Fournier for Congress

Legislative Priorities:

Withhold all military funding until there is an acceptable timetable for the withdrawal of occupation forces. The atmosphere in the House, which must approve all funding measures, is collegial on this issue. It shouldn't be. This is a debate between people who are opposed to war crimes and people who are in favor of them.

Shove universal Medicare (or something better) down the collective throat of Congress, exposing members who have been corrupted on this issue and attacking both major political parties for betraying the public interest.

Uncover malfeasance in the executive branch and the military and ensure that the wrongdoers are ousted and punished, starting with lawyers. Impeach officers that won't quit. Debar corrupt contractors. Find out which Americans are responsible for what happened on September 11, 2001, and punish them. Force the next president to work with foreign governments--all foreign governments--to repair the damage done to American prestige and international standing by the thugs who seized our government.

Apply the lessons of the New Orleans flood, a man-made disaster, and compensate the victims. The American people, their government, and the mass media abandoned the poor residents of that city, whose suffering continues today almost three years later. Because they had so little, we have come to believe that their losses were trivial. This will happen again if we pretend that it's behind us.

Clean up the residue of a generation of right-wing government. Restore human rights, recognizing that personal liberty has always been the key to our nation’s prosperity.

Resuscitate the armed forces, with mandatory national service training for physically able Americans of all ages. Rehabilitate our public assets: the workforce, the land, and the infrastructure. Reclaim the public interest in public works, and replace contractors with government employees wherever possible.

Reform policies relating to transportation, power generation, and manufacturing, the major sources of polluting emissions. Catch up with the gains made by Europeans and Asians while our leaders waged war. A responsible Congress might be discussing whether Americans should be entitled to modern, cheap mass transportation, clean manufacturing, and decentralized, emissions-free power generation instead of how to recover the oil under the Arctic.

Crack down on corporate misconduct. The 21st-century corporation is anti-national in character, and its principal interest--to generate economic profit--runs counter to the public interest in a hundred different ways. Laws now on the books to regulate corporate conduct go unenforced because of a corrupt bargain between government and business. Congress and the two parties have been complicit.

Open the first district office to public view. Report regularly on the volume of correspondence for and against various policies, on the activities of staff members, on contacts with lobbyists and what they are demanding, on requests for services, and on corrupt practices wherever they're discovered.