THE COMPLETE HAGELIN/GOLDHABER PLATFORM

  Agriculture

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber envision a time when American farmers will farm in full accord with the laws of nature, fully utilizing nature's creativity to yield abundant, healthy food, while protecting the environment and ensuring a vigorous, diversified, sustainable agricultural economy.

The Problem

The future of agriculture depends on its sustainability -- that is, the ability of agricultural policies and practices to preserve and strengthen the farming economy, ecology, and community for future generations.

The 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR) was heralded as a major change of direction for U.S. agriculture. But it has left many wondering whether crucial, fundamental changes have really been made in agricultural policy, and whether FAIR is fair -- especially for small family farms and for the environment. FAIR does not go far enough to ensure agricultural practices that are sustainable -- financially, environmentally, and socially.

1. Financially unsustainable
   • Projections of increasing international demand for food, coupled with rapidly shrinking global food reserves, suggest that consumers will pay even more for food in the future and that poor countries will receive less U.S. food aid. Despite these realities, current U.S. farm programs restrict America's agricultural production (for example, 36 million acres have been taken out of production) while encouraging competitor nations to plant more [1, 2].
   • The farm subsidy program of FAIR, although formalizing the phasing out of government subsidies over seven years, continues to unduly favor the nation's largest farms.
   • The growing consolidation and control of food production by a few very large corporations jeopardizes the survival of small family farms. U.S. Department of Agriculture policies and regulations are biased against small farm operators and enforce a form of corporate welfare that drives small farms into bankruptcy so that they can be bought by huge agribusinesses.
   • From 1988 to 1993, even the most economically profitable farms averaged only a 3-5% return on stockholder equity; food manufacturers, on the other hand, averaged 16.5% [3]. Clearly, farmers receive little of the "value-added" profit accruing to food manufacturers that process farm goods for the market. Farmers -- especially those working small family farms -- and their surrounding communities cannot survive without diversification of farm activities that keeps more of these profits close to home.
2. Environmentally unsustainable
   • Conventional agriculture erodes and degrades soil; it requires large-scale use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers that pollute groundwater and are unhealthy for consumers and farmers. These agrichemicals pose real threats to water quality, wildlife, and human health. Recent scientific research indicates that common pesticides are estrogen mimicking and implicates them in the high incidence of breast cancer and prostate cancer in America and in the striking decline in male sperm count. Yet FAIR continues to support chemically intensive cropping practices.
   • Federal agencies have decided that some genetically engineered plant and animal products (such as recombinant bovine growth hormone -- rBGH -- which boosts milk production) are safe, despite the growing concerns of many scientists and the fact that the Canadian government has outlawed rBGH due to health concerns. Virtually all European nations have banned rBGH and other hormone treatment in livestock. Many products similar to rBGH are under review. In addition, many foods that have been genetically engineered with pig, insect, virus, or bacteria genes are already being sold in supermarkets. Yet these genetically altered foods are not labeled as such -- despite well-documented health risks from some genetically engineered foods, including:
     Toxic tryptophan -- this genetically engineered food supplement killed 37 people and permanently disabled 1,500 more.
     Allergenic soybean -- this soybean, genetically altered with a Brazil nut protein, caused a marked reaction in many people allergic to Brazil nuts.
   • Some leading scientists believe that alteration of DNA -- the most fundamental level of plant and animal physiology -- is likely to have profound negative impacts on the environment and human life [4]. For example, altered genes from cultivated food crops may be released to wild relatives, thus compromising the "gene pool" upon which breeders of domestic crops must draw to enhance resistance to pests and disease. Unlike other products, a genetically engineered organism that has been released into the environment can never be recalled.
   • The explosion of factory hog farms, cattle feedlots, and poultry operations during the last few years has increased livestock concentrations, confinement housing, and separation of animals from their natural environments. As a result, these animals are more prone to disease; therefore, they need more antibiotics; and consequently, their wastes become a health hazard instead of a natural aid to soil fertility.
   • In addition, to ensure maximum weight gain in their livestock, farmers commonly inject antibiotics into healthy animals. Many scientists suspect that this practice helps create bacteria and viruses that are resistant or immune to antibiotics. Since antibiotic-resistant germs have become a major health problem in America, this practice should be stopped immediately.
3. Socially unsustainable
   • Experts feel that conventional agriculture has led to "decaying communities [in] rural America that continue to lose population, business, and even their reason to exist as farms consolidate into larger units and farm families leave" [5]. Small towns are a reservoir of enterprise and traditional values that Americans cherish, and they should not be lost.
   • Corporate-owned factory hog farms, cattle feedlots, and poultry operations, as well as the corporations that supply them, are becoming increasingly vertically integrated, pushing family farms and rural agribusinesses out of business and reducing farmers to corporate laborers.
   • The challenges of farming today are making new demands on farmers and their families. The farmer must take into account many complex factors in making production decisions, including the weather, quality of the soil, threat of pests, available financial resources, and changing agricultural markets. Economic pressures cause stress, which affects health and well-being. Research has found that farmers are also at high risk from exposure to chemical pesticides [6].

The Solution

Agriculture is more than a business; it is a cornerstone of our national life. The food produced by farmers is basic to our health and national security, and farmland itself is an irreplaceable resource vital to sustenance of life. Therefore, government must help ensure the long-term viability of agriculture.

We support legislation that will ensure social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture while balancing the following goals: (1) ensuring an economical and healthful supply of high-quality food for consumers; (2) promoting health and longevity in farmers and in the population as a whole; (3) protecting natural resources and the environment; (4) cushioning farmers from the natural and financial instability unique to agriculture; (5) enabling farmers to better pursue financial profitability; and (6) restoring the vitality of rural communities.

We have identified solutions to The Problems faced by U.S. agriculture:

1. Given the far-reaching ecological and health impacts of genetic engineering, a moratorium should be imposed on the release of genetically engineered organisms until the safety of such organisms can be firmly established. In addition, to protect the public's right to know, labeling and premarket safety testing of genetically engineered foods should be mandatory.
2. Farm policies should be redirected to expand opportunities for new and existing farmers to prosper using sustainable systems that will enhance the health of the farmers and the population as a whole. Training and apprenticeship programs, loans, grants, and other incentives should be devised to assist conventional and entry-level farmers to adopt organic or more sustainable systems. Demonstration farms, farmer-to-farmer networks and field tours, and studies of successful alternative farming systems should be used to hasten the adoption of more sustainable practices.
3. The U.S. should change its policy focus from "cheap (and unsafe) food for the consumer" to "quality food for the consumer on a sustainable basis." Through research and education, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is in a unique position to influence (a) practices of farmers and the food-production industry, and (b) the food choices and demands of consumers:
   (a) Field-tested techniques supported by scientific research, such as integrated pest management, integrated crop management, and organic farming, already exist for farming profitably on a low-input, sustainable basis [7]. On this basis, agrichemical use could be reduced 50% by the year 2006. The USDA should initiate and fund research into further development of alternative and chemical-free sustainable agricultural practices, with an emphasis on the development of systems and technologies that can be integrated economically and completely into all agricultural production. In addition, economists have developed accounting techniques that incorporate the costs of pollution and natural-resource depletion into agriculture's balance sheet [8]. Government legislation should make it a priority to disseminate these practices and techniques to the entire food production industry, showing farmers, producers, and consumers that sustainable food production practices are more cost-effective in the long run.
   (b) Consumer demand drives agricultural supply. Changes in consumer preferences will create a shift toward less resource-intensive food production and a healthier food supply. (Today, the organic food market is the fastest growing segment of the food industry, increasing by 20% each year.) The USDA should initiate and fund research investigating the impact of dietary change on health and longevity, and then launch campaigns to educate the public. For example, government should fund vigorous programs to inform consumers that chemical-free food is possible now, at a reasonable price. Moreover, scientists have recently concluded that substantial public health and environmental benefits would likely result from more widespread use of vegetables, fruit, and plant-based protein in the diet [9]. The government should educate the public about the health and environmental value of these foods in the diet.
   Land-grant universities and extension services should also take the initiative to develop and disseminate sustainable agricultural practices and healthier dietary approaches.
4. Farm communities should seek new ways to keep "value-added" processes and profits as close as possible to the farm. Public policy should promote cooperative development of local processing facilities and diversification into the production of higher-value, specialized crops -- including chemical-free production.
5. Family-sized farms should be protected and strengthened through more programs such as FAIR's Fund for Rural America, which supports value-added incentives, assistance for minority and beginning farmers, and other initiatives to empower farmers and rural communities to work towards revitalizing rural life. Even removing farm payment loopholes for large corporate agribusinesses would favor the viability of family-sized farms. Programs such as the Fund for Rural America should be given high priority and full funding.
6. For the above recommendations to be successful, however, it is necessary -- for the individual farmer and society as a whole -- to develop consciousness and gain more support of natural law. We therefore recommend educational programs to develop the consciousness of the farmer and thereby reduce stress, improve the farmer's health and well-being, and promote the skills to meet new management challenges. Such programs will enable farmers to spontaneously make better decisions and better use of the environment, and will bring them greater support of natural law in all their activities. Similarly, the reduction of stress in the collective consciousness of society, combined with our administration's focus on education, will influence consumer choices toward higher-quality food, better health, and more life-enriching behavior -- life in accord with natural law. These programs will help ensure that the natural resources upon which agriculture depends will be available far into the future.

Notes

1. "Grain Prices Head Higher," Business Week, November 20, 1995, p. 38.
2. "Another Crisis in World's Future?" Des Moines Register, November 12, 1995, p. 1J.
3. Heffernan, W., cited in "U.S. Ag Called Feudal System," Des Moines Register, November 27, 1994.
4. One is Dr. John Fagan, discussed in "Biologist Returns US Grants to Protest Genetic Research," The Boston Globe, November 16, 1994.
5. Northwest Area Foundation, A Better Row to Hoe: The Economic, Environmental, and Social Impact of Sustainable Agriculture (Dec. 1994), 1; see also USDA/ERS, 18.
6. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Environmental Health 18:209-215, 1992; Journal of the American Medical Association 256(9):1141-1147, 1986; Zahm, S.H., et al., Annual Meeting of the Society for Epidemiological Research, Vancouver, Canada, June 15-17, 1988.
7. National Research Council, Board on Agriculture, Alternative Agriculture (1989); Northwest Area Foundation, 2.
8. Paying the Farm Bill: U.S. Agricultural Policy and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture, World Resources Institute, 1991.
9. "Health Effects and Prevalence of Vegetarianism," The Western Journal of Medicine, 160: 465-471, 1994.

Abortion

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber are committed to substantially reducing the number of abortions in America. However, we hold that the best way to reduce abortions is through education -- not through legislation.

We support proven educational programs to bring individual and national life into harmony with natural law. These programs develop intelligence and creativity, improve moral reasoning, and promote far-sighted thinking and actions that do not create problems. Such education alone can produce the changes in behavior that will reduce unwanted pregnancies. The Hagelin/Goldhaber administration's strong educational approach, by changing attitudes and behaviors from the inside out, can offer prevention on a realistic basis.

Our nation's history shows that it is difficult to legislate morality. Laws forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcohol during Prohibition had little effect on alcohol consumption. Instead, they led to an increase in crime and the most murderous epoch in our nation's history. Similarly, legislation to outlaw abortions will simply lead to illegal abortions.

For this reason, we believe that it is counterproductive for the Federal Government to outlaw abortion. Furthermore, we hold that the moral responsibility for abortion decisions should be left in the hands of those whose lives are affected most -- the mother, the family, and the doctor -- not the Federal Government.

At the same time, we would encourage a shift from public to private funding of abortion -- specifically, private charity by those who wish to make abortion accessible for women who cannot afford it. Over time, the government should eliminate the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortion as a method of birth control, especially because such use of public funds is morally offensive to millions of taxpayers. We would allow public funding of abortions in cases of rape, incest, or life-threatening medical necessity.

We further believe that private charity to fund abortions could be better used to support proven, community-based programs such as CareNet, which reaches out to women with crisis pregnancies to offer them both material and emotional support, and the "One Church, One Child" adoption initiative founded by Fr. George Clements, which has enabled over 50,000 children to find loving parents and a nurturing home environment.

Our "antigovernment" stance regarding abortion -- neither subsidizing abortions nor legislating them away -- is the only defensible position from the standpoint of the U.S. Constitution, which states in the 10th Amendment that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Our prevention-oriented approach to reducing the number of abortions will produce a much-needed unifying influence on our nation, which has been deeply torn by this highly divisive issue. Our policy serves the interests of both those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice by (a) decreasing the number of abortions more effectively than legislation and (b) leaving moral responsibility in the hands of those whose lives are affected most. Only this approach can solve The Problem of abortion at its basis and thereby fulfill the goals of all Americans -- those who emphasize the sanctity of life and those who uphold the sanctity of individual freedom.

GIVEN CURRENT LEVELS of crime in America, capital punishment has gained broad popular support as a hoped-for deterrent to the most severe crimes. Unfortunately, experience shows that capital punishment neither effectively deters crime nor saves taxpayer money. Although John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber support a strong penal code, especially for specific, highly egregious violent crimes, the current effort to extend the death penalty to include a wide range of crimes is a desperate public (and highly political) reaction arising from deep frustration with present, ineffective crime-fighting strategies. We would therefore impose a moratorium on the death penalty unless and until our criminal justice system demonstrates its ability to impose this harshest of all sentences justly and fairly.

We support highly effective, proven crime-prevention programs that have been shown to lower crime significantly (see our Crime section). We believe that the national mood will shift away from an outcry for the harshest possible punishment and towards more compassionate solutions once violent crime has been significantly reduced through our prevention-oriented approach.

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber envision an America free of crime, where all citizens live fully in accord with both natural law and national law; where people freely move on the streets without fear; and where Americans live and work together harmoniously for both their own fulfillment and the national good.

The Problem

Crime costs Americans $450 billion annually [1]. Despite two decades of "get tough" policies -- with longer, often mandatory prison sentences -- the rate of crime in America is high compared to other developed nations [2]. Of gravest concern, juvenile violent crime has spiraled during the past decade -- especially urban gang and school violence using guns [3]. According to the Centers for Disease Control, American youths are 12 times more likely to die by gunfire than their peers in other nations. An FBI crime report concluded that "every American has a realistic chance of being murdered because of the random nature [that] crime has assumed."

America's criminal justice system is under constant strain. Courts, police, probation and parole agencies, and prisons are overworked and inadequate to deal with the high level of crime [4].

Clearly, a "get-tough" policy is not enough. Effective crime prevention is also crucial. Yet despite the dismal track record of "get-tough" approaches, Republican and Democratic legislators ignore proven preventive strategies and press for more police, more prisons, and stiffer punishment. Consider the following [5]:

• Building more prisons has not worked. Since 1971, the U.S. prison population has increased sixfold to over 1.8 million incarcerated in 1500 state and federal prisons and 3000 jails. The U.S. now has the largest percentage of its citizens behind bars apart from Russia [6]. Incarceration acts like a quarantine, preventing a faster acceleration of crime, but fails to eradicate the source of the crime epidemic.
• The threat of punishment is not enough. Most violent crime is "an impulsive response to an immediate stressful situation," often committed under the influence of drugs or alcohol -- not a rational, considered action [7].
• Many experts feel that prisons train inmates to be better criminals [8]. Most violent crime is committed by hard-core repeat offenders: the majority of all prisoners commit new crimes and are arrested within three years of release.
• More police on the street does not lower crime. Published reports indicate that increased police patrols in major U.S. cities have had little effect on crime rates [9]. Washington, D.C., for example, has the highest police/population ratio in the nation -- and one of the highest violent crime rates. The $25 billion crime bill designed to deploy 100,000 more police represents merely a drop in the bucket and is hardly effective or cost-effective.

Increasing recognition of the need for prevention has led to experimental approaches such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) and midnight basketball. Unfortunately, long-term scientific studies have found no significant effects on crime and drug abuse from such programs [10].

The Solution

We believe that these "bandaid" approaches do not work because they fail to address the root cause of crime -- the epidemic of stress throughout society. During the past two decades, medical science has documented the alarming rise of stress-related illness such as hypertension, stroke, and heart disease. This same build-up of stress is responsible for a similar rise in social illnesses -- crime, drug abuse, domestic violence, and family disintegration.

Current crime prevention programs overlook the psychological and physiological devastation wrought by constant, traumatic stress. Stress causes a complex psychophysiological chain reaction that makes the nervous system hyperexcited and unstable [11]. Chronic, acute stress leads to serious physiological malfunction. Among other effects, the body's neurochemical balance is distorted, producing abnormally high levels of cortisol (a primary stress hormone) and low levels of serotonin (a key neurotransmitter) [12]. This out-of-balance biochemistry has been linked with anxiety, fear, anger, impulsive violent behavior, and substance abuse [13].

Moreover, the combined stress of all the individuals in society builds up and creates a dangerous, criminal atmosphere in the whole community. This societal stress and tension becomes a breeding ground for more crime and violence. Thus, to reduce crime, stress must be reduced in at-risk individuals and throughout society.

Reducing social stress -- In addition to a tough penal code as a deterrent to crime, we offer systematic, scientifically proven programs to reduce stress in the individual and throughout society -- thus eliminating the root cause of crime. At least one such program, the Transcendental Meditation program, has been scientifically shown to (1) reduce individual and social stress; (2) reduce cortisol and increase serotonin production in the body, thus counteracting the neurochemical imbalances produced by stress; and (3) decrease anxiety, hostility, and anger, and improve psychological development and moral reasoning [14].

Forty-three published scientific studies have shown that large groups practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program in one location reduce social stress and violence. These studies, which have investigated the impact of such groups on communities, cities, and entire nations, have consistently found decreases in crime, war deaths, and other negative social indicators, as well as improvements in economy and national mood. This innovative approach offers a highly cost-effective, scientifically proven strategy to eliminate the fundamental cause of crime through reducing individual and societal stress.

Effective prison rehabilitation -- The most cost-effective prevention strategy is to target those individuals who are at highest risk for crime -- the current prison inmate population, 90% of whom will be released from prison. A five-year Harvard study investigated the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique in a maximum security prison. Inmates who learned the practice decreased significantly in stress, aggression, and mental disorders. Violence throughout the prison decreased, and the rate of return to prison among participating inmates was 30-35% less than for four other treatment groups [15]. Similar studies in 28 other maximum security prisons have shown equally impressive results. (Current rehabilitation strategies put the cart before the horse. They try to reeducate and reform inmates without first changing inmates from within by eliminating the stress that makes them uninterested in education or incapable of being reformed [16].)

Community policing -- In New York City, a new initiative called computer-assisted community policing has been credited with reducing crime by 40% over two years. In this approach, police are assigned to high-crime neighborhoods identified by computer tracking, work closely with these neighborhoods, and are rewarded for preventing crime. According to statistics from the New York Police Department, murder in New York City dropped 31% during the first half of 1995 compared to the first six months of 1994, with similar reductions in other categories of violent crime. This striking improvement led one journalist to refer to New York as "the suddenly safer city" [17].

Urban revitalization -- Our overcrowded, decaying urban centers obviously contribute to the rise of stress and crime. Any program to reduce crime must involve a comprehensive plan to revitalize the inner cities, as laid out in our Revitalizing Our Inner Cities section.

Drug and alcohol rehabilitation -- A high proportion of crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol and drugs. A 1996 study of crime in New York City found that tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse cost the city's taxpayers and corporations $20 billion in 1994 -- 21 cents of every tax dollar [18]. We would introduce programs proven to reduce drug dependency, eliminate stress, and promote mental and physical health.

Preventing youth crime -- School dropouts are at highest risk for crime and drug abuse. We strongly support more effective educational programs to keep children in school, off the streets, and out of the reach of crime. Our proven educational programs unfold greater creativity and intelligence and develop ideal citizenship by raising life to be in accord with natural law and national law (see our Education section). Our strong educational focus is the true, long-term solution to the pervasive problem of crime.

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber are the only political candidates with a truly comprehensive, scientifically proven strategy to reduce crime. Our approach is the most hard-headed and hard-hitting, since it focuses on scientifically proven programs that work. Our prevention-oriented approach will save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars and prevent immeasurable anguish and suffering in the lives of millions of Americans who are victims of crime each year.

Notes

1. See Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look, a comprehensive survey published in 1996 by the National Institute of Justice (the research branch of the Justice Department).
2. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 1993, Uniform Crime Reports, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1997.
3. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice (1995), the murder rate among 14- to 17-year-olds increased 165% during the last ten years, and the number of arrests for violent crime among 10- to 17-year-olds doubled. In addition, according to USA Today (November 13, 1995, p. 1A), the number of teenage arrests on weapons charges has doubled since 1985.
4. America leads the industrialized world in murders -- almost four times the annual U.S. casualty rate during the Vietnam War (see Wilson, J., Commentary, September 1994, p. 25). The 1996 FBI annual crime statistics for the U.S. reported 19,650 murders, 95,770 rapes, 537,050 robberies, 1,029,810 aggravated assaults, and 2,501,500 burglaries. (See Federal Bureau of Investigation, op. cit.)
5. See S. R. Donziger (ed.), The Real War on Crime, New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
6. See U.S. News and World Report, March 23, 1997, p.33. U.S. Department of Justice figures (press release, August 27, 1995) indicate that 5.1 million Americans are under some form of correctional supervision -- prison, jail, parole, or probation.
7. See Petersilia, J., "Crime and Punishment in California: Full Cells, Empty Pockets, and Questionable Benefits," CPS Brief, Berkeley, CA: California Policy Seminars, May 1993.
8. Petersilia, op. cit., p. 10; Sampson, R., and Laub, C., Crime in the Making, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 255.
9. The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment, 1981; The Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment: A Summary Report, Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 1974. See also Wilson, James Q., "What to Do About Crime," Commentary, 1994, pp. 215-234.
10. Social Problems 41(3):448-472, 1994. See also R.A. Mendel, Prevention or Pork? A Hard-Headed Look at Youth-Oriented Anti-Crime Programs, Washington, D.C.: Youth Policy Forums, 1995.
11. Sapolsky, R., Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
12. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11:89-117, 1994.
13. Archives of General Psychiatry 49:429-435, 436-441, 1992; Life Sciences 33:2609-2614, 1983.
14. Journal of Clinical Psychology 45: 957-974, 1989; Society of Neuroscience Abstracts 18:1541, 1992; Journal of Neural Transmission 39:257-267, 1976; Criminal Justice and Behavior 5:3-20, 1978; Dissertation Abstracts International, 51:5048, 1991.
15. Dissertation Abstracts International 43:539b, 1982.
16. For a fuller discussion of this approach to rehabilitation and crime prevention, see Marcus, Jay B., The Crime Vaccine, Baton Rouge, LA: Claitor's Books, 1996.
17. Horowitz, C., "The Suddenly Safer City," New York magazine, August 14, 1995.
18. See Califano, Joseph A., Substance Abuse in Urban America: Its Impact on an American City, New York, Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Cornell University, February 1996.

WITH THE END OF THE COLD WAR ERA, the U.S. has an unprecedented opportunity to lead the world in creating a stable and permanent peace, free from fear of aggression and war, in which every nation enjoys invincibility and friendship with every other nation.

The Problem

Despite the declining threat of superpower confrontation, uncertainty and fear still dominate U.S. defense thinking. History has shown that neither treaties nor arms can ensure peace and security. Regional and ethnic conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe have demonstrated that even small nations can imperil world peace and stability. They can hold other nations hostage through terrorism, ecological warfare, and weapons of mass destruction.

No viable defense against nuclear weapons exists. Nuclear tests in China, India, and Pakistan have stirred fears in the international community of runaway nuclear proliferation. At least 46 nuclear weapons are thought to be missing from the former Soviet arsenal [1]. Arms experts fear that rogue nations and terrorist groups might opt for "back-pack" nuclear weapons carried by foot soldiers. Even after substantial reductions in our own arsenals, thousands of nuclear weapons remain. The military faces huge environmental cleanup costs for its unused arsenals and bases.

Similarly, biological and chemical weapons pose a mounting threat to national security. Their relatively low cost, easily accessible technology, and low-tech applications make them especially dangerous as weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorist groups or even individuals.

The U.S. remains one of the world's biggest arms suppliers. This global arms peddling has tarnished our reputation as a promoter of peace, fostered deep-seated international ill will, and led to a dangerous world in which our own soldiers are forced to confront American weapons on the battlefield. Scarce military resources are squandered on pork-barrel weapons like the $2 billion B2 bomber and the $60 billion flawed missile defense shield -- programs that the Pentagon does not even want [2].

Finally, military personnel continue to face major health concerns, including problems with stress [3], alcohol, and a higher rate of cigarette smoking than the civilian population [4]. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, a continuing problem for veterans, is virtually ignored due to lack of solutions, and Gulf War syndrome has underscored the insidious influence of environmental toxins on our primary-level military personnel [5].

The Solution

The changing global political landscape mandates a broad reassessment of the purpose, scope, strategy, and financial requirements of U.S. defense. John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber believe that these crucial issues must be decided on the basis of a revised set of priorities reflecting America's realistic defense requirements--not on the basis of short-term political considerations and pork-barrel politics.

We recognize the need to maintain the alertness of our nation's armed forces. Between 1987 and 1999, the U.S. military defense budget was cut by 5%. Since the world remains dangerous and unstable, we believe that the U.S. should not implement further major reductions of defense expenditures at this time. We would maintain our weapons superiority, while focusing more resources on military personnel, training, readiness, and retention -- creating a more flexible force to effectively combat the threat of terrorism and meet our nation's security needs in the post-Cold War world. We believe that such a force, coupled with greater economic and security cooperation, will also help provide the basis for greater international stability.

For example, we believe that funding for costly, wasteful, and ineffective weapons systems could be rapidly scaled down. As part of this down-scaling, we would (1) accelerate the decrease of U.S. nuclear arsenals, which cost $25 billion annually to maintain, (2) immediately and permanently halt all U.S. nuclear testing and nuclear weapons research, and (3) reduce the U.S. presence in NATO and the Pacific Rim, encouraging Western Europe and Japan to contribute more toward the defense of those regions. The role of America should be to foster peace and prosperity in the family of nations, rather than to act as the world's policeman.

To further strengthen our security, the Hagelin/Goldhaber administration would offer a peace-promoting technology that will help neutralize international tensions and conflict and promote stability and harmony within the family of nations. This peace-promoting technology, which is based upon groups of experts collectively practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program, can help to ensure a peaceful world. Only through the addition of this technology to reduce global stress and to generate an actual, physical influence of peace among the family of nations can we responsibly cut defense spending and divert the precious resources of the nation toward more life-supporting and humane programs at home and abroad.

Recognizing our recent failures to prevent conflict and promote lasting peace through military intervention alone, we would therefore support a "prevention wing" in the military -- a true peacekeeping force trained to diffuse regional tensions among warring factions, using proven nonviolent methods of conflict resolution, and to preserve and strengthen national and international peace. By training even 1% of U.S. military personnel in the proven programs that we advocate to reduce stress in individual and national life, America can create a genuine peace-keeping force that can maintain a powerful, integrated, coherent national consciousness and thereby prevent the emergence of an enemy.

We also support new priorities for the U.S. Department of Defense. Selected military personnel and resources could quickly adapt to roles such as drug interdiction and border defense. We believe that economic growth, leading to new industries and jobs, is the best way to help the defense industry adjust to military downsizing. There is strong statistical evidence that more jobs are created through domestic programs than through military spending. In addition, we favor incentives to stimulate investment of private-sector funds and expertise to help industries diversify into nondefense markets.

Finally, we support prevention and rehabilitation programs that have been shown to reduce military stress, decrease alcohol and drug abuse, alleviate post-traumatic stress syndrome, promote better health, and enhance physical and mental performance [6].

Notes

1. G-2, December 1994, Military 11(7): 3.
2. For example, Congress has apportioned $13.4 billion for additional B-2 bombers that the Pentagon doesn't want; legislators have funded the construction of four GS cruisers, although the Navy only requested two; and the costly Seawolf project is currently funded for $700 million, even though the Navy doesn't want it at all.
3. Air Force Times, May 27, 1996, 10.
4. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1995, 73; American Journal of Public Health 81 (7): 865-869, 1991; American Journal of Preventive Health 11(4):245-250, 1995.
5. See U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 1996, p. 64. Environmental dangers cited include inhalation of sand and other airborne particles, heavy metals, depleted uranium, chemical and biological agents, pollution from hydrocarbons, and genetic and cancer risks.
6. See our Health, Crime, and Education sections, and references therein. For research on post-traumatic stress syndrome, see Journal of Counseling and Development 64:212, 1985.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE DEFENSE AGAINST DRUGS is proper education -- education that directly unfolds intelligence and creativity, builds self-confidence, eliminates stress, and raises life to be in harmony with natural law, thereby eliminating the tendency towards drug dependence.

To be effective, education must be deeply satisfying and directly relevant to a person's own life. Such education will eliminate functional and technological illiteracy and also prevent dropouts, who become the principal targets for drugs and drug-related crime (see our Education section).

For those currently suffering from drug dependence, John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber promote programs that have been shown to dramatically reduce drug dependency and to eliminate stress and restore balance in an individual's physiology and psychology (see our Health and Crime sections). We will cut our burgeoning prison population in half by decriminalizing nonviolent drug offenses, directing such offenders to drug education, prevention, and rehabilitation programs.

The responsibility for stemming the drug trade currently belongs to numerous federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as many state and local agencies. This fragmented approach inevitably results in overlapping and at times self-defeating investigations, apprehensions, and prosecutions. These conflicts make administration inefficient -- and sometimes result in senseless anomalies that allow known criminals to escape prosecution altogether.

We therefore support procedures that will promote cooperation and coordination among the various law enforcement agencies responsible for interdicting, apprehending and prosecuting individuals and organizations engaged in illegal drug and narcotics activities.

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber envision a flourishing national economy in which no citizen suffers from unemployment, recession, runaway inflation, or any other economic hardship; in which America's businesses are highly competitive in the international marketplace; in which the crippling national debt is reduced and eventually eliminated; and in which the tax burden is significantly decreased, enabling everyone to enjoy greater prosperity and a higher standard of living.

The Problem

A healthy economy is the key to America's domestic strength and international leadership. Without industrial and corporate might, the U.S. cannot remain competitive in world markets, satisfy domestic needs, or continue to play a major role in world events. America has enjoyed strong economic growth in 1998 and thus far in 1999, but our economy still faces serious challenges.

For example, President Clinton and Congress have taken credit for the recent U.S. budget "surpluses," but in reality they have created an economic illusion through deceptive federal accounting practices. They have not cut spending at all; government spending has only escalated each successive year. They have instead borrowed surplus Social Security revenues to pay for excessive federal spending in other areas. This action jeopardizes the future of the Social Security program, effectively turning Social Security payroll taxes into a 15% flat tax on income rather than an investment vehicle for employee retirement. America is already over $5 trillion in debt -- about $20,000 per citizen -- and in fiscal years 1999 and 2000, despite Congressional Budget Office projections of budget surpluses, the national debt will increase by over $100 billion annually. Any credit for recent U.S. economic growth should rightly go not to government, but to the hard-working Americans whose creativity has led to increased productivity.

In addition, the increasing income disparity between the wealthiest 20% and the other 80% of Americans indicates a great imbalance in our economy. Although profits and productivity have increased during the past two decades, the purchasing power of the average American has declined significantly. For example, in 1993, the average American worker had to spend 26 weeks' worth of wages to buy a car, as compared to 17 weeks' in 1973. Many wage-earners -- especially those in lower income brackets -- have limited resources, no opportunity to save, little job security, and no way to cope with emergency medical needs.

Excessive taxes and a burdensome, overly complex, and punitive tax code stifle economic growth. The seven-million-word tax code is so convoluted that the Internal Revenue Service itself has trouble understanding it, and corporations spend four times as much on tax compliance as they do on taxes [1]. In addition, special-interest groups have successfully manipulated the tax code by creating loopholes to benefit specific businesses -- a practice that results in corporate welfare and creates disincentives to economic growth.

In the words of the Kemp commission, the present tax code "is beyond repair -- it is impossibly complex, outrageously expensive, overly intrusive, economically destructive, and manifestly unfair. . . . We believe [it] cannot be revised, should not be reinvented, and must not be retained" [2]. Yet despite strong popular pressure to change the tax code, Republicans and Democrats, controlled by special interests, have thwarted any meaningful improvement.

American businesses are saddled by the highest health costs in the world. Health benefits have become the third largest expense after raw materials and straight-time pay for most manufacturers, and the second largest expense for most service businesses. For many employers, the cost of corporate health benefits precludes real salary increases for employees, and many otherwise profitable businesses are driven into bankruptcy by these spiraling expenses.

Finally, to maintain our technological edge in the competitive international marketplace, American businesses require highly skilled workers. Alarmingly, our high school students score near the bottom in international comparisons of industrialized nations: 28% of youths entering the U.S. job market are high school dropouts [3], and the number of Americans earning doctoral degrees has declined in recent years -- yet Congress has cut funding for student loans. America therefore faces a creativity challenge that must be solved for our country to maintain its domestic and economic strength.

The Solution

Boosting national creativity -- In today's information-based economy, intelligence and creativity (i.e., innovation and ideas) drive economic growth. Clearly, America's most precious natural resource is our human resource -- the unlimited creative potential of our 270 million citizens. Given today's low test scores and high dropout rates, the most crucial economic strategy that government can adopt is to harness America's untapped creativity. We strongly advocate proven educational, job training, and apprenticeship programs that develop intelligence and creativity, prevent school dropouts, and bring life into accord with natural law. Only the full utilization of our human resource through the Hagelin/Goldhaber administration's fundamental commitment to education will ensure America's competitiveness and future leadership in the family of nations. (For a complete discussion of the educational programs that we advocate, see our Education section.)

Lowering taxes -- The most powerful fiscal action our government can take to stimulate the economy is to lower taxes. We will cut taxes responsibly -- while protecting Social Security and Medicare and paying down the national debt -- through reduction of government waste and fraud, and through cost-effective solutions to costly social problems, such as spiraling health costs, crime, and our energy dependence on foreign oil. Many candidates have promised lower taxes, but have been unable to fulfill these promises due to the depth and complexity of problems faced by government. However, our cost-effective solutions will save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars annually, thereby providing a realistic strategy for significant tax reduction that protects the integrity of our important social programs.

One simple and viable way to implement across-the-board tax cuts is through a low flat tax. We will halt the endless manipulation of the tax code by Congress for their favorite corporate sponsors ("corporate welfare") by implementing such a tax. Our plan includes a generous floor of $34,000 (for a family of four) below which American would pay no income tax. Above the $34,000 floor, the tax rate begins at 18% in 2001 and drops to 14% by 2006 as our cost-effective solutions begin to bear fruit. Our low flat tax would stimulate and sustain strong economic growth. This strong economic growth, with its associated increase in government revenues, combined with the savings from our cost-effective solutions, would ensure a balanced budget and gradual repayment of the national debt without borrowing from the Social Security trust fund. This proposal would also reduce the size and scope of the IRS, eliminate loopholes for the wealthy, and put an end to corporate welfare.

In addition to our flat tax proposal, we are also continuing to study alternative tax options, such as a consumption tax, that might decrease the tax burden for Americans. We concur with the Kemp commission's fundamental requirements for a new tax code: fairness, simplicity, neutrality, visibility, and stability [5].

Enterprise zones -- We will use federally guaranteed loans and targeted capital-gains tax breaks to stimulate capital investment for start-up industries in urban "enterprise zones." By targeting economically deprived urban areas, we can stimulate economic growth where it is most needed, thereby creating more jobs, a stronger sense of community, and the revitalization of our inner cities.

Cutting corporate health costs -- The enormous burden of corporate health care expenditures can best be reduced by improving employee health. Research shows that appropriate preventive health care programs can significantly improve health and reduce health care costs [6], thereby freeing financial resources for greater productivity, profit, and investment. Therefore, our administration would encourage businesses to implement such programs to improve corporate health and productivity and to reduce employee stress and substance abuse [7].

Creating macroeconomic stability through increased social coherence -- We also support programs that have been shown to dissolve social stress and conflict, thereby providing a more positive and stable environment for economic growth and prosperity. Most analysts are aware of how businesses are influenced by macroeconomic factors such as inflation, unemployment, global economic cycles, and the threat of international conflict. However, businesses are also in a position to change macroeconomic trends in a positive direction for the benefit of the organization and society as a whole. For example, research has found that even a single group of 7,000 to 10,000 practitioners of Transcendental Meditation and its advanced programs can produce a significant decrease in inflation and unemployment rates, as well as improvements in other economic indicators [8]. Businesses that incorporate such programs into their employee benefits packages help ensure economic stability by creating a more coherent and stable society. The recent meltdown of the Asian financial markets underscores the need to insulate the U.S. economy from global economic volatility, and the establishment of such coherence-creating groups will help to protect our nation's current economic strength.

Sharing the benefit -- As the economy continues to improve, we anticipate higher pay, better working conditions, shorter work hours, and a shorter work week. We believe that the American work force should reap the benefits of a powerful economy through a higher standard of living.

Through cost-effective solutions to the nation's problems, responsible tax reduction, and proven programs to boost national intelligence and creativity, our administration will propel the economy into a sustained growth phase. This pro-growth policy will simultaneously create jobs, reduce unemployment, balance the budget through increased government revenues, and retire the national debt. Our economic platform offers a comprehensive, viable strategy to accomplish these goals.

Notes

1. In its January 1996 report, the Kemp commission provides specifics about the enormous cost of tax compliance (Unleashing America's Potential: A Pro-Growth, Pro-Family Tax System for the 21st Century, The National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, January 1996, p. 7):
   "In 1991, the Tax Foundation reported that small corporations spent a minimum of $382 in compliance costs for every $100 they paid in income taxes. According to 1995 I.R.S. estimates, businesses will spend about 3.4 billion hours and individuals will spend about 1.7 billion hours embroiled in tax-related paperwork. That means nearly three million people -- more people than serve in the U.S. armed forces -- work full time all year just to comply with tax laws, at a cost of about $200 billion a year, according to the Tax Foundation."
2. Ibid., p. 5.
3. "The Dropout Problem: Can Schools Meet the Challenge?" NASSP Bulletin 78 (565): 74-80, 1994.
4. Our flat tax proposal maintains charitable deductions but does not maintain the mortgage deduction. A mortgage deduction increases the tax on all Americans by at least 2% and unfairly penalizes those who use their earnings for other purposes -- for example, to send their children to college. The mortgage deduction, pushed by the housing industry, amounts to a form of corporate welfare for that industry. We believe that taxes should be used to finance government, not to shape social and economic agendas by favoring some businesses over others.
   Our flat tax proposal would maintain charitable deductions to promote an increase in charitable giving. Local philanthropic activities are more effective, more rewarding, and less wasteful than federally administered, socialized charity. We would therefore like to see a shift in the responsibility for charitable giving from the government back to the individual. More Americans will be inspired to give once they have more wealth as a result of lower taxes and our pro-growth economic policies.
   Capital gains (indexed for inflation) and interest will be taxed as normal income under our proposal, but double taxation (e.g., a tax on dividend income) will be avoided.
   We propose a tax floor of $34,000 for a family of four, below which Americans would pay no taxes. Although we believe that most citizens should contribute something to society -- to our schools, our roads, and our national security -- our low 14% tax rate will ensure that all Americans will pay significantly less tax than they do today.
5. Unleashing America's Potential, op. cit., pp. 11-14.
6. A program designed by Dr. Dean Ornish and used in a number of American hospitals has consistently shown that systematic use of diet, exercise, and meditation, in combination, can clear clogged arteries -- promising large savings over the average $20,000-$50,000 cost of angioplasty and bypass surgery (see Journal of the American Medical Association 274:894-901, 1995; Lancet 336:129-133, 1990; and American Journal of Cardiology 69: 845-853, 1992).
7. Drug and alcohol abuse cost America an estimated $166 billion a year. Stress has a negative impact on personal and corporate productivity, and costs U.S. business $150-$200 billion each year. See "Healthy Mind; Healthy Organization -- A Pro-active Approach to Occupational Stress," Human Relations 47 (4):455-471, 1994; and United Nations International Labor Organization, "Stress at Work," World Labor Report 6, Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations International Labor Office, 1993.
8. A recent study found a sizable reduction in Okun's Misery Index -- defined as the sum of the inflation rate and the unemployment rate -- from implementation of the national coherence-creating program that we propose (American Statistical Association, Business and Economics Statistics Section, 1987, 799; 1988, 491; 1989, 565).

The Solution TO ALL OUR NATIONAL PROBLEMS lies in proper education. John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber advocate scientifically proven educational programs that can unfold the full creative potential of every student and produce ideal citizens capable of fulfilling their highest aspirations while contributing maximum to the progress of society. By harnessing America's greatest resource -- the unlimited creativity of our 270 million citizens -- our education platform can bring fulfillment to education and ensure America's competitiveness and continuing leadership in the family of nations.

The Problem

Education in America is not working. Even though the United States spends more money per student than any other country, our students still rank far behind most of their international peers in math and science -- and well behind U.S. test scores of 20 years ago. Twenty-eight percent of our high school students drop out -- the highest rate of any industrialized nation -- and those who graduate are often ill prepared to enter the work force [1].

Drug and alcohol abuse continues to undermine our nation's students and rob them of their mental clarity, motivation, self-esteem, and ability to focus [2]. Moreover, juvenile violent crime has increased markedly during the past decade, especially gang and school violence using guns [3]. According to the Centers for Disease Control, American youths are 12 times more likely to die by gunfire than their peers in other nations.

The culturing of inner values has all but disappeared from our nation's schools. Yet James Madison observed in the Federalist Papers that democracy cannot function unless our leaders and citizens are "in a higher degree of virtue than any other form" of government.

America's problems are human problems -- crime, drug abuse, domestic violence, and declining health. Only through the full development of our human resource can we rise above the reach of problems. Yet research has shown that students graduating from our current educational system use at most 5-10% of their full mental potential [4]. A new and effective approach to education is clearly needed.

The Solution

Education is for enlightenment -- the full development of mind, body, and behavior. We promote proven educational programs that directly increase intelligence and creativity and simultaneously improve moral reasoning, self-reliance, and mental and physical health and well-being. These programs include sound educational approaches to nutrition [5], natural, preventive health measures [6], effective drug prevention programs [7], and innovative curriculum development, including programs to develop the full mental potential of students.

While focusing on dissemination of knowledge, current approaches to education ignore the most fundamental component of learning -- the consciousness or intelligence of the student, which is the basis of gaining knowledge. Today's educational approaches provide no knowledge of consciousness and no scientifically proven technology to develop it. These approaches do not comprehensively develop the brain physiology, causing incomplete cognitive and emotional development and less-than-comprehensive thinking. This fundamental failure is the ultimate source of The Problems afflicting education today.

Current proposals to improve education often focus on information technologies, such as computer access to the Internet, that offer larger and larger volumes of data. However, without an educational approach that can develop more than 5-10% of a student's full mental potential, no amount of information will ever produce truly educated, ideal citizens.

We propose to upgrade the U.S. Department of Education to a Department of Educational Excellence, which would charter several federally funded model schools to promote the most effective educational innovations proven to boost educational outcomes, taken from America's most successful public and private schools. Based on the success of these programs, parents and educators across the country could choose the ones they felt would be most appropriate and effective in their neighborhoods. Rather than dictate educational curricula at the local level, the Federal Government could thereby play a crucial research and leadership role in expanding educational choices for parents and students, improving educational outcomes across the nation.

We believe the teaching of our children should be an honored profession with commensurate compensation. We would raise teacher salaries by $10,000 per year through a program of block grants to the states. This would foster greater competition for teaching positions, thereby promoting higher standards.

We also support federally funded vouchers to expand parental options for school choice, to foster competition among schools, and to provide sound alternatives for children trapped in schools that are chronic underperformers. These vouchers could be used to pay for any school of the parents' choice -- public, private, or parochial -- provided that the school maintains high academic performance on standardized national tests. The free-market competition that this voucher system will engender will help reverse declining educational outcomes in America.

We support education, job training, and apprenticeship programs to prepare all Americans to compete in today's fast-paced economy, fully harnessing our most precious national resource -- the unlimited intelligence and creativity of our 270 million citizens.

In additional we support the following initiatives:

• Fully fund the Head Start program, to give all eligible children an opportunity to excel from an early age.
• Provide financial support for every student who wants to go to college. We do not support the scaling back of Pell grants and student loans for higher education. Government loans should be repaid after graduation -- if necessary through mandatory salary deductions or community service.
• Establish higher national standards and the practical means to achieve them. Other parties have called for higher standards but have offered no effective strategies to accomplish this goal.
• Lengthen the school year and increase the number of required subjects in high schools, as recommended by the 1984 National Commission on Excellence in Education.
• Establish ties with teachers' organizations, schools, and community interest groups to develop policies and programs that upgrade the status and skills of teachers.
• Add computer support to the National Literacy Act of 1991, to provide research and help implement computer-aided instruction, including Internet instruction, in literacy programs.
• Increase the nutritional value of school lunches -- a simple but essential change that has been shown to improve educational outcomes in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Establish community centers of knowledge where parents can receive the latest understanding of health and nutrition for their children.
• Create national apprenticeship programs by bringing together business, labor, and educational leaders to develop a system that offers training in a valuable skill for students who are not college bound.

Most of the educational programs that we promote have already been successfully applied in diverse educational settings worldwide and have therefore been the subject of extensive scientific research. The results of such programs include the significantly improved educational outcomes mentioned above -- increased intelligence, creativity, motivation, academic performance, moral reasoning, psychological maturity, and social responsibility -- as well as a higher quality of life among students and faculty.

Notes

1. The U.S. spends over $270 billion per year on public and elementary education, and expenditures per pupil, adjusted for inflation, have increased more than 25% over the past ten years. Yet America is falling behind in the knowledge race. Recent National Educational Goals Panel statistics (see U.S News and World Report, April 1, 1996) included the following:
   • Among U.S. high school seniors, 60% could not meet suggested national educational standards; 76% spend less than five hours per week on homework, compared with 35% of seniors in Japan
   • U.S. high school students spend less than half as much class time studying math, history and science as do students in Japan, France, and Germany
   • Only 4.4% of U.S. students pass advanced placement exams, compared to 33% in France, Germany, Israel, and Japan
   • A comparison of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Scotland, Canada, and the U.S. found that the U.S. has the shortest school year -- 62 days shorter than Japan's
   • Results from the recent Third International Mathematics and Science Study showed that in 21 countries giving 12th-grade tests, U.S. high school seniors ranked 16th in general science knowledge, 19th in math, and last in physics (see The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 1998, p. A22; and U.S. News and World Report, March 9, 1998, p.14.).
2. A 1994 survey found that at least one third of all school children have used an illicit drug other than marijuana or alcohol before graduation from high school. Furthermore, it is estimated that one out of four American high school students has a serious drinking problem.
3. According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, murder arrests among 10- to 17-year-olds have doubled since 1983, and the actual murder rate among 14-to 17-year-olds has risen 165% since 1984. Crimes in and around American public schools have increased significantly; well over 100,000 students now carry a gun to school. A recent U.S. Justice Department report found that juvenile arrests for gun charges have doubled since 1985, and gunshot wounds have become the second leading cause of death among high school students.
4. Developmental psychologists have outlined specific, natural stages of psychological growth in children. The final stage, termed "formal operations" by Piaget, is associated with adolescence and represents the level of mental functioning in which abstract thinking becomes stabilized. Due to the inadequacies of our educational system, the majority of our students never achieve this stage of normal adolescent mental development across cognitive domains -- let alone their full potential. (For a more comprehensive treatment of this topic, see Alexander, Charles N., and Langer, Ellen J. (eds.), Higher Stages of Human Development: Perspectives on Adult Growth, New York: Oxford, 1990.)
5. A series of studies discovered a correlation between nutrition and academic performance (Personality and Individual Differences 4:343 & 361, 1991). These studies found that in several hundred schools in New York, there was a 16% gain in academic performance resulting from improved nutrition. The study suggested that many students experience malnutrition, too slight for clinical signs, but which nevertheless affects their intelligence and academic performance. This impairment can be corrected through improved nutrition.
6. These prevention-oriented health care programs include Maharishi Ayur-Veda -- a natural system of health care that promotes balance in mind, body, and behavior and that has been shown to significantly reduce medical utilization by producing better health in its practitioners. These programs strengthen mind and body and reduce anxiety, thereby enhancing receptivity and the capacity for learning.
7. Research confirms a marked improvement in student health and a reduction in drug abuse, alcohol use, and cigarette use through programs proposed by Hagelin/Goldhaber (Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11 (1/2,3/4), 1994; International Journal of Addictions 12:729, 1977; Bulletin on Narcotics 40:50, 1988; Journal of Addictions 14:147, 1981; 26:293, 1991; American Journal of Psychiatry 131:60, 1974).

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber will create a future in which renewable, nonpolluting, inexpensive energy is abundantly available, the air in our cities is pure and clean, and our rivers and lakes are free of pollution. We foresee a time when waste is efficiently managed; when the needless destruction of forests and species diversity has ceased; when there are many more parks, gardens, and fountains; when new jobs have been created to develop renewable energy sources, conserve energy, and protect the environment; and when global cooperation ends environmental threats to the future of humankind.

The Problem

The standard of living and the economic vitality of the United States depend on the increasing availability of inexpensive, clean, renewable sources of energy.

Until now, the U.S. has relied mainly on fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and natural gas account for the majority of energy used for electricity, heat, transportation, and industry. However, these fuels are nonrenewable and limited in supply. Their use results in air pollution, acid rain, pollution from mercury and other contaminants, the threat of global warming, and other environmental hazards that may endanger future generations with irreversible global changes. Air pollution kills 64,000 Americans a year -- a higher death toll than for auto accidents [1, 2]. The indirect costs of burning fossil fuels -- health care, damage from acid rain, the impact on tourism and quality of life, etc. -- are incalculable [3].

Oil imports are responsible for a large percentage of our trade deficit. America's dependence on foreign oil creates economic vulnerability and political instability between the U.S. and the Middle East. For example, Desert Storm, with its enormous attendant costs, was largely to protect America's critical oil interests in the Middle East. The costs of such military operations must be added to the high health and environmental costs of fossil fuels.

By subsidizing these costs with taxpayer dollars, the Federal Government artificially suppresses the cost of fossil fuels relative to sustainable alternatives, such as wind and solar, which are not subsidized. The government thereby perpetuates our continued dependence on fuels that are environmentally and economically unsustainable.

In addition to the environmental hazards posed by current energy use, toxic agricultural and industrial chemicals threaten the health and safety of all Americans. Recent estimates indicate that exposure to such chemicals is a factor in 75% of all cancer cases in the U.S. [4].

Short-sighted environmental policies contribute to alarming reductions of earth's nonrenewable resources. Approximately 93% of the virgin forests in the Pacific Northwest have been cut, and most of the remainder is scheduled to be cut in the next few years -- nearly all of it on public lands. Biodiversity is being threatened at an alarming rate, not only in our vanishing forests, but in the oceans. Hundreds of thousands of sea mammals are being exterminated by drift-net fishing. More than 50% of our wetlands that provided habitats for wildlife have been destroyed, and overgrazed prairie lands are being increasingly eroded.

At the recent summit in Kyoto, Japan, where all nations assembled to address global environmental concerns, the U.S. Government took a stand to protect economic interests that it perceived to be in conflict with environmental interests. Protecting the environment was equated with loss of jobs, increased costs of goods, and loss of economic vitality. Today, America's environmental protections are being further eroded by a Congress held captive to special interest groups.

The Solution

Hagelin and Goldhaber are committed to increasing both energy efficiency and the use of renewable, safe, and nonpolluting energy sources. This approach will protect our environment, create energy self-sufficiency, and add to the economic prosperity of the nation. Through programs that will create new jobs and new industries in energy conservation and renewable energy sources, our administration will move away from the hazardous and wasteful use of fossil fuels in ways that will simultaneously benefit the environment and save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars.

To improve energy efficiency and self-sufficiency, we will:

• Support basic research on energy efficiency, energy storage (both for large- and small-scale applications), and fuel cells, in addition to electric, hydrogen, and highly energy-efficient vehicles.
• Provide financial incentives for homeowners and industry to use available energy-efficiency measures, such as insulation and compact fluorescent lighting.
• Set performance standards for energy-consuming and pollutant-emitting products in order to encourage adoption of state-of-the-art technologies and to protect responsible and innovative manufacturers from being undercut by those who produce cheaper but dirtier products. By increasing efficiency, the U.S. can significantly reduce energy consumption -- with substantial economic and environmental benefits for the nation [4,5].
  We also support the development of new energy sources, such as solar, wind, and biomass -- which could be cost-competitive now if government stopped subsidizing fossil fuels. We are committed to increasing the proportion of renewable, environmentally clean energy sources by the year 2004. To achieve these goals, we will:
  1. Remove federal subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Require that construction of new electrical power plants take into account all long-term costs to the nation, such as waste disposal, environmental protection, and health costs.
  2. Progressively implement a tax on fossil fuels to reflect their real cost to the nation, including environmental cleanup, medical costs, and security costs in the Persian Gulf.
  3. Increase efficiency, thereby enabling the U.S. to reduce energy use by approximately 2% a year. Conservation measures such as compact fluorescent lighting can save up to $25 billion in annual fuel costs [5].
  4. Minimize the federal government's role as a micromanager in the energy marketplace, and ensure that the construction of major capital assets (including buildings and electric power plants) reflect the national energy policy goals over the lifetime of the assets [6].

We do not support the development of nuclear energy. At present, municipalities subsidize nuclear plants and the Federal Government funds nuclear reactor construction with tax-deductible bonds. But no one can safeguard for 10,000 years the highly toxic wastes generated by these reactors -- which is what the Federal Government has agreed to do. (The government's efforts to clean up these wastes is yet another subsidy for pollution-generating energy sources.) In addition, the known worldwide reserves of low-cost, high-grade nuclear fuel are running low, which will soon necessitate a transition to the next generation of nuclear power plants: advanced converters and breeder reactors. These reactors have the technological advantage of producing their own fuel, but they also produce bomb-grade fissionable materials as unavoidable by-products. With the widespread availability of bomb-grade material, nuclear containment becomes effectively impossible. Therefore, for both economic and security reasons, we do not support further development and construction of nuclear energy plants.

We will lead the effort to clean up America's polluted air, rivers, lakes, beaches, wetlands, and oceans by tackling industrial pollution at its source. When businesses are forced to stop polluting, they frequently come up with innovative ways to make use of their polluting by-products. In Scandinavia, for example, businesses in any given region collectively decide how to use polluting wastes from one business as part of the manufacturing process of another, with the goal of zero pollution.

To eliminate toxic waste, we support research into innovative technologies such as the plasma torch, a cost-effective process that cooks contaminated soil into inert, harmless glassy rocks suitable for road gravel. A similar technology, devised for liquid nuclear waste, drains out water and salts and turns the remainder into glass logs that are safer for long-term storage.

We will also work to prevent the destruction of the earth's forests, the decimation of the diversity of species, and the potential damage from ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. A moratorium should be declared on cutting timber in national parks, national forests, and national monuments until a sustainable management plan for cutting is instituted.

To make these changes requires flexibility and ingenuity in the development of new environmentally sound technologies -- not giving up the present standard of living, but raising it through developing energy sources, industries, and modes of transportation that are in harmony with nature.

The programs we support for cleaning up the environment and protecting it from irreversible damage will stimulate the economy -- actually paying a dividend of increased energy efficiency and economic vitality -- and create new jobs and industries in energy conservation and renewable energy sources. Cleaning up polluted rivers and lakes will increase fishing industries, increase tourism, and increase revenues from outdoor recreational activities. Cleaning the air will reduce the medical costs of respiratory disease and lung cancer. Protecting forests and reducing exhaust emissions will avert the potentially disastrous expenses of adapting to climatic changes due to global warming.

Since pollution is primarily caused by human behavior, bringing the individual and the nation into harmony with natural law will greatly facilitate implementation of the above programs. We therefore support educational programs that promote broad comprehension and "pollution-free behavior" -- behavior that is in accord with natural law, and does not create problems for society or the environment.

Notes

1. Allen, Scott, "Study: Air Pollution Killing Thousands," Des Moines Register, May 9, 1996, p. 1.
2. According to a 1995 report from the Department of Health and Human Services, environmental toxins are responsible for 14% of annual deaths in America.
3. If the real costs associated with the use of polluting fuels were appropriately distributed -- for example, if the environmental costs of gasoline were included in its cost at the pump -- the free-market system would have eliminated fossil fuels long ago. In essence, the government is blocking free enterprise and free-market competition by subsidizing fossil fuels and not their nonpolluting competitors.
4. See Environmental Health Perspectives 103 (Suppl 8): 301-306, 1995; and Journal of the American Medical Association 270 (18): 2207-2212, 1993. Individuals with high body burdens of PCBs, DDT, and other such compounds have higher levels of cancer, liver damage, reproductive disorders, immune-system suppression, and neurological problems (see Annual Review of Public Health 18: 211-244, 1997; and Environmental Health Perspectives 100: 259-268, 1992). Since such contaminants degrade very slowly in the environment, governmental attempts to control sources of exposure may not solve The Problem.
5. According to a study by the Electric Power Research Institute, the introduction of energy conservation practices could reduce electricity use in the U.S. by as much as 55% (Romm, "The Economic Benefits of Combatting Global Warming," 1992).
6. Further research shows that existing energy-conservation technologies can cut the use of fossil fuels in half, eliminating dependence on foreign oil -- the largest component of our trade deficit. One study, entitled America's Energy Choices, published by the Union of Concerned Scientists, concludes that the U.S. can dramatically reduce energy use and air pollution, and increase the use of renewable technologies at a significant cost savings to the nation.
   The cost of energy to our nation is a substantial proportion of our gross national product. We spent 15% of our GNP on energy in 1990, or a total of $847 billion. According to the schedule we propose, we would spend only 10.2% by the year 2005, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the nation's energy bill.

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber are deeply committed to strengthening the well-being of every American family by restoring the fundamental moral values that have sustained the minds and hearts of our citizens for generations. Such universal family values include honesty, integrity, responsibility, industriousness, self-discipline, compassion, generosity, and mutual respect. By bringing individual and family life into accord with natural law, we can largely erase the present epidemic of family breakdown and moral decay and create a society in which parents, children, families, and society mutually nourish and strengthen each other in their growth toward fulfillment.

The Problem

American families today are under unprecedented financial, social, and environmental stress, making it difficult for parents to create loving, stable homes for their children.

• Financial stress. Real wages for average American workers have decreased since 1973. Due to the much higher cost of living in 2000, most two-parent families require two incomes to maintain a reasonable existence. In addition, the average American now works more hours than at any time since World War II -- close to 50 hours weekly. Not surprisingly, this economic stress, coupled with the strain of long work hours, has resulted in increased tension within families, a rise in domestic violence, and an almost 50% divorce rate for new marriages. As a result, many children no longer receive the love, attention, and guidance from their parents that previous generations took for granted as essential for moral development.
• Families with only one parent face even greater challenges. Almost one third of American children in single-parent families live in poverty -- yet the rate of childbirth among unmarried women rose to nearly one third in 1999. Despite the devotion and hard work of many single parents, some studies indicate that children in single-parent families are at greater risk for crime, for drug and alcohol abuse, and for dropping out of school.
• Social environment. Parents today have little control over the negative influences assaulting their children: school shootings, drug and alcohol abuse, gangs, premature sexual activity, and the risk of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. In addition, children watch an excessive amount of television -- time that used to be spent with parents, teachers, or other role models. Our educational system fails to instill core values in students, such as honesty, mutual respect, civility, and social responsibility.
• Physical environment. Parents can no longer guarantee the quality of even the most basic necessities for their families: food, air, and water. The dramatic increase in poisons and toxicity in our environment -- pesticides on crops, air and water pollution, and the potential harm from genetically engineered foods -- all constitute a serious threat to the health of family members (see our Agriculture section).

These financial, social, and environmental challenges that parents face today have given rise to an increase of stress in family life. These rising levels of stress throughout society undermine the harmony and integrity of family life, so important to the growing stability and vitality of our nation. Other political parties decry domestic violence, child abuse, divorce, and the breakdown of morality, but they have been unable to offer effective solutions to these problems.

The Solution

We offer proven programs that address the root cause of the breakdown of family life today -- epidemic stress levels throughout society, especially in our densely populated urban centers. Medical researchers report an alarming rise in stress-related illness -- including stroke, hypertension, and heart disease. This same epidemic of stress is responsible for the widespread growth of "social disease" -- domestic violence, child abuse, family decay, crime, and drug abuse. The most effective solution is therefore to reduce accumulated stress in the whole population, so that all individuals, and especially parents, are able to make the most life-supporting decisions in their personal lives and decisions that are most nourishing to the lives of their children.

We would therefore support the permanent establishment of coherence-creating groups on the national, state, and local levels to dissolve communitywide tension and negativity. These programs have been scientifically demonstrated to reduce crime, violence, and negative trends throughout society, and to create a harmonizing influence in collective consciousness, enabling diverse individual interests and tendencies to coexist without creating conflict between family members and in society as a whole.

In addition, our cost-effective solutions to the nation's problems and pro-growth economic policies will create jobs, stimulate growth, and ease the financial strain experienced by so many American families (see our Economy section). We believe that primary-care parents should not be forced by economic necessity to work, since their role as parents is vital for the strength and stability of future generations.

We also strongly support the role of the senior, most experienced members of our society as the source of wisdom and guidance for all other members of the family and the community, and regards the widespread isolation and loneliness of our senior members as a significant loss to America. We support mentor and housing programs that can reverse this trend and maintains a deep commitment to protecting the lives and rights of our country's senior members.

Most importantly, the strong educational programs that we endorse will significantly support and strengthen family unity and the natural unfoldment of each member's full potential. These programs have been scientifically shown to develop intelligence, emotional maturity, moral reasoning, and harmonious relationships, and to reduce anxiety, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior (see our Education section). Such outcomes will help different generations of a family to live together, to nourish each other, and to establish the harmony, respect, and mutual enrichment that is the ideal of family life.

The family is the source of life for every individual, and as such is the primary training ground for social behavior. The quality of the home determines the quality of civilization. By strengthening and reenlivening the family from the inside, and by eliminating the stress attacking the family from the outside, the Hagelin/Goldhaber administration will give parents the opportunity to reawaken universal family values in their children and thus secure a bright future for our nation.

THE END OF THE COLD WAR ERA has brought the international community to the threshold of a new era of global peace and harmony. John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber believe that the United States should lead the world forward in creating new relationships governed by mutual friendship and cooperation, free from aggression and armed conflict. America is faced with a historic opportunity to help create a new world, in which peace is perpetual and every nation upholds the flag of every other nation.

The Problem

America's meddlesome and invasive foreign policy has sown the seeds of enmity throughout the world. Most of our foreign aid is military aid. We are the world's leading arms peddler, providing weapons to both sides of most international conflicts. Our troops are often forced to confront our own weapons on the battlefield. America's foreign policy has fostered ill will throughout the world and has us the principal target of terrorism on Earth.

From 1946 to 1993, the U.S. spent $439.6 billion on foreign aid -- 35% of which was military aid. However, these expenditures have not brought peace, economic stability, or greater economic cooperation to the family of nations. We continue to live in a dangerous world troubled by widespread violence and regional conflicts, as evidenced by the Gulf War, the ethnic violence in Bosnia, and continuing terrorism in the Middle East. Moreover, as a major supplier of the world's armaments, the U.S. has directly contributed to such conflicts.

In addition, no real consensus exists concerning the purpose, allotment, and amount of foreign economic aid now that the historical goal of containing communism is no longer an issue. There is an urgent need to address America's deteriorating relations with China, multibillion-dollar trade deficit with Japan, and economic competition with Western Europe. These relationships are especially troubling in view of the continuing U.S. financial commitment to defending Japan, as well as Germany and Western Europe.

Americans naturally wish to help the emerging democracies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, yet protest substantial funds given directly to Russia and other republics because of so many pressing priorities at home. U.S. aid to developing countries has also been criticized because of countless instances in which funds either were wasted on projects that did not help the people or failed to reach the people due to misuse by the recipient governments.

The Solution

Hagelin and Goldhaber would create an immediate shift in U.S. foreign policy away from military aid toward a more life-supporting policy based on the exportation of U.S. know-how. American expertise and technical assistance in such critical areas as business administration, entrepreneurship, education, sustainable agriculture, and environmental technologies, supplemented where necessary with economic support, should replace military aid as a principal instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

This new type of life-nourishing assistance will allow many developing countries to become financially self-sufficient and thereby to eliminate hunger and poverty. Such a policy would contribute to a more affluent and flourishing global trade and a more prosperous, harmonious, and secure family of nations.

Since the end of the Cold War, America's security interests have begun to shift from military concerns to global economic and environmental issues. America is called to leadership in developing a foreign policy that most intelligently meets this challenge. This foreign policy must respect and honor the diversity of cultures, religions, races, and economic and political systems of the world, while promoting the value of unity -- so that every nation will respect and uphold the sovereignty and cultural integrity of every other nation in an unprecedented flow of economic cooperation and goodwill. Above all, we must ensure that our precious national resources are applied effectively and not wasted through inefficiency, mishandling, or inappropriate allocation. Foreign aid decisions must be made in consultation with the people of recipient countries, from both the government and nongovernmental citizens' groups.

In a peaceful and harmonious world family, we can conceive of reducing our own military expenditures and realizing a significant "peace dividend," directing some of our enormous defense expenditures towards our own social programs, including investment and development as an economic superpower.

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber uphold the Second Amendment. We will vigorously enforce existing gun control laws, since we believe that the widespread availability of guns is, in itself, a significant contributing factor to the rise of violent crime. We also support child safety locks, waiting periods and background checks to help prevent guns from falling into the hands of children and convicted felons. We believe that this stance represents a suitable balance between public safety and the constitutional right to bear arms.

At the same time, we hold that the current debate over gun control overlooks the root cause of this issue. The climate of fear and tension pervading America's cities and towns is largely responsible for the proliferation of guns and their use in acts of violent crime. We are the only political candidates to offer scientifically proven programs to reduce built-up social stress and thereby reduce crime and violence (see our Crime and Rehabilitation section).

Within six months of the implementation of these programs, we anticipate a dramatic reduction in crime rate as stress is neutralized and the whole population spontaneously becomes more in harmony with both natural law and national law. In this improved atmosphere, the perceived need for -- and the actual use of -- weapons will naturally diminish.

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber are committed to ensuring a long and healthy life for every American. By bringing life into accord with natural law, the prevention-oriented health programs we propose will significantly reduce disease and promote the health and vitality of all Americans. As our nation's health improves, we can lift the massive burden of health care costs, thus freeing our nation's resources for greater progress and prosperity.

The Problem

America spends more on health care than any other nation [1]. Yet Americans endure some of the poorest health of any developed nation [2].

Why is the U.S. medical system such a cost-effectiveness disaster? The answer is that we don't have a health care system -- we have a disease care system, bought and paid for by special interests. This system focuses on the management of illnesses, rather than on the prevention of disease and the promotion of health. But the vast majority of our national health is influenced by factors over which this disease-based approach has little control -- such as nutrition, stress, societal problems, and environmental toxins. Consequently, in the absence of effective prevention, our present disease care system can never create a truly healthy society.

Recent research shows that at least 50% of deaths and 70% of disease in America are self-inflicted -- caused by an epidemic of unhealthy habits, including improper diet, inadequate exercise, smoking, and alcohol abuse [3]. Thus, the vast majority of disease is preventable [4]. Yet we spend less than 1% of our health sector budget on prevention.

Incredibly, Republicans and Democrats consistently ignore proven prevention-oriented approaches to health, and Medicare specifically bans funding for most preventive services [5]. Following the federal example, most private health insurance companies also refuse to cover prevention. No health care reform bills debated in Congress have focused on improving health; they have dealt only with problems in disease-care financing and delivery, hoping to save money by streamlining and downsizing the system.

Spiraling health care costs have dramatically increased the cost of health insurance, and at least 40% of U.S. citizens are now inadequately covered or have no medical insurance. Health care expenditures have also placed a heavy burden on American businesses; if employee insurance costs continue to rise, many companies will face insolvency.

The Solution

John Hagelin and Nat Goldhaber support cost-effective, prevention-oriented health care, proven to prevent disease and save money in the best possible way -- by keeping people healthy. By focusing on the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, we offer a solution to the health care crisis that is comprehensive, cost-effective, and scientifically proven.

Our health care platform has two aspects.

1. We support health strategies that focus on prevention and strengthen the general health of the nation, thereby shifting our national focus from disease care to health care. These programs include prevention-oriented health education, including strategies to modify unhealthy behaviors, and prevention-oriented natural medicines. These preventive strategies have been shown by extensive research to create healthier citizens and to cut health care costs by 50% to 70%.
2. We support the introduction of financial incentives that will help prevent abuse of the health care system and ensure high-quality care. These incentives include (a) medical savings accounts for Medicare and Medicaid subscribers, which will provide financial rewards for good health [6]; and (b) vouchers enabling Medicare and Medicaid subscribers to choose any insurance plan or health care provider they desire, thereby promoting competitive costs and quality of care among medical providers. Such financial incentives will reduce demands for unnecessary care and prevent overuse of the health care system by giving greater financial control and responsibility to individual subscribers.

Through our two-pronged approach of preventive health care and financial incentives, we can rescue Medicare and Medicaid from bankruptcy, save the nation approximately $500 billion a year in health care costs, and prevent untold pain and suffering.

To structure meaningful health-benefits options for all Americans without disastrously increasing the federal budget deficit, we must responsibly decrease health care outlays per person -- a particular challenge as the population ages. Although we support a Medicare prescription drug benefit, the most effective and humane way to achieve this goal of reduced costs is to prevent disease in the first place by strengthening the human immune system and eliminating the imbalances that ultimately cause disease.

The prevention programs that we support incorporate the most up-to-date knowledge of nutrition, exercise, and stress reduction, as well as the use of natural herbal preparations, natural dietary supplements, and alternative medical treatment modalities. Americans favor such approaches. There are now more visits to alternative medicine practitioners than to conventional doctors [7]. Research has consistently shown that the prevention programs we endorse significantly reduce the need for conventional medical treatment by empowering individuals to take better care of their own health [8].

Our national health care debate has degenerated into an argument over "who should pay for whose disease," with little attention given to preventing disease and improving health. Funding for proven prevention services has been denied to Americans, largely because the lobbying influence of over 1,000 medical PACs (political action committees) has shaped legislation and preserved the status quo [9].

The Hagelin/Goldhaber campaign, which does not accept PAC contributions, is committed to changing this unethical and inhumane situation. John Hagelin has worked closely with the U.S. Congress for the past decade to introduce wording into health care bills in both the House and the Senate that would provide coverage for any scientifically verified, cost-effective, proven preventive program. He spearheaded the formation of the largest bipartisan congressional caucus, dedicated to scientifically proven, prevention-oriented solutions in health care and other critical public policy areas. The Hagelin/Goldhaber prevention-oriented approach has such commonsense appeal that it has gained the support of conservative and liberal members of Congress alike.

Our approach to health care provides a unifying influence in the political debate by transcending surface bickering over money and solving the health crisis at its basis -- by improving the health of Americans. The enormous savings generated by the prevention-oriented programs we promote, coupled with the financial incentives created by medical vouchers and savings accounts, will allow the government to realistically finance medical coverage for the 46 mi