Republican Party on Welfare & Poverty Party Platform

Religious charities foster benevolence and patriotism

Move more welfare recipients off the welfare rolls

We need to build on the results of the 1996 reforms and continue to move welfare recipients into jobs and off the welfare rolls. This is especially important for single women and mothers, who continue to rely on welfare and fear that they cannot find a job or enter a training program because they need to care for their children. We endorse President Bush’s plan to extend the benefits of welfare reform by strengthening work requirements and promoting healthy marriages, and offering training, transportation, and child care services to help people become self-sufficient. Every American deserves a chance to know the pride of earning a paycheck and providing for his or her family.

Faith-based welfare grants equal with secular groups

Tax reform will enable more poor to own a home

• Reward work with tax reform that takes 6 million families off the tax rolls, cuts rate for those on the rolls, and doubles the child tax credit to $1,000.
• Implement the “American Dream Down Payment” program, which will allow a half million families who currently draw federal rental assistance to become homeowners.
• Increase the supply of affordable housing by establishing the Renewing the Dream tax credit.
• Build savings and personal wealth through Individual Development Accounts.

Faith-based charities should help end child poverty

Welfare system is rigged to replace work, not encourage work.

Our Challenge Our country is all about striving, but too many of our people are stuck. Today in America, if you are raised poor, you are just as likely to stay poor as you were 50 years ago. The key word here is "stay." Our welfare system is rigged to replace work, not encourage work. Washington measures success by how much it spends, not by how much it helps. The system traps families in a cycle of poverty, shuffling them from program to program instead of helping them break free altogether.

Our Vision
• No amount of government intervention--no matter how well-intentioned--can replace the great drivers of daily life: our talents and aspirations, our neighbors and loved ones, our communities and places of worship. We are all in this fight together, and we need an approach which reflects that shared responsibility.
• We need to attack poverty right at its roots. Instead of starting with welfare, we start with work. Instead of expanding government, we expand opportunity. Instead of letting people languish, we get them on the ladder of opportunity and help them climb that ladder so they can make the most of their lives.
• We have to open up the system to accountability for taxpayers, and open it up to collaboration with the men and women on the front lines of this fight.

Our Ideas
• Reward work. If you are capable, we will expect you to work or prepare for work.
• Tailor benefits to people's needs. We will match poverty-fighting programs with your needs so that it's easier for you to get back on your feet.
• Improve skills and schools. We will make sure that poor kids have more opportunities to succeed at every stage, from childhood through college.
• Plan and save for the future. We will make it easier for you and your family to plan for the future and be retirement-ready.
• Demand results. We will open up the system to accountability and collaboration, backing ideas that work on the front lines.