Real people, and definitely not orange.

What does Joe Biden’s platform actually aim to do?

from Joe Biden’s site, joebiden.com)

Legal reforms:

• Decriminalization, rescheduling, and expungement of existing federal marijuana convictions.
• End the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity.
• End all incarceration for drug use alone and instead divert individuals to drug courts and treatment.

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Environmental reforms:

• Invest $400 billion in clean energy research and innovation.
• Establish an enforcement mechanism to achieve net-zero emissions no later than 2050.
• Require aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing gas operations.
• Require public companies to disclose climate risks and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Invest in carbon capture sequestration technology.
• Support research into new nuclear technology.
• Empower communities to develop transportation solutions.
• Invest in electric rail roads and mass transit.
• Embrace the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
• Demand a worldwide ban on fossil fuel subsidies.
• Name and shame global climate outlaws.
• Pursue a global moratorium on offshore drilling in the Arctic.
• Hold polluters accountable.
• Ensure access to safe drinking water for all communities.
• Ensure that communities harmed by climate change and pollution are the first to benefit from the Clean Economy Revolution.
• Invest in communities impacted by the climate transformation.
• Double offshore wind energy by 2030.

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Economic reforms:

• $15/hr minimum wage.
• Bankruptcy reform.
• Paid family leave.
• Paid sick leave.
• Protect and expand union rights.
• Repeal the $2.1tn Trump tax cuts.
• Increase taxes by $1.4tn on top earners.
• Hold corporations and executives responsible for interfering with unionization.
• Aggressively pursue employers who violate labor laws.
• Ensure federal dollars do not support employers who engage in union-busting.
• Penalize companies that bargain in bad faith.
• Make it easier for workers who choose to unionize to do so.
• Ban state “right to work” laws.
• Create a cabinet-level working group that will solely focus on promoting union organizing.
• Ensure that workers can exercise their right to strike without fear of reprisal.
• Empower the NLRB to fulfill its intended purpose of protecting workers.
• Eliminate non-compete clauses and no-poaching agreements.
• Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements.
• Expand protections for undocumented immigrants who report labor violations.

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Health care:

• Medicare-like public option.
• Allow Medicare to bargain for prescription drug prices.
• Increase the value of tax credits to lower premiums and extend coverage.
• Limiting launch prices for drugs that face no competition.
• Limiting price increases for all brand, biotech, and abusively priced generic drugs.
• Allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries.
• End pharmaceutical corporations’ tax break for advertisement spending.
• Expanding access to contraception.
• Protect and defend a woman’s right to choose.
• Restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
• Doubling America’s investment in community health centers.
• Expand access to mental health care.

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Infrastructure:

• Invest in historically marginalized communities.
• Encourage the adoption of electric vehicles.
• Invest $10 billion into transit projects that serve high-poverty areas.
• Increase funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by $2.5 billion per year.
• Invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure.
• Invest $100 billion to modernize schools.
• Invest $10 billion in a new Cities Revitalization Fund.
• Quadruple funding to provide small manufacturers with the technical expertise needed to compete in a global economy.

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Electoral reform:

• Introduce a constitutional amendment to eliminate private dollars from our federal elections.
• Enact legislation to provide voluntary matching public funds for federal candidates recieving small donations.
• Propose a law to strengthen our prohibitions on foreign nationals trying to influence federal, state, or local elections.
• Work to enact legislation ensuring that SuperPACs are wholly independent of campaigns and political parties.
• Increase transparency of election spending.
• End dark money groups.
• Ban corporate PAC contributions to candidates.
• Prohibit lobbyist contributions to those who they lobby.
• Reform funding for national party conventions.
• Require that all candidates for federal office release tax returns dating back 10 years.
• Prohibiting foreign governments’s use of lobbyists.

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Ethics reforms:

• Prevent the president or White House from improperly interfering in federal investigations and prosecutions.
• Increase transparency in DOJ decision-making.
• Empower agency watchdogs (Inspectors General) to combat unethical behavior.
• Establish the Commission on Federal Ethics to more effectively enforce federal ethics law.
• Prevent the president, other senior Executive Branch members, and Congresspersons from being influenced by personal financial holdings.

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Policing reform:

• Ending private prisons.
• Investing $300 billion in community policing training.
• Investing in public health and education.
• Create a new $20 billion competitive grant program to spur states to shift from incarceration to prevention.
• Expand federal funding for mental health and substance use disorder services and research.
• Expand and use the power of the U.S. Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices.
• Invest in public defenders’ offices.
• Eliminate mandatory minimums.
• Eliminate the death penalty.
• End cash bail.
• Stop jailing people for being too poor to pay fines and fees.
• Ensure humane prison conditions.
• Invest $1 billion per year in juvenile justice reform.
• Incentivize states to stop incarcerating kids.
• Expand funding for after-school programs, community centers, and summer jobs.

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Education:

• Two years paid public universities and college or job training for those making less than $125k/yr.
• Create new a federal grant program.
• Double the maximum value of Pell grants for low-income and middle-class individuals.
• Make a $50 billion investment in workforce training.
• More than halve payments on undergraduate federal student loans.
• Stop for-profit education programs from profiteering off of students.
• Crack down on private lenders profiteering off of students.
• Allow individuals holding private loans to discharge them in bankruptcy.
• $10,000 across the board federal student loan forgiveness.
• Forgive all undergraduate federal student loan debt for borrowers who attended public colleges and universities, as well as historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and private minority-serving institutions (MSIs).

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Immigration:

• Repeal Trump era restrictions on immigration
• Prioritize deporting threats over deporting hard working, upstanding members of the community.
• End child separation and prolonged detention.
• Reform the asylum system.
• End public funding for the border wall.
• Protect DACA recipients.
• Hold ICE and CBP agents accountable for inhumane treatment.