Stephen Durham and Christina López stand for a concrete program of action to improve the lives of the working-class majority in all its diversity. Below is their platform. And there will be no flip-flopping!
Find elaborations of their positions on issues like education and healthcare at votesocialism.com.
Full employment
Disarm the U.S. war machine and use the money to create a massive, publicly funded training and jobs program at union wages with childcare available. Repeal union-busting laws. Reduce the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay to create more jobs. Lower the retirement eligibility age to 55 to create employment for young people. Nationalize the banks and key industries under the management of workers’ committees. Ban speculation.
Government that helps the needy, not the greedy
Restore funds and programs that aid seniors, the poor, children, single mothers and the homeless. No cuts to Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare. Raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour. Provide a guaranteed annual income. Free medical care for all, including reproductive services and abortion. End foreclosures and expand low-cost public housing.
Tax the rich and corporate profits
Simplify the tax code and eliminate loopholes and tax breaks for corporate giants. Shift the tax burden from workers and small businesses to the top 1 percent at a tax rate of 70 percent.
Liberation not discrimination
Equal rights and opportunity for all regardless of race, age, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, immigration status, or physical ability. End the war on women. Restore affirmative action programs with quotas. Dismantle Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security. Open the borders.
Halting the racist “war on drugs” and abuse of police power
Treatment and job training, not prison, for addicts. Legalize drugs under community control. Outlaw for-profit detention. Enact elected civilian review boards over the police. End the death penalty.
Freedom of association and speech
Repeal the Patriot Act and indefinite military detention of U.S. and foreign citizens. Dismantle the FBI. Outlaw covert police spying and repression of free speech activities, including those involving international solidarity groups and Occupy Wall Street. Protect the rights of whistleblowers in the public and private sectors. Free all political prisoners.
Ending US militarism, wars and occupations
For unilateral U.S. nuclear disarmament. End the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. No war with Iran. Bring home all troops and mercenaries. Close all U.S. bases abroad and shut down Guantánamo. Give soldiers the right to unionize and put them to work rebuilding the U.S. infrastructure. Retrain veterans for productive civilian work. End arms shipments to the world.
Quality multicultural education for all ages
Tax corporate profits to pay for free multilingual public education, including ethnic studies, through college and trade school. End high-stakes testing and publicly funded charter schools. Protect the lives and rights of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender youth. Cancel student debt. No military recruiting in schools.
Voters’ rights and ballot access
Standardize state laws regarding federal elections to make getting on the ballot easy for minor parties. Overturn discriminatory voter ID laws and restore the voting rights of prisoners and ex-felons. Enact proportional representation to break the twin-party monopoly. Bar super PACs.
Planetary environmental sanity
Slash industrial fossil-fuel emissions. Phase out nuclear power. Make workplaces free of toxins. Fund publicly owned renewable energy sources. Expand public mass transit and make it free. Ban fracking. Clean up toxic waste dumps and poisoned waterways and end mountaintop removal mining.
Solidarity with workers worldwide
Overturn free trade and global financial deals that impoverish workers here and around the world. Nationalize U.S. corporations that pollute, exploit, and support corrupt regimes abroad.
For a socialist world!
