Issues

Economics

With the meltdown of the economy, people are begging for leadership in this issue. Fortunately, the Falconist Party has a comprehensive program to rebuild our economy. Our program to build a foundation for a growing economy consists of the following elements.

· Overhauling the American financial system by replacing the semi-private Federal Reserve with a U.S. Government owned-and-operated Bank of the United States.

· Implementing the FairTax plan which will replace the income, corporate, payroll, social security and Medicare, alternative minimum, estate and gift taxes with a inclusive 23% National Sales Tax and include monthly “prebates” of $187/month to every legal resident as well as $65/month for every child living in that legal resident’s household.

· Reviving the WPA, PWA, and creating a U.S. Green Corps that will put the able-bodied unemployed rebuilding and serving America at living wages.

· Institute a nationwide program to build desalination plants, pipelines, reservoirs, roads, bridges, airports, high-speed railways, educational facilities, health care facilities, public safety facilities, affordable housing units, information transmission capabilities, and other infrastructure essential to our economy.

· Move our health care system from an employer-based health care system to a citizen based health care system with the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan.

· Increasing legal immigration and assimilation while cracking down on illegal immigration though or immigration reform policy.

· Fighting and winning the war for energy independence

· Instituting a national Fair Labor Practices Board with grievance committees in every workplace

· Instituting a national savings-investment plan to operate side-by-side with social security

· Merge the departments of commerce and labor into a Department of Economics

· Federalize and reorganize the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCC)

· Create and fund a nonprofit corporation to buy formerly American businesses and bring them back to the U.S.A. as well as create new companies around patented inventions.

· Reduce waste, fraud, and graft by reorganizing federal agencies, consolidating federal agencies, and reforming the civil service system to reward outstanding service and efficiency.

The Falconist Party will overhaul our financial system by replacing the semi-private Federal Reserve with a U.S. Government owned and operated Bank of the United States (BUS). The BUS will be headed by a Chairman who would be appointed by and be subject to dismissal by the President of the United States with the consent of Congress. The BUS will then issue credits to state and local governments to finance rebuilding programs and credits to the private sector to rebuild, re-tool, and expand America’s economic engine.

The FairTax is a progressive consumption tax that will tax the overall size of our economy as opposed to the wage-earners and businesses. The FairTax will tax people on what they spend as opposed to what they earn. The FairTax will do the following.

· Abolish the IRS as well as the filing of tax returns by the average American citizen

· Save America $500 billion a year in tax compliance costs

· Preserve the progressive structure of taxation with the prebate system

· Encourage trillions of dollars to flow from Offshore Financial Centers back to the USA where they will be put to work.

· Tax the underground economy anytime criminals, illegal immigrants buy retail

· Increase the number of payers into social security and Medicare from 160 million wage earners and businesses to 300 million legal residents as well as 50 million tourists and illegal immigrants.

· Encourage people to get more life out of used goods and put an end to our “throwaway culture”

· Reward savings, investment, and hard work by taxing consumption instead of income.

· Encourage businesses from around the world to relocate their corporate offices as well as their means of production to the U.S.

The next part of our program is to institute a nationwide rebuilding program. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the USA an infrastructure report card grade of a “D+”. That is unacceptable. We will put 10-20 million people to work at living wages. Our $1 trillion a year program will enable our economy to grow at an annual rate of 10-15%. The national rebuilding program will include the following projects.

· Rebuilding all existing roads and bridges that are in need of repairs

· Rebuild mass transit systems as well as expand them and building mass transit systems for more major cities.

· Building new airports as well as expanding existing ones

· Building and rebuilding educational facilities

· Building and rebuilding health care facilities

· Building a nationwide network of desalination plants, pipelines, reservoirs and irrigation systems

· Building a nationwide network of solar, nuclear, wind, coal, tidal, and geothermal power plants

· Building a nationwide high-speed rail network

· Building affordable housing units for the servants of our society

· Building new urban communities on the sites of torn down inner city neighborhoods

· Building new urban communities in sparsely populated parts of America

As part of this program, the WPA and PWA of the New Deal era would be revived and a new U.S. Green Corps will be created to put people to work rebuilding America, cleaning up America’s brownfields, planting new forests, performing civil defense tasks, and engaged in conservation projects. All able bodied unemployed will be put to work. Welfare will be reserved for the elderly, infirm, and those that need a temporary helping hand.

The next part of our economic program is the implementation of the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan which is covered under the health care section. However, the bottom line is that the GHAP will move our health care system from an employer-based health care system to a citizen-based health care system. This new health care system will reduce the share of the GDP that health care consumes as well as free employers from the obligation of providing health insurance to their employees and use the savings to pay higher wages, or reduce the cost of their goods and services, or expand production capacity.

The next part of our program is to wage an all out war for energy independence. We will do this by developing domestic sources of fossil fuels, developing new resources of renewable energy, and implement conservation measures to conserve our nonrenewable resources until the renewable resources become practical. You can read about this in our energy section.

As more and more people are needed to rebuild America and to staff the expanding economic engine of our economy, we will need more people to come into this country legally and assimilate into our society which is where our reformed immigration system comes in. Read more about that in our immigration section. But our plan will fix the annual immigration rate of 1% of the population of the USA for that year. Enough to control immigration and to provide a healthy growth rate in America’s population. Immigration will also encourage the revival of our urban communities and small towns and increase the number of people paying into social and Medicare keeping these programs solvent.

If our policies are implemented, America’s economy will expand, the federal government will run budget surpluses, the national debt will be retired, and the U.S. Government will save $400 billion a year in interest payments on the national debt which will be used to fund additional programs, expand the military, or give back to the people in the form of higher prebates.

Energy

The importing of oil is causing one of the biggest wealth transfers in world history from the U.S.A. to regimes in the Middle East and other places around the world not friendly with the U.S.A. Not to mention with high prices at the pump that continue to rise, we need to get serious about waging a total war for energy independence. The Falconist Party has a grand strategy for winning America’s war for energy independence and includes the following elements.

· Encourage the oil companies not only to build more oil refineries but to build refineries that will refine gasoline from coal; America has sizeable coal reserves to last at least a century and increased coal mining will create more jobs here at home.

· Encourage the oil companies to build an infrastructure of refineries, delivery systems and filling stations for alternate fuels such as hydrogen, ethanol/methanol, and natural gas.

· Carefully monitor the development of domestic sources of fossil fuels to ensure ecological destruction does not ensue.

· Open more areas of America to drilling such as offshore, limited areas in ANWR, and diluting oil from oil shale in the U.S.A.

· Incorporate the Pickens plan into our strategy by building more wind farms as well as solar, geothermal, nuclear, tidal, and coal power plants.

· Encourage the automobile companies to build motor vehicles that will run on fuels other than gasoline such as natural gas, hydrogen, electricity, and methanol/ethanol.

· Offer incentives to encourage the conservation of energy such as credits from the Bank of the U.S.

· Build a high-speed railway network to reduce fuel consumption by both automobiles and aircraft.

By implementing this comprehensive energy strategy, America will become self sufficient in energy and could even become an energy exporter. Energy costs will fall and America’s economy will grow. Millions of Americans will be employed to win America’s war for energy independence. We will also carryout this strategy in a manner that will not be harmful to the environment.

Fighting and winning the war on drugs and crime

Police departments, especially in our urban communities, lack sufficient funds to hire the police officers needed to keep the streets safe as well as to reward them accordingly. People fear arrest, prosecution or lawsuit when they defend themselves, their loved ones, or their property. Our prisons are overcrowded and those sentenced serve only a fraction of their sentences before they return to society unreformed. Our criminal justice system does more to protect the rights of criminals than the rights of victims of crime, law-abiding citizens, and police officers. Our laws are difficult for most people to understand. Our judicial system is clogged with lawsuits filed by prisoners as well as frivolous lawsuits. We must drastically overhaul our criminal justice system to reduce crime in America and enable police officers to fight the war on terrorism as well as street crime. Our program consists of the following elements.

· Fund police departments to hire another million police officers, adequately arm and equip them as well as compensate them.

· Overhaul federal, state and local criminal law codes so the law is simple enough for the average person to understand.

· Arm all citizens and train them in personal protection and civil defense.

· Amend the U.S. Constitution to provide for the death penalty for serial violent criminals, violent sex offenders, as well as murderers.

· Abolish parole and furlough programs to keep people in jail.

· Institute restorative justice programs which will rehabilitate criminals by serving the people they wronged in certain offenses.

· Try and sentence all juvenile offenders 14 and above as adults.

· Standardize police operations and organization throughout the United States

· Build more prisons with enough cells to house all offenders and hire another million correctional officers to staff our prisons.

· Tax criminals anytime they buy retail through the FairTax system

· Destroy the nests of violent crime by demolishing failed urban communities and relocating evacuees to new urban and rural communities erected in sparsely settled America; New urban communities will be built on the ruins of failed ones and populated by immigrants as well as those attracted to the urban lifestyle.

· Empower families, teachers, educational administrators, and police officers to discipline youth

· Provide sufficient opportunity and support for people to improve their lives so they don’t have to resort to crime.

· Reinstate the draft to teach young people respect for authority, instill discipline in young people, and to keep young people occupied so they won’t go into crime.

· Institute a national youth program to teach discipline and respect for authority to youth.

Liberals prefer to use a “carrot approach” to crime while Conservatives prefer to use a “stick approach” to fighting crime. We Falconists say both are needed. We need more and better armed, equipped, and compensated police officers. We need more prisons and keep more criminals in jail for longer terms. We need to execute more violent offenders. We need to destroy the nests of violent crime and relocate their inhabitants to new and better communities so they can start over. We need to restore the institutions of authority. And we need to rehabilitate as well as punish offenders. If we do this, then we can win this war on crime and redirect the agencies of law enforcement to defend our homeland from terrorism.

Liberals, Libertarians, Moderates, even some Conservatives say we should declare defeat in the war on drugs and legalize substances that are currently illegal and release all those on drug-related charges from prison. There is a reason why these substances were declared illegal in the first place. The use of these substances wrecked such havoc on our society. Surrender is not the cure for the drug epidemic. Executing drug dealers, restoring the institutions of authority in our society, providing alternatives to drugs, and restoring morality in our society is the key to victory in the war on drugs.

One more thing we need to do is define a state of “victory” in the war on drugs and crime. We propose a national crime index similar to the employment index. Economists say when you have an unemployment rate of 5%, you have “full employment”. We propose establishing the condition of victory when the crime rate is reduced to 5% or less and when the violent crime rate is reduced to 1% or less. If a city has a crime rate of 5% or more, then that city will be assisted in its war on crime to reduce crime to less than 5%. If crime is more than 5% nationwide, then we will wage and win a nationwide war on crime and declare victory when crime falls below 5%.

The bottom line is that the Falconist Party alone has the plan to pacify our streets and make the streets of America the safest in the world. The Falconist Party will lead America in fighting and winning our war on crime and defend our homeland from terrorists.

Health Care

Health care consumes an exuberant 14% of our Gross Domestic Product. Medicare costs our nation $600 billion a year and the cost of Medicare is skyrocketing at an annual rate of 12% In addition, our health care system is fragmented, unfairly funded, and leaves forty million people without any health insurance whatsoever. In addition, the high cost of providing health insurance is a expensive burden on employers in America and a total drag on the American economy. The absence of universal health insurance is also an anti-family policy as people choose not to have children or fewer children due to the high cost of health care for children. A medical crisis involving a child can cause a family to drop from comfortable middle class to poverty in one incident. The Falconist Party however has a comprehensive plan to reform our health care system and guarantee health care to all which includes the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan (GHAP) devised by a think tank headed by Victor Fuchs, Ph.D., and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Ph.D. The GHAP has the following features.

· Issuing healthcare certificates to all legal residents of the USA to enroll themselves and their families in the plan of their choice.

· Healthcare certificates will entitle their holders to a basic package of medical and dental benefits to include basic medical care, immunizations, prenatal care, medical and dental surgery, and mental health care (cosmetic surgery if essential to make disfigured people more employable).

· People who wish additional benefits may purchase a “platinum plan” or pay out of pocket for additional medical care.

· Insurance companies will have to accept all healthcare certificate holders regardless of age or pre-existing medical condition.

· A national insurance exchange will be created to help citizens shop around for health care plans.

· An institute of outcomes and assessment will be created to monitor the cost and quality of health care.

· A National Health Board and twelve regional health boards will oversee the entire system.

· An infrastructure to replace the fragmented fee for delivery system will be built.

· The GHAP will be financed by a national Value Added Tax of 10%. All revenue from this VAT will go to the GHAP and all spending of the GHAP will be limited to the VAT.

· People enrolled in Medicare may opt to remain in Medicare or switch to the GHAP. However, Medicare will not accept anymore new enrollees and the GHAP will replace both Medicare and Medicaid.

In addition to the GHAP we will establish a National Cure Center as well as increase funding for medical research to develop cures for diseases such as Arthritis, Cancer, AIDS, MS, ALS, Diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s. By curing diseases such as these, not only would we free people from these scourges, we will save billions of dollars in medicine to treat these diseases, and we will return millions of people back to the workplace. An ounce of cure saves us a pound in medicine.

Another part of our program is increasing the funding of health professional schools so we can train the people needed to staff our health care facilities. Right now, we have shortages of doctors, physical therapists, and nurses because the health professional schools cannot afford the instruction staff necessary to train this army of health professionals to staff our system. We will also build the health care facilities to provide the health care and elderly care our society needs as well as fund them to hire the staff necessary to provide these services.

One part of our health care program essential to the health of our nation is we will outlaw abortion in America. Abortion has been the suicide tablet of our nation and contributes to the graying of America. Abortion has cost America 54 million young people and rising. Our nation needs more young people, not less. One reason health care costs are so high are because the number of people who consume the most health care is increasing and the number of people who pay into the health care system is decreasing. We will enact policies to remedy this trend.

One final aspect of our plan is to devise a system to encourage people to stay fit and live a healthy lifestyle. Part of this program will include universal military training where people will get physically hardened together in basic military and skill training and training in the reserves. We will take existing youth programs that encourage physical fitness and tie them together into one nationwide program to encourage physical fitness. Employers will be encouraged to establish physical fitness programs for their employees to encourage esprit de corps as well as improve the physical fitness of their employees which will lead to lower health care costs for America as well as a more productive work force.

The end result of our program is that we will achieve 100% coverage for the entire population, we will reduce the cost of health care in America, we will heal millions of people from deadly and disabling diseases, we will return millions of infirm people back to the workplace, we will free employers from the heavy burden of providing health insurance for their employees, encourage families to have children and more children which will keep this nation young and dynamic, and this in turn will enable our economy to take off.

Social Security, Medicare, and the graying of America

The biggest chunk of the federal budget is not consumed by the military, the war in Iraq, welfare, or pork. The biggest chunks of the federal budget are consumed by Social Security and Medicare. These are also the fastest growing programs in the federal government. We cannot hope to eliminate the deficit, reduce or retire the national debt, or make our economy strong again without addressing this issue. The truth is that this issue is a symptom of a greater issue which is the graying of America. The portion of the population that is 65 and older is increasing, along with the number of people benefiting from social security and Medicare. The number of wage earners and businesses that pay into social security and Medicare on the other hand is not growing as fast. To address this issue, we need to change the way social security is funded, replace Medicare with the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan, and increase the population of working age people in America. With this in mind we propose the following.

· Have Social Security and Medicare financed by the FairTax, which will collect a 23% National Sales Tax from the entire population of America as well as from the tourists who visit America annually as opposed to just the 160 million wage earners and businesses.

· Increase legal immigration and assimilation; the annual legal immigration rate into the U.S.A. will be fixed to 1% of the population of the U.S.A. for that year; if the limit is reached for that year, people may still immigrate into the U.S.A. by marrying American citizens or enlisting in the military.

· Outlaw abortion in America. If it were not for the legalization of abortion in 1972, there would be 54 million more young people here in America today and 28 million more people between the ages of 18-36 who would be paying into social security and Medicare, working our economy, serving in our armed forces, or contributing to society in some other way. We need to overturn this Supreme Court decision that has cost this nation dearly.

· Implement the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan. Not only would this replace Medicare with a system of healthcare certificates financed by a national Value Added Tax, this program will also encourage the families of America to have children and more children as the cost of health insurance will no longer deter them from doing so.

· Implement policies that will encourage the formation of and protect families

· Enable the American people to depend less on social security by encouraging and enabling Americans to build wealth through a national savings-investment plan and implementation of the FairTax.

· Grow the economy faster than the costs of social security and Medicare.

If we implement these measures, then Social Security and Medicare will remain solvent and we will have a working age population to work our economy, care for our senior citizens as well as keep America dynamic. We must implement these measures if we hope to eliminate the budget deficit and reduce or retire the national debt.

Education

America is falling further and further behind the rest of the world when it comes to education. The right calls for reforming the schools without putting more money into education while the left calls for putting more money into education without serious reform. The Falconist Party calls for reforming America’s educational system as well as investing more into education. Here are the highlights of Falconist Educational Policy.

· Enact the Guaranteed Educational Access Plan which will issue education certificates to citizens to enable themselves and their families to receive educational services from Preschool to graduate school at any public, private, nonprofit, and faith-based educational institution or educate their children at home.

· Fund educational institutions to raise the salaries of teachers and hire more teachers

· Empower and encourage teachers and educational administrators to discipline unruly students.

· Abolish tenure and empower educational administrators to fire bad teachers

· Institute year-round schooling and increase the school year to 200 days.

· Push for smaller schools where students have more of an identity

· Free teachers to teach the students without spending so much time in administrative compliance.

· Fund the construction and rebuilding as well as revamping of educational facilities

The Guaranteed Educational Access Plan is a plan that answers both the issue of giving parents the freedom of deciding where to send their children to school as well as enabling everyone in America to pursue an education beyond high school. The GEAP features the following.

· Educational certificates for parents to enroll their children in any public, private, non-profit, faith-based, or home-based educational institution from Pre-school to 12^th grade.

· Educational certificates for all citizens to receive educational services at any post-secondary educational institution at the equivalent of 12 undergraduate or 6 graduate credits a year.

· Veterans who serve at least two years of mandatory national service will continue to receive the G.I. Bill which will provide for a four year all-expense paid education at any institution of higher learning as well as a monthly stipend.

· Citizens who agree to serve four years in the military, law enforcement, firefighting, rescue work, Peace Corps, Green Corps, education, and health care will receive ROTC or public service scholarships.

· The GEAP will be financed entirely by a National Land Tax and all revenue generated by the NLT will go to financing the GEAP.

· The educational system will be overseen by a national school board with twelve regional board to monitor the cost and quality of education in America.

In addition, the Falconist Party proposes a national youth organization to instill discipline, patriotism, and basic citizenship skills in youth. The Falconist Party proposes a U.S. Youth Corps. The USYC will engage the youth in serving their communities as well as those in need. The USYC will provide instruction in physical fitness, martial arts, responsible use of firearms, respect for the American flag, and teaching youth the values that made America great. This program will be modeled on and operate side-by-side with Junior ROTC, the C.A.P. the Junior Marines, and the Boy, Girl, and Cub scouts.

Faith and Familiy

Two institutions that have played in the greatness and posterity of America are the institutions of faith and the family. The first department of health, welfare and education is the family. But the later third of the twentieth century has seen the destruction of the family as more and more children are raised in one parent households, as fewer and fewer people marry, and as the institution of marriage corrodes. Meanwhile, the media attacks religion as something that holds our nation back and divides America when in truth, it is faith-based organizations that provide social services to the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison, care for the parentless, and even brought forth progressive changes such as woman suffrage and the abolition of slavery. With this in mind, the Falconist Party proposes the following.

· Restore the free exercise of faith in the public arena, may it be in schools, courthouses, or any other public buildings.

· End the discrimination against faith-based institutions when it comes to public funds, if a faith-based institution delivers a service just as efficiently or effectively as a public agency or a nonprofit organization, then it should be just as eligible for public funds.

· End abortion in America. The legalization of abortion has resulted in the lives of 54 million unborn children who would be adding to the vitality of America today.

· Implement the Guaranteed Healthcare Access Plan which will guarantee healthcare benefits for families. Nobody should make decisions whether or not one should marry or have kids due to health care issues.

· Relax laws and policies regarding adoption and do more to encourage adoption in America

· Reform policies regarding public assistance so that those who marry and raise their kids are rewarded while those who don’t marry their children’s mother/father are penalized.

· Fight to preserve the institution of marriage which is one man and one woman bonded in a unconditional commitment of holy matrimony.

· Pass the Guaranteed Educational Access Plan which will enable parents to choose where to send their children to school as well as educate them at home. The GEAP will also ensure families that the parents and children will have access to a post-secondary education as well.

· Revive the institution of group homes headed by full-time parents to care for abandoned, abused, neglected, and orphaned children.

In the end though, no government policy can force people to marry, or raise their children right, or motivate people to step up and serve those in need outside of their jobs and families. No government policy can help those that are single fit in and find acceptance. This is the role of individuals, and the institutions of faith themselves must play. However, the government should be on the side of the institutions of faith and family and not opposed to them as these institutions have a big role to play in rebuilding America and making America great again.

Immigration

America is a nation founded by and built by immigrants. Immigration is good for America. Immigration enables our nation to grow at a healthy rate; revitalizes both urban communities and small towns; keeps our nation dynamic; keeps our population young; and immigrants fill the jobs native-born Americans will not fill. However we need to control immigration and ensure all immigrants are assimilated into our society. Therefore, we propose the following in regards to immigration.

· Set the annual legal immigration rate to 1% of the U.S. Population for that year. In 2009, that would be around 3.1 million.

· Build a series of weir dams along the Rio Grande River and widen the river, creating a virtual fence between the U.S.A. and Mexico.

· Establish a national network of Immigrant Naturalization Centers (INCs) where Immigrants will be immersed in the English language and receive instruction in American culture, government, history, and basic life skills to function in American society.

· Implement the FairTax plan and limit the issuing of prebates to legal residents only.

· Send all illegal aliens back to their countries of origin and make them come back through legal channels.

· Allow illegal immigrants to redeem themselves by enlisting in “Freedom Legions” which will be organized and run along the lines of the French Foreign Legion.

· Fast track to American citizenship all immigrants who have served four years of military service or one year on the front lines.

· Make English the national and primary language of the USA with states free to adopt second languages if they choose.

· Eventually incorporate Canada, Greenland, Mexico, and the rest of North America into the USA which will drastically reduce the amount of border we have to defend.

Some of our opponents claim that America needs to close its borders to both legal and illegal immigration. Opponents of immigration claim that immigrants don’t assimilate into our society, they contribute to the rise in crime, they take jobs away from native-born Americans, and that they are a drain on social services. We say the problem is not immigration but the absence of forces to encourage immigrants to become members of the American family. If this country is to remain a dynamic nation, then we must continue to allow for legal immigration, but control who comes in and ensure all who immigrate into the U.S.A. also assimilate into American society.

Natural Resources, Agriculture, cities, and the environment

America has a finite set of natural resources, including land that must be developed in an ecological manner. We, the American people must be better stewards of the land we have been blessed with. Today, there is land covered by slums and vacant shopping areas going to waste while more and more farmlands and forests are being bulldozed to make room for more and more suburban housing developments. We are seeing some small towns turn into ghost towns. Farmers are being paid not to plant crops and are still losing farms while people around the world are going hungry. Here are some ideas we have to tackle these issues.

· Instead of paying farmers not to plant crops, the government should buy surplus agricultural production and use it to feed the hungry here in America and around the world.

· Implement the Falconist energy plan which calls for building more wind farms and refining gasoline from coal which would help revive small town America.

· Implement urban growth boundaries around major cities to limit suburban development; Developers will either have to redevelop land within the urban growth boundaries or build within the corporate limits of small towns.

· Create a U.S. Green Corps to put people to work cleaning up America’s brownfields and plant another 400,000 square miles of forest.

· Demolish failed urban neighborhoods and build new urban communities in their place which will be repopulated by immigrants as well as those attracted to the urban lifestyle.

· Build new urban communities in the sparsely populated parts of America such as the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states. These cities will be populated by evacuees from the failed urban neighborhoods that were demolished.

· Transform the Rural Electrification Administration into the National Internet Administration (NIA) and give the NIA the mission to connect all of America to the internet.

National Defense and Universal Service

The military today is undermanned, undersupplied, underpaid, over-extended, and not organized to win this world war on terror. Our military needs to be larger, better equipped, better supplied, and better organized to win this war on terror. Fortunately, the Falconist Party has some ideas on how to achieve this.

To begin with, the Falconist Party proposes a program of Universal Military Training and Mandatory National Service. The elements of the UMT and MNS program include the following:

· All inhabitants of the United States 26 and above will serve one year of military service for basic military, skill and citizenship training followed by part-time duty in the National Guard and Reserve, regardless of income, status, or political connections.

· All inhabitants of the United States 18-25 will serve a minimum of two years of national service with a minimum of one year being military for basic military, skill, and citizenship training. The remainder of that time may be spent either in the military or in service as Peace Corps volunteers, Green Corps volunteers, police officers, firefighters, EMTs, missionaries, rest home workers, teachers or teacher’s aides, any form of service that involves unfamiliar surroundings, hardship, and possible exposure to danger.

· All participants of the mandatory national service program will receive a G.I. Bill that would provide an all-expense paid post-secondary education for four years plus a monthly stipend.

· A new U.S. Green Corps will be created to supersede the Park Service, the Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps to create and maintain parks, fight forest fires, clean up brownfields, and be engaged in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure.

John F. Kennedy said to Americans “Ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country.” Benjamin Franklin said “We shall all hang together or we shall all hang separately. Nothing rams this idea home more than a program of Universal Military Training and Mandatory National Service. All Americans, rich and poor, rural and urban, male and female, young and old, red state and blue state will all get hardened together and have instilled in them discipline, patriotism, better health habits, and a foot-locker full of values as well as better appreciation for what they have in this country.

Some people would say that the nation is better served with an all-volunteer military. Some people say that the draft is anti-American and that it is an infringement on the freedom of Americans. First of all, the army that fought and won World War II was fought mainly by people that waited to be drafted. Sure, there was a huge rush of people volunteering right after Pearl Harbor. However, a few months after Pearl Harbor, the number of people volunteering declined and people then waited to be drafted. The war in Vietnam in contrast was fought mainly by people who volunteered (however, a lot of Americans who served in Vietnam volunteered to avoid being sent to the infantry.) Also, the late Colonel David Hackworth, the most decorated soldier in the Vietnam conflict, commanded both conscripts and volunteers in Vietnam in combat observed that both fought just as hard and served just as well.

True, a conscript military is not the ideal. However, an all-volunteer military that is undermanned, underpaid, demoralized, overextended, and undersupplied is not the ideal either. Truth is the all-volunteer military won’t provide the military with the people it needs to fight the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, secure our borders, maintain current troop commitments, and be prepared to fight in Iran, North Korea, or in other conflicts down the road.

In addition to our program of UMT and MNS, we will reform the military to better wage this war on terror as well as reduce the overhead in our military. We propose the following reforms.

· Merge the Army and Marine Corps, giving command of the new outfit command of all combat aircraft including strategic bombers and eliminating the air force.

· Transfer control of all nuclear weapons to the Navy and allow the Navy to retain control of its air arm.

· Merge the noncombat arms of the separate armed services into a single service support corps.

· Replace the departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force with a Joint Force Defense HQ run by the Secretary of Defense.

· Expand the scope of command for each level of rank, reducing the percentage of the military as commissioned officers from 11% to 8%.

The Falconist Party will expand the military and will spend more money on the military. However, we will spend it on what the troops need on the battlefield and not on the desires of the military-political industrial complex. We will get more out of the money we will spend on the military. These will be the priorities of military spending under the Falconist Party.

· More active-duty military personnel overall

· Increasing the pay of career military personnel

· Purchasing more close air support aircraft

· More and better small arms and body armor for our troops

· More air and sea tankers and transports

· More minesweepers

· More and better training for our military personnel

· Fewer expensive “F-machines” and other gold-plated weapons systems that can’t be risked in combat.

If we implement these ideas, we will have a better manned and equipped military to defend our nation as well as fight and win this world war on terror. This policy will also unite the whole country as well as engage all of America in fighting and winning this world war on terror much like America was united when it fought and won World War II. We did it before and we will do it again