Ralph Nader: Some of his Positions

By Stormy

Well, because no one took me up on my offer to present third party positions, I thought I might take the opportunity to present some of Nader’s positions. Compare either of the mainstream candidates’ position to his:

1. Single payer health care plan that replaces for-profit, investor-owned health care and removes the private health insurance industry (full Medicare for all)
2. Tax wealth more than work. This position needs elaboration:
   

   The complexity and distortions of the federal tax code produces distributions of tax incidence and payroll tax burdens that are skewed in favor of the wealthy and the corporations further garnished by tax shelters, insufficient enforcement, and other avoidances.
   Corporate tax contributions as a percent of the overall federal revenue stream have been declining for fifty years and now stand at 7.4% despite massive record profits. A fundamental reappraisal of our tax laws should start with a principle that taxes should apply first to behavior and conditions we favor least and pinch basic necessities least, such as the clearly addictive industries (alcohol and tobacco), pollution, speculation, gambling, extreme luxuries, instead of taxing work or instead of the 5% to 7% sales tax food, furniture, clothing or books.

3. Fair Trade that Protects the Environment, Labor Rights and Consumer Needs
   

   NAFTA and the WTO make commercial trade supreme over environmental, labor, and consumer standards and need to be replaced with open agreements that pull up rather than pull down these standards. These forms of secret autocratic governance and their detailed rules are corporate-managed trade that puts short-term corporate profits as the priority. While global trade is a fact of life, trade policies must be open, democratic, and not strip-mine environmental, social and labor standards.

4. End corporate personhood.
   

   In 1886 the Supreme Court, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, was interpreted to have ruled that corporations were “persons”—before women were considered persons under the 19th amendment to have the right to vote.
   Ever since, corporations have enjoyed most of the same constitutional rights granted to real people.
   But corporations are not humans. They don’t vote. They don’t have children. They don’t die in Iraq.

These are but a few of Nader’s positions.

Ralph’s positions can be found here