Democratic Party Platform 2024 PDF

Democratic National Convention Land Acknowledgement The Democratic National Committee wishes to acknowledge that we gather together to state our values on lands that have been stewarded through many centuries by the ancestors and descendants of Tribal Nations who have been here since time immemoria...

Democratic National Convention Land Acknowledgement The Democratic National Committee wishes to acknowledge that we gather together to state our values on lands that have been stewarded through many centuries by the ancestors and descendants of Tribal Nations who have been here since time immemorial. We honor the communities native to this continent, and recognize that our country was built on Indigenous homelands. We pay our respects to the millions of Indigenous people throughout history who have protected our lands, waters, and animals. While we meet in Chicago, we also recognize and honor the traditional homelands of the Anishinaabe, also known as the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. We acknowledge the many other tribes who consider this area their traditional homeland, including the Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac and Fox, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Wea, Kickapoo, and Mascouten. Democrats continue to support tribes as they advocate for the United States to uphold treaty and trust responsibilities. We applaud that in 2024, under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation became the first federally recognized Tribal Nation in Illinois in 175 years, when the U.S. Department of the Interior placed 130 acres of the Shab-eh-nay reservation in nearby DeKalb County into trust. 1 Preamble Our nation is at an inflection point. What kind of America will we be? A land of more freedom, or less freedom? More rights or fewer? An economy rigged for the rich and powerful, or where everyone has a fair shot at getting ahead? Will we lower the temperature in our politics and come together, or treat each other as enemies instead? The stakes in this election are enormously high. President Biden and Vice President Harris took office during a time of global pandemic, record job loss, and record crime. These past four years, Democrats proved once again that democracy can deliver, and made tremendous progress turning the country around. President Biden and Vice President Harris turned a setback into a great American comeback for working families. We’ve created nearly 16 million jobs, a record number of small businesses are being started, and factories are coming home. We lowered families' health insurance premiums, and we stood up to Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices. We’re helping students catch up on learning loss, and we’re forgiving millions of crushing student loans. We passed the first significant gun safety law in decades and made record investments in public safety, putting more police officers on the beat; today, violent crime is at its lowest in 50 years. We’re fighting climate change, reducing pollution, and fueling a clean energy boom. We’re rebuilding our nation’s roads, bridges, highways, ports, airports, water systems, and more. We’re seizing record amounts of fentanyl and securing our border in the face of Republican inaction. We’re closing the racial wealth gap and the gender pay gap. We’ve expanded benefits and services for toxic-exposed veterans; and we’re strengthening NATO and restoring American leadership in the world. There is so much more to do. Democrats will fix the tax system so everyone has a fair shot. We will restore the right to choose. We will continue to bring down costs for families. We will continue to reject political violence of all forms and give hate no safe harbor. Donald Trump has a very different vision – one focused not on opportunity and optimism, but on revenge and retribution; not on the American people, but on himself. He and his extreme MAGA allies are ripping away our bedrock personal freedoms, dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love. They’re rigging our economy for their rich friends and big corporations, pushing more trickle-down tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful, and a new national sales tax that will cost every working family an average $2,500 a year. They’ll cut the Social Security benefits that folks have paid into for their whole lives; and gut Medicare, Medicaid, health care, and prescription drug coverage. They are eroding our democracy with lies and threats, have refused to denounce political violence, and are making it harder to vote. And given the chance, they’ll keep stacking our courts, locking in their extreme agenda for decades. We cannot let that happen. President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats are running to finish the job. To grow our economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. To reward work, not 2 wealth. To lower costs. To tackle the climate crisis, lower energy costs, and secure energy independence. To protect communities and tackle the scourge of gun violence. To secure the border and fix the broken immigration system. To advance the President’s Unity Agenda. To strengthen American leadership worldwide. History has shown that nothing about democracy is guaranteed. Every generation has to protect it, preserve it, choose it. We must stand together to choose what we want America to be. 3  Table of Contents Chapter One: Growing Our Economy from the Bottom Up & Middle Out 8 Economic Progress 8 Investing In America 9 Good Jobs 10 Small Businesses 12 Agriculture 13 Fighting Poverty 14 Ending Special Interest Giveaways 15 Chapter Two: Rewarding Work, Not Wealth 16 Cutting Taxes For Working Families 17 Making The Wealthy & Big Corporations Pay Their Fair Share 17 Chapter Three: Lowering Costs 19 Health Care & Prescription Drugs 19 Child Care, Home Care, & Paid Leave 22 Gas & Groceries 24 Corporate Greed 24 Housing 25 Education 28 Social Security, Pensions, & Medicare 30 Chapter Four: Tackling the Climate Crisis, Lowering Energy Costs, & Securing Energy Independence 32 Producing Cleaner, More Affordable Energy 33 Lowering Energy Costs 33 Creating Clean Energy Jobs 34 Reducing Pollution & Making Polluters Pay 35 Environmental Justice 36 Building Climate Resilient Communities 38 Conservation 38 Global Climate Leadership 39 Chapter Five: Protecting Communities & Tackling the Scourge of Gun Violence 41 Gun Safety 41 Policing & Public Safety 42 Criminal Justice 43 Violence Against Women 45 Chapter Six: Strengthening Democracy, Protecting Freedoms, & Advancing Equity 47 Judges 48 Voting Rights 49 4  Stopping The Influence Of Special Interests 50 Reproductive Freedom 50 Women’s Rights 52 Racial Equity 54 Lgbtqi+ 58 Disability 60 Tribal Nations 61 Combating Hate & Protecting Freedom Of Religion 62 Freedom Of The Press 64 Arts & Humanities 64 D.C., Puerto Rico, Territories 65 Chapter Seven: Securing our Border & Fixing the Broken Immigration System 67 Securing The Border 68 Expanding Legal Immigration & Deterring Illegal Immigration 70 Chapter Eight: Advancing the President’s Unity Agenda 73 Beating The Opioid Epidemic 73 Investing In Mental Health 74 Protecting Kids Online, Strengthening Americans’ Data Privacy, & Promoting Competition 74 Ending Cancer As We Know It 76 Meeting Our Nation’s Sacred Obligation To Veterans And Military Families 77 Chapter Nine: Strengthening American Leadership Worldwide 79 Europe 79 Indo-Pacific 81 China 82 The Middle East & North Africa 84 Western Hemisphere 87 Africa 88 Strengthening The U.S. And Global Economy 89 Leading With Diplomacy And American Values 90 Strongest Military In The World 92 5 Chapter One: Growing Our Economy from the Bottom Up & Middle Out This election is a choice between two very different economic visions for America: Donald Trump, who sees the world from his country club at Mar-a-Lago; and Joe Biden, who sees it from kitchen tables in Scranton like the one he grew up around. His economic agenda is about Main Street, not Wall Street. It’s about ending the days of trickle-down economics and investing in America – in all Americans – and delivering for communities too long left behind. While Democrats keep fighting to lower costs for working families, Trump is rigging our economy for his Mar-a-Lago friends and billionaire donors, who like him, are only in it for themselves. As president, Trump doubled down on the trickle-down policies of the past, cutting investment in infrastructure and education, and rewarding big corporations that ship jobs and profits overseas. He vowed to bring new factories to communities across America, but left nothing behind but a string of broken promises. Democrats have a different record. We’re delivering on President Biden’s pledge to rebuild our economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. We’re investing in America – in our infrastructure, our industry, our people, and our future. While Trump left office with historic budget deficits and the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, since President Biden took office, this country has come back from the brink, the deficit has fallen by over $1 trillion, and we have the best jobs record since John F. Kennedy. We’re powering the strongest economic recovery in the world. ECONOMIC PROGRESS At the start of the Biden-Harris Administration, in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 100 years, experts feared a stagnating recovery and even worried about a new recession. But Democrats chose to put workers first, and instead of recession, America has seen remarkable strength and resilience. Our economy grew by 3.1 percent last year – the fastest rate of any major economy in the world. We’ve added nearly 16 million jobs – not only recovering all the positions lost during Trump’s botched handling of COVID, but also adding 6.3 million more than existed before the pandemic – surpassing pre-pandemic projections for the labor market. During this Administration, 30 states from Mississippi to Pennsylvania have seen record-low unemployment; and the run of low unemployment nationwide hasn’t been this long in over 50 years. Wages are up across the board, and rising fastest for lower-income workers, Black workers, Latinos, and women. Today’s recovery is the fairest on record; in just four years, we’ve erased 40 percent of the wage inequality gap that took four decades to build. A record 18 million small business applications have been filed since President Biden took office, each one of them an act of hope. While too many families still feel the pain of inflation at the grocery store, or around the 6 kitchen table when they sit down to pay their bills, we’re making progress. Wages are rising faster than prices, and inflation today is down nearly two-thirds from its peak. We have to finish the job. Democrats will keep fighting to prevent the kind of supply chain shocks and corporate greed that have done so much to raise prices. And we'll keep investing in American workers, American jobs, and American families, bringing factories home to win the race for the future. Democrats know the story of the middle class isn’t separate from the state of the economy – it’s at its heart. And we’ll never quit fighting to make sure that everyone is in on the deal. INVESTING IN AMERICA Infrastructure We can’t have the best economy in the world if we don’t have the best infrastructure. And for generations, American infrastructure was the envy of the world. But over the years, we stopped investing in it, and we fell to thirteenth in infrastructure rankings. The Trump Administration declared it “Infrastructure Week” every week for four years, and never built a thing. But under President Biden, we’re finally rebuilding our roads, bridges, ports, airports, water systems, electric grids, broadband, and more, paving the way for a great American “Infrastructure Decade” that will create hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is breaking ground on over 57,000 projects across 4,500 communities nationwide. We’re rebuilding major roadways, from the Blatnik Bridge, a vital link between Wisconsin and Minnesota that carries more $4 billion in goods a year through the largest Great Lakes port; to a key stretch of the I-10 outside Phoenix that sees 126,000 vehicles a day. We’re making the biggest investment in public transit in history, and at last building America’s first true high-speed rail lines. We’re replacing every toxic lead pipe in the country within a decade, so every child can turn on the faucet at home or at school and drink clean water without risking cancer or brain damage. We’ve added over 80,000 megawatts of new clean power capacity, the equivalent of building 40 Hoover Dams, to help shrink energy costs and meet ambitious climate goals. And we’re bringing affordable, reliable, high-speed internet to every American household. High-speed internet is as vital to our economy today as electricity first was a century ago; Americans need it to do their jobs, to do their homework, to access health care, and to stay connected. But a full 45 million of us still live in areas where there is no high-speed internet. Democrats are closing that divide. These projects don’t just build infrastructure, they create hundreds of thousands of good jobs for American workers. Manufacturing Democrats are also taking historic steps to bring home critical supply chains, and to reaffirm our nation’s leadership in cutting-edge industries that America in fact often pioneered. After the pandemic exposed our reliance on foreign-made semiconductors, we passed the CHIPS and Science Act, to restore America’s role producing the tiny computer chips needed to make everything from cell phones to dishwashers to cars. And as the climate crisis makes the shift to clean energy more urgent, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, making the world’s biggest investment ever in building renewable energy, electric vehicles, and other green technologies here at home. 7 The President's Investing in America agenda has incentivized a historic $877 billion in private funding across the United States to date. Companies are investing hundreds of billions more than under Trump to build new factories. In fact, under President Biden, more than a dozen states have seen the largest private sector investments in their history. We’ve designated more than 30 tech hubs in communities from Reno, Nevada; to Charlotte, North Carolina; to North Central Pennsylvania. And we’ve made sure that lower-income counties see a larger share of investment. Today, instead of exporting American jobs for cheaper labor, we’re creating American jobs and exporting products, leaving no one behind. Under President Biden, we’ve also boosted funding for the kind of research and development that can seed economy-transforming breakthroughs, like the internet. In recent years, America became one of the world’s only major countries to pull back on R&D investments; Democrats are changing that. President Biden for example launched the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) in 2022, to find game-changing medical cures and treatments and transform important areas of medicine. Under his leadership, we’ll continue supporting NASA and America’s presence on the International Space Station, and working to send Americans back to the moon and to Mars. Democrats will keep America at the forefront of scientific discovery and innovation, responsibly leading the way in the defining fields of the future, like AI, biotech, quantum computing, advanced materials, and more. GOOD JOBS These generational investments are transforming our economy, creating new businesses, new jobs, and new cycles of hope – in red states and blue states; in rural, urban, and Tribal Nation communities too long left behind. In all, President Biden’s agenda has already created nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs, and 880,000 more jobs in construction, building the roads, factories, and dreams of our future. More Americans are employed in these fields and clean energy today than ever were under Trump. President Biden’s agenda requires that any federally-financed infrastructure job must include wage and labor protections. And we’re making sure that these projects use American-made goods, by strengthening “Buy American” procurement rules to their toughest level in seven decades. That means every federally funded infrastructure project is being built with American-made steel, lumber, drywall, concrete, and other products, by American workers. And the Administration has taken historic steps to ensure that these workers are paid prevailing wages, with the free and fair choice to join a union; and to incentivize project labor agreements. President Biden believes that you shouldn't have to go to a four-year college to live a good, middle-class life. Democrats are working to make sure that every American can access these quality new jobs, where many people can earn over $100,000 a year. The American Rescue Plan supported more than 4,300 state- and local-government workforce development programs; while our Investing in American agenda is expanding job-training partnerships between high schools, community colleges, unions, and employers. We have a million trainees enrolled in registered apprenticeships today. Apprenticeships have long provided a reliable path to the middle class, empowering workers to earn while they learn, not only in traditional trades, but also in new cutting-edge industries. Extreme Republicans 8 have proposed gutting funding for registered apprenticeships in this year's budget. We’ll keep making historic investments in them to keep expanding opportunity, including by partnering directly with unions. Democrats know that Wall Street didn’t build America. The middle class built America – and unions built the middle class. President Biden and Vice President Harris are proud to lead the most pro-union Administration in history. President Biden named staunch labor allies and former union leaders to positions across the government, and empowered them to fight for good jobs and workers’ rights. Biden is the first President to walk a picket line, joining UAW workers on strike in Detroit before they won historic wage increases last year. He knows that when unions win, all workers benefit; and as we rebuild our economy for the future, every worker needs a voice and a fair shot. Democrats will keep fighting to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, to give everyone the right to organize for better pay, benefits, and working conditions, and to hold abusive bosses accountable for violating workers’ rights. We oppose state right-to-work laws, which drive down wages and leave workers unsafe; and we support penalizing employers who engage in union busting. We’ll work to pass the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, guaranteeing public sector bargaining rights; and to codify a right to organize for domestic workers, farm workers, and other unprotected laborers. Democrats will continue to create strong labor standards for jobs created with taxpayer dollars through legislation and with strong Buy American rules. Consistent with the law, we will ensure that federal grants and other assistance to employers are contingent on recipients committing to not interfering with workers’ efforts to form a union. By leveraging the benefits of federal grants for infrastructure, manufacturing and services, we will seek to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to participate in the American Dream. We’ll strengthen enforcement and penalties for safety, wage, and other labor and employment violations. And, Democrats will continue to aggressively hold companies accountable for violating child labor law. We’ve increased funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to protect workers on the job; and we’ll continue to support workplace whistleblowers. At the same time, we’re pushing to guarantee workers the pay, benefits, and protections they deserve as well. We passed the Butch Lewis Act, keeping over 2 million people’s hard-earned pensions solvent. We also raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to $17.20 an hour, and will keep pushing Congress to increase it to at least $15 for all Americans. We’re making millions more hourly workers eligible for overtime pay; and we’ve cracked down on wage theft and exploitation, recovering over $750 million for low-wage workers wrongly denied pay. We’re making it harder for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying them full pay and benefits. We’re banning most non-compete agreements, freeing workers to move between jobs and negotiate. And we’ve restricted mandatory arbitration, so fewer employers can silence wronged employees in a workplace dispute. We also recognize that the U.S. Postal Service is the world’s most efficient, and Democrats are wholly committed to supporting a public U.S.P.S. We will fight all efforts to privatize it and will work to ensure that it’s financially sustainable. We will protect its universal service 9 obligation and on-time delivery. And we will support a Board of Governors and a Postal Regulatory Commission that champion a strong public Postal Service. Trump has a very different record. As President, he not only failed to bring manufacturing jobs home, he pushed to cut funding for R&D and job training. He gave tax breaks to big corporations, with no condition that they invest in workers or innovation in return. He stacked his Labor Department and National Labor Relations Board with corporate lawyers who made it harder to organize, not easier. His Administration ripped protections from federal workers, slashed workplace safety inspections, and blocked increases in overtime pay. Now, Trump and his allies are vowing to repeal key pieces of the Biden agenda – stalling historic progress; undermining American manufacturing; and costing hundreds of thousands of Americans the good paychecks and future prospects that they deserve. Democrats won’t let that happen. We fought hard to pass the most significant investments in America in generations. Now, we’ll continue the important work of implementing them, to be sure that the benefits are shared in every corner of America and create good-paying jobs that folks can raise a family on, with the chance to join a union, and that rely on materials made here at home. We cannot go backwards. We have to own these industries and jobs of the future. SMALL BUSINESSES Small businesses are the engine of America’s economy and the glue of our communities. They employ nearly half of all private sector workers, and drive half of all economic activity. They embody the vision and grit that literally built this country. When President Biden took office, our economy was reeling and millions of small businesses were hanging by a thread. Business owners faced the prospect of losing not just their livelihoods, but their dreams, their life’s savings, and their hopes of leaving something behind for their kids. So Democrats moved fast. Within weeks, we reformed the Paycheck Protection Program, getting game-changing help to thousands of America’s smallest businesses, which had been shut out by Trump. Then, we passed the American Rescue Plan and helped 6 million small businesses pay their bills and workers and stay afloat. And thanks to that legislation, we provided additional support to 100,000 restaurants and 220,000 child care centers serving millions of kids, which working parents rely on. Not a single Republican voted for it. Since then, Democrats have passed other historic laws, to build infrastructure, semiconductors, clean energy, and the small-business supply chains that support those cutting-edge industries, here at home. The Administration is expanding access to capital, business opportunities, and training to help those small businesses; while working for a fairer tax code, to level the playing field for small entrepreneurs who have to compete against corporate giants. The Administration has invested a record $12 billion in Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs), to support small businesses and growth across low-income communities. The Small Business Administration is nearly halfway to its goal of providing $250 billion in financing to 500,000 small businesses by 2030. For example, to get mom-and-pop businesses the small loans, under $150,000, that are often hard to secure, the SBA has brought in additional non-traditional lenders that specialize in working 10 with underserved small businesses. It’s now on track to double these loans by year’s end, compared to 2020. The Administration is also directing billions of dollars to community lenders and state-level small-business programs. Along with initiatives like Vice President Harris’s Economic Opportunity Coalition, it is mobilizing hundreds of billions more in private investment. At the same time, the federal government this year set a record for small business contract spending, awarding them 28 percent of total procurement dollars, directly supporting a million jobs. It is on track to meet its goal of increasing federal contracts awarded to small disadvantaged businesses by 50 percent. As a result, America is today in the midst of a historic small-business boom. A record 18 million new business applications have been filed since Joe Biden became president – the three strongest years of new business growth in history, and over 90 percent faster than pre-pandemic averages. Since the pandemic, the share of Black households owning a business has more than doubled, Latino business ownership is up 40 percent, and women own a record share of businesses. As President Biden often says, each new business formed is an act of hope. Thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Minority Business Development Agency is now a permanent part of the Commerce Department, where it’s training underserved entrepreneurs. The SBA’s innovative Community Navigators program meanwhile helped 350,000 small businesses tap into resources that have helped them grow. In a second Biden term, we’ll make that Navigator program permanent, and include new lenders, new markets, and fairer taxes. Trump still puts Wall Street before Main Street. As president, he slashed the tax rate for giant corporations, but left small businesses behind. His disastrous response to COVID funneled assistance to well-connected friends and companies, but left too many of our smallest businesses without essential help. More than 300,000 closed. He’s now running on a plan to double-down on his tax scam to benefit big corporations and billionaires. His Congressional allies keep trying to slash SBA funding, and to repeal our investments in infrastructure and manufacturing – the same ones that are lowering costs for small businesses, boosting their revenue, and helping millions to thrive. Democrats won’t let that happen. AGRICULTURE American farmers are the backbone of our country. They feed America, and help feed the world. But over the years, trickle-down economics has hit rural America hard. Farming costs have gone up and incomes have gone down. Big Agriculture moved in, telling too many small farms that the surest path to success was to get big or get out. As a result, we lost over 400,000 farms in America in the last 40 years, and rural communities have paid a steep price. Too many young people have had to leave their hometowns to find good-paying work and a shot at their dreams. The President believes that no one should have to leave the community where they grew up just to find opportunity. His Investing in America agenda is investing in all of America, including farms and rural areas. It’s creating new sources of income for farmers and increasing competition among suppliers, to both lower the cost of farm inputs and to get 11 small and mid-size farmers a larger share of profits. The Inflation Reduction Act is helping farmers and ranchers adopt climate-smart practices, which make the land more resilient and increase profitability, while connecting them to new markets and premiums for sustainably produced commodities. The Administration recognizes the critical role that our land stewards play in our food systems, economy, and environment, and is working hard to drive both public and private funds to reward these champions for nature for their hard work. The Administration has also supported independent meat and poultry processing, reducing producers’ reliance on big companies to buy their product; and it’s working to make livestock and poultry markets fairer and more transparent. Today, family farms have more income from more varied sources, so their children have more opportunity to stay family farmers. At the same time, the Administration is helping family farmers service distressed loans in order to keep their lands and ultimately pass them down to their kids. It has worked with many farmers to boost the production of expensive fertilizer, increasing supply and easing costs for everyone else. The U.S.D.A. also expanded farm insurance to allow for more double cropping, a practice that increases farm earnings, expands the food supply, and helps lower average food prices for American families. Going forward, Democrats will also work to get farmers the right to repair their own equipment, without having to pay big equipment makers for diagnostic tools and repairs. And we will look to further limit foreign ownership of U.S. farmland to protect our food supply and national security. Throughout, Democrats have stood by farm workers. We are working to improve workers’ safety at meat processing facilities, and we will continue to enforce and advance labor and environmental rules, for example promoting organizing rights and requiring overtime pay, and boosting protections against harmful pesticides and extreme heat. FIGHTING POVERTY As Democrats, we believe in an America where people look out for one another and leave no one behind. But we know we still have a long way to go to make America’s promise real for everyone. Some 40 million Americans still live in poverty. The pandemic made things worse, hitting the poor hardest, and pushing millions more families to the brink. The American Rescue Plan drove poverty to record lows in 2021. It expanded the Child Tax Credit and made it available to all low-income children for the first time, helping to slash child poverty by nearly half. It tripled the maximum Earned Income Tax Credit for millions of low-income workers, so their taxes wouldn’t push them deeper into poverty. It kept 8 million families in their homes, child care centers open, and small businesses on their feet. It increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, helping tens of millions of Americans keep food on the table. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. And the Administration has done more. It reversed a Trump-era policy that would have risked putting half-a-million children in poverty. It modernized SNAP benefits for the first time since 1975, permanently increasing them and lifting more than 2 million people, including over a million children, out of poverty as well. President Biden signed into law a permanent special summer nutrition program that will help 21 million kids. And he successfully blocked Congressional Republican proposals that would’ve increased poverty by slashing health care, housing, food assistance, and more. 12 Now, it’s time to finish the job. Democrats know that most folks fundamentally want the same things – not a hand out, but a fair shot. That’s why we’ll keep pushing to restore the expanded Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, which proved so effective at reducing poverty before Republicans let them expire. We’ll work to finally raise the federal minimum wage to at least $15-an-hour. We’ll fight for paid leave, better health care, and more investment in public schools and affordable housing. We’ll reduce the need for foster care, by supporting families and engaging kin. We’ll further expand public transit, connecting communities that have been cut off for too long. We’ll keep working to get more low-income families access to affordable banking as well, and to boost the supply of capital and loans by investing more in CDFIs. We’ll also push to make the New Markets Tax Credit permanent, drawing new investment to low-income communities nationwide. And we’ll continue to reject Republican proposals to increase poverty by making devastating cuts to programs that vulnerable Americans count on. In the wealthiest nation on earth, we all benefit when we help one another. Democrats will keep working to build an economy that rewards work, not wealth; where we care for the most vulnerable, and unleash the potential that all our children have to grow and thrive. We remain committed to fighting poverty and enabling all Americans to live up to their God-given potential. ENDING SPECIAL INTEREST GIVEAWAYS To invest in the American people and reduce the deficit, Democrats are also ending giveaways to big corporations and special interests that have benefitted at the expense of American taxpayers for too long. We’re seizing a tremendous opportunity for savings on prescription drugs and insurance. The Administration has already cracked down on one of Big Pharma’s biggest scams, by finally giving Medicare, the single biggest buyer of drugs in America, the ability to negotiate lower prescription drug prices, as the VA and private insurers have done for years. The Administration is also requiring drugmakers to reimburse Medicare if they hike prices faster than inflation. That kind of markup pads Big Pharma profits, wasting taxpayer dollars. Democrats will expand the number of drugs subject to price caps and negotiation under the Inflation Reduction Act, saving taxpayers nearly $160 billion over the next 10 years, as Medicare will no longer have to pay Big Pharma exorbitant prices. At the same time, we’ll keep pushing to crack down on outsize insurance company profits, for example by requiring health insurers to reimburse Medicaid if they bill more than they actually spend on patient care. We also believe in saving taxpayers money by investing more in preventative health care, vaccines, and other treatment for Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries, avoiding unnecessary medical costs by keeping folks healthy – investing in America, and in the American people. 13 Chapter Two: Rewarding Work, Not Wealth To any American with the ingenuity and drive to make a million bucks, President Biden says, great. Just pay your fair share in taxes. A hedge fund manager or CEO should never pay a lower tax rate than a teacher or firefighter. A company with billions of dollars in profits should not pay $0 in taxes. A fair tax code is how we invest in the things that make our nation strong, like health care, education, a clean environment, and the national defense. It’s how we protect programs that Americans rely on, like Social Security and Medicare. It’s how we build a powerful economy, reduce fiscal risks, and lead the world. Donald Trump is focused on rigging the game for his billionaire donors instead. He always puts himself and his rich friends first. In 2017, he enacted a reckless, unpaid-for tax cut that overwhelmingly benefited the very wealthy and biggest corporations. It was full of outrageous giveaways, including a massive tax break for the wealthiest 0.1 percent. It slashed the corporate tax rate by nearly half, with executives plowing their windfalls into stock buybacks for their own benefit, rather than investing in workers or better products, or lowering prices. After weakening labor protections and complaining that wages are "too high,” Trump is now telling donors behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago: “You’re rich as hell, and we’re going to give you tax cuts.” That trickle-down approach never worked. Trump’s allies predicted that his tax scam would push economic growth as high as 6 percent, but America’s growth rate barely changed. The law had no impact on the average American’s income – only boosting wages for those in the top 10 percent. Trump’s allies claimed it would pay for itself, but it instead exploded the federal deficit by $2 trillion. Trump’s policies added more to our national debt than has ever been added in a presidential term. Corporate profits have doubled since the pandemic, yet Trump wants to reward corporations with another big tax cut. Republicans are doubling down on Trump’s failed approach and have proposed $1 trillion in new corporate tax cuts. They’ll repeal the estate tax, so the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans can pass wealth on to their heirs tax-free. They’ll give American billionaires an average $3.5 million tax break – a giveaway nearly 50 times bigger than what the average family earns in a year. House Republicans have vowed to pay for part of all that by cutting Social Security and Medicare for everyone else. Economists say Trump’s billionaire giveaways and extreme tariffs will slow growth, cost jobs, and trigger a recession his first year back in office, raising taxes on middle-class families by $2,500 a year, and adding trillions to the deficit. Democrats have a different view. We don’t believe we should add $5 trillion to the national debt to give more tax breaks skewed to the wealthy and big corporations. We’re fighting to reward work, not wealth – to cut costs and make the tax code fairer for the middle class, while making the wealthy and big corporations finally pay their fair share. Under President Biden’s plan, no American earning less than $400,000 a year will pay one single penny more in federal taxes, period. We’re working to end special interest giveaways, and to make sure all Americans play by the same rules. And instead of exploding the national deficit, our plan 14 cuts it by $3 trillion over the next decade, delivering real results for the American people in a fiscally responsible way. CUTTING TAXES FOR WORKING FAMILIES Democrats will protect everyone earning less than $400,000 a year from any tax increase; and we will fight to protect and expand other tax benefits for working people and families with children. During the pandemic, Democrats expanded the Child Tax Credit, saving nearly 40 million families with 65 million children up to $3,600 per child per year, and cutting child poverty nearly in half to its lowest rate on record. We expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit as well, saving over 17 million low-paid workers an average $700 a year. And, we expanded the health insurance premium tax credit, saving millions of families who buy coverage on an Affordable Care Act exchange about $800 a year. Republicans are opposed to this tax relief for families that need it. They already blocked renewal of our Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit expansions, pushing 3 million children back into poverty. Republicans also keep trying to repeal our premium tax credit expansions, which will raise health care costs for millions of families. Democrats will keep fighting to restore and protect that tax relief, giving tens of millions of families some breathing room again. And President Biden has also proposed a $10,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers and people selling their first homes, to help reduce housing costs for working families. The Treasury Department and the IRS are also making it easier and cheaper for Americans to file their taxes and collect the refunds they’re owed. The IRS successfully piloted a free, easy-to-use online tool, Direct File, which has already saved taxpayers millions of dollars in filing fees. It has since announced that Direct File will be a permanent offering, saving users an average $150 in filing costs – but Republicans keep trying to defund this free tool. MAKING THE WEALTHY & BIG CORPORATIONS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE President Biden’s plans will cut taxes for middle-class and low-income Americans – and we’ll finance those cuts by making the ultra-wealthy and big corporations finally start paying their fair share. There are a thousand billionaires in America, and they pay an average 8 percent in taxes – a far lower rate than a firefighter or teacher. Democrats will make billionaires pay a minimum income tax rate of 25 percent, raising $500 billion in 10 years. We’ll end the preferential treatment for capital gains for millionaires, so they pay the same rate on investment income as on wages. We’ll put an end to abusive life insurance tax shelters, and stop billionaires from exploiting retirement tax incentives that are supposed to help middle-class families save. We’ll eliminate the “stepped-up basis” loophole for the wealthiest Americans, so they can’t avoid 15 paying taxes on their wealth by passing it down to heirs. Democrats will close the “carried interest” loophole, which wealthy fund managers have long used to halve tax rates on their own personal pay, so they pay a lower rate than some teachers or firefighters do. That’s wrong. And, we’ll increase our new stock buyback tax to 4 percent to discourage stock buybacks that benefit executives and wealthy shareholders, instead of workers and consumers. We will also keep upping the pressure on wealthy and corporate tax cheats that fail to pay what they owe. The IRS was severely underfunded for years; but Democrats are improving IRS services for everyday taxpayers and reviving enforcement against wealthy and corporate tax cheats, raising more than an estimated $440 billion in additional revenue as a result. The IRS has already collected over $500 million in unpaid taxes from less than 2,000 delinquent millionaires, and launched efforts aimed at thousands of other millionaires who hadn’t filed a return in years. Democrats will protect this progress by continuing to invest in modernizing the IRS. Republicans are working to reverse it, protecting wealthy tax cheats and increasing the deficit instead. Democrats will also make billion-dollar companies pay their fair share. In 2020, 55 of the biggest companies in America made $40 billion in profit, but paid zero in federal income taxes. Corporations are seeing record margins, but their share of federal taxes has fallen below 10 percent, down from 30 percent in the 1950s. It’s wrong. Trump doesn’t care: he slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent, down from 35 percent. President Biden will raise that rate back to 28 percent. And for those billion-dollar tax dodgers, the President signed a historic 15 percent corporate minimum tax into law. He also reached a global minimum tax agreement with 140 countries, so that big multinational companies will no longer be able to pit nations against one another in a race to the bottom. And, Biden will double the tax rate that American multinationals pay on foreign earnings to 21 percent; and end incentives, introduced by Trump, that encourage companies to shift jobs and operations overseas and book profits in low-tax countries. Democrats oppose unfair loopholes and wasteful subsidies that benefit special interests at everyone else’s expense. We will fight to get rid of them. That starts by eliminating tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for oil and gas companies. It means ending special tax breaks for corporate jets, and boosting fuel taxes on corporate and private jet travel, saving taxpayers $4 billion over 10 years. And we’ll no longer permit companies to deduct the cost of paying executives more than $1 million a year. Corporations shouldn’t get a tax break for giving huge pay packages to CEOs. We’ll also eliminate the so-called “like-kind exchange” loophole that allows wealthy real estate investors to avoid paying taxes on real estate profits, as long as they keep investing in real estate – a tax break that Trump protected for himself and other corporate landlords in his 2017 tax scam. No other industry has that kind of sweetheart deal; it ends now. 16 Chapter Three: Lowering Costs Today, our economy is growing, wages are rising, and a record number of Americans have good jobs. But for too many hard-working families, the cost of living is too high. Lowering costs is Democrats’ number one economic priority. We’re using every tool to bring prices down on health insurance and prescription drugs, including negotiating the price of commonly used drugs for diabetes and heart failure; and on housing, child care, internet, banking, credit cards, and more. We have more to do, but our actions are already putting thousands of dollars a year back in people’s pockets. Those savings add up, and Democrats will keep fighting until every American feels them. When the pandemic disrupted supply chains, everyday items became hard to get, raising prices. When Russia invaded Ukraine, food and gas prices spiked more. As companies’ costs went up, they raised prices, too. President Biden worked across industries to ease supply bottlenecks and get goods and energy flowing again. He delivered, and inflation has since dropped two-thirds from its peak. But some companies haven’t passed those new savings on to consumers. Their costs have come down, but they’ve kept prices high anyway, boosting profits. Corporate profits have more than doubled since 2017. Last year, after-tax profit ratios for corporations outside the financial sector were their highest in 90 years. President Biden’s lowering costs agenda is historic in scope, attacking the issue from every angle to help cut costs for consumers, crack down on price gouging, and get companies to use their record profits to reduce prices long-term. It’s also investing in making things in America again to boost supply, push down prices, and bring jobs home. Donald Trump hasn’t offered a single solution to lower families’ costs. He wants to drag America backwards, with extreme import tariffs that will make life more expensive for folks nationwide. And for corporations that hiked prices and doubled profits since the pandemic, Trump wants to reward them with a massive tax cut. Independent analysts say his MAGA tax and tariff plans will increase inflation, cost 3 million American jobs, and slow growth, triggering a recession in his first year back in office. Trump’s plan will increase costs for working families by $2,500 a year. Today, America has built its way back into the strongest economic recovery in the world. Democrats won’t let Trump throw that all away. HEALTH CARE & PRESCRIPTION DRUGS Health Care Health care should be a right in America, not a privilege. Every American deserves the peace of mind that quality, affordable coverage brings. That’s why Democrats fought so hard to pass the Affordable Care Act, providing 45 million Americans with insurance, guaranteeing protections for 100 million people with preexisting conditions, and protecting nearly 180 million people from lifetime coverage limits. Yet even now, 14 years after we passed that 17 landmark law, Trump and Republicans are still threatening to repeal it. Democrats will never let that happen. We’ll never quit fighting to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act, making quality care more accessible and affordable, as the Biden-Harris Administration has done. Today, more Americans have health insurance than ever in history. Coverage is up and costs are down. A record 21 million people signed up through the Affordable Care Act this year, helping to slash the uninsured rate from 16 percent in 2010 to under 8 percent now. Democrats have expanded the health insurance premium tax credit twice, saving millions of Americans an average of $800 a year on coverage; and helping an additional 1.7 million Latinos, 830,000 Black Americans, and 110,000 Asian Americans buy more affordable insurance. Republicans want to let those credits expire, increasing premiums. Democrats will fight to make them permanent. As Democrats, we support Medicaid expansion, encouraging states to provide health coverage to low-income Americans on the federal government’s tab. The Administration has helped over a million people in four states to enroll; and we’ll keep pushing Congress to further expand Medicaid-like coverage to the 2.8 million uninsured low-income adults who live in states where Republicans still refuse the help. Democrats are working to protect kids’ health coverage as well, by removing financial barriers for the Children's Health Insurance Program; and making it easier for families to keep kids on Medicaid. President Biden’s plan will let families go three years without having to resubmit Medicaid paperwork for children younger than six, reducing burdensome red tape. Democrats believe that quality, affordable health care should be available in every corner of America. The Administration has invested in new mobile health clinics; and in keeping community and rural health centers, lifelines for tens of millions of people, open, well-staffed, and well-equipped. We want to double those investments now. And the Administration is cracking down on federally funded health care providers that turn away or otherwise discriminate against people on the basis of race, sex, age, national origin, or disability. Democrats will keep working to grow the health care workforce, so workplace and other provider shortages no longer create barriers to quality care and inflate health care costs. We are investing in programs that train primary care practitioners, registered nurses, mental health specialists, and others to work across our health care system, including in rural and low-income areas. The Administration is also cracking down on surprise medical billing and junk health insurance, so patients are no longer ambushed by unexpected bills or scammed into buying low-quality health coverage. Democrats will expand “no-surprise billing” to include costly ground ambulances; and we’ll keep using antitrust laws to stop hospital, insurance, and Big Pharma mergers that undermine competition and increase health care prices for consumers. 18 At the same time, Democrats will keep fighting to ease the burden of medical debt, which makes it harder for millions of Americans to get a mortgage or other loan for the future. Democrats provided funding to forgive $7 billion in medical debt for nearly 3 million Americans; and the Administration is urging states to use remaining funds to do more. It already persuaded credit reporting agencies to exclude many medical debts from credit reports, boosting people’s credit scores and prospects for the future. In all, these actions have reduced the total number of Americans with listed medical debt from 46 million in 2020 to 15 million. Democrats will keep pushing to exclude medical debts from credit scoring entirely. Democrats also support the Administration’s historic work to close fundamental gaps in women’s health care, including by protecting access to reproductive health care. This includes its efforts to reduce maternal mortality, led by Vice President Harris. She called for states to provide a full year of postpartum coverage for Medicaid beneficiaries, with 46 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands now taking that step. The Administration is also making transformative investments in women’s health research to find better ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat health conditions in women, and to make care more accessible and affordable. And it is leading game-changing work to end cancer as we know it, including through the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). Trump has no plan to reduce health care costs for Americans. He and his MAGA allies have spent years working to repeal the Affordable Care Act, trying and failing over 50 times. Now, Trump is once again promising to “terminate” the landmark law, gutting coverage for the 45 million Americans who rely on it for care. Doing so will cost families $13,000 a year, and threaten protections for 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions. It will strip 150 million people of preventative care like cancer screenings, and reduce access to mental health and substance use treatment. A Republican repeal will also deny life-changing home care to millions of seniors and people with disabilities, and kick young adults up to age 26 off their parents’ insurance plans. And, it’ll push more of the 500-plus rural hospitals that are already at risk of closing to shut down. Prescription Drugs Big Pharma has ripped off Americans for years, charging two and three times more here than in other countries for the exact same medications. Nearly three in ten Americans can’t afford their prescriptions as a result. Instead of working to change that, Trump gave drugmakers massive tax breaks that only incentivized them to shift production overseas. President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Democrats took on Big Pharma and won. Democrats capped the price of insulin at $35 a month, down from as much as $400, for nearly 4 million seniors on Medicare. And President Biden persuaded the nation’s top three insulin makers to lower their prices for everyone. Now, we’ll fight to expand that $35 cap to cover everyone, saving millions of Americans with diabetes nearly $1,000 a year. Starting next year, the Inflation Reduction Act also caps total out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 a year for millions of seniors and others on Medicare. Democrats will fight until that cap covers every single American. 19 For the first time, Medicare now also has the ability to negotiate lower drug prices, as private insurers and the VA have done for decades. It started doing so this year, beginning with 10 commonly used medications for conditions such as diabetes and heart failure. Democrats will push to add at least 50 drugs a year to that list, lowering prices for 500 drugs this decade. Medicare Part-D is also working to cap cost-sharing for life-saving generics at $2 a dose; Democrats will make this mandatory for all Medicare beneficiaries. The Administration is also leading the charge against Big Pharma price gouging, by requiring drugmakers that raise prices faster than inflation to pay the difference back to Medicare, which will then pass savings on to consumers. This will protect over 750,000 seniors, who could save as much as $4,500 per over-priced dose. Democrats will keep fighting to expand these rebates, applying them when drugmakers overcharge not just Medicare, but private insurers as well. We’re also cracking down on improper drug patent listings, which some drugmakers use to shut out competition. Once companies drop their improper patent listings, other companies will be free to make cheaper alternatives. The FTC’s work in this area has already pushed three of the biggest makers of inhalers to lower prices to $35 a month, saving people with asthma hundreds of dollars a year. The Administration also enacted rules to finally make hearing aids available over-the-counter, saving millions of Americans up to $3,000 a pair. And Democrats will continue the Administration’s work to require that any drugs developed with taxpayer dollars be available to taxpayers, including at reasonable prices. Democrats will keep working to lower drug prices by requiring more transparency from the “pharmacy benefit manager” middlemen who generally decide which drugs are covered by insurance and bought by doctors, and how much they cost. All these actions will benefit family budgets. And they’ll boost the federal budget, too – reducing the deficit by $160 billion over the next ten years, as Medicare no longer has to pay Big Pharma exorbitant prices. Every Democrat in Congress voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, the historic law behind these savings. Every single Republican voted against it – against $35 insulin for seniors, against Medicare negotiating lower prices, against saving millions of seniors’ money on life-saving drugs. Now, Trump and his MAGA allies are promising to repeal it entirely, and to funnel our savings back into Big Pharma’s pockets. We won’t let that happen. CHILD CARE, HOME CARE, & PAID LEAVE Child & Home Care The United States can’t have the best economy in the world without strong support for caregiving. But today, the cost of care is too high, pay for care workers is too low, and families are caught in the middle of a broken system. Democrats understand that fixing the caregiving crisis cannot wait. During the pandemic, Democrats’ American Rescue Plan kept 220,000 child care centers open, getting parents back to work and saving families an average $1,250 a year per child. It preserved a million care workers’ jobs, and increased their pay by 10 percent. It expanded support for home- and community-based services for seniors and people with disabilities. 20 And not a single Republican voted for it. Last year, President Biden issued a historic executive order directing agencies to further expand access to affordable care. The Administration also capped child care costs for 100,000 low-income families at 7 percent of their income, saving each an average $2,400 a year. Overall, the Administration increased federal child care funding by 50 percent. Democrats will make investments like these permanent, and guarantee affordable, quality child care to millions of working families for less than $10-a-day per child. And we’ll restore the expanded Child Tax Credit and strengthen Head Start. For seniors and people with disabilities, Democrats will improve and expand home- and community-based services, working toward finally eliminating the 700,000-person Medicaid waiting list, so more people can live and work with dignity in their own communities. We’ll also keep pushing to improve pay and benefits for care workers, for example by fighting to get many of them a bigger share of Medicaid home care payments. Democrats will overhaul the quality of care and quality of life for our nation’s 1.3 million nursing home residents by defending Administration regulations that require minimum staffing standards at nursing homes. Democrats are the only party with a plan to expand access to care, and to make it more affordable and accessible for all. Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress have voted repeatedly to increase the cost of care, for example by slashing Head Start and child care programs, eliminating slots for half a million kids. Trump has no plan to lower child care or home care costs for American families. Instead, House Republicans have promised to slash Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, while their continued efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act will strip millions of seniors and people with disabilities of life-changing home support. Paid Leave America is the world’s only advanced economy not to guarantee paid leave. The vast majority of employers don’t offer it – nearly three-quarters of private-sector employees don’t have paid family leave through their jobs, including 94 percent of America’s lowest-paid workers. The pandemic only made the economic consequences of this failure more devastating. In the United States of America, no one should have to choose between caring for a parent who raised them, a child who depends on them, and the paycheck that they need to survive. Trump and Republicans failed to guarantee any new paid leave to private sector workers. Instead, their various proposals included unfunded mandates on states, tax credits that failed to expand access but subsidized large businesses, and schemes to force new parents seeking paid leave to borrow against their own future Social Security funds. From Day One, President Biden has pushed to do more. He fought to include a comprehensive paid leave program in legislation that ultimately became the Inflation Reduction Act. He instructed federal agencies to expand access to paid and unpaid leave for federal employees. He expanded the Military Parental Leave Program, so all active-duty, new-parent servicemembers can take 12 weeks. And his budget includes the strongest paid 21 leave proposals in history, permanently funding the national paid leave plan that America needs. That plan will create America’s first, full, national paid family and medical leave program, guaranteeing every American worker up to 12 weeks of paid time off to care for a new child or loved one to recover from an illness, in cases of domestic violence, or military deployment. It will help families care for one another, and it will help businesses retain valuable talent and small businesses to compete. Millions more parents will be able to work, and it will add hundreds of billions to our economy. Democrats have pushed for this for decades. It’s past time that America caught up with the rest of the world. GAS & GROCERIES When the pandemic crushed supply chains, prices for everyday items, from food to gas to airfare, went up. But after supply bottlenecks eased, many companies didn’t lower prices in line with their falling costs. President Biden will keep calling those companies out for price gouging, and hold them accountable when they don’t pass savings on to consumers. To lower prices, Democrats will also keep working to boost supply, fix supply chains and promote competition, especially for essential items like gas and groceries that families depend on. Through record energy production of clean energy, oil, and gas, we’ve lowered prices at the pump for American families. The Administration also released nearly 200 million barrels of gasoline from the Strategic Petroleum and Northeast Gasoline Supply reserves; and it is lowering gas prices by up to 25 cents per gallon more in certain markets, particularly in the Midwest, by making cheaper, E15 ethanol-blended gasoline available each summer. And, the Administration is cracking down to prevent collusion by oil companies that could raise prices more. The President also knows the frustration and fear that high grocery prices can cause, and he has taken action to lower costs for hard-working families. He and his team have met repeatedly with grocery CEOs and business leaders, who agreed this spring to lower prices. The Administration is also cracking down on price gouging and promoting competition in agriculture, making everything from fertilizer to poultry processing more affordable for farmers. The President also signed into law the bipartisan Ocean Shipping Reform Act, which lowers shipping prices and helps American farmers export their goods. Trump and his MAGA allies fought these changes all the way, siding with Big Oil and special interests over working families. Instead of standing up to them, Trump just wants to give them another massive tax cut. CORPORATE GREED Today, corporate consolidation is allowing companies to keep raking in historic profits, while continuing to raise prices for working families. In the two decades before President Biden came to office, three-quarters of American industries grew more concentrated. As the 22 President often says, capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism, it’s exploitation. And the American people are tired of being played for suckers. The Administration has taken historic steps to boost competition across our economy, in fields from finance and farming to technology and transportation. We’re banning non-compete agreements so that workers have the freedom to pursue a new job or start a new business. We’re protecting consumers from unfair hidden “junk fees” and price gouging, and shoring up our banking system to keep people’s hard-earned savings safe. During his first months in office, the President launched a Competition Council tasked with coordinating and advancing this work. Agencies have taken dozens of actions to increase competition across markets and industries – from making hearing aids available over the counter, to reducing cargo and rail shipping costs for goods, to support efforts to allow farmers and other Americans to repair their own equipment. The Justice Department and the FTC have increased antitrust enforcement, releasing updated merger guidelines, and halting a slate of big mergers in the airline, food, and defense sectors that would’ve increased consumer prices. Democrats will keep working to make the American economy more competitive for businesses and workers across sectors, from transportation to housing to food. And we will reform hiring and procurement processes across the government, to boost competition among our contractors and suppliers, too. The Administration is also taking broad action to crack down on “junk fees,” the hidden charges that companies add on to people’s bills without their knowledge, reducing consumer choice. We’ve already taken action to crack down on a range of these junk fees charged by airlines, internet providers, hotels, and apartment buildings. We’ve pushed banks to slash unfair overdraft and bounced check charges and took action to cap credit card late fees. We’re cracking down on junk health insurance plans that advertise one rate, but then stick patients with a much bigger medical bill. Over time, these combined actions will save American families hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year – adding up to more than $20 billion a year across the economy – giving people a little more breathing room. And we’ll keep pushing until we ban all junk fees across our economy. Democrats are also working to shore up a safe, secure banking system that protects consumer deposits and holds investors accountable. Democrats have pushed for legislation to hold executives at all failed banks accountable, clawing back compensation and banning them from the industry. We’re working to limit out-of-control Wall Street bonuses that encourage risky bank practices that jeopardize our whole economy. And we’ll keep pushing to pass an updated Glass-Steagall Act, more clearly separating commercial and investment banking and expanding Volcker rule safeguards. We defeated Republican efforts to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the Supreme Court this year; we’ll continue to protect and strengthen that agency and support its critical work. HOUSING A home is more than a roof over your head, it’s a place to raise your family, to build community, and to grow the American Dream. It’s also the biggest investment, and the 23 biggest monthly expense, that most people ever face. Some 15 years after the subprime mortgage crisis devastated homeowners and froze construction nationwide, we’re still seeing the effect of a severe housing shortage that’s pushing up prices and keeping homes out of reach. President Biden has taken historic steps to help Americans rent, buy, and build. In the depth of the pandemic, the American Rescue Plan kept 8 million families in their homes nationwide by preventing foreclosures and evictions. Since then, the Administration has eased rising rents by capping rent hikes in 2 million federally-funded apartments. It led the biggest expansion of rental assistance for low-income families in 20 years. It’s cracking down on slumlords who don’t play by the rules. The Administration has reduced mortgage-insurance premiums on federally-backed loans for 700,000 homeowners; and waived the requirement for title insurance, saving families up to $1,500 to refinance. The relief is helping. More people own homes today than did before the pandemic, and we’re seeing fewer foreclosures than at any time in decades. But Democrats know the surest way to bring housing costs down long-term is to build to boost supply. So the Administration is cutting red tape to help more builders get federal financing. A record 1.7 million new housing units are under construction today nationwide. Going forward, the President has laid out one of America’s most ambitious housing plans in over 50 years. It expands rental assistance to a half-million new households, including to low-income veterans and young people aging out of foster care. It offers corporate landlords a basic choice for the next two years: either cap rent increases at 5 percent, or lose a valuable federal tax break. It offers a $10,000 mortgage-relief tax credit to first-time homebuyers, and $25,000 in down-payment assistance to buyers from families where no one has ever before owned a home. At the same time, the Administration is going after unfair rental “junk fees,” like fees people are charged just to pay rent online or to receive sorted mail. And, we will crack down on corporate landlords who are gouging tenants, for example by capping the amount they can raise the rent each year; and we will go after negligent landlords who don’t maintain basic habitability standards. We will also crack down on those who violate the Fair Housing Act, and on landlords who discriminate against low-income and minority renters and people with housing vouchers. We are rooting bias out of the home appraisal process, which perpetuates the racial wealth gap by unjustly undervaluing millions of Black- and Latino-owned homes. The President’s plan also calls for funding to help build or renovate 2 million homes nationwide – by expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit for developers to build affordable rental housing; and by introducing a new Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit, the first ever to focus on creating affordable housing not for renters, but for homeowners. It also creates a Housing Innovation Fund, to help state and local governments find new ways to increase supply, like by converting empty office or hotel space into apartments.The plan also encourages state and local efforts to take on barriers to building new housing. Democrats are dedicated to increasing the supply of an array of housing options like duplexes, triplexes, and townhomes that bridge the gap between single-family homes and large apartment buildings. By reducing barriers to building housing and providing federal tax incentives for the development of housing for people of all incomes, we can foster vibrant, 24 inclusive communities where people from all walks of life can find affordable, diverse living options. Workforce housing must also be prioritized to ensure that our nation’s teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other essential workers can afford to live in the communities they serve. We recognize that these workers are the backbone of our society, but they are left to struggle with housing costs that outpace their incomes, leaving them unable to live near their workplaces. Democrats will meet this challenge head-on by increasing funding for programs that support the creation and preservation of affordable housing options for essential workers, as well as collaborating with state and local governments to accelerate the development of workforce housing, ensuring that our communities remain accessible and affordable for all. Democrats are working to help Americans cover other housing-related costs, like utilities. Families are already saving thousands of dollars with clean energy tax credits; and 23 million households received free or monthly discounts, saving $30 to $75 per month on high-speed broadband through the largest internet affordability program in history. It expired in May, because Republicans refused to act; but Democrats will keep fighting to reinstate it. We’ll keep working to expand other programs that reduce home heating, cooling, and water bills as well, especially in rural areas; and to speed the transition to cheaper renewable energy, like solar, that will lower people’s bills long-term. The Administration is also leading one of America’s most ambitious efforts to prevent homelessness. Based on a “housing first” principle, it’s helping states and cities prioritize housing as the foundational step in delivering support, services, and jobs to rebuild lives. The Administration will work with Congress and local jurisdictions to increase supportive and interim housing options, and the services necessary to help unhoused individuals stay permanently housed. Instead of trying to solve the problem, Trump has made it worse. Trump has never done anything to ease America’s long-standing housing shortage. In fact, he and his allies benefit directly from the housing shortage. The higher the rent, the more that he and his rich real-estate friends earn. For decades, he made a career of inflating rents and putting homeownership out of folks’ reach. As a landlord, he was sued for race-based housing discrimination; and he was accused of cutting off tenants’ water and heat, to push them out and charge new tenants more. As President, he tried every year to triple rent for low-income Americans in subsidized housing, including the elderly and people with disabilities; and to gut policies that help Black and Latino families access fair housing. Now, Trump and his MAGA allies are vowing to gut President Biden’s historic work. Senate Republicans this spring blocked a bipartisan bill that would’ve provided tax credits to build 200,000 affordable homes; and they’ve repeatedly tried to cut affordable housing and rental assistance programs, preferring to protect tax breaks for corporate landlords like Trump instead. They will weaken the independent agencies that protect consumers from rent gouging, and they will make it harder for working families to buy a home, by reinstating higher mortgage insurance premiums, and by privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a windfall to hedge funds. 25 EDUCATION Democrats fundamentally believe that every student deserves a quality education, regardless of their parents’ zip code or income. We know that education starts well before kids go to kindergarten. Studies show that children who attend preschool are nearly 50 percent more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two- or four-year degree, no matter their background. That’s why Democrats will provide free, universal preschool for four-year olds, saving the families of 5 million children $13,000 a year. In the wake of the pandemic, that’s especially urgent. The American Rescue Plan made the biggest investment in public education in history, providing $130 billion to help 15,000 districts reopen, rebuild, and catch kids up; funding that has worked to help our children learn. The historic investment spurred long overdue improvements in school facilities and indoor air quality, creating safe and healthy learning environments for students and school staff. Since then, we’ve also provided an additional $2 billion to high-need, Title I schools. We’ve helped districts nationwide train and hire 14,000 more counselors and social workers, so kids can heal from the disruptions of COVID, and cope with the fear of gun violence in order to focus on learning. We increased investments in full-service community schools five-fold, providing health care, nutrition, job training, and other wraparound services for kids at school, investing in their futures and making families’ lives easier. The Administration supports a multitude of approaches that have been proven to help students learn: reducing chronic absenteeism by building social and emotional supports at schools, offering literacy programs, and setting high expectations for student attendance; providing intensive tutoring; extending the school day and school year; expanding community schools; and helping schools to lift student achievement, rather than punishing them based on state standardized tests. We support fully funding IDEA to prioritize students with disabilities and the special educator workforce. We support efforts to provide more timely, well-rounded, actionable feedback on student learning and progress to educators and to families that will support instruction and student success, while upholding rigorous academic standards. We oppose the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education. Public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate. And we’ll continue working to increase accountability at charters, holding them to the same transparency standards as public schools. We’ll prioritize education in cutting-edge STEAM fields as well, especially for students from underrepresented communities, preparing every child to compete and thrive. And we’re working to provide every student with a pathway to multilingual education, while ensuring equitable access to a high-quality education for English learners, who’ve historically been underserved. A quality, postsecondary education used to be a ticket to the middle class, but the cost that many folks face for higher education today is crippling families, futures, and our entire economy. It has become a barrier to opportunity. Democrats will make quality, affordable, postsecondary education a path forward again. 26 Four year college is not the only pathway to a good career, so Democrats are investing in other forms of education as well, including career and technical education. The Administration is expanding job training partnerships that connect high schools, local businesses, and labor unions to prepare students for good jobs in high-skill, high-wage, and in-demand industries. It’ll make trade school and community college free for every American. And it’s making record investments in registered apprenticeships – which already train more than one million Americans a year across industries, including cutting-edge industries. Some 90 percent of them stay on as full hires, earning an average starting salary of $80,000 a year. That’s a path to the middle class that families can count on. A majority of college students graduate with student debt. It can be an overwhelming stress, as snowballing interest follows folks for decades, defining the choices they make and the jobs they take, and holding back our entire economy. Although Republican appointees on the Supreme Court blocked the President's initial student debt relief plan for 40 million borrowers, he has not stopped using every available tool to provide relief. His Administration already approved the cancellation of $167 billion in loans for nearly 5 million borrowers, including nearly a million public servants like teachers, nurses, and police; and it has outlined plans to deliver relief to 30 million borrowers in all. Meanwhile, its new SAVE plan is the most affordable student-loan repayment plan in history, helping 8 million Americans – including more than 4.5 million who now have a $0 monthly payment. These savings will transform lives, freeing people to buy a house, to start a family, or to launch a business with new hope. For young people just heading to college now, we’ve already secured the largest increase in Pell Grants in a decade, and we’ll further expand these grants to 7 million more students, and double the maximum award by 2029. We’ve invested a record $16 billion in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); and we’re working to subsidize tuition at all Minority Serving Institutions for anyone whose family earns less than $125,000 a year. While Democrats work to make the promise of education available to everyone, Trump just sees school as another opportunity for a scam. Trump University not only conned thousands of people into buying worthless degrees, it saddled them with thousands in debt. And, not only are Republicans trying to block our student debt relief, they are slashing funding for job training that ensures workers can access good paying jobs without a four-year degree. At the same time, Democrats have educators’ backs. Teachers, education support professionals, paraprofessional and school-related personnel, and specialized instructional support personnel are the heart and soul of our communities; they give so much of themselves, and inspire our children to dream. The Administration has canceled student loan debts for more than 942,000 public servants, including educators. Public school educators also deserve a raise. We’ll recruit more new teachers, paraprofessionals and school related personnel, and education support professionals, with the option for some to even start training in high school; and we’ll help school-support staff to advance in their own careers with a living wage. We will improve working conditions and support to help make teaching a sustainable and affordable profession. We’ll keep investing in partnerships with HBCUs, MSIs, and Tribal Colleges and Universities to strengthen and diversify the teacher pipeline, so students of every background can see themselves at the head of the classroom and in charge of their schools. 27 SOCIAL SECURITY, PENSIONS, & MEDICARE The right to a secure and dignified retirement is one of the bedrock principles of American life. Before Social Security, almost half of American seniors lived in poverty. Even those who’d spent a lifetime working didn't always have enough to put food on the table or health care they could count on. Democrats changed that: in 1935, we passed Social Security; in 1965, we signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. These are more than government programs – they’re a promise that we’ve made as a country, that after a lifetime of hard work, people deserve to retire with dignity and security. They’ve made tens of millions of lives better. Trump and his MAGA allies are shredding that sacred trust, and saying they’ll cut Social Security to give billionaires another tax cut. Trump has called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme” and warned “there’s a lot you can do in terms of cutting.” As President, he tried to slash both Social Security and Medicare programs in every budget, and to gut Medicaid, which provides home care to over seven million seniors and people with disabilities. House Republicans have vowed to cut Social Security by over $1.5 trillion, to raise the retirement age, and to transform Medicare into a voucher-like system, threatening the program. Trump will also eliminate protections for private retirement savings, by undermining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and making it easier for banks to rip off seniors with expensive, hidden fees. Democrats won’t let that happen. Generations of Americans have paid into these programs, with every paycheck of their lives. We’ll never back down from our ironclad commitment to protecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We reject any effort to privatize Social Security or to cut any of the benefits that the American people have earned. Middle-class Americans pay 6.2 percent of their income to support Social Security, and the self-employed pay twice that. But people with multi-million dollar incomes pay a fraction of 1 percent. We’ll strengthen the program and expand benefits by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. We also oppose any actions to cut Medicare benefits. We’ll look to expand traditional Medicare coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing services, which are so key to health and quality of life, by making the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share. The fact is that both Social Security and Medicare are in a stronger fiscal position today than when President Biden took office. Our strong economic recovery has helped to extend Medicare solvency by a decade. And the President’s prescription drug reforms will save it hundreds of billions of dollars, by finally empowering Medicare to directly negotiate lower prices with drug companies, and to collect rebates if Big Pharma hikes prices faster than inflation. If Republicans repeal our reforms, they’ll erase those savings and put Medicare itself at risk. Democrats will make Medicare permanently solvent, by making the wealthy pay their fair share in Medicare taxes. Democrats will stand firm to protect retirement security across the board. In 2021, we passed the Butch-Lewis Act, preserving the pensions of 3 million union workers and retirees who would’ve seen deep cuts, and reversing pension cuts for over 100,000 workers. Going forward, we’ll amend federal bankruptcy laws to make sure no other retirees ever run that same risk. The Administration is also cracking down on junk fees in retirement savings, and 28 reversed a Trump-era rule that had allowed financial advisors to put their own interests before their clients’. Democrats want to make it easier for everyone to save for retirement and retire with dignity. 29 Chapter Four: Tackling the Climate Crisis, Lowering Energy Costs, & Securing Energy Independence Every year, the devastation caused by climate change grows more urgent. Across the country, Americans experience the dire impacts of climate change: Floods and storms wipe more homes off the map. Wildfire smoke spreads thousands of miles, forcing millions to shelter indoors. We’ve had the worst droughts in a thousand years, and the fastest sea-level rise in over a century. Last year was Earth’s hottest on record. Natural disasters and extreme weather have cost America over one trillion dollars in damages in just the last seven years. And they hit the most vulnerable among us hardest – seniors, people with disabilities, people in neighborhoods without resources to blunt the impact. The climate crisis is decades in the making, an existential threat to future generations who deserve better. It’s a consequence of delay and destruction by people like Donald Trump and his friends in Big Oil, who still deny what we all see happening right before our eyes. President Biden is delivering on the most aggressive climate agenda in history. His landmark legislation has unleashed a clean energy boom that’s slashing pollution, lowering energy costs, and has already created over 300,000 good-paying American clean energy jobs. America is now producing more energy than ever in its history. He has taken more environmental actions than any president before him – providing cleaner air and water, making communities more resilient, and forcing polluters to pay for the damage they’ve done. He is on track to protect more of America’s lands and waters than any president before him, and he has restored our global climate leadership. He is positioning America to lead the future – energy independent, resilient, innovative, and strong. Trump is only interested in himself and his wealthy donors, who got rich polluting our country. As president, he gutted more than 125 environmental policies that had protected the American people from toxic pollution, everywhere from sewage plants, to oil and gas fields, to our own homes. He pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement at Big Oil’s urging, weakening America’s role in the world. He fired scientists from federal agencies, replacing them with oil and gas lobbyists who rewrote our nation’s environmental rules. And he handed oil companies $25 billion in tax breaks. Now, Trump is set to do Big Oil’s and polluters’ bidding again. He told oil executives he’d reverse our climate progress and slash their taxes once more – if they’d give him $1 billion for his campaign. Oil and gas lobbyists are already drafting executive orders for him to sign on day one. He wants to roll back the clean energy progress that President Biden has made, gut the Environmental Protection Agency, and let polluters dump dangerous PFAS chemicals in our water. His MAGA allies have tried 42 times to repeal our landmark climate law. If they succeed, they’ll eliminate tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, drive up home energy costs, sicken thousands of Americans with toxic pollution, and cede the race for the future to China. 30 PRODUCING CLEANER, MORE AFFORDABLE ENERGY Across the world, we’re seeing massive new clean energy production and uptake. We’re at the dawn of a new era that will redefine the global economy, and that America must lead. President Biden’s Investing in America agenda makes the largest clean-energy investment in history; and it has already attracted over $400 billion in private sector commitments, to develop and manufacture solar, wind, battery, and other clean technologies here at home. Today, 585 new clean energy manufacturing projects are underway – not just on the coasts, but in 47 states, including in places too often left behind. Some 81 percent of the investments made since our landmark climate law passed are going to counties with below-average weekly wages. America is making leaps forward in energy generation and storage, while modernizing our electricity grid and upgrading transmission lines to deliver reliable, clean power. Private sector companies have announced investment in solar modules that will power 18 million homes; and the Biden-Harris Administration has approved the first nine commercial offshore wind projects in federal waters, set to power nearly 5 million homes. Large-scale energy storage capacity has increased twelve-fold since the President took office, and is expected to double again by year’s end. This clean energy boom has already created over 300,000 jobs and lowered energy costs for millions of families. It puts us on track to triple clean-energy generation by 2030, reducing Big Oil’s hold on our economy, protecting families from wild price swings, and bringing America closer to energy independence than we’ve been in over 70 years. Going forward, Democrats will keep working to incentivize investment in transmission upgrades and new lines, and in the grid-component manufacturing that’s needed to support that growth. We will improve and speed up the processes of environmental review and clean-energy permitting; and further scale up development of clean energy on public lands. We’ll also continue to invest in clean energy research and development, building on America’s legacy as a nation of new frontiers and possibilities. To help find new ways of generating and storing energy, reducing emissions, and boosting climate resilience, we’ll launch an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Climate (ARPA-C), modeled on the defense research agency that’s behind breakthrough technologies like the internet and GPS, and the new ARPA-H that the Administration created to transform medicine. We’ll also establish a new national lab for climate research and innovation, affiliated with an HBCU, Hispanic-, or other Minority-Serving Institution, to ensure the opportunities of the future are available to everyone, and built by everyone. And we will continue to invest in climate research across NASA, NOAA, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies, to make sure that America leads the world in clean energy innovation. LOWERING ENERGY COSTS Democrats’ historic climate and clean energy agenda is lowering energy costs for families and small businesses long-term and today – with cheaper, cleaner energy and with tax credits to make home energy use more efficient and affordable. America’s clean energy 31 boom is giving everyone more energy choices than ever, and more choices mean lower prices. According to the Department of Energy, our policies are expected to slash overall electricity rates by 9 percent and gas prices by as much as 13 percent by 2030, saving Americans tens of billions of dollars. At the same time, the Inflation Reduction Act is providing tax credits and rebates to make Americans’ homes more efficient, so families can immediately start saving on their energy costs, now and for years to come. Families can reduce their bills up to $2,000 a year by making their homes more energy efficient with new insulation, windows, and doors; and by installing rooftop solar panels, home battery storage, and electric pumps for heating and cooling. Democrats are also offering rebates on new, energy-efficient appliances; and people can save up to $7,500 when they buy a new plug-in hybrid or fully electric car, or $4,000 if they buy a used one. The Administration has toughened efficiency standards on new appliances and cars as well, which will further reduce emissions and energy bills. New fuel economy and tailpipe standards alone are expected to save drivers some $6,000 per car by reducing fuel and maintenance costs. The Administration has also taken historic action to lower gas prices at the pump, by standing up to Big Oil’s price gouging, releasing strategic reserves to blunt profiteering, and promoting competition with cleaner, cheaper, renewable fuel. CREATING CLEAN ENERGY JOBS President Biden has long said that when he thinks about climate change, he thinks about jobs. Good-paying union jobs that people can raise a family on. As President, he’s delivering. The clean energy manufacturing and deployment boom ignited by his landmark climate law has so far directly created over 300,000 jobs in communities nationwide; and we’re making sure those jobs meet rigorous worker and environmental safety standards. The legislation is helping to push American factory construction to an all-time high as well, as we build new plants to make things like batteries and electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, and bring the supply chains needed to power a clean energy future home. The President’s agenda also includes extended Buy Clean and Buy America standards, requiring federal projects to use low-carbon, American-made cement, steel, and other materials; and providing credits for private companies to do the same, creating more American jobs. It also provides extra incentives for private companies to hire registered apprentices and pay prevailing wages. Through executive action and with Congress, Democrats will continue to work to create strong labor standards for jobs created with taxpayer dollars. To help prepare people for these jobs, Democrats launched the American Climate Corps, a new workforce training and service initiative that will put more than 20,000 young Americans to work on clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience projects nationwide. President Biden has set a goal to triple the size of the American Climate Corps by the end of this decade, ensuring that young people are given the skills and tools they need to succeed in careers in our new clean energy and climate resilience economies. The 32 Administration is also making record investments in registered apprenticeships, including in clean energy industri