Democrats vs Republicans

Democratic economic policies focus on what's good for the average person. Democrats say If we paid employees well they would be spending more money buying more goods and services. Bringing benefits to service, manufacturing, and other businesses all of which pay taxes.

Democratic Economic Principles

Protecting Workers and Families and Creating Millions of Jobs Across America
Americans deserve an economy that works for everyone—not just for the wealthy and the well-connected. But our system has been rigged against the American people. Democrats believe that it is a moral and an economic imperative that we support working families by rebuilding the American middle class for the 21st century, making sure this time that everyone can make it and thrive, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, national origin, age, or ZIP code.

Protecting Workers and Families and Creating Millions of Jobs Across America

Raising Wages and Promoting Workers’ Rights
Democrats will fight to raise wages for working people and improve job quality and security, including by raising the federal minimum wage so it reaches $15 an hour by 2026. Raising the federal minimum wage, so fewer workers are forced to hold down multiple jobs to make ends meet.

The right of workers to come together and form a union is under attack. We must unrig the rules that block workers from having the union they want and update our labor laws to make it more possible. We cannot hope to raise wages without taking on the profound racial biases at work in our employment system. The wage gap between Black workers and white workers is higher today than it was 20 years ago. It takes a typical Black woman 19 months to earn what a typical white man earns in 12 months—and for typical Latinas and Native American women, it takes almost two years. Democrats believe we need to be much more proactive and aggressive in rooting out discrimination in our employment system

Enacting Robust Work-Family Policies
The United States is alone among advanced economies in guaranteeing neither paid sick leave nor paid family leave for all workers. This puts excessive burdens on working families, especially working mothers.

Democrats will implement paid sick days and a high-quality, comprehensive, and inclusive paid family and medical leave system that protects workers from the unfair choice between attending to urgent health or caretaking needs and earning a paycheck.

Finding and paying for high-quality child care is an emotional, logistical, and financial tightrope for too many parents, and that needs to change. Working parents shouldn’t have to choose between keeping their kids safe and earning a paycheck. Democrats will make major investments in quality, affordable child care, including by significantly increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit and providing access to affordable, high-quality child care on a sliding scale by boosting funding for grants to states to help low-income and middle-class families afford child care.

Investing in the Engines of Job Creation
Democrats believe that the world’s richest nation should have the world’s best infrastructure system. That’s why we will invest in resilient, sustainable, and inclusive infrastructure. Democrats will launch a clean energy revolution through historic investments in clean energy, clean transportation, energy efficiency, and advanced manufacturing.

Building A Fair System of International Trade for Our Workers
democrats will upgrade our nation’s ports, lock, and dam systems, and freight infrastructure to accommodate 21st century cargo, reduce air and water pollution, and create and maintain high-quality, good-paying jobs. We will increase demand for American-made ships by ensuring U.S. cargo is carried on ships flying our flag. We will make sure that every community in America has access to clean, reliable drinking water and safe wastewater systems in their homes, including by replacing dangerous lead pipes.

Democrats support the creation of an infrastructure bank, a public bank that will leverage public and private resources to build infrastructure projects of national or regional significance, including in rail and transit, clean energy and water infrastructure, broadband, and affordable housing.

All federally supported infrastructure projects, whether existing or newly developed, financed through grants, loans, tax incentives, or a national infrastructure bank, should create good, union jobs that expand the middle class. That is why Democrats will ensure labor protections

Putting Homeownership in Reach and Guaranteeing Safe Housing for Every American
Democrats believe the government should take aggressive steps to increase the supply of housing, especially affordable housing, and address long-standing economic and racial inequities in our housing markets. We support innovative approaches to eliminating the racial wealth gap in America. Rehabilitating housing and expanding housing owned by land trusts will increase the amount of housing available for secure homeownership.

Democrats will supercharge investment in the Housing Trust Fund to greatly expand the number of affordable, accessible housing units on the market. We will expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to incentivize private-sector construction of affordable housing, and make sure urban, suburban, and rural areas all benefit.

Democrats are committed to ending homelessness in America. Democrats commit to providing Section 8 housing support for every eligible family, and will enact protections to keep landlords from discriminating against voucher recipients. We will increase investments in public housing to expand availability for the first time since the 1990s, and improve and upgrade existing public housing to ensure safe living conditions for residents, protecting tenants’ rights to return if extensive renovations are needed.

Leveling the Economic Playing Field
The U.S. economy is rigged against the American people. Time after time, President Trump and the Republicans have rewarded big corporations and their wealthy donors, and left working families behind. Democrats will take decisive action to level the playing field for people of color, working families, women, small business owners, and others who have been left on the sidelines.

Reforming the Tax Code to Benefit Working Families
Our tax system has been rigged against the American people by big corporations and their lobbyists, and by Republican politicians who dole out tax cuts to their biggest donors while leaving working families to struggle.

Democrats will take action to reverse the Trump Administration’s tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest Americans and rewarding corporations for shipping American jobs overseas. We will crack down on overseas tax havens and close loopholes that are exploited by the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. We will make sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. We will make sure investors pay the same tax rates as workers and bring an end to expensive and unproductive tax loopholes, including the carried interest loophole. Corporate tax rates, which were cut sharply by the 2017 Republican tax cut, must be raised, and “trickle-down” tax cuts must be rejected. Estate taxes should also be raised back to the historical norm.

Curbing Wall Street Abuses
The scars of the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession are still present in our economy and our society. Financial institutions should never be “too big to fail.” Democrats will work to reverse the over-financialization of the American economy and curb Wall Street speculation by maintaining and expanding safeguards that separate retail banking institutions from more risky investment operations, and ensuring Wall Street investors pay their fair share in taxes.

Ending Poverty
Democrats remain committed to ending poverty and enabling all Americans to live up to their God-given potential. We recognize that the official poverty rate, as measured and communicated by the federal government, fails to capture critical needs like housing, education, health care, transportation, energy, and other necessities, and therefore understates the true share of Americans living in poverty.

We will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and guarantee equal pay for women, two measures that in combination will pull millions of families out of poverty.

Protecting Consumer Rights and Privacy
Consumers, workers, students, retirees, and investors who have been mistreated by businesses should never be denied their right to fight for fair treatment under the law. Democrats will support efforts to eliminate the use of forced arbitration clauses in employment and service contracts, which unfairly strip consumers, workers, students, retirees, and investors of their right to their day in court.

Tackling Runaway Corporate Concentration
Democrats are concerned that the increase in corporate concentration across a wide range of industries, from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to agribusiness and retail chains, could be stifling competition and innovation and creating monopoly conditions that harm consumers. We will direct federal regulators to review a subset of the mergers and acquisitions that have taken place since President Trump took office, prioritizing the pharmaceutical, health care, telecommunications, technology, and agricultural industries, to assess whether any have increased market concentration, raised consumer prices, demonstrably harmed workers, increased racial inequality, reduced competition, or constricted innovation, and assign appropriate remedies.

Guaranteeing a Secure and Dignified Retirement
Democrats are proud to be the party that advocates retirement security for all. We are the party that created and strengthened Social Security, and defended public and private retirement plans that provide a decent monthly income. And we are fighting to make sure that all workers can save at work for emergencies and retirement.

Democrats have fought for universal health care for a century. They are proud to be the party of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Because of the Obama-Biden Administration and the Affordable Care Act, more than 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, from heart disease to asthma, are secure in the knowledge that insurance companies can no longer discriminate against them. Women can no longer be charged more than men just because of their gender. And more Americans can get health coverage than ever before.

Unfortunately, at every turn, Democrats’ efforts to guarantee health coverage have been met by obstruction and opposition from the Republican Party. It has been Republicans who have embraced junk plans that undermine protections for pre-existing conditions. It was Republican state attorneys general who sued to block Medicaid expansion and Republican governors who refused to extend Medicaid coverage to their citizens, leaving millions of low-income Americans, disproportionately people of color, unable to access health coverage. And in the midst of the worst global pandemic in generations—one that has left more than 150,000 Americans dead and counting—the Trump Administration is fighting in court to invalidate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act and eliminate insurance for tens of millions of people. Overturning the Affordable Care Act remains a central plank of the Republican Party platform. The difference in values between the two parties on this life-or-death issue could not be more stark.

Democrats will always fight to save Americans’ lives by making it easier and more affordable to go to the doctor, get prescription medicines, and access preventive testing and treatments.

Generations of Democrats have been united in the fight for universal health care. We are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and those who support a Medicare for All approach; all are critical to ensuring that health care is a human right.

• Securing Universal Health Care Through a Public Option
• Bringing Down Drug Prices and Taking on the Pharmaceutical Industry
• Reducing Health Care Costs and Improving Health Care Quality
  • Expanding Access to Mental Health and Substance Use Treatment
  • Expanding Long-Term Care Services and Supports
• Eliminate Racial, Gender, and Geographic Health Inequities
  • Protecting Native American Health
  • Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice
  • Protecting and Promoting Maternal Health
  • Protecting LGBTQ+ Health
• Strengthening and Supporting the Health Care Workforce
• Investing in Health Science and Research

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The Criminal Justice System in the United States fails to ensure safety, deliver justice, and address systemic issues such as poverty and racial injustice. It emphasizes the need for comprehensive reform, advocating for measures to prevent entry into the criminal justice system, overhaul policing practices, address substance use disorders, and promote rehabilitation and reintegration of the incarcerated population. Key proposals include ending mass incarceration, reimagining policing, decriminalizing drug use, eliminating cash bail, reforming sentencing practices, and supporting reentry programs. The text also stresses the importance of accountability, transparency, and equal access to justice for all individuals, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Overall, it presents a vision for a fairer, more equitable, and compassionate approach to criminal justice in America.

In the Democratic party platform, the fingerprints of the Black Lives Matter movement and Bernie Sanders are apparent, in calls for independent investigations of police-involved shootings, more body cameras, and de-escalation training. There is a declaration that “states that want to decriminalize marijuana should be able to do so.” There is also a call for the end of the death penalty, something President Obama and Hillary Clinton have not endorsed. Parts of the Democratic draft platform repudiate the tough language their party embraced a generation ago, when their current candidate’s husband was president. The mother of Sandra Bland, who died at a Texas jail last year and became a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement, is scheduled to speak at their convention next week in Philadelphia.
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Democrats believe in bringing the American people together, not stoking division and distrust. President Trump has denigrated virtually every segment of American society—and in so doing, he has insulted the very idea of America itself. Healing the soul of America means facing up to the deepest inequities in our society, from structural racism to misogyny to discrimination against people with disabilities, and enacting ambitious measures to fix them.

Protecting Americans’ Civil Rights
Democrats are committed to ending discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, language, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability status. We will appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices and federal judges who look like America, are committed to the rule of law, will uphold individual civil rights and civil liberties as essential components of a free and democratic society, and will respect and enforce foundational precedents, including Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. 

President Trump’s words and actions have given safe harbor and encouragement to racists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslim bigots, and white supremacists. It’s time to root out domestic terrorism in all its forms. We will use federal law enforcement tools and resources to address domestic terrorism, and if necessary work with Congress to pass a domestic terrorism law that is consistent with the Constitutional right to free speech and civil liberties.

Achieving Racial Justice and Equity
Historic wrongs and abuses perpetrated against Native Americans, two and a half centuries of slavery, a hundred years of Jim Crow segregation, and a history of exclusionary immigration policies have created profound and lasting inequities in income, wealth, education, employment, housing, environmental quality, and health care for communities of color. Democrats are committed to standing up to racism and bigotry in our laws, in our culture, in our politics, and in our society, and recognize that race-neutral policies are not sufficient to rectify race-based disparities.

Hate and its symbols have no home in America. Democrats believe that we can only build a more just and equitable future if we honestly reckon with our history and its legacy in the present. Democrats support removing the Confederate battle flag and statues of Confederate leaders from public properties.

Democrats support policies to end discrimination and unfair practices in the housing market, empower local governments to combat gentrification trends that disproportionately harm long-time residents of color, and create a Community Restoration Fund to repair the toxic legacy of historic investments in transportation that were designed to enforce racial segregation.

Democrats believe it is unacceptable that schools are more segregated today than they were in the late 1960s. We believe education is a critical public good, and will increase investments to guarantee all students can access high-quality public schools, no matter where they live, so students of color are well prepared to thrive in college and careers. We will break the school-to-prison pipeline that sees children of color disproportionately punished by the criminal justice system for disciplinary issues that should be handled by school administrators or counselors.

All people in the United States should be able to easily access public services, and all citizens should be able to exercise their Constitutional right to vote without facing unjust or discriminatory barriers. Democrats will restore the full powers of the Voting Rights Act and go further to roll back discriminatory policies that have been put in place in recent years to prevent people of color from voting. We will ensure all federal agencies produce materials in languages commonly spoken in the United States, including languages spoken by Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and that voting materials are also easily accessible for citizens with limited English proficiency.

Protecting Women’s Rights
Democrats will fight to guarantee equal rights for women, including by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment and at long last enshrining gender equality in the U.S. Constitution. We will take aggressive action to end pay inequality, including by increasing penalties against companies that discriminate against women and passing the Paycheck Fairness Act. Democrats are committed to ending sexual assault, domestic abuse, and other violence against women, including the epidemics of violence against Native American women and transgender women of color.

Like the majority of Americans, Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion. We oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to women’s reproductive health and rights, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment and protecting and codifying the right to reproductive freedom. And Democrats will take action to protect the rights of pregnant women in the workplace, including by requiring employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant and breastfeeding workers and those who have recently given birth and at last joining other advanced economies by enacting paid sick days and universal paid family and medical leave.

Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights
Democrats applaud this year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that made clear that employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity violates the law, but we know we still have work to do to ensure LGBTQ+ people are treated equally under the law and in our society. We will fight to enact the Equality Act and at last outlaw discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in housing, public accommodations, access to credit, education, jury service, and federal programs. We will work to ensure LGBTQ+ people are not discriminated against when seeking to adopt or foster children, protect LGBTQ+ children from bullying and assault, and guarantee transgender students access to facilities based on their gender identity. Democrats will ensure federally funded programs for older adults are inclusive for LGBTQ+ seniors.

Protecting Disability Rights
One in four American adults live with a disability. Democrats believe people with disabilities deserve to lead full, happy, and healthy lives. Democrats will fully enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, and the Help America Vote Act, among other bedrock statutes protecting the rights of people with disabilities. We will oppose any efforts to weaken enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We will ensure non-discrimination in access to health care, building on the protections for people with disabilities enshrined in the Affordable Care Act. We will ensure every federal agency aggressively enforces the integration mandate affirmed in the Olmstead decision, and repair the damage done by the Trump Administration. We will rigorously enforce non-discrimination protections for people with disabilities in health care, employment, education, and housing, and ensure equal access to the ballot box.

Honoring Indigenous Tribal Nations
The U.S. government has a profound legal and moral obligation toward Native American Tribes and Indigenous communities—a trust that has been broken time and again, undermining Tribal nations’ ability to flourish politically, culturally, and economically. Democrats are committed to honoring, upholding, and strengthening the United States’ trust obligations to Tribal Nations and communities, as enshrined in the Constitution, treaties, federal statutes, and case law.

Ending Violence Against Women
Democrats are committed to ending sexual assault, domestic abuse, and other violence against women. We will act swiftly to overcome Republican obstructionism and reauthorize and expand the Violence Against Women Act to better protect Native American women, women with disabilities, children and young women, transgender women and other LGBTQ+ people, and other groups who are disproportionately affected by sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Ending the Epidemic of Gun Violence
Gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States. Over 100,000 people are shot and nearly 40,000 people die annually from guns—devastating countless families, friends, and communities. We can and will make gun violence a thing of the past. Addressing the gun violence crisis requires supporting evidence-based programs that prevent gun deaths from occurring in the first place, including by making mental health care more accessible supporting suicide reduction initiatives, funding interventions to reduce homicides and gun violence in neighborhoods, and strengthening protections against domestic violence. Democrats will also ensure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have sufficient resources to study gun violence as a public health issue, including the ongoing health care, mental health, economic, and social costs that can affect survivors and their families for years.

Supporting Faith and Service
Religious freedom is a core American value and a core value of the Democratic Party. Democrats will protect the rights of each American for the free exercise of his or her religion. It will be the policy of the Democratic Administration to advocate for religious freedom throughout the world. Democrats celebrate America’s history of religious pluralism and tolerance, and recognize the countless acts of service of our faith communities, as well as the paramount importance of maintaining the separation between church and state enshrined in our Constitution.

During the Trump Administration, too many of our religious communities have been victimized by acts of intolerance, bigotry, and violence. We will reject the Trump Administration’s use of broad religious exemptions to allow businesses, medical providers, social service agencies, and others to discriminate.

Supporting Press Freedom
The free press is essential to our free democracy. Democrats roundly reject President Trump’s denigration of the free and independent press, which has endangered reporters’ lives, helped fuel conspiracy theories, and deepened distrust between Americans and their government. Democrats will appoint an independent media professional to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, to ensure that the news and information projected around the world by the federal government meets the highest standards of fact-based and unbiased journalism. Democrats are concerned about the potentially harmful effects of corporate consolidation in the media industry, including in television, radio, and newspapers, and will reinstate and strengthen media ownership rules and direct federal antitrust agencies to investigate the economic impacts of mergers in the media industry.

Supporting the Arts and Culture
The arts are essential to our free and democratic society, to our culture, and to our local economies. Democrats are proud of our support for arts funding and education and will continue policies and programs that promote the creative arts. We support public funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and art and music education in public schools. We recognize that federal grants supporting nonprofit cultural organizations, artists, scholars, and state and local governments help increase participation in the arts, enhance appreciation, and strengthen our nation’s cultural heritage. We value the arts and art education for developing imagination, creativity, innovation, and critical thinking skills in students and for building bridges between people and communities across the country.

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Climate change is a global emergency. We have no time to waste in taking action to protect Americans’ lives and futures. The last four years have seen record-breaking storms, devastating wildfires, and historic floods. Urban and rural communities alike have suffered tens of billions of dollars in economic losses. Dams have failed catastrophically in Michigan. Farmers’ crops have been drowned in their fields across the Midwest. Coastal communities from Florida to New Jersey are facing an existential crisis as a result of sea level rise and stronger storms. Thousands of Americans have died. And President Trump still callously and willfully denies the science that explains why so many are suffering.

Like so many crises facing the United States, the impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed in our society or our economy. Communities of color, low-income families, and Indigenous communities have long suffered disproportionate and cumulative harm from air pollution, water pollution, and toxic sites. From Flint, Michigan, to the Navajo Nation, to Lowndes County, Alabama, millions of Americans have been denied access to clean, safe drinking water and even the most basic wastewater infrastructure. Pacific Islanders in Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands are losing their traditional way of life as sea level rise submerges their homelands. Although the youngest generations of Americans have contributed the least to this calamity, they stand to lose the most as they suffer from the impacts of runaway carbon pollution for decades to come.

The Democrats have a plan to address climate change and its impacts, emphasizing the urgency of action and the need for equitable solutions. It highlights the disproportionate effects of climate change on marginalized communities and pledges to prioritize environmental justice. The plan includes measures to transition to a clean energy economy, create millions of jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, invest in sustainable infrastructure, and protect natural resources. Key points include rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, transitioning to clean energy, supporting workers and communities affected by the transition, and conserving public lands and wildlife habitats.

Democrats will also mobilize a diverse new generation of young workers through a corps and cohort challenged to conserve our public lands; deliver new clean energy, including to low-income communities and communities of color; and address the changing climate, including through pre-apprenticeship opportunities, joint labor-management registered apprenticeships for training, and direct-hire programs that put good-paying and union jobs within reach for more Americans.

Democrats believe that any clean energy infrastructure project financed with federal support, including through the tax code, should come with robust wage and labor requirements. We will build a modern electric grid by investing in interstate transmission projects and advanced, 21st-century grid technologies to power communities with clean electricity, including federal support to build sustainable and resilient energy grids in rural America and in Tribal areas lacking energy infrastructure. We will reduce methane pollution through strong federal standards and targeted support for repairing and replacing aging distribution systems, which will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, including for the same pipefitters, insulators, and other workers who built the systems in the first place and who know best how to protect our communities from methane pollution.

Democrats will lower families’ energy bills by making energy-saving upgrades to up to two million low-income households and affordable and public housing units within five years, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and promoting safe, healthy, and efficient homes. We will ensure investments in affordable housing and public housing support both energy efficiency retrofits and construction of new units, to greatly increase the number of energy-efficient homes available to low-income families. We will address barriers and increase funding for programs that enable energy efficiency improvements for low-income families in urban and rural areas, including through the Weatherization Assistance Program and the Rural Utilities Service, and incentivize landlords to make energy efficiency and clean energy upgrades that will reduce their tenants’ energy costs.

Democrats believe we can build the clean energy infrastructure of the future using American-made materials. We will support measures to build a clean, equitable, and globally competitive manufacturing sector, including national Buy Clean and Buy America standards to incentivize the production of low-carbon building and construction materials, like steel, cement, and timber, here in the United States. We will apply a carbon adjustment fee at the border to products from countries that fail to live up to their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement because we won’t let polluters undermine American competitiveness.

Democrats oppose the Trump Administration’s reckless and scientifically unsound decision to reverse a proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, a potent neurotoxin proven harmful to children and farmworkers. We will invest to help farmers reduce pesticide and chemical fertilizer use. We will set science-based drinking water standards for emerging contaminants like PFOA and PFAS chemicals and establish aggressive plans for remediating this dangerous pollution. Energy companies should be held responsible for meeting strong standards to protect worker safety, public health, and the environment. Democrats are committed to ensuring tough safeguards in place, including Safe Drinking Water Act provisions, to protect local water supplies. We believe states should not be able to preempt local government decisions about energy production.

America’s national parks and monuments, public lands, and marine protected areas are treasures that should be held in trust for future generations. We will protect these precious places and preserve America’s unspoiled wildernesses for hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping by codifying the roadless rule, and grow America’s outdoor recreation economy, which supports millions of jobs in rural areas. Democrats will immediately reverse the Trump Administration’s harmful rollbacks of protections for national monuments like the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. We support banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters, modifying royalties to account for climate costs, and establishing targeted programs to enhance reforestation and develop renewables on federal lands and waters. We will take action to protect wildernesses and waters and require full, rigorous, and transparent scientific and environmental reviews of any proposed mining projects near national treasures.

Our government and our elections are supposed to reflect the interests of the American people, not only the wealthiest few and the biggest corporations. Democrats will fight to restore and protect Americans’ fundamental right to vote, including by aggressively pushing back against Republican governors, legislatures, and state officials who have disenfranchised people of color, young people, low-income people, and people with disabilities. And we will strictly enforce ethics laws and improve transparency across the federal government in order to rebuild trust with the American people, and will protect civil servants and whistleblowers from political retribution.

Protecting and Enforcing Voting Rights
Democrats are committed to the sacred principle of “one person, one vote”—and we will fight to achieve that principle for every citizen, regardless of race, income, disability status, geography, or English language proficiency. We stand united against the determined Republican campaign to disenfranchise voters through onerous voter ID laws, unconstitutional and excessive purges of the voter rolls, and closures of polling places in low-income neighborhoods, on college campuses, and in communities of color. Americans should never have to wait in hours-long lines to exercise their voting rights.

Reforming the Broken Campaign Finance System
Democrats believe that the interests and the voices of the American people should determine our elections. Money is not speech, and corporations are not people. Democrats will fight to pass a Constitutional amendment that will go beyond merely overturning Citizens United and related decisions like Buckley v. Valeo by eliminating all private financing from federal elections.

Building an Effective, Transparent Federal Government
Every federal employee swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution. It is a sacred promise to the American people—that federal workers, both civil servants and political appointees, will put the interests of the many ahead of their concerns. President Trump and his Administration have abused the trust between the American people and their government—including by denigrating civil servants, directing federal grants and contracts toward their cronies and political donors, inappropriately interfering with federal investigations and firing independent watchdogs, retaliating against whistleblowers, failing to share information as required with Congress, and, most nefariously, violating the law by withholding congressionally appropriated funds in an attempt to get a foreign government to interfere in America’s elections.

Democrats will establish a commission on federal ethics to aggressively enforce and strengthen federal ethics laws, including rules around personal financial disclosures for Executive Branch officials, and make campaign finance, financial disclosure, and lobbying disclosure filings easier for the public to access and understand. We support requiring all candidates for federal office, including presidential candidates, to publicly disclose at least 10 years of tax returns.

The American people deserve assurances that their elected officials and federal appointees work for them, not for special interests. Democrats will re-establish merit-based federal contracting decisions and prohibit political appointees, at the White House or in agency leadership, from interfering in grantmaking. We will restore and re-empower independent inspectors general across the federal government and work to strengthen whistleblower protections to fully protect federal employees from retaliation. And we will ban lobbying by foreign governments and significantly lower the threshold for having to register as a federal lobbyist in order to close loopholes that allow special interests to secretly influence policymaking in Congress and across the federal government.

Democrats condemn President Trump’s determination to sow chaos and division by inappropriately deploying federal agents to American cities, where too many have used egregious tactics against peaceful protestors. We know federal agents can ably protect federal property while also clearly displaying badges, insignias, and identifying markings; without detaining Americans in undisclosed locations without cause; and without brutally attacking peaceful protestors. Democrats are committed to following the rule of law and will uphold the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

The Republican Party has packed our federal courts with unqualified, partisan judges who consistently rule for corporations, the wealthy, and Republican interests. They have undermined the legitimacy of our courts through an anti-democratic, win-at-all-costs campaign that includes blocking a Democratic president from appointing a justice to the Supreme Court and obstructing dozens of diverse lower-court nominees. The Democratic Party recognizes the need for structural court reforms to increase transparency and accountability.

Now more than ever, federal agencies need experts on staff who know how to use science, evidence, data, and facts to guide decision-making on behalf of the American people. As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates, our country needs the best experts working within government to protect and improve the lives of all Americans. Democrats support the recruitment of people with expertise in science, social science, technology, and innovation to jobs in public service to help solve our nation’s most pressing challenges. To ensure that federal funds are invested as effectively and efficiently as possible, the federal government should be using the best available evidence when making budget and spending decisions. Democrats will ensure federal data collection and analysis is adequately funded and designed to allow for disaggregation by race, gender, LGBTQ+ status, geography, disability status, and other important variables so that disparities can be better understood and addressed. Democrats support the widespread use of strategies to promote evidence-based policymaking, including more robust evaluations of tax expenditures and allocating funds for program evaluation, to help ensure the American people are receiving the most productive, efficient services from our federal government.

Making Washington, D.C. the 51st State
It’s time to stop treating the more than 700,000 people who live in our nation’s capital as second-class citizens. The residents of Washington, D.C. pay more per capita in federal income taxes than any state in the country—and more in total federal income tax than 22 states—and yet the District has zero voting representatives in the U.S. Congress. The Congress retains broad power to override budget decisions made by democratically elected officials in Washington, D.C. And as was made shockingly clear to the American people this year, under current law, Washington, D.C. does not have control over its own National Guard units and can be occupied by military forces at the President’s whim. The citizens of Washington, D.C.—a majority of whom are people of color—voted overwhelmingly in favor of statehood in a 2016 referendum and have ratified a state constitution. Democrats unequivocally support statehood for Washington, D.C., so the citizens of the District can at last have full and equal representation in Congress and the rights of self-determination.

Guaranteeing Self-Determination for Puerto Rico
The people of Puerto Rico deserve self-determination on the issue of status.
Democrats are committed to helping the island rebuild and recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria and the recent earthquakes and will mobilize resources across the federal government to address the island’s disparities in energy, infrastructure, health care, education, housing, agriculture, employment, and disaster preparedness. Disaster response in Puerto Rico must be given the same priority and be conducted on the same basis as federal responses to natural disasters elsewhere in the United States. We will forgive disaster relief loans issued to Puerto Rican municipalities following Hurricanes Irma and Maria to help expedite the island’s economic recovery.

Supporting the U.S. Territories
Democrats recognize and honor the contributions and sacrifices made in service of our country by the Americans living in the territories of Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The people of the U.S. territories have played a vital role in American democracy for more than 120 years, and have for too long been met with unequal treatment by the federal government. We support establishing a Congressional task force to gather findings on voting rights in the territories and recommend changes to Congress to allow for the full and equal voting rights of U.S. citizens who are residents of the territories in federal elections and for full and equal voting representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. The American citizens of the U.S. territories should have the right to vote for President of the United States. Democrats will support self-determination for the people of the U.S. territories, including respecting their right to decide their future status in a fair, binding, and equitable manner.

Strengthening the U.S. Postal Service
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is the world’s most efficient mail carrier, and Democrats are wholly committed to supporting a public USPS. We will fight all efforts to privatize the USPS and will work to ensure the USPS is financially sustainable, including by repealing the mandate that the agency “pre-fund” retiree health costs. Democrats will protect the Postal Service’s universal service obligation as a core American value and maintain six-day and doorstep mail delivery, which is a lifeline for rural Americans. We will work to restore service to appropriate levels, including overnight delivery of first-class mail and periodicals within the same metropolitan area, maintaining six-day and door-to-door delivery, and appointing members to the Board of Governors and the Postal Regulatory Commission who champion a strong public Postal Service. We will also support new revenue streams for the USPS, including allowing secure shipping of alcoholic beverages by mail and exploring options to enable unbanked and underbanked Americans to access financial services through the Postal Service.

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The Democratic Party's policies on immigration are centered around creating a more inclusive and humane immigration system. They aim to reverse policies from the Trump administration that they view as harmful and to establish a 21st-century immigration system that reflects American values, enhances the economy, and promotes global competitiveness. Democrats place greater importance on paths to legal status for those who entered the country illegally – especially those who entered as children, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans (80% vs. 37%) to say that establishing a way for most immigrants currently in the country illegally to stay in the U.S. legally is an important goal for the nation’s immigration system. About four in ten Democrats (38%) view this as a very important goal, compared with 10% of Republicans.

Among Democrats, conservatives and moderates are more likely than liberals to say more restrictive goals are very or somewhat important to U.S. immigration policy. Seven in ten conservative and moderate Democrats say increasing border security should be a very or somewhat important goal, compared with 44% of liberal Democrats. Conservative and moderate Democrats are also twice as likely as liberal Democrats (50% vs. 25%) to say increasing deportations should be an important goal.

Liberal Democrats are the most supportive of creating a way for most undocumented immigrants to stay in the country legally: 85% say this should be an important goal, including 44% who say it should be very important. Three-quarters of conservative and moderate Democrats see this as an important goal, including 32% who see it as very important. Among Republicans, half of moderates and liberals say a path to legal status should be an important goal, while only about three in ten conservatives (28%) say the same.
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Key points include:

• Protection of Dreamers: Reinstating and expanding protections for Dreamers and parents of American citizens.
• Protecting asylum: Protecting and expanding the asylum system, including for victims of gang and domestic violence, as well as LGBTQ+ individuals.
• Stop the wealth test: Halting the enforcement of the Trump administration's immigrant wealth test.
• Pathways to citizenship: Providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, particularly those essential to the pandemic response.
• Support family-based immigration: Reversing policies that slash family-based immigration and visa programs like H-1B.
• Prioritize family reunification: Prioritizing family reunification and reforming the system to speed up visas.
• Expand visa opportunities:  for victims of human trafficking and those with Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure.
• Promote workers' rights: Promoting workers' rights and holding employers accountable for abuses against immigrant workers.
• Make immigration courts more independent: Making immigration courts more independent and ensuring that immigration enforcement personnel are professional and accountable.
• Increase opportunities for legal immigration: Increasing opportunities for legal, permanent immigration and improving the green card process.
• Help immigrants become citizens: Supporting programs that help immigrants become full and equal citizens, including funding for immigrant inclusion services, legal support, English classes, and workforce development.
• Address the root causes of migration: Addressing the root causes of migration, such as violence, poverty, corruption, and climate change, through comprehensive strategies and international partnerships.

These policies are designed to strengthen communities, and the economy, and ensure that the United States remains a welcoming country for immigrants.

Education is fundamental to the idea of America and to fulfilling our nation’s promise. It is the key to addressing the challenges before us—to growing our economy, maintaining American competitiveness on the world stage, and building a more just, equitable, civically engaged, and socially conscientious nation. As Democrats, we believe that education is a critical public good—not a commodity—and that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that every child, everywhere, can receive a world-class education that enables them to lead meaningful lives, no matter their race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability status, language status, immigration or citizenship status, household income or ZIP code.

Guaranteeing Universal Early Childhood Education
Democrats believe that all children across the United States should have access to high-quality early childhood education programs. We will work with states to offer pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds and expand Head Start and Early Head Start.

Democrats are committed to safe and supportive school climates for students and educators alike. Guns have no place in our schools. We disagree strongly with the Trump Administration’s dangerous and short-sighted suggestion that teachers should bring firearms into the classroom. Democrats also believe that all schools should have adequate resources to expand school-based health services and hire guidance counselors, social workers, nurses, and school psychologists to help support students’ mental health needs, address trauma, and promote social and emotional development.

It is unacceptable that America’s public schools are more racially segregated today than they were in the late 1960s. Schools—and classrooms and programs within schools—continue to be segregated by race and class. And, with increasing frequency, students are being unnecessarily and unlawfully segregated by disability, language status, and through the use of exclusionary discipline and school-based arrests. We believe that schools must no longer engage in segregation and segregative practices.

We recognize that learning starts at birth, and the exorbitant costs of safe, quality child care present a significant economic burden to families. Democrats support making child care and dependent tax credits significantly more generous and will increase funding to states to guarantee that low-income and middle-class families can afford child care.

Supporting High-Quality K-12 Schools Across America
Each year, the United States spends $23 billion more on schools in predominantly white districts than in non-white districts. Using property taxes to fund public K-12 schools results in inequitable treatment for students in low-income school districts, compared to those in wealthier areas. Democrats are committed to closing the school funding gap by tripling Title I funding, which benefits schools that serve low-income students, and incentivizing states to adopt progressive funding formulas that direct resources to the schools that need it most. We will also ensure sustainable, reliable funding for rural schools, schools in impoverished urban areas impacted by gentrification, and Bureau of Indian Education schools.

Democrats are committed to safe and supportive school climates for students and educators alike. Guns have no place in our schools. We disagree strongly with the Trump Administration’s dangerous and short-sighted suggestion that teachers should bring firearms into the classroom.

Making Higher Education Affordable and Accessible
Democrats believe that everyone should be able to earn a degree beyond high school, if they choose to, without money standing in the way. That is why we will make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students whose families earn less than $125,000—roughly 80 percent of the American people.

Democrats support making community colleges and trade schools tuition-free for all students, including Dreamers. Our nation’s network of two-year community colleges provides accessible, high-quality education for students of all ages.

Democrats oppose the Trump Administration’s cruel and capricious treatment of international students studying in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Young people around the world dream of coming to the United States, especially to study, innovate, and contribute to our research institutions, our economy, and our communities. Winning the talent competition is a major component of winning global competitions in the 21st century.

Providing Borrowers Relief from Crushing Student Debt
Student debt is holding millions of Americans back. The COVID-19 pandemic and President Trump’s recession have made it harder for those with student loans to make ends meet right now. Democrats will work to authorize up to $10,000 in student debt relief per borrower to help families weather this crisis. Democrats support modernizing and improving the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, including making the enrollment process automatic for people who work in schools.

The Trump Administration has let for-profit colleges and universities once again prey upon students with impunity by repealing important protections. Democrats will crack down on predatory for-profit higher education programs, including by issuing requirements that these programs be able to demonstrate their value and effectiveness before becoming eligible for federal student loans. 

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Democrats believe that we can only be strong in the world when we are strong and united at home. We believe that a healthy democracy, a just society, and an inclusive economy are essential prerequisites for effective American leadership abroad. We believe that the ultimate measure —and purpose—of our foreign policy is whether it protects and advances America’s security, prosperity, and values—and delivers results for all Americans.

Democrats believe four more years of Donald Trump will damage our influence beyond repair. But closing the chapter on “America First” is just the beginning of the work ahead. We must meet the world as it is today, not as it was before President Trump’s destruction. That’s why we cannot simply aspire to restore American leadership. We must reinvent it for a new era.

• Revitalizing American Diplomacy
  • Rebuilding America’s Tool of First Resort
  • Reinventing Alliances
  • International Institutions
  • Foreign Assistance and Development
• Transforming Our Armed Forces for the 21st Century
  • Ending Forever Wars
  • Securing our Competitive Edge
  • Defense Spending
  • Keeping Faith with Our Veterans and Military Families
  • Civil-Military Relations
• Mobilizing the World to Address Transnational Challenges
  • Global Health and Pandemics
  • Climate Change
  • Technology
  • Nonproliferation
  • Terrorism
  • Democracy and Human Rights
• Advancing American Interests
  • Global Economy and Trade
  • Africa 86 Americas
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Middle East

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When we do not have competent, experienced, compassionate leaders in government, the American people suffer. That is the case with the novel coronavirus. President Trump and his Administration missed multiple opportunities to protect the American people from this deadly pathogen. Instead of recognizing the danger and confronting it head-on, President Trump lied to the American people about the disease’s severity, its transmissibility, and the threat it posed to lives and livelihoods.

 Make no mistake: President Trump’s abject failure to respond forcefully and capably to the COVID-19 pandemic—his failure to lead—makes him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.

COVID-19 has laid bare deep fault lines in our economy, our society, and our health care system. Disparities in healthcare access, access to paid sick leave, in environmental quality, the employment market, and housing have contributed to disproportionate rates of infection and death among Black Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, and certain Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

President Trump’s failure to pay attention to early intelligence reports about the pandemic wasted critical weeks in which we could have prepared for the outbreak. Once the pandemic began spreading in the United States, the President’s failure to lay out clear, consistent guidelines for cities, states, businesses, and school districts to control the spread of COVID-19 created widespread confusion and chaos. His reckless disregard for the advice of public health experts has made it harder for mayors and governors to protect the American people. Rather than surge the production of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies where they were needed most, the Administration held life-saving resources hostage for political obeisance. Instead of bringing Americans together, President Trump tried to divide us, using racist and xenophobic rhetoric that has contributed to an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. During the pandemic, the Trump Administration is arguing in court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and rip health coverage away from tens of millions of people.

President Trump and his Administration have also failed to drive an economic response that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge before us, preferring to act as though the recession caused by his incompetent mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic will correct itself. He has hung small businesses out to dry while cutting blank checks to the largest corporations; failed to enact adequate support for public school systems, colleges, universities, and state and local governments to maintain public services and jobs; endangered the health of essential workers by failing to enact workplace safety standards; and neglected to protect working families from economic ruin.

Democrats will save lives by using every available tool to beat back this pandemic, which continues to sicken and kill hundreds of Americans per day and lead a global effort to prevent, detect, and respond to future pandemic threats.

Democrats are appalled that President Trump failed to act on the advice of Congress to maintain a strong stockpile of critical medical supplies, including personal protective equipment, or adequately surge U.S. manufacturing of needed equipment through tools like the Defense Production Act. The resulting equipment shortages endangered millions of lives, including those of our brave frontline healthcare workers and other essential workers. Such shortages are unacceptable and must never happen again.

Democrats believe we must reverse decades of underinvestment in America’s public health infrastructure. We will substantially increase funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and for state and local public health departments, many of which suffered deep budget cuts during the Great Recession and are at risk of further cuts as a result of President Trump’s recession.

President Trump and his Administration have not only failed the American people, they have failed the world. In past public health crises, including the Ebola epidemic, disciplined American diplomacy shaped and led a common global response, rallied public and private resources, accelerated research into treatments and vaccines, and directed global emergency aid. In the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump not only failed to lead, he actively sabotaged global efforts to slow the pandemic. He refused to work with our partners to identify and coordinate the manufacture of potential vaccines; allegedly tried to poach exclusive rights to a vaccine candidate from our ally Germany; cut CDC and State Department programs for early identification of infectious pathogens; withdrew funding and support for the World Health Organization (WHO); and tried to distract from his dereliction of duty by drawing from the authoritarian playbook he so admires—using racist rhetoric to blame “outsiders” and stoke divisions at home.

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