Can You Find the 80 Percent?
Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by Sam Roecker
How many people support eliminating the department of agriculture, eliminating medicare and social security, and allowing guns in schools? Surprisingly, enough people to allow those planks to be included in the Republican Party of Iowa’s 2010 Platform.
The interesting part about the RPI platform, aside from these pretty extreme positions, is that it requires nominated candidates to agree with 80 percent of the planks before they will receive the RPI’s backing. It’s hard to avoid the questions surrounding this, especially when many of the planks directly contradict many high profile GOP candidates.
I’m almost certain Senator Grassley wouldn’t be in favor of eliminating farm subsidies, the program that has given him $263,635 and more than $600k to his son. And neither Grassley or Terry Branstad would likely support the plank limiting public officials to serving no more than 12 years in office.
If that’s what they would obviously be against, it brings up a discussion of what they would support to meet their 80 percent.
Some other planks of the 2010 platform they could potentially throw their support behind include:
- Eliminating all minimum wage laws
- Allowing anyone to carry a gun into a public school if they’re licensed to carry a concealed weapon, because not allowing guns “endangers our children”
- Eliminating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
- Prohibiting gay marriage, civil unions, and adoption by gay parents
- Eliminating state and federal departments of education
- Candidates must accept that health care “is a privilege and not a right”
- Eliminate Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare
The list could go on, but this overview leaves many questions to be answered by Iowa Republicans about which 80 percent they agree with. Does Terry Branstad believe guns should be allowed in the classroom? Is Chuck Grassley working on a bill to eliminate the Department of Education? It’s unfortunately worth asking.
This post is tagged as: 2010, Chuck Grassley, Platform, Republican Party, Terry Branstad
515-244-7292
515-244-5051
6100 Thornton Ave.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by IA Democratic Party, 1st District Dems and Clinton Co Democrats, Meghann Foster. Meghann Foster said: RT @iowa_democrats: Which @IowaGOP platform plank is YOUR fav? Guns in schools? http://bit.ly/cvK7fd // WOW. Shocking & utterly shameless. [...]
The plank allowing concealed weapons in school is despicable.
A boy I knew almost my whole life brought a concealed shotgun to my school and killed himself a few years after I graduated. It could have been a lot worse.
Children, especially teenagers, make bad choices based on sometimes uncontrollable emotions. School should be a safe place. Leave the guns at home.