Agenda for America

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Barbour also heads the National Policy Forum, a Republican think tank that recently sponsored a series of Washington, D.C.-based forums bringing together congressional and industry leaders, policy experts and ordinary citizens. Those conferences form the basis for this Republican policy blueprint, a set of grassroots-influenced recommendations that contain few surprises but could serve as a springboard for debate in the upcoming presidential election. Proposals include a sharp scaling down of welfare, with time limits on eligibility; a "simpler, flatter" tax system that provides relief to families, eliminates corporate taxes and banishes or reduces the capital gains tax; less federal regulation in the workplace; and tax-free medical savings accounts as an incentive to workers to control their own health care expenditures. Charging the Clinton administration with abdicating America's global leadership role, this manifesto advocates strong U.S. support for NATO, beefed-up counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations and a foreign aid policy that makes U.S. strategic interests paramount. (Apr.)