legislation that abrogates the multistate tobacco settlement, and
• deregulate the growing of tobacco and the manufacture and advertising of tobacco products.

• repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970,
• repeal the federal mandatory minimum sentences and the mandatory sentencing guidelines,
• direct the administration not to interfere with the implementation of state initiatives that allow for the medical use of marijuana, and
• shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration.

• prevent federal, state, and local governments from pursuing lawsuits that abrogate Second Amendment rights,
• repeal the Gun Control Act of 1968,
• stop the illegal compilation of gun-owner registration lists from the National Instant Check System.

• uphold its constitutional duty to maintain the purchasing power of the dollar by enacting legislation that makes long-run price stability the primary objective of Federal Reserve monetary policy;
• recognize that the Fed cannot fine-tune the real economy but can achieve monetary stability by following a rule that confines nominal growth of gross domestic product to a noninflationary path;
• hold the Fed accountable for achieving zero expected inflation over a reasonable time frame;
• abolish the Exchange Stabilization Fund, since the Fed’s role is to achieve zero inflation, not to stabilize the foreign exchange value of the dollar by intervening in the foreign exchange market; and
• offer no resistance to the emergence of digital currency and other substitutes for Federal Reserve notes, so that free-market forces can help shape the future of monetary institutions.

• extend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) to all banking institutions and remove Community Reinvestment Act compliance;
• repeal the Community Reinvestment Act (1977) to allow fair and competitive lending while eliminating the unnecessary bur-den of paperwork imposed on banking institutions and regulatory agencies;
• eliminate mandatory federal deposit insurance, allow competition, and privatize the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and
• enact the Bankruptcy Reform Act with stronger provisions to prevent those debtors who can repay their obligations from abusing the system.

• allow securities exchanges to compete to offer both products and mechanisms to ensure the safety and soundness of those products,
• instruct the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to abandon plans to regulate price and order flows, and
• restrict the SEC to acting against cases of actual fraud.

Congress should 

enact a peace and prosperity budget that

• keeps the budget balanced for at least the next 10 years,
• reduces the size of government from 20 to 15 percent of gross domestic product over five years,
• eliminates more than 200 unnecessary and unconstitutional programs,
• reduces the federal tax burden substantially and in ways that would promote economic growth,
• includes a tax and expenditure limitation measure that limits federal spending growth to the rate of annual inflation plus population growth,
• reduces the national debt through federal asset sales, and .rebates all tax surpluses to taxpayers at the end of each fiscal year with each taxpayer’s rebate determined as a share of the total federal taxes he or she paid during the year.

• offer a simplified set of flexible medical savings account options to all Americans;
• provide a fixed-dollar tax credit option to taxpayers who pur-chase health insurance;
• expand consumer choices that increase market-based account-ability by health plans, instead of enacting a patients’ bill of rights; and
• fundamentally restructure Medicare to expand competitive pri-vate health plan choices.

• end the ‘‘maintenance of effort’’ requirement and
• prohibit new entrants to the welfare rolls.

Congress should

• end all federal early education and child care subsidies and programs and
• return early education and child care to the state, local, or family level, as provided by the Constitution.

• reauthorize the Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform (FAIR) Act of 1996 (known as the ‘‘Freedom to Farm Act’’), replacing deficiency payments with a fixed schedule of decreasing payments that reach zero in 2008;
• eliminate government crop insurance programs; and
• eliminate government support of producer cartels in the milk, tobacco, peanut, and sugar markets.

Congress should

• eliminate federal unemployment insurance.

• cite constitutional authority before federalizing tort actions tradi-tionally reserved to the states,
• respect the laboratory of tort law provided by the 50 states,
• expand the jurisdiction of the federal courts over interstate class actions,
• pass the ‘‘Right to Choose Your Lawyer Act’’ for class actions in federal court, and
• limit the rights of government plaintiffs suing in federal court on behalf of private parties.

• privatize the U.S. Postal Service and
• repeal the Private Express Statutes that preserve the postal monopoly.

35. National Aeronautics and Space Administration

phase out the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). To that end, it should

• upon completion, sell off the international space station to private parties or, failing that, allow an owner-chartered station authority, not including NASA as the U.S. representative, to provide minimal station supervision;
• allow the private sector to provide and pay for all future travel to and from the station as well as station operations, mainte-nance, and expansion;
• sell off the space shuttle or, failing that, strictly enforce the ban on the shuttle’s carrying cargoes that can be launched by the private sector and turn over as much of shuttle operations as possible to the private sector;
• bar NASA from developing hardware, products, or services with potential commercial uses; and
• build down government civilian space activities.

• complete the economic deregulation agenda, .focus on substantive regulatory legislation, .evaluate proposed regulations against a broad range of stan-dards in addition to the benefit/cost standard,
• broaden the guarantee of just compensation to all property owners who are mandated to provide a public benefit, and
• approve an omnibus regulatory reform act and a congressional Office of Regulatory Analysis only if Congress reasserts its authority to approve all final rules.

• eliminate exclusive representation, or at least pass a national right-to-work law, or codify the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in NLRB v. General Motors (1963) and Communications Work-ers of America v. Beck (1988);
• repeal section 8(a)2 of the National Labor Relations Act, or at least permit labor-management cooperation that is not union-management cooperation only;
• codify the Supreme Court’s ruling in NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph (1938) that employers have an undisputed right to hire permanent replacement workers for striking workers in economic strikes;
• overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling in U.S. v. Enmons (1973) that prohibits federal prosecution of unionists for acts of extor-tion and violence when those acts are undertaken in pursuit of ‘‘legitimate union objectives’’;
• overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling in NLRB v. Town & Country Electric (1995) that forces employers to hire paid union organiz-ers as ordinary employees;
• protect the associational rights of state employees by overriding state and local laws that impose NLRA-style unionism on state and local government employment; and
• repeal the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act and the 1965 Service Con-tract Act.

Congress should

shut down the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or, failing that, at least

• reduce OSHA’s enforcement budget,
• bar OSHA ergonomics regulations, and
• repeal OSHA’s so-called general duty clause that allows inspec-tors to enforce regulations that are not published or are poorly understood by enterprises.

• close the U.S. Department of Transportation;
• eliminate the federal gasoline tax;
• end all federal transportation subsidies and entrust states and municipalities with maintaining infrastructure such as high-ways, roads, bridges, and subways;
• repeal the Urban Mass Transit Act of 1964;
• repeal the Railway Labor Act of 1926, the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, and the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934;
• privatize Amtrak;
• privatize the air traffic control system;
• remove all federal regulations that prevent airports from being privately owned or operated;
• repeal cabotage laws that prevent foreign airlines from flying domestic routes in the United States; and
• repeal the Jones Act.

• require federal government insurance programs to use private-sector underwriting and risk classification techniques,
• authorize tax-deferred treatment of private insurers’ catastrophe reserves, and
• reduce the scope of current government insurance programs and not launch any new federal reinsurance schemes.

• repeal the Sherman Act of 1890,
• repeal the Clayton Act of 1914,
• repeal the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914,
• repeal the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936,
• repeal the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950,
• repeal the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act of 1975, and
• repeal the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976.

• allow the free sale and ownership of the broadcast spectrum;
• repeal 47 U.S.C. sec. 254, which imposes a heavy regulatory tax on consumers and businesses to subsidize universal service;
• minimize the application of ‘‘unbundling,’’ or ‘‘open access,’’ rules to new broadband and high-speed data networks; and
• finally eliminate the Federal Communications Commission.

• modify the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938 to allow pharmaceutical companies to opt out of Food and Drug Admin-istration testing requirements and to use alternative organiza-tions to certify product safety and efficacy and
• allow individuals the freedom to use any non-FDA-approved product.

• repeal the Federal Power Act of 1935 and abolish the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC);
• repeal the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) and the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA);
• privatize federal power marketing authorities, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and all federal power generation facilities;
• eliminate all tax preferences applicable to municipal power companies and electricity cooperatives;
• eliminate all federal price subsidies, tax incentives, and regula-tory preferences for renewable energy;
• declare that any state or municipal regulation of the generation, transmission, distribution, or retail sale of electricity interferes with interstate trade and is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause; and
• require open, nondiscriminatory access to all federal public rights-of-way for electricity transmission and distribution ser-vices, except when such services present a public safety hazard.

• replace the command-and-control regulations imposed by the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts with emissions trading regimes;
• replace the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act with a consumer products labeling program under the auspices of the Food and Drug Administration;
• repeal the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compen-sation, and Liability Act and privatize the cleanup of Super-fund sites;
• replace the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act with mini-mal standards for discharge into groundwater aquifers;
• privatize federal lands by granting ownership rights to existing users and auctioning off the remaining lands;
• eliminate federal subsidies and programs that exacerbate envi-ronmental damage; and
• replace the Endangered Species Act and section 404 of the Clean Water Act with a federal biological trust fund.

46. Environmental Health: Risks and Reality

• take back the regulatory authority it has delegated to the Envi-ronmental Protection Agency;
• transfer responsibility for the safety of chemicals to industry;
• address the question, What is an acceptable level of risk?
• reexamine the acceptable risk level it set in the Food Quality Protection Act; and
• strip the EPA of its research functions.

Congress should

• resist attempts to impose costly reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases in order to limit global warming.

• act as a much-needed check on the executive branch’s reflexive tendency to expand the global political and military role of the United States under the guise of U.S. ‘‘global leadership,’’
• initiate a comprehensive review of existing U.S. security com-mitments and jettison those that are not clearly linked to vital national security interests,
• review the defense budget and make the necessary reductions to bring it in line with a security strategy that is based on the defense of vital national security interests, and
• refuse to provide funding for military interventions except in the unlikely event that such an intervention is a necessary response to a national security threat.

• reduce the budget for national defense from the current sum of about $300 billion to $185 billion (in fiscal year 2002 dollars)—in increments over five years;
• make it clear that the reduced budget must be accompanied by a more restrained national military posture that requires enough forces to fight one major theater war instead of the current posture based on the need to wage two nearly simulta-neous wars;
• restructure U.S. forces to reflect the American geostrategic advantage of virtual invulnerability to invasion by deeply cut-ting ground forces (Army and Marines) while retaining a larger percentage of the Navy and Air Force;
• authorize a force structure of 5 active-duty Army divisions (down from 10 now), 1 active Marine division (reduced from 3 now), 14 Air Force fighter wings (down from 20 now), 200 Navy ships (down from 316), and 6 carrier battle groups with 6 Navy air wings (reduced from 12 and 11, respectively);
• require that the armed services compensate for reduced active forces by relying more on the National Guard and the reserves in any major conflict;
• terminate weapons systems that are unneeded or are relics of the Cold War and use the savings to give taxpayers a break and to beef up neglected mission areas;
• terminate all peacekeeping and overseas presence missions so that the armed services can concentrate on training to fight wars and to deploy from the U.S. homeland in an expeditionary mode should that become necessary; and
• require negotiations with Russia to mutually reduce strategic nuclear warheads below START II levels—to about 1,500 war-heads each.

• refuse to provide funds for U.S. military presence and interven-tions overseas that are not required to defend U.S. vital interests and could result in catastrophic retaliatory attacks on the U.S. homeland by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction;
• resist ‘‘anti-terrorism’’ initiatives that would undermine civil liber-ties and be ineffective in preventing terrorist attacks; and
• consider using a small portion of the savings from reducing unnecessary defense programs to stockpile antidotes to com-mon chemical and biological agents and to train emergency response personnel to mitigate the effects of catastrophic attacks.

• endorse the truly ‘‘national’’ limited land-based national missile defense (NMD) system currently under development;
• eschew grandiose sea- and space-based missile defenses— which are unnecessary, expensive ‘‘international’’ systems designed to protect wealthy U.S. allies and friends and provide a robust shield for unneeded U.S. interventions overseas;
• pressure the new administration to slow development of land-based missile defense so that the system can be thoroughly tested under realistic conditions before a decision is made to deploy it;
• encourage the U.S. administration to offer deep cuts in offensive strategic nuclear forces—down to a maximum of 1,500 war-heads (the Russian proposal)—in exchange for Russian acqui-escence to a limited U.S. land-based NMD; and
• reduce the triad of U.S. nuclear forces—nuclear-capable bomb-ers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)—to a dyad.

• refuse to appropriate funds for any ‘‘out-of-area’’ NATO mili-tary missions;
• pass a joint resolution opposing any further expansion of the alliance beyond the admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic approved by the Senate in 1998;
• pass a joint resolution endorsing the new European Security and Defense Policy;
• pass legislation requiring the withdrawal of all U.S. forces stationed in Europe by 2005; and
• conduct a comprehensive debate about whether continued U.S. membership in NATO serves American interests—espe-cially in light of the alliance’s change of focus from territorial defense to murky peacekeeping and humanitarian interven-tion missions.

• urge America’s West European allies to take over military responsibility for Bosnia and Kosovo,
• discontinue funding the ill-conceived nation-building experi-ments in Bosnia and Kosovo and insist on the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops by 2002,
• oppose taking on another Balkan dependent by firmly object-ing to possible U.S. military intervention in Montenegro, and
• resist the temptation to reimpose sanctions on Yugoslavia if its newly elected democratic government does not always see eye to eye with Washington.

• withdraw American military forces from South Korea over the next four years and terminate the mutual defense treaty at the end of that period;
• begin a six-year phased pullout of American troops from Japan, beginning with forces on Okinawa;
• replace the bilateral U.S.-Japanese defense treaty with an agreement that allows emergency base and port access and maintains joint military exercises and intelligence cooperation;
• drop proposals for enhanced defense ties with Singapore, eliminate the AUSMIN agreement with Australia, and make clear to the Philippine government and people that the new Visiting Forces Agreement does not commit the United States to military action on behalf of the Philippines, especially in any territorial disagreement involving the South China Sea;
• promote regional security cooperation through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other appropriate institutions;
• expand economic and limited security ties with China while pressing Beijing to accelerate democratic, human rights, and market reforms and to resolve international disputes peacefully;
• drop Washington’s implicit defense guarantee to Taiwan but sell Taipei any weapons it deems necessary for its defense; and
• remain aloof from other flashpoints that could turn into war, such as those on the Indian subcontinent.

• refuse to ratify or fund the proposed International Criminal Court,
• be wary of defining away sovereignty as a barrier to military intervention,
• oppose granting the United Nations war-fighting functions or establishing an on-call UN army, and
• withhold payments to the UN until the secretary general demon-strates clearer progress in eliminating inefficiency, mismanage-ment, and corruption.

• repeal the Anti–Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 and all legislation requiring the United States to certify drug-source countries’ cooperation in counternarcotics efforts,
• declare an end to the international war on drugs, and
• remove U.S. trade barriers to the products of developing countries.

• avoid imposing economic sanctions against China even for narrowly defined objectives, since such measures will under-mine permanent normal trade relations (PNTR);
• reject the proposed Taiwan Security Enhancement Act;
• urge the executive branch to be more responsive to Taiwan’s requests to purchase defensive weapons systems;
• urge the executive branch to treat China as a normal great power, not as either a ‘‘strategic partner’’ or a probable adver-sary; and
• recognize that advancing economic freedom in China has had positive effects on civil society and personal freedom for the Chinese people.

• encourage members to increase interaction with their Russian counterparts, thus helping the Russians to understand legislative oversight of the executive;
• shift the security focus in Europe to enforcement of human rights through the Organization for Security Cooperation in Europe rather than seek to expand NATO;
• press the administration not to lobby for construction of the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline, an economically unjustified project that has needlessly antagonized Russia;
• encourage the president to negotiate an agreement for deeper reductions in the U.S. and Russian strategic arsenals;
• refuse to endorse U.S. contributions to the International Mone-tary Fund, which may have facilitated corruption in Russia; and
• reexamine visa procedures and regulations to lower the wall between immigrant and nonimmigrant visas.

• repeal the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad, or Helms-Burton) Act of 1996;
• repeal the Cuban Democracy (Torricelli) Act of 1992;
• restore the policy of granting Cuban refugees political asylum in the United States;
• eliminate or privatize Radio and TV Marti;
• end all trade sanctions on Cuba and allow U.S. citizens and companies to visit and establish businesses in Cuba as they see fit; and
• move toward the normalization of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

• recognize that the relative openness of American markets is an important source of our economic vitality and that remaining trade barriers are a drag on growth and prosperity;
• move the focus of U.S. trade policy away from ‘‘reciprocity’’ and ‘‘level playing fields’’ toward commitment here and abroad to free-trade principles;
• take unilateral action to reform U.S. protectionist policies;
• renew fast track authority to facilitate new negotiations to elimi-nate trade barriers here and abroad;
• maintain support for the World Trade Organization as a body for settling disputes;
• revise Section 301 to make it consistent with WTO rules;
• avoid using trade deficits as an excuse for trade restrictions;
• reform the antidumping law, unilaterally and through WTO regulations, to eliminate unfair discrimination against U.S. busi-nesses and consumers that buy foreign products; and
• adjust export control laws to the reality of today’s international marketplace

• require that any new trade sanctions be justified by national security,
• repeal existing sanctions that fail to meet the national secu-rity criterion,
• set a time limit on any new trade sanctions,
• require the president to consult with Congress following the imposition of sanctions by executive order,
• give the president authority to waive any sanction in the national interest,
• require an analysis of the cost to the U.S. economy of all current and proposed trade sanctions, and
• provide compensation to U.S. citizens whose investments are lost or substantially devalued as a result of U.S. sanctions policy.

• expand, or at least maintain, current legal immigration quotas;
• increase permanently the number of H-1B visas and deregulate employment-based immigration to facilitate the entry of skilled immigrants;
• remove the new one-year time limit on filing for political asylum and reform the ‘‘expedited removal’’ laws;
• repeal employer sanctions;
• stop the move toward a computerized national identification system and the use of government-issued documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security cards, as de facto national ID cards; and
• reduce restrictions on the movement of workers within the North American Free Trade Agreement area.

63. International Financial Crises and the IMF

• reject additional funding requests for the International Mone-tary Fund;
• close down the Exchange Stabilization Fund at the U.S. Depart-ment of the Treasury;
• avoid giving the IMF new missions, including that of economic surveillance; and
• withdraw the United States from the IMF.

• abolish the U.S. Agency for International Development and end traditional government-to-government aid programs;
• withdraw fromthe World Bank and the five regional multilateral development banks;
• not use foreign aid to encourage or reward market reforms in the developing world;
• eliminate programs, such as enterprise funds, that provide loans to the private sector in developing countries and oppose schemes that guarantee private-sector investments abroad;
• privatize or abolish the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Pri-vate Investment Corporation, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and other sources of corporate welfare;
• forgive the debts of heavily indebted countries on the condition that they not receive any further foreign aid; and
• end government support of microenterprise lending and non-governmental organizations.