NOVEMBER 4, 1998

TO: MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND CONSERVATIVE LEADERS

FROM: STEVE FORBES, HONORARY CHAIRMAN

SUBJECT: BACK TO BASICS: RECAPTURING THE MORAL AND POLITICAL HIGH GROUND

No message is no way to win elections.

Republicans should have learned by now that you must give people compelling reasons to vote for you. Mealy-mouthed rhetoric is no substitute for a muscular, substantive agenda.

A party that loses sight of its values and principles, loses its base. The budget deal was evidence of a party adrift from its core beliefs.

The temptation will be to take a defensive crouch. Do the opposite. Offer an eye-opening, exciting, bold agenda. Vividly demonstrate to the American people the meaningful difference between dynamic conservatism and the forces of stagnation and status quo (a.k.a., liberalism).

Here's how the GOP can again become a party of principle and high purpose, instead of a party of timid, office-clinging incumbents.

Domestic policy:

· Immediately pass a massive tax cut of $2,000 per family as a downpayment towards the flat tax. Highlights of the tax cut: Repeal the George Bush tax increase of 1990 and the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. Abolish the marriage penalty and death tax. Repeal the Social Security earnings penalty on the elderly. Slash capital gains taxes. A reinvigorated American economy is a must in the face of a growing international economic storm.

· Expand parental control of education. Start by overriding the President's veto of educational savings accounts and urban school choice pilot projects.

· Expand patient control of health care. Make genuine, affordable medical savings accounts available for all, particularly for working families, single moms and the uninsured. Do it by removing the strangling, suffocating restrictions imposed in 1996 and 1997 by believers in national health care.

· Put young people in control of their own Social Security payroll taxes. Protect the current system for those on it, and those about to go on it. Take the money out of the hands of the politicians; let younger people control those assets in their own individual retirement accounts.

· Ban partial birth abortion and require parental notification and consent in the case of minors.

National security policy:


· Rebuild the hollowed out American military. Properly compensate those serving in our armed forces. Provide them proper training and the most modern equipment.

· Move rapidly to deploy a missile defense system. Why wait for North Korea to develop missiles that can reach Hawaii and Alaska?

· Reassert American economic leadership amidst the global economic crisis. The $18 billion IMF bailout was a major mistake. Immediately end White House-IMF malpractice. Forcefully advocate the principles of economic progress: 1) low taxes; 2) honest money; 3) rule of law; 4) non-bureaucratic interference in the setting up and running of businesses; 5) open trade.

· The Fed must slash interest rates and provide badly needed liquidity to the markets.

Finally, Congress must carry out its constitutional responsibility to conduct hearings on all of the abuses committed by the Clinton-Gore Administration, including Filegate and the foreign campaign cash scam. Remember, the President of the United States - the nation's chief law enforcement officer - lied under oath.

This exciting, serious agenda will help the GOP seize the moral and political high ground - and America and the world will benefit.