American Reform Party

The ARP split from the reform party in 1997, after some of the new party’s founders walked out of the Reform Party’s nomination convention, suspecting that Ross Perot had rigged the process. Although the ARP has a national platform, it does not have ballot access in any state and has failed to organize beyond the state level. Its primary role is to support other third party and independent candidates with funding and campaign resources – including Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004. Regardless of these endorsements, the planks of its platform are mostly conservative. The American Reform Party calls for:

• Restoring trust and integrity in government, reducing government spending and size, instituting long-term fiscal policies to insure intergenerational equity and increasing disposable income for families
• Paying down the national debt, eliminating federal deficits without using excess funds from Social Security, Medicare, Highway, and other trusts; requiring a balanced budget discipline, or passing a balanced budget amendment; reducing the size, costs, and numbers of federal agencies by consolidating functions, purchasing, accounting; bringing congressional and federal pensions in line with those in the private sector.
• Simplifying the tax code, shifting to a national sales tax or a graduated flat tax, and reducing the size and negative impact of the IRS
• Developing long-term programs to protect Social Security, but not putting the nation in greater debt or passing the burden on to the next generation. Improving delivery of Medicare and Medicaid programs and benefits
• Reducing the influence of money and special interests in campaigns
• Establishing a unified, single-payer health care system
• Banning future amnesty for illegal immigrants
• Requiring international trade partners to meet human rights standards
• Staying in the UN and meet international obligations
• Restoring diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba
• Replacing electoral college with popular vote
• Conserving farmland and curtailing urban sprawl