But the devil is, as always, in the details. So here’s a breakdown of each of the fairer, more just, world-class reformations that Democrats see as renewing, restoring, and strengthening the nation. I’ve distilled the 80-page manifesto into bullet points, but if you’d like to read the full-on, teeth-gnashing, snarling, full-text version – it’s at the bottom of this page.
PROTECTING AMERICANS AND RECOVERING FROM THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
This section starts off by simply trashing the Trump administration – for five loooong paragraphs. Then they basically layout their plan which looks exactly like what the current administration is already doing:
Use every available tool to beat back the pandemic
Make COVID-19 testing widely available, convenient and free (it already is)
Expand oversight and protections for staff and patients at nursing homes
Rebuild the Federal stockpile of protective equipment
Use the Defense Production Act
Follow the advice of scientists and experts
Then they throw taxpayer money at a DNC wishlist:
Increase funding to states that enroll more people on Medicaid
Use even more taxpayer funds to pay for health care costs
Re-open Obamacare marketplaces
Have taxpayers pay for 100% of COBRA insurance premiums
Use taxpayer money to increase Obamacare subsidies
Create a public option and automatically enroll low-income Americans at no cost to them – covered by taxpayers
Permanently hire 100,000 contact tracers at taxpayer expense
Reform unemployment insurance to cover more people with higher wage replacement rates
Expand the food stamp program (SNAP)
Give massive amounts of taxpayer’s money to state and local governments that have mishandled their own economies
Taxpayer money to fund childcare
Prioritize financial support to businesses owned by people of color and women (basically, discrimination based on sex and race)
Expand paid sick leave to non-employees (contractors, gig workers, etc)
Government-owned (aka Govt-controlled, taxpayer-funded) broadband internet
Subsidies from taxpayers to low-income Americans to pay for broadband internet
The platform alludes to the fact that they would rejoin the World Health Organization
BUILDING A STRONGER, FAIRER ECONOMY
This section contains six paragraphs of trashing Trump, crap stats on wage fairness, and giving Obama credit for the stellar economy that Coronavirus has killed – then comes the fire hose of social justice:
Reverse the Trump tax cuts (corporate and individual)
Make tax code more progressive
Make housing a right (what does this even mean?)
Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $15/hr
Create, at taxpayer expense, a government-owned credit reporting agency to compete with private companies
Strengthen labor unions by repealing “right to work” laws and overall giving unions more power than employers
Require contractors to prioritize the hiring of minorities and women (more discrimination)
Equal pay for women
Paid family leave for everyone – funded by businesses
Address structural and systemic racism
Increase taxpayer funding of the Department of Labor
Increase Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit
Universal pre-K programs
Build 500,000 electric car charging stations at taxpayer expense
Take another shot at high-speed rail
Upgrade ports and locks
Require American cargo is carried on American-flagged ships
Require federal infrastructure projects to use union labor
Strengthen renewable fuels standards (E15)
Additional environmental regulations for farmers
All trade deals will center on a core of labor standards, human rights, and environmentalism
Get rid of Tariffs on China
$15,000 refundable tax credit for first time home buyers
Increase taxpayer funds to the Housing Trust Fund to build more low-income housing
Allow renters to organize into some kind of union
Stop gentrification
Strengthen Dodd-Frank and Glass-Steagall
Increase funding for SNAP, WIC, and School lunches at taxpayer expense
Some sort of Federal Reserve-connected personal banking option
Review mergers in biotech and healthcare
increase Social Security benefits at taxpayer expense
Then they roll out a plan that looks exactly like what the current administration is doing:
Support Buy American standards on Federally-supported projects
Expand support for American manufacturing
End incentives for offshoring
Accelerate on-shoring of critical supply chains (drugs, med supplies)
Support apprenticeship programs
More SBA funding especially in low-income areas and for minorities and woman
Money for farmers
Support NASA
Increase funding for biotechnology, clean energy, clean vehicles, AI, and aerospace
Stand up to China (while removing tariffs against them?)
ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL, AFFORDABLE, QUALITY HEALTH CARE
Another six paragraphs praising Obama and Biden while trashing Republicans then straight into socialized medicine:
Create a public (aka: taxpayer-funded) option available through Obamacare
No deductibles, no co-pays
Price controls on doctors, drugs, everything
Lower Medicare enrollment age from 65 to 60
Double taxpayer investments in community health centers
Cap premiums for non-public option plans at 8.5% of income (different premiums for people based on how much they make)
Anti-trust lawsuits against drug companies
End incarceration for people only convicted on drug charges
Increase regulation on nursing homes
Repeal the Hyde Amendment, fight federal and state laws limiting abortion
Taxpayer-funded “Free” birth control
PROTECTING COMMUNITIES AND BUILDING TRUST BY REFORMING OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
End incarceration for minors
Limit the sale of military surplus items to police departments
Limit use of qualified immunity by law enforcement
End incarceration for drug offenses
Eliminate cash bail
End incarceration for failure to pay fines
Increase taxpayer funding for public defenders
Increase taxpayer funding for the Legal Services Corporation
Repeal mandatory minimum sentences
Abolish the death penalty
End private prisons and detention centers
End solitary confinement
Allow felons to access Pell Grants and Food Stamps.
HEALING THE SOUL OF AMERICA
This entire section is little more than a social justice wish list and a dab of anti-gun policy.
End racial and religious profiling by law enforcement
Force Federal Reserve to report on racial employment and wage gaps
More taxpayer money for low-income neighborhoods
Incentivize private companies to hire more people of color and women (more discrimination)
“Tackle environmental racism”
Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment
Take action to end pay inequality for women
Guarantee transgender students access to facilities based on their gender identity instead of scientific facts like their sex
Prioritize investigations of hate crimes against non-binary people
Return federal land to Tribal nations
increase taxpayer funding for Tribal nations
Extend public option to Tribal nations at taxpayer expense
Expand the Violence Against Women Act
More taxpayer money to process rape kits
Have taxpayers fund CDC studies on gun violence as a public health issue
Enact universal background checks
Incentivize states to require licenses to purchase firearms
Push for “red flag” laws
Require guns to be locked up in homes
Repeal law that prevents gun manufacturers from being held liable if a person uses their produce to harm someone else
Force businesses to serve customers even if it goes against their religious beliefs
COMBATING THE CLIMATE CRISIS AND PURSUING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
In short, put all the regulations Trump got rid of, back in place and rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement..
Re-implement the regulations that the Trump administration has repealed
Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
Re-implement the Waters of the U.S.
Increase methane and carbon restrictions on energy industry
Unionize green energy sector
Invest taxpayer money in people of color and women
End all carbon pollution from energy plants by 2035
Install 500 million solar panels and 60,000 wind turbines within 5 years at taxpayer expense
use taxpayer funds to make up to 2 million low-income homes more energy efficient
Net-zero greenhouse emissions for all new buildings as of 2030
Let California create it’s own vehicle emissions standards again
Tariffs on imports from countries that don’t live up to the Paris Climate Agreement
RESTORING AND STRENGTHENING OUR DEMOCRACY
Make voter fraud great again. Oh, and give Democrats two more Senators and another Representative by making Washington, D.C. a state. Honestly, they could just annex it into Maryland if all they wanted was representation.
Fight Voter ID laws
Stop purging of voter roles (the dead and non-resident voter population rejoices)
Restore voting rights for felons
Fight for vote-from-home and vote-by-mail (that went so well in 2020)
Make sure immigrants are counted in the Census (too late)
Increase investments in voting technologies
Eliminate all private financing for federal elections
Use taxpayer money to match funds for federal candidates
Prevent PACs from bundling money for any candidate for which they lobby
Require any federal candidate to disclose 10 years of tax returns
Make Washington, D.C. a state
Allow U.S. territories to vote for President of the U.S.A.
Forgive disaster loans to Puerto Rico
Give Puerto Rico full access to SNAP, Medicaid and Child Tax Credits
Money for the U.S. Virgin Islands to recover from Hurricanes
Eliminate requirement for USPS to pre-fund its retirement obligations
Allow shipping of alcoholic beverages by mail
Banking by mail
CREATING A 21ST CENTURY IMMIGRATION SYSTEM
Five paragraphs of Trump-bashing later, we get to the open borders policies that Democrats love:
Rescind the National Emergency order that covers illegal immigration
Immediately end all travel and immigration bans
Expand protections for DREAMers and their parents
End “safe third nation” policy that has immigrants apply for asylum closer to their country of origin
End requirement that immigrants must show that they can support themselves before being allowed entry
Roadmap to Citizenship for all illegal aliens (amnesty)
Expand visa caps
Roadmap to citizenship for Temporary Protected Status aliens
End workplace raids designed to catch businesses who knowingly hire illegal aliens
End detention centers for captured illegal aliens – return to catch and release
End current freeze on new green cards
PROVIDING A WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION IN EVERY ZIP CODE
Taxpayer-funded “Free” college tuition, a lot more money for public schools and student loan debt forgiveness.
Expand Head Start and Early Head Start
Triple all Title I taxpayer funding for public schools in low-income areas
Expand free lunch program
Ban taxpayer funding to certain charter school programs
Fight against private school voucher programs
Fight against school segregation
End standards based testing
Taxpayer-funded “Free” college tuition for students of families making less than $125,000
Double maximum Pell Grant award at taxpayer expense
Taxpayer-funded grants for minority schools
Tuition-free community colleges for everyone, including DREAMers at taxpayer expense
Taxpayer funds for on-campus child care
Create a new federal, taxpayer-funded program for public universities based on proportion of low-income students
$10,000 per student in student debt relief
Defer student loan payments for anyone making less than $25,000/year and cap payments at 5% of income.
Forgive any remaining student loan debt remaining after 20 years
Forgive tuition portion of student loan debt for anyone making less than $125,000/year
Allow student loan debt to be discharged in bankruptcy
RENEWING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP
10 paragraphs of Trump-bashing in this section, best get right to what Democrats have planned for our military and diplomatic corps. It’s mostly platitudes and non-committal gobly-gook, but I’ll see if we can’t find any actionable stuff in this part.
Reject “America First” policies
Strengthen the State Department
Enable and protect the Diplomats
“Repair our alliances” – not sure which ones…
Rejoin the World Health Organization and fully fund it with taxpayer money
Increase taxpayer-funded foreign aid
End forever wars
End support for war in Yemen
Cut defense spending
Path to citizenship for military service
Ban veterans from using benefits at non-public education institutions
Develop 5G
Push for greater participation by women in global workforce
End suffering around the globe
Fight global corruption with targeted visa bans and sanctions
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Rich Mitchell
Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and GETTR