Red Elephant's Page

1. Openness and Transparency
Municipal employees should work for the taxpayer, not the other way around. Citizens have a right to know exactly how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent. We call upon City Hall to post all of its spending online, in detail. This should include a list of all city employees, with names, titles, and compensation information.

2. Fiscal Conservatism
Government is not always the answer. More often than not, government is the problem. That is profoundly true when it comes to our city's present fiscal crisis. We desperately need to modernize, streamline, and downsize our government.

3. Respect for the Laws of Economics
Sound policy starts with sound economics. However well-intentioned, policies that seek to defy the laws of economics are doomed to fail. For this reason, we oppose rent control and other market-distorting regulations.

4. Quality Education
For the money we're spending, our schools should be the envy of the world. To spur innovation, more competition is needed. We favor more charter schools and, more importantly, the introduction of school vouchers.

5. Individual Rights
The main purpose of government is to protect our natural rights. If our right to property is not secure, then none of our rights are secure. We therefore seek a charter provision that would severely restrict the use of eminent domain.

6. Independence
We need independent-minded outsiders who can avoid the toxic influence of Hudson County political machinery. Too many self-proclaimed "reformers" are perfectly willing to make their own deals with the devil. No wonder they usually wind up needing reform themselves.