STATE AND LOCAL ISSUES

HONEST AND OPEN GOVERNMENT: We have a right to both. We demand a ban on elected officials accepting gifts worth more than $5 from lobbyists, businessmen, or constituents. If elected officials want to see the Jazz play, eat dinner out, or play golf, they can pay their own way. We insist that primary elections paid for by the public should be open to all, not only the members of a single party. Finally, we demand that the Republican majority of the Utah House and Senate cease holding closed legislative caucus meetings. The public's business should be done in public. Always..

REAL SECURITY: The peace and safety — and prosperity — of Weber County is threatened by gang violence and the spread of narcotics and the criminal conduct they drive in our communities. We support increased police protection and expanding drug and gang crimes units and expanded rehab facilities. There can be no homeland security if we are not secure in our homes and neighborhoods.

EDUCATION: Our public schools are engines of economic growth, conservators of American traditions, and places where the children of new citizens become familiar with American history, as well as where most of our children acquire the education they need to secure their own, and our prosperity. We oppose attempts by Republican special interests to weaken public education by diverting scarce resources from the public schools to private ones, by means of vouchers or in any other way.

PROPERTY TAXES: Taxing people out of their homes is not good public policy. There is no tax fairness when long-time residents on fixed incomes face losing their homes because of skyrocketing property taxes from one year to the next. We demand a revision of property taxes to reflect more accurately homeowners' ability to pay.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Frontrunner has arrived. In the face of soaring gas prices, rising air pollution, and continuing population growth, to keep Weber County growing without sacrificing the quality of life we enjoy, we must continue to invest in improving public transit to create a cleaner, greener, stronger and more prosperous Weber County .

NATIONAL ISSUES

PROSPERITY, THE ECONOMY, AND DEBT: Republicans’ irresponsible squandering of the public's money has doubled our national debt since 2000, created the highest annual deficits in the nation's history, weakened the value of the dollar dangerously, and led to the migration of American jobs to foreign countries, rising food and gas prices, and a tax system that enriches the already wealthy at the expense of middle class Americans. Republican mis-management of the economy created the home mortgage crisis, rising foreclosures, and a decline [since 2000] in the real income of middle class families. It has to stop. We will return fiscal sanity to the management of the public's money and the nation's economy.

NATIONAL DEFENSE: We favor a strong national defense that is both tough and smart. Neither is possible when our government is not honest with the American people about what it has done, what it is doing, what outcome it expects and how it plans to achieve it. Republican leadership has rendered the United States less safe in a hostile world. We will return competence, intelligence and honesty to the management of the nation's defense.

SUPPORT FOR THOSE WE SEND TO WAR: The time is past for bumper-sticker patriotism and empty promises of support for the troops we send to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else. We demand that troops deployed in combat zones receive the two years stateside before being redeployed that military leaders insist is necessary to maintain morale and readiness. We demand better medical care and support for those wounded in body or mind during their service. We demand passage of the new GI Bill now pending in Congress which provides veteran's education benefits similar to those WW II veterans got, for we value our present soldiers' service no less than we valued that of our older veterans. John McCain opposes the new G.I. Bill. He should be ashamed of himself. We insist on real support for our returning soldiers and we will work to provide it.

HEALTHCARE: There is a health care crisis in America, and it's getting worse. Under Republican leadership, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen every year. We are the only industrialized nation in the western world that does not provide affordable health care to its citizens as a matter of right. We believe Americans should have as a right affordable health care. All of us. Every one. We will work to make it happen.

SOCIAL SECURITY: We oppose any attempt to "privatize" social security. Republican mismanagement of the economy and irresponsible spending are not reasons to jeopardize the primary safety net of the nation's elderly. Social Security can, and should, be placed on a sound financial footing without turning it into a profit center for Republican-connected investment firms and without gambling its survival on the prudent management of the next generation of Enrons or Bear Sterns Inc.s or their ilk.

IMMIGRATION: Illegal immigration is a complex and difficult problem. Such problems don’t have simple solutions. We must find a solution that serves the interests of the nation, that is compassionate, that is consistent with American law and tradition, and that does not rest on impractical demands that millions of people of many nationalities be immediately arrested and deported. There is no "one size fits all" solution. Children brought here illegally by parents when they were one or two years old, who have lived here since, and graduated from American schools, are not "illegal aliens" in the same sense as people who crossed the border illegally last year. Finding a good and just solution for the nation will take careful thought, and calm and serious examination of the consequences of possible solutions, not bumper-sticker bromides.

Weber County Party Chair: LaFray Kelley

Resolutions Committee Chair: Robert A. Becker