Excluded by the Federal Debate Commission from a place on stage because they failed to draw more than 15 percent of the vote in a national poll, the three leading alternative party candidates were invited by the Globe to express their views on a range of issues. Ralph Nader and Harry Browne responded. Patrick J. Buchanan did not.
Ralph Nader
Were I to ask Governor Bush or Vice President Gore one question during the presidential debates, it would be: How will you strengthen American democracy by facilitating greater power for voters, workers, consumers, taxpayers, parents, small-business people, and small saver-investors against the great concentration of corporate power over our society?
In the Sept. 11, 2000, issue of Business Week, the cover story was ''Too Much Corporate Power?'' Several pages answered this question ''yes,'' citing 72 percent of Americans polled saying business has too much power over too many aspects of American life. The editors concluded with an editorial demanding that corporations ''get out of politics.''
Every major social justice movement in our nation's history was made possible by more power to the people and it is way past time for a shift of power from big business to the people.
Voters can become more powerful with full public financing of public elections; same-day voter registration; binding none-of-the-above options; initiative, referendum and recall; and an end to ballot-access barriers against smaller parties.
Workers can achieve more power by the repeal of restrictive labor laws, such as the notorious Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which has blocked tens of millions of workers, especially in low-paid jobs, from forming trade unions to lift their pay to a living wage and improve the safety of their working conditions.
Consumers can be given more power by full access to the courts, by facilities that make it easy for them to band together as insurance policyholders, health care groups, bank, food safety, energy, housing and other associations that enhance their bargaining leverage and protect their consumer dollars.
Taxpayers can be given greater influence to watchdog and challenge the waste of taxpayer dollars by giving them legal standing in the federal courts, by providing them with a voluntary check-off on the 1040 tax return to join and fund their own association to take on the massive corporate welfare giveaways, such as subsidies, handouts, and bailouts for almost every major industry in our country. These hundreds of billions of dollars can be used back in communities and neighborhoods to repair and expand our schools, clinics, libraries, public transit systems, drinking water plants and many other public works in gross disrepair. These monies can also be used to abolish child poverty and fund universal health insurance.
Communities and small business, especially in low-income areas, need more power to fight bank, insurance, and municipal service redlining that feeds the disinvestments and despair of millions of poor Americans. Here, impoverished classes and racism combine to produce a chronic powerlessness.
The central contention of politics is the proper distribution of power. In 1941, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said: ''We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both.''
With most American workers making less in real dollars and working longer hours than in 1979 or 1973, despite boom economic times, with the top 1 percent of the richest people having the net wealth equal to the bottom 95 percent of all Americans, with widespread child and adult poverty, and with global corporations dominating our government, workplace, marketplace, media and elections, responding to ways that make the people sovereign over their country becomes the central priority of this presidential elections deliberations. Or so it should be!
Harry Browne
Opening statement:
I want you to be free to live your life as you want to live it, not as George Bush or Al Gore thinks is best for you. They are arguing over who is better qualified to run your life; I believe you should run your life.
If included in the Boston debate:
I would have made specific proposals to get government out of your life - to free you from the income tax, to reduce government to its constitutional functions, to release you from the horrendous 15 percent Social Security tax, to make your city and school safer by stopping the nightmare of prohibition and ending the insane war on drugs.
If allowed to question Vice President Gore: Would you be a better person today if, for your youthful indiscretions, you had spent 20 years in prison? If not, why don't you repeal the drug laws and show the same mercy you've received?
If allowed to question Texas governor Bush: Would you be a better person today if, for your youthful indiscretions, you had spent 20 years in prison? If not, why don't you repeal the drug laws and show the same mercy you've received?
On health care coverage: Federal programs have run up the price of health care exorbitantly and made health insurance inaccessible to tens of millions of Americans. I want to make life easier for senior citizens - and for the rest of us - by getting the federal government completely out of health care. If we do that, once again your doctor can pay attention to you instead of the regulations and forms he's saddled with, a hospital stay will no longer cost many months' pay, and low-cost health insurance will again be available to virtually everyone. We enjoyed all those benefits before the federal government moved into health care in the 1960s.
On education and school reform: Schools began to go downhill in earnest when the federal government invaded education during the 1960s. I want the federal government completely out of education. And I want to repeal the income tax so you have the resources to put your child in whatever school you think is best - private, religious, or home school - without having to beg the state for a voucher or plead with the school board to teach your children what you think they should learn.
On American military power and international relations: We should use the military only when we are attacked. And it's very unlikely we would ever be attacked if we quit meddling in the affairs of other countries.
On the plight of Americans who have not seen their fortunes rise with the booming economy: I would push for the total repeal of the income tax, which would put over $1 trillion a year back into the hands of the people who earned it. That would buy a job for everyone who can work and charity for everyone who can't work.
Patrick J. Buchanan
The Reform Party candidate did not respond, but on the subject of being excluded from the debates, he had this to say at a news conference in July: The Federal Debate Commission ''is playing its assigned role - basically, to stifle debate in the presidential contest of the year 2000. You know, as Butch Cassidy asked, `Just who are these guys?' The Presidential Debate Commission must be nonpartisan by law. It is not nonpartisan, it is bipartisan. It is 100 percent Republicrat. All Republicans, all Democrats. Not a single member of the Reform Party sits on the Presidential Debate Commission.''
