If you are looking for the National GOP 2008 Party Platform, click here.

The following is a list of county-specific issues that we believe are important to the voters this election season. The Buncombe County Republican Party will be pushing candidates and elected officials to support this agenda, as we believe most people in Buncombe County support these solutions. We acknowledge that there are many important issues affecting our country and our state, but as a county organization, we believe that positive change begins at the local level. We therefore commit ourselves to the following agenda:

Give the people a voice in county government through
* Televised public comment for any issue that the commissioners vote on, even if the law does not require it.
* Voting on issues such as zoning and district elections of county commissioners
* Community meetings at least once in every school district every two years.

Bring jobs to Buncombe County by
* Training workers for new industries through A-B Tech so that companies will come to Buncombe County for our qualified workers
* Supporting small businesses so the money stays in the community, rather than only throwing tax incentives at large corporations
* Putting a moratorium on forced annexation so that we stop scaring away businesses who don’t want to see their taxes increase

Promote responsible development through
* Tax incentives for responsible development and penalties for irresponsible development
* Tax reduction on vacant land to encourage green space with a long-range plan of no taxes on vacant land

Create affordable housing by
* Removing those regulations that drive up the cost of housing
* Lowering property taxes through property re-evaluation, now that prices have fallen

Reduce government spending of taxpayer dollars by
* Merging county and municipal services whenever possible to provide more efficient services for less money
* Requiring every county department to publicly present their budget requests to the commissioners in a public meeting
* Establishing a county “taxpayer bill of rights” which will ensure the budget is balanced and overall spending by the county does not increase.