Koch-Funded Libertarian Party Agenda from 1979: Domestic Issues

This document is one of the many versions of the Libertarian Party’s political platform circa 1979, as it was being fueled by infusions of cash from the Koch family fortune.

This six-page version of the platform contains seeds of major policy agenda items favored and funded by Charles and David Koch, most of which they continued to pursue in the ensuing decades.

Policies outlined here include:

  • Abolition of the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as all laws regulation the energy industry, including public interest laws to protect our environment, in addition to all “so-called” consumer protection laws. Abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration and the Food and Drug Administration.
  • Opposition to the “Fairness Doctrine” and “equal time” rules that regulated federally licensed communications platforms to require broadcast to present political issues in manner that is honest, equitable, and balanced.
  • Support for repealing all federal campaign finance laws, which includes limits and disclosure of donations and more.
  • Opposition to FCC regulations “banning advertising for cigarettes and sugar-coated breakfast foods or regulating depiction of sex or violence.”
  • Opposition to any zoning or regulation of land use: “in the name of aesthetic values, riskiness, moral standards, cost-benet estimates, or the promotion or restriction of economic growth.”
  • Support for “the abolition of the subpoena power as used by congressional committees against individuals or firms.”
  • Opposition to all laws restricting “the ownership, manufacture, transfer or sale of firearms or ammunition. We oppose all laws requiring registration of firearms or ammunition…. We further oppose all attempts to ban weapons or ammunition on the grounds that they are risky and unsafe.” And they called for the repeal of laws restricting machine guns and any limits on carrying concealed weapons.
  • Support repeal of the National Labor Relations Act, which secured the right to collective bargaining and other rights of unions plus repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
  • Support repeal of Social Security Insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as other government programs for the aged or people with disabilities.
  • Opposition to budget deficits, any restrictions on “free trade,” repeal of the minimum wage and rent control protections,
  • Opposition “all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes” and “windfall profits” taxes, as well as all property taxes–targeting “the eventual repeal of all taxation,” along with opposition to payroll taxes (where employers collect taxes or deductions as with Social Security and Medicare).
  • Abolition of government regulation of primary and secondary public education and colleges, an end to public schools, and compulsory education laws.
  • Dissolution of the U.S. Postal Service and Amtrak.
  • And, among other things, opposition to public utilities, the metric system, and antitrust laws.

The platform also supported women’s rights against discrimination, the elimination of “victimless crimes,” and an end to limits on access to birth control, in addition to limits foreign intervention.