First 100 Days

by John Rensenbrink 
[Note: At the end of this article I describe the criteria that were used  for choosing which policies to include.]
 
The Green Party’s President-Elect is about to take office in Washington, D.C. She will be joined by Green Party majorities in both Houses of Congress.
 
Domestic Policy
 
Initiate a one-trillion dollar community-based grant-in-aid program from the national government to local communities. These funds will be channeled though collaborative arrangements between state and local governments. They will require maximum feasible participation in governance by all parts of each local community receiving these grants. Also required is a 5% matching grant from each participating local community.
 
The purposes of the grants are for sustainable community development and community empowerment. The grants include funds for renewable energy, conservation, work-force housing, small business development coupled with apprenticeship programs to hire the unskilled, open space, extra support for teachers and for ecologically informed education, college scholarships, food and water security, public works, public transportation, regional cooperative projects, support for neighborhood policing programs, and support for the arts. This replaces the 750 Billion dollar “bailout from the top” scheme initiated in late 2008 called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
 
Direct the national Treasury Department to shift the measurement of economic progress away from reliance on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to reliance on Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI).  This will assist government officials, business executives, and university economists to provide, and be provided with,  a critical tool to measure sustainable economic activity. We can no longer deceive ourselves that 50,000 deaths a year on our highways contribute to our well-being—which by present measurements seems to be the case because all the work connected with these deaths adds to the Gross Domestic Product. Or that building more prisons adds to GDP. Or piling up waste adds to GDP. Or buying more oil because our buildings leak tons of energy. Or waging wars for oil (thus adding enormously to the GDP!) when you can shift to renewable energy. There are thousands of such examples. We need to measure well-being, not commodity transactions of goods and services.
 
Substantially lower the income tax and combine this with a carbon tax of $250 per ton to be phased in at the rate of $25 per year from 2009 to 2020 –-the carbon tax to be offset at each step of the way with a matching reduction in income tax. This is advocated by Lester Brown of “State of the World” fame and is designed to discourage fossil fuel use and to stimulate investment of renewable sources of energy.
 
Extend Medicare to the entire population; in other words, a single payer health care program for all.
 
Establish a financial transactions fee. Economist Dean Baker (Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.) estimates that a very small fee – ranging up to, say, 0.25% will yield $100 billion or more annually. The fee will be placed on the sale or transfer of stocks, bonds, and other financial assets, including the great variety of exotic and speculator-driven financial instruments so much in the news lately.
 
Initiate a Reparations Program for dispossessed African American and Native American peoples.
 
Initiate a constitutional amendment for the election of President and Vice President by popular vote.
 
Pressure state and local governments to institute Instant Run-off Voting in elections and to develop pilot programs for proportional representation.
Push for laws and administrative rules in military and civilian life that provide support for gay marriage and gay families.
 
End the Drug War, decriminalize cannabis, and support growing hemp for industrial use.
 
Initiate a constitutional amendment affirming that the word “person” in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States applies to real persons and not to corporations.
 
Foreign Policy
 
Initiate Peace, Justice, and Sustainability Summits, starting with Summits engaging respectively the governments in the Americas, in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, and in the Asia-Pacific region, leading to a World Summit on Peace, Justice, and Sustainability within two years. The initiation of these Summits will be conducted through genuine collaborative diplomacy.
 
Promote in these Summits a worldwide program for collective security, renewable energy, and science-based roll-back of carbon emissions. Of equal importance, the Summits will be dedicated to producing support for community-based sustainability programs in food, water, energy development, education, transportation, and local self-reliance, with guaranteed participation by all sections of the local community.
 
Promote in these Summits plans and provisions to end the trade in arms, the trafficking of women, and the militarization of space.
 
End the war and the military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
Promote equally the security and rights of both Israel and Palestine.
 
Develop and execute a plan to close  American military bases throughout the world, phasing out the bases in step with collaborative actions to provide the affected countries with alternative collective security arrangements.
 
Take leadership in promoting a worldwide financial transactions fee, the funds raised to be directed primarily to solar power development in developing countries.
 
Institute a world-wide carbon tax, proceeds to be used to lower taxes that burden small businesses.
 
Create a World Environmental and Labor Protection Organization alongside the World Trade Organization (WTO) — OR expand the WTO to include protection of the environment and labor.
 

Six Criteria Used in Choosing the Policies for a Green Party President’s First 100 Days.
 
First and foremost, I choose those policies that most contribute to a profound shift in the power structure. The reader will readily see that the strong emphasis  in the above agenda on community preservation, community building, and community self reliance and self-governance, both in the United States and abroad, is a major feature of getting the nation and the world out from under the repressive and often lethal domination of the oligarchs.  Other policies also contribute to a shift, as for example the item on electoral reform in the U.S.; also, the item on a revolutionary change in the way “progress” is measured; and the item on ending the bizarre notion that corporations are persons in the eyes of the law. They all significantly contribute to a profound shift in the power structure.
 
A second criteria is timeliness — in two dimensions. Is the need for the policy imminent – is there little time to waste in getting at the issue? And, a second dimension, related but not the same, is it something heavy on the public’s mind? Health care is such an issue.
 
A third criteria is the need to foster diversity among the people so that differences of race, gender, sexual orientation, and class cease to be opportunities for bias and discrimination and cease to be stumbling blocks to the achievement of unity  in a diverse, mult-cultural society.
 
A fourth criteria is to choose policies that directly interconnect with one another; as for example, imposing a carbon tax and at the same time pushing strongly for renewable energy; also, pushing for collective security through collaborative diplomacy while at the same time withdrawing from U.S. military bases.
 
A fifth criteria for selection of the issues is to have directly in mind the Ten Key Values of the Green Party of the United States: Ecological Wisdom, Personal and Social Responsibility, Grass Roots Democracy, Non-Violence, Respect for Diversity, Gender Equity, Community Economics, Decentralization, Global Responsibility, and Sustainability (thinking to the seventh generation).  The domestic and foreign policy intentions and plans for the “First 100 Days” strongly reflect these values.
 
A sixth criteria is to have the issues chosen be consistent with, and be supported by, the United States Green Party Platform.

Jane Zara
DC Statehood Green Party member

Here are some examples* of what we, as community activists and as DCSGP members, have been fighting for in the nation’s capital, that serve to answer this question.  

Statehood for DC
We would push for DC Statehood.  DC will realize self-government only through Statehood.  Voting rights, without Statehood, still gives Congress control of our budget, our laws, and our justice system.   Congress regularly vetoes locally passed laws and imposes laws on DC without regard to the wishes of the local government or the people who live there.  Voting rights without Statehood is not enough.  In order to gain Statehood, the District has to petition Congress, draft a constitution with a republican form of government, and get a simple majority approval vote in Congress.  Then the President would sign the bill.  We would NOT COMPROMISE and settle for Congressional representation (a.k.a. voting rights), which would still allow the Senate to decide our budget, decide our tax rates, decide who gets to have an abortion, and decide whether a popular referenda gets observed, among other things.  

School Reform
We would stop the rampant privatization of education and the sale of public schools as a quick fix for educational reform and a short-term boost for our balance sheet. We would reassess DC charter school allotments, already costing about $68 million a year extra to induce families not to send their children to DC public schools.  We would place a moratorium on the closing of neighborhood schools, and on the sale of public school properties.  We would conduct town meetings and public hearings to tap the wisdom of parents, students, teachers and education advocates in determining their needs and concerns, and in properly allocating educational resources to those most in need.  We would bolster literacy programs in the areas of the city that have the highest poverty and illiteracy rates.  We would increase funding for apprenticeships for green jobs for students, and fulfill promises of a living wage in the future by transforming our economy to a peaceful economy.  An examination of the recently passed bill, DC Code § 38-2831, provides a good example of legislation requiring transparency and public participation in the DC school budget process.

Public Property Stewardship
An examination of Empower DC’s People’s Property Campaign provides a good working model for the public property struggle in our city.  Empower DC sponsored a public property bill providing layers of protection for public property in several ways.  Included are multiple layers of community planning and input, and a complete inventory of real property owned by the District.  Before disposing of any public property, the Mayor would have to explain why the property has no alternate use.  The Mayor would have to hold public hearings in the affected community. This public property bill also requires the implementation of an accompanying Master Facilities Plan which must include needed community services, including services for homelessness, mental health, drug treatment, literacy, community health care, youth programs, senior services, recreation and supportive housing.  The bill requires equitable distribution of neighborhood based services and facilities.  

In addition, this public property bill creates an accompanying Community Development Plan, which looks to broader community needs, such as affordable housing, child care.  This differs from present economic development model, which focuses on economic wealth and almost inevitably brings in big corporations.  The Community Development Plan, in stark contrast, brings in services that are truly needed in a particular community.  What’s more, this bill contains a clause which gives DC residents legal standing to sue the city if a disposition of public property occurs without compliance to the laws.

These are the sorts of reforms we would start seeing on a national level if the Green Party administration is elected to office, I would hope!

* The information provided has been excerpted from the following:  The difference between DC democracy and DC representation, from the Progressive Review, Sam Smith, http://prorev.com/dcrep.htm; Statehood vs. Voting Rights, DC Statehood Green Party, Special 2008 Election Edition, designed by Joyce Robinson-Paul; Marc Borbely’s Communication to Budgetplaintiffs on March 31, 2008; Changing DC Law to Save Public Property, Empower DC!, Jan. 19, 2008.