EDUCATION | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Solve the Dropout Crisis: “Proper funding of all our schools to meet the needs of students who are most at risk of dropping out is essential. Specific solutions include:
| Ignore the Dropout Crisis : [Nothing] |
Maintain Class Size Limits: “To make public education our highest priority, we believe the state should…enforce and extend class size limits to allow every student to receive necessary individualized attention.” | Eliminate Effective Class-Size Limits: “Create flexibility for school districts under the class size limit mandate.” |
SBOE: Put Experts in Charge of Curriculum: “Any substantive changes to curriculum must be reviewed by non-partisan experts, and that review must be made public prior to any changes in curriculum by the State Board.” | SBOE: Put Ideologues in Charge of Curriculum: “The SBOE must have sole authority over all curricula content and state adoption of educational materials and ancillaries, (regardless of methods of delivery, including but not limited to textbooks, laptops and electronic delivery systems.” |
Support Pre-K & Early Childhood Development: “To make public education our highest priority, we believe the state should provide universal access to pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.” “Proper funding of all our schools to meet the needs of students who are most at risk of dropping out is essential. Specific solutions include…expanded access to early childhood education, targeting at-risk students.” | Oppose Pre-K & Early Childhood Development: “We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development and oppose mandatory pre-school and Kindergarten. We urge Congress to repeal government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development.” |
Provide Necessary Public Education Funding: Texas Democrats believe:
| Provisions that Restrict Education Funding: “We urge the Legislature to abolish property taxes for the purpose of funding schools.” “The Party calls upon the Texas Legislature to repeal the revised franchise tax.” |
Oppose School Vouchers: “We believe the state should oppose private school vouchers.” | Support Tax Dollars for Private Schools: “We encourage the Governor and the Texas Legislature to enact child-centered school funding options – which fund the student, not schools or districts – to allow maximum freedom of choice in public, private or parochial education for all children.” |
HEALTH CARE | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Oppose Republican Attempts to Repeal Rights of Health Care Reform: “Texas Democrats:
| Repeal Rights of Health Care Reform: “We urge the Congress to defund, repeal, andreject the national healthcare takeover, also known as “ObamaCare” or any similar legislation.” |
JOBS & ECONOMY | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Raise the Minimum Wage: “To improve wages and working conditions, we believe the minimum wage must be raised, enforced, and applied across-the-board meaningfully to restore lost purchasing power of all workers. It must be indexed to keep it from eroding again. Employees should be paid a living wage with provisions for decent health care and retirement benefits.” | Repeal the Minimum Wage: “We believe the Minimum Wage Law should be repealed.” |
Oppose Sales Tax Extension and Increases: “Enact a constitutional amendment to prevent extending the sales tax to food and medicine and oppose efforts to impose a national sales tax.” | Increase & Expand Sales Tax: “We recommend a national sales tax.” “We urge the Legislature to abolish property taxes for the purpose of funding schools and to shift the tax burden to a consumption-based tax while maintaining or reducing the overall tax burden.” |
SOCIAL SECURITY | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Protect and Preserve Social Security: “We oppose privatization of the Social Security program as fiscally irresponsible, and consider the use of our tax dollars as capital to invest in the stock market as a threat to the income security of working Americans.” | Privatize Social Security: “We support an immediate and orderly transition to a system of private pensions based on the concept of individual retirement accounts, and gradually phasing out the Social Security tax.” |
INSURANCE | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Reform Insurance Regulation; Roll back Rates: “Texas Democrats support the strict enforcement of policies requiring insurance companies to roll back their rates to provide Texas homeowners, renters and drivers fair and affordable insurance.” “We support providing the Insurance Commissioner the authority to deny or approve rates.” “Democrats support measures to reduce and eliminate unfair underwriting and rate setting practices, such as the use of credit scoring, redlining and other discriminatory practices. We support the enforcement of penalties when such practices are used. Texans must have access to affordable insurance to protect our homes and businesses from flood and windstorm damage. We also support more thorough oversight and regulation of homeowner’s insurance through greater consumer representation in the form of an official advisory committee or requirements that the Insurance Commission include consumer representatives.” | No Regulation of Insurance Rates, Companies: “Free Market for Utilities and Insurance – We encourage free market solutions for providing utilities whenever possible. We support that all property insurance rates should be set through free-market forces alone. We support efforts to shrink the Texas Insurance Association to reduce the liabilities it imposes on state taxpayers.” |
UTILITIES | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Responsible Regulation of Utilities: “Texas Democrats support responsible regulation of utilities to provide a level playing field for regulated industry, through reasonable policy to prevent predatory pricing. Texans should not be expected to become experts on all the factors that determine energy costs in order to pay lower, reasonable prices for utility services.” | No Regulation of Utility Rates, Companies: “Free Market for Utilities and Insurance – We encourage free market solutions for providing utilities whenever possible. We support that all property insurance rates should be set through free-market forces alone. We support efforts to shrink the Texas Insurance Association to reduce the liabilities it imposes on state taxpayers.” |
IMMIGRATION | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Oppose State Law That Could Deny the Rights or Endanger the Safety of Citizens: “Texas will not become Arizona, and we strongly oppose…any law that would…
| Create a New State Offense for “Illegal Aliens:” “Create a state offense (Class A misdemeanor) for an illegal alien to intentionally or knowingly be within the State of Texas.” “We support…empowering state and local law enforcement agencies with authority and resources to detain illegal immigrants.” |
VOTING RIGHTS | |
Texas Democratic Party Platform | Republican Party of Texas Platform |
Protect Voting Rights for All Texans: “We support redistricting standards and practices that demand compliance with the Voting Rights Act, discourage savaging regions and communities for partisan gain, and preserve the constituent-representative relationship to the extent possible to give voters the right to elect their representatives instead of letting representatives pick their voters.” | Eliminate Minority Voting Districts: “We oppose any identification of citizens by race, origin, or creed and oppose use of any such identification for purposes of creating voting districts.” |
Entire 2010 Texas Democratic Party Platform - PDF .
No comments:
Post a Comment