It also includes a demand that the tax cuts be made permanent, supports the home mortgage deduction, proposes the abolishment of property taxes and Texas' controversial new franchise tax, and opposes tolling existing roads and any form of internet taxation or taxes levied based on global warming. Most appealing to me is the proposal of a tax deduction for private school tuition and home schooling expenses.

Overall this is one of the most coherent and generally positive sections of the platform.

The next sub-section is a brief look at energy policy, which manages to be a stronger and clearer energy policy than the Bush administration has managed to express. It includes opposition to a windfall profits tax, expanded drilling and reductions of unnecessary regulation. But it also makes very clear that the environment should be protected within reasonable limits and supports the development of alternative energy technology. Overall a very positive statement on the issue.

Restoring American Sovereignty and Leadership

Who knew Texas needed to have a foreign policy? Well in this section, which may be one of the weirdest in the whole document, we get to see one laid out in detail. This is also the section where the Birchers and Ron Paul crazies had the most success in getting some of their ideas included.

First there's the section on Domestic policy, which basically means a two page explosion of nativism and extremist paranoia. If you thought PATRIOT Act was a stupid acronym, wait until you find out about SAVEUSA which is an acronym for seven dumb ideas to make sure no one ever crosses our southern border and we remain a lily-white nation with a critical labor shortage. This is later reinforced with a section which opposes any form of citizenship for former illegals, taking away 'birthright' citizenship for children of illegals born in the US, prohibiting medical care and education to illegals and even prohibiting federal funds to cities with 'sanctuary' laws and states which give illegals drivers licenses. Irrational nativism remains strong in Texas.

There is a nice quote in this section from Teddy Roosevelt. It's the only quote in the document and I think it's heavily edited and taken out of context. I wonder if the committee realized how offended Teddy would have been by this platform.

The real craziness starts to creep in pretty quickly, starting with a statement against foreign military bases on American soil. Perhaps we're going to let some Iraqis have a base here in exchange for letting us have bases there. Then there's a statement against allowing the sale or even management of US assets by foreign companies, essentially declaring that we should just drop out of the world economy. But the real accomplishment for the Ron Paul fringe is the inclusion of a statement against the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the mythical North American Union. They want to make absolutely sure we never join any non-existent globalist organizations.