A new study that shows Medicare for All would save Americans $450 billion and 68,000 premature deaths a year could bolster the 2020 presidential campaigns of progressives Senator Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Medicare for All is
ironically, considering that Americans and especially Democrats have indicated
that access to affordable healthcare is their number one priority, is the issue
that could sink the 2020 presidential candidacy of progressives Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren. Now Sanders is heralding a new study by epidemiologists in
the medical journal The Lancet which found that Medicare for All would save
Americans $450 billion and prevent 68,000 premature deaths a year. Here is
Sanders’ statement:
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday applauded a new study published
today by a team of epidemiologists in the peer-reviewed medical journal The
Lancet, which found that Medicare for All will save Americans $450 billion
and prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths each and every year.
“This study confirms that Medicare for All will save the American people
$450 billion on health care costs and will prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths –
each and every year,” Sanders said. “In other words, guaranteeing health care
as a human right by creating a Medicare for All system will cost substantially
less than our current dysfunctional health care system. It will save working
class families thousands of dollars and it will prevent tens of thousands of
Americans from dying each year. While the CEOs in the pharmaceutical and health
insurance industry may not like it, we will end their greed and enact Medicare
for All when I am president.”
According to the study, by replacing premiums, deductibles, co-payments
and out-of-pocket costs with a progressive tax system, Medicare for All will
save the average family thousands of dollars each year and will provide
lower-income households the greatest relief.
Struggling hospitals serving low-income communities would be
particularly helped by Medicare for All by eliminating uncompensated care,
increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates to Medicare levels, and reducing
administrative overhead, according to the study.
The study also debunks several attacks on Medicare for All from the
private health care industry that made well over $100 billion in profits last
year. Doctors and hospitals would see large savings in cost and time from
streamlining our bloated and inefficient administrative and billing system,
allowing doctors to spend more time with patients, the study found.
The study is the latest in a series of studies conducted over the past
three decades that have found that guaranteeing universal health care through a
single-payer health care system would not only dramatically improve the health
and well-being of the American people, it would cost less than our current
dysfunctional health care system that puts profits over people.
Last month, another medical journal found
that 19 out of 22 studies done over the past 30 years concluded that moving to
a Medicare for All, single-payer health care system would cost less than our current
health care system in the first year, and all of the studies showed that it
would cost less within a decade of implementation.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 2020 Democratic candidate for president, proposes a plan to reduce mass incarceration and reform the criminal justice system without infringing on public safety (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
The vigorous contest of
Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination has produced excellent
policy proposals to address major issues. Senator Elizabeth Warren released her
plan to reduce mass incarceration and reform the criminal justice system
without infringing on public safety. This is from the Warren2020 campaign:
Charlestown, MA – Today, Elizabeth Warren released her plan to reduce mass incarceration and reform our criminal justice system. Elizabeth believes we need to reimagine how we talk and think about public safety, spending our budgets not on putting people in prison but on community services that lift people up. It is a false choice to suggest a trade off between safety and mass incarceration – we can decarcerate and make our communities safer.
Her plan details how she will reform all aspects of our system:
what we choose to criminalize, how law enforcement and prosecutors engage with
communities and the accused, how long we keep people behind bars and how we
treat them when they’re there, and how we reintegrate them when they return.
“We will reduce incarceration and improve justice in our country
by changing what we choose to criminalize, reforming police behavior and
improving police-community relations, and reining in a system that preferences
prosecution over justice. When people are incarcerated, we will provide
opportunities for treatment, education and rehabilitation, and we’ll continue
those supports for returning citizens as they reenter our communities. Most
importantly, we’ll rethink the way we approach public safety — emphasizing
preventative approaches over law enforcement and incarceration. That’s the way
we’ll create real law and order and real justice in our country.”
The United States makes up 5% of the world’s
population, but nearly 20% of the world’s
prison population. We have the highest rate of
incarceration in the world, with over 2 million people in
prison and jail.
Our system is the result of the dozens of
choices we’ve made — choices that together stack the deck against the poor and
the disadvantaged. Simply put, we have criminalized too many things. We send
too many people to jail. We keep them there for too long. We do little to
rehabilitate them. We spend billions, propping
up an entire industry that
profits from mass incarceration. And we do all of this despite little evidence that
our harshly punitive system makes our communities safer — and knowing that a
majority of people currently in prison will eventually return to our
communities and our neighborhoods.
To make matters worse, the evidence is clear
that there are structural race problems in this system. Latinx adults are three times more
likely to be incarcerated than whites. For the exact same crimes, Black
Americans are more likely than whites to be arrested, charged, wrongfully
convicted, and given harsher sentences. One in ten Black
children has an incarcerated parent.
Four words are etched above the Supreme Court:
Equal Justice Under Law. That’s supposed to be the promise of our justice
system. But today in America, there’s one system for the rich and powerful, and
another one for everybody else. It’s not equal justice when a kid with
an ounce of pot can get thrown in jail, while a bank executive who launders
money for a drug cartel can get a bonus. It’s long past time for us to reform
our system.
Real reform requires examining every step of
this system: From what we choose to criminalize, to how law enforcement and
prosecutors engage with communities and the accused, to how long we keep people
behind bars, how we treat them when they’re there, and how we reintegrate them
when they return.
We cannot achieve this by nibbling around the
edges — we need to tackle the problem at its roots. That means implementing a
set of bold, structural changes at all levels of government.
And it starts by reimagining how we talk and
think about public safety. For example:
Public safety should mean providing every
opportunity for all our kids to get a good education and stay in school.
It should mean safe, affordable housing that
keeps families together and off the streets.
It should mean violence intervention programs
that divert young people from criminal activity, before the police become
involved.
It should mean policies that recognize the
humanity of trans people and other LGBTQ+ Americans and keep them safe from
violence.
It should mean accessible mental health
services and treatment for addiction.
It is a false choice to suggest a tradeoff
between safety and mass incarceration. By spending our budgets not on
imprisonment but on community services that lift people up, we’ll
decarcerate and make our communities safer. Here’s my plan.
Rethink Our Approach to
Public Safety
It’s not enough merely to reform our
sentencing guidelines or improve police-community relations. We need to rethink
our approach to public safety, transitioning away from a punitive system and
investing in evidence-based approaches that address the underlyingdrivers of violence
and crime — tackling it at its roots, before it ever has a chance to grow.
Break the school-to-prison pipeline. Schools increasingly rely
on police officers to carry out discipline while neglecting services that are
critical to the well being of students. At least fourteen million students
attend schools with a police officer but without a single counselor, social
worker, psychologist, or nurse. It’s no surprise that tens of thousands of
students are arrested annually, many for minor infractions. Zero tolerance
policies start early — on average 250 preschoolers are
suspended or expelled every day — and, even in the youngest years, students of
color bear the brunt. In
later grades, Black and Brown students are disproportionately arrested
in schools, while students with disabilities face an increased risk of
disciplinary action.
Every child should have the opportunity to
receive the support they need to thrive inside and outside of the classroom.
Adverse childhood experiences such as poverty, violence at home, homelessness,
family separation, or an incarcerated caretaker are proven to negatively impact child
development. I will equip schools with resources to meet their students’ needs
by providing access to health care to support the physical, mental, and social
development of children, improve their overall school readiness and
providing early intervention services.
We should decriminalize truancy and instead increase the number of school
mental health personnel and provide schools with resources to train teachers
and administrators in positive behavioral interventions, trauma-informed
alternative discipline practices, and implicit bias to
limit suspensions, expulsions, and minor-infraction arrests. We should require
that any police department receiving federal funds provide mandatory training
in the scientific and psychological roots of discrimination, youth development,
and de-escalation tactics to officers assigned to school campuses. I’ll
rescind Trump’s executive order that
allows school districts to participate in the 1033 program, giving them access
to military-grade weapons. And I’ll fully fund the Office of Civil Rights of
the Department of Education so that it can investigate school districts with
dramatic disparities in school disciplinary actions.
Reduce homelessness and housing insecurity. Children that experience
homelessness are more likely to drop out of school and more likely to become
involved with the criminal system. But as housing and rental costs skyrocket
and federal housing assistance doesn’t keep pace, housing insecurity is
growing, particularly for families of color. A Warren administration will
commit federal funding to the goal of ending homelessness in our country.
My housing plan will
help, by investing $500 billion over 10 years to build, preserve, and rehab
affordable housing, creating 3.2 million new housing units and bringing down
rental costs by 10%. It would also help families, especially families of color,
buy homes and start to build wealth. Substantially improving housing
affordability isn’t just good for the economy and for working families — it
will also reduce homelessness and crime.
Invest in evidence-based interruption programs. To improve safety in our
communities, we also need to invest in programs that prevent violence and
divert criminal behavior. Models in cities like Boston, Oakland and Chicago demonstrate that
we can successfully reduce homicide and gun violence rates through creating
cross-community partnerships and focused deterrence on
the small percentage of people most likely to commit violence. These programs
are cost-effective and
have multiplier effects:
transforming community climate, improving health outcomes, and boosting local
economies. My administration will invest in piloting similar programs at scale.
Decriminalize Mental Health Crises. The solution for someone
experiencing a mental health crisis should not be a badge and a gun, but police
officers have become America’s de facto first mental health providers.
Historically, 7–10% of police encounters involve a person affected by mental
illness, and people with untreated severe mental illness are sixteen times more
likely to be killed during a police encounter. People with mental illnesses are
not incarcerated at higher rates because they are prone to violence. To
the contrary, most are arrested for non-violent offenses,
many because they lack access to necessary services. But incarcerating people
with mental illness is more expensive as
providing appropriate community-based treatment — instead of shuttling people
into a system not built to meet their needs, we should invest in preventing
people from reaching those crisis points in the first place. Medicare for All
will provide continuous access to critical mental health care services, decreasing
the likelihood that the police will be called as a matter of last resort. I’ll
also increase funding for “co-responder” initiatives that connect law
enforcement to mental health care providers and experts. And my administration
will pilot evidence-based
crisis response efforts to provide needed services to individuals struggling
with mental illness.
Invest in diversion programs for substance abuse disorder. People who struggle with
addiction should not be incarcerated because of their disease. Mass
incarceration has not reduced addiction
rates or overdose deaths, because substance abuse disorder is a public health
problem — and it’s long past time to treat it that way. We know that diversion
programs are both more humane and a better investment than incarceration — for
every dollar we invest in
treatment programs, we can save $12 in future crime and health care costs. I’ll
support evidence-based safe injection sites and needle exchanges, and expand
the availability of buprenorphine to prevent overdoses. And my CARE Act would
invest $100 billion over ten years to increase access to high quality treatment
and support services. It would provide the regions most affected by the opioid
crisis with the resources they need, and would allow state, local and tribal
governments to use CARE Act funds to provide incarcerated individuals, and
individuals in pre-trial detention, with substance use disorder treatment.
Change What We Choose to
Criminalize
We face a crisis of overcriminalization. It has filled our prisons and devastated entire neighborhoods.
Addressing the crisis starts by rethinking what we choose to criminalize. It is
easy for legislators, fearful of being labeled soft on crime, to rubber stamp
every new criminal and sentencing proposal, no matter how punitive. It’s
equally easy for them to look the other way when the wealthy and well-connected
abuse the rest of us. But from the Senate on down, elected lawmakers have an
obligation to do better than that. Here’s where we can start.
Repeal the 1994 crime bill.The 1994 crime bill exacerbated incarceration rates in
this country, punishing people more severely for even minor infractions, and
limiting discretion in charging and sentencing in our judicial system. That
punitive “tough on crime” approach was wrong, it was a mistake, and it needs to
be repealed. There are some sections of law, like those relating to domestic
violence, that should be retained — but the bulk of the law must go.
Address the legacy of the War on Drugs. For four decades, we’ve
subscribed to a “War on Drugs” theory of crime, which has criminalized addiction,
ripped apart families — and largely failed to curb drug use. This failure has
been particularly harmful for
communities of color, and we need a new approach. It starts with decriminalizing marijuana and
erasing past convictions, and then eliminating the remaining disparity between
crack and powder cocaine sentencing. And rather than incarcerating individuals
with substance abuse disorders, we should expand options that divert them into
programs that provide real treatment.
Stop criminalizing homelessness. Housing provides safety
and stability, but too many experience
homelessness. To make matters worse, many cities have criminalized homelessness
by banning behavior
associated with it, like sleeping in public or living in vehicles. These laws
draw people into the justice system instead of giving them access to the
services they need. They disproportionately impact communities of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities,
all of whom experience higher rates of homelessness. Rather than treating the
homeless like criminals, we should get them with the resources they need to get
back on their feet.
Stop criminalizing poverty. A simple misdemeanor like
a speeding ticket shouldn’t be enough to send someone to spiraling into poverty
or worse — but often the fines and fees levied
by our legal system bury low-income people who are unable to pay under
court-related debt, with no way out. We abolished debtors prisons nearly two
hundred years ago, but we’re still criminalizing poverty in
this country — low-income individuals are more likely to find
themselves entangled in the system and less likely to
find their way out. There is no justification for imposing unreasonably high
punitive burdens on those who are least able to bear them. As president, I will
fight to:
End cash bail. Around 60% of the nearly
750,000 people in jail have not been convicted of a crime — and too often,
those jails are overcrowded and inhumane. Our justice
system forces its citizens to choose either to submit to the charges brought
against them or be penalized for wanting to fight those charges. We should
allow people to return to their jobs and families while they wait for trial,
reserving preventive detention only for those cases that pose a true flight or
safety risk.
Restrict fines and fees
levied before adjudication. In many
jurisdictions individuals are charged cost-prohibitive pre-trial fees, sending
them into debt even if they are ultimately acquitted of a
crime. In cases of pre-trial civil forfeiture, an individual often cannot
recover property seized prior to conviction. I’ll reverse the Trump
administration’s policy expanding
pre-trial civil forfeiture at the federal level, and restrict the use of civil
forfeiture overall.
Cap the assessment of
fines and fees. Jailing someone who can’t
afford to pay thousands of dollars in fines on an hourly minimum wage salary is
not only cruel — it’s ineffective. Criminal debt collection should be capped at
a percentage of income for low-income individuals. States should also eliminate
the profit incentive that drives excessive fees and fines by capping the
percentage of municipal revenues derived from the justice system, and diverting
seized assets into a general fund.
Eliminate fees for
necessary services. Private companies and
contractors can charge incarcerated people for essential services, like phone
calls, bank transfers, and health care. Private companies also profit from
charging individuals for their own incarceration and supervision, including
through fees for re-entry, supervision, and probation. As I detailed in my plan
to end private prisons, I will end this practice and ensure that private
companies don’t get rich from exploiting vulnerable people.
Accountability for the wealthy and the well-connected. Equal justice also means
an end to the impunity enjoyed by those with money and power. Instead of
criminalizing poverty and expanding mass incarceration, I’ve proposed a
new criminal negligence standard for
executives of corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue when
their company is found guilty of a crime or their negligence causes severe harm
to American families. Instead of locking up people for nonviolent marijuana
crimes, I’ve proposed putting pharmaceutical executives on the hook to report
suspicious orders for controlled substances that damage the lives of millions.
And I’ve proposed new certification requirements for
executives at giant financial institutions so that we can hold them criminally
accountable if the banks they oversee commit fraud.
Reform How the Law Is
Enforced
While reform begins with deciding what
constitutes a crime, the authority to enforce the law includes tremendous
discretion. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges make countless
decisions every day that shape the reality of how our criminal justice system
functions for the millions of Americans it comes into contact with. We must
critically examine each aspect of the enforcement process to ensure that it is
both just and consistent with public safety.
Law Enforcement Reform. The vast majority of police officers sign up so they can protect
their communities. They are part of a profession that works tirelessly and
takes risks every day to keep us safe. But we also know that many people of
color, including Native Americans, disproportionately experience trauma at the
hands of law enforcement, sometimes with life-altering consequences. On
average, three people are
shot and killed by the police every day, a disproportionate number of them
young and Black. Others are arrested and
entered into a system that unduly penalizes even minor infractions.
Everyone is less safe when
trust erodes between the police and the communities they serve. Yet we’ve
continued to allow policing practices that are both ineffective and
discriminatory. It’s time to fundamentally change how police work is done in
America: funding what works; replacing failed policies with effective,
evidence-based practices that do not violate individual rights; and reframing
our approach to public safety to prioritize prevention over punishment. Here’s
how we do it.
Improve access to
treatment and early intervention. For
the third straight year, the number of suicides among law
enforcement in 2018 outnumbered the line-of-duty deaths. Law enforcement
officers experience higher rates of
addiction, post-traumatic stress, and other trauma related disorders. I’ll
invest in mental and emotional health support to help our officers do their
job, including by expanding promising pilots like peer intervention and early warning programs.
Improve data collection
and reporting. For nearly a century, we
have measured crime in this country. It’s time we measure justice — and act
when we don’t measure up. Today there is no comprehensive government database
on fatal police shootings, ethics issues, misconduct complaints, or use of
force incidents. My Justice Department will establish a rigorous and systematic
process to collect this data, provide relevant data collection training to
local law enforcement, and make data publicly available wherever possible.
We’ll use that data to prioritize federal oversight and to hold police
accountable for the portion of the bad policing outcomes for which they are
responsible. And we’ll work with interested departments to use their own data
to improve their legitimacy in the communities they serve and inform more just
and effective policing.
Increase federal
oversight capacity. The Obama Justice
Department used its authority to investigate police departments with a pattern or practice of
unconstitutional policing — but resource constraints limited the number of
interventions carried out. Meanwhile, the Trump administration hasn’t
initiated any investigations
at all. I’ll reverse the Sessions guidance limiting the use of consent decree
investigations, and triple funding for the Office of Civil Rights to allow for
increased investigations of departments with the highest rates of police
violence and whenever there is a death in custody. In this way, we can further
incentivize police departments with persistent issues to adopt best practices.
Empower State Attorneys
General. Even an expanded DOJ will
not be able to provide oversight for many thousands of law enforcement agencies
in this country. And accountability for unconstitutional policing shouldn’t
simply shut down under a hostile President like Trump. To build a more durable
system, I’ll incentivize states to empower their attorneys general to
conduct their own oversight of police behavior nationwide.
Demand increased civilian
oversight. Community engagement can
fill the gap and provide oversight where the federal government, even with
increased capacity, cannot. Approximately 150 communities have
civilian oversight boards, but that covers only a small percentage of law
enforcement agencies in America. To expand local oversight and democratic
engagement in policing, I will implement a competitive grant program that
provides funding to communities that establish an independent civilian
oversight mechanism for their police departments, such as a civilian oversight
board or Office of Civilian Complaints. These boards should have a role in
officer discipline and provide input on hiring police executives as well as
hiring and promoting within the departments they oversee.
Establish a federal
standard for the use of force. When
cities employ more restrictive policies for police use of force, they improve
both community trust and officersafety. I will direct my
administration to develop and apply evidence-based standards for the use of
force for federal law enforcement, incorporating proven approaches and
strategies like de-escalation, verbal
warning requirements, and the use of non-lethal alternatives. At the federal
level, I’ll prohibit permissive pursuit policies that often result in collateral damage, like
high-speed chases and shooting at moving vehicles. And I’ll work with local law
enforcement agencies to ensure that training and technology deployed at the
federal level can be implemented at all levels of government, helping to limit
the use of force while maintaining safety for officers and the communities they
are sworn to protect.
Increase federal funding
for law enforcement training. Improved
training can reduce the number
of police-involved shootings and improve perceptions
of police legitimacy. But if If we want police practices to change, then the
way we train our officers must change — both when they are hired and throughout
their careers. My administration will provide incentives for cities and states
that hire a diverse police force and provide tools and resources to ensure that
best practices on law enforcement training are available across America,
providing local police with what they need to meet federal training
requirements, including training on implicit bias and the scientific and
psychological roots of discrimination, cultural competency, and engaging
individuals with cognitive or other disabilities. And we should support evidence-based continuing
education for officers throughout their careers.
Restrict qualified
immunity to hold police officers accountable. When an officer abuses the law, that’s bad for law enforcement,
bad for victims, and bad for communities. Without access to justice and
accountability for those abuses, we cannot make constitutional due process
protections real. But today, police officers who violate someone’s
constitutional rights are typically shielded from civil rights lawsuits by
qualified immunity — a legal rule invented by the courts that blocks lawsuits against
government officials for misconduct unless a court has previously decided that
the same conduct in the same context was unconstitutional. Qualified immunity
has shielded egregious police misconduct from accountability and drawn
criticism from across the politicalspectrum. Last month,
for example, a federal appeals court in Atlanta granted qualified immunity to a
police officer who, while aiming at a family’s dog, shot a 10-year-old boy while
the child was lying on the ground 18 inches away from the officer. Just two
weeks ago, another federal court used qualified immunity to dismiss a lawsuit
against a school police officer who handcuffed a sobbing seven-year-old
boy for refusing to go to the principal’s office. This makes no
sense. I support limiting qualified immunity for law enforcement officials who
are found to have violated the Constitution, and allowing victims to sue police
departments directly for negligently hiring officers despite prior misconduct.
End racially
discriminatory policing. Policies
like stop-and-frisk and “broken windows” policing have trampled the
constitutional rights of countless Americans — particularly those from Black
and Brown communities — without any measurableimpact on violent
crime. I’ll end stop-and-frisk by directing the Justice Department to withhold
federal funding from law enforcement agencies that continue to employ it and
other similar practices, and I’ll work with Congress to pass legislation to
prohibit profiling at all levels of law enforcement.
Separate law enforcement
from immigration enforcement. The
data are clear. When local law enforcement is mixed with immigration
enforcement, immigrants are less likely to
report crimes, and public safety suffers. It’s time to
stop directing law enforcement officers to do things that undermine their
ability to keep communities safe. My immigration plan will
address this by ending the 287(g) and “Secure Communities” programs, putting in
guidelines to protect sensitive locations like hospitals and schools, and
expanding protections for immigrant survivors of violent crimes that come
forward and work with law enforcement.
Demilitarize local law
enforcement. Officer safety is
critically important. But we don’t build trust between police and communities
when we arm local law enforcement as if they are going to war. Militarizing our
police contributes to mutual fear and distrust, and there is evidence to
suggest it can actually make officers themselves less safe. As President,
I will eliminate the transfer of military-grade weapons and lethal equipment to
local police via the 1033 program, prohibit local law enforcement from buying
military equipment with federal funding, and create a buy-back program for
equipment already in use in our communities.
Expand the responsible
use of body cameras and protect citizen privacy. Body cameras don’t solve every problem, but used consistently
and appropriately they can decrease the use of force and misconduct complaints.
The federal government should expand funding for body cameras — especially for
smaller jurisdictions that struggle to afford them — in exchange for
departments implementing accountability policies that
ensure consistent and responsible camera use. I’ll also establish a task force
on digital privacy in public safety to establish guardrails and appropriate
privacy protections for this and other surveillance technology, including the
use of facial recognition technology and algorithms that exacerbate underlying
bias. And I’ll make it clear that individuals have every right to record an interaction with
the police.
Reduce gun
violence. We’ve learned the hard
way in Massachusetts that the job of our police is made exponentially harder by
the weapons flooding our streets. Common sense gun reform and meaningful
safeguards will improve safety for law enforcement and the communities they
serve. In 2017, almost 40,000 people died from guns in the United States. I
have a plan with the goal
of reducing that number by 80%, including by expanding background checks,
establishing a federal licensing system, and holding the gun industry
accountable for the violence promoted by their products.
Prosecutorial and Judicial Reform. Our current criminal
system is complex and places enormous power in the hands of the state. The
government controls what leads to pursue, what charges are levied, whether a
plea is offered, and how long someone spends behind bars. It has massive
resources at its disposal, and enjoys few obligations to share information and
limited oversight of its actions. All of this makes it challenging to ensure
that the accused can go to trial, can get a fair trial, and can receive a just
and reasonable sentence if convicted. To make matters worse, race permeates
every aspect of the system — people of color are twice as likely to
be charged with crimes that carry a mandatory minimum sentence. Reform requires
a transparent system that emphasizes justice, that gives people a fighting
chance — and truly treats everyone equally, regardless of color. Here’s how we
can start.
Strengthen public
defenders and expand access to counsel. The
Sixth Amendment provides every American accused of a crime with the right to an
attorney — but too many defendants cannot afford one, and too often, public
defenders are under-resourced, overworked, and overwhelmed. If we expect fair
adversarial trials, we need to balance resources on both sides of each case in
every jurisdiction. I’ll fund federal public defenders and expand targeted
grant funding for public defenders at the state level, to ensure that they have
the tools to effectively defend their clients. I’ll also reopen and expand
DOJ’s Office for Access to Justice, which worked with state and local
governments to expand access to counsel. We should ensure that our public
defenders are paid a fair salary for their work, and that their caseloads allow
for the comprehensive defense of their clients. Finally, I’ll provide funding
for language and cultural competency training, including on gender identity and
treatment of individuals with disabilities, so that public defenders are best
able to serve their clients.
Rein in prosecutorial
abuses. Prosecutors are enormously powerful and
often not subject to
scrutiny or accountability. I will support a set of reforms that would rein in
the most egregious prosecutorial abuses and make the system fairer, including
reducing the use of coercive plea bargaining by
DOJ prosecutors at the federal level, establishing open-file discovery, and
putting in place responsible standards for evidence gathering. I’ll establish a
Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct to make additional recommendations for best
practices and monitor adoption of those recommendations. And I’ll create an
independent prosecutorial integrity unit to hold accountable prosecutors who
abuse their power.
Expand access to justice
for people wrongfully imprisoned. Defendants
who are wrongfully imprisoned have the right to challenge their detention in
court through a procedure known as habeas corpus. The Framers believed this
right was so important to achieving justice that they guaranteed it
specifically in the Constitution. It’s particularly important for minority
defendants — Black Americans, for example, make up only 13% of the population
but a plurality of wrongful convictions. In
1996, at the height of harsh federal policies that drove mass incarceration,
Congress made it absurdly difficult for
wrongfully imprisoned individuals to bring these cases in federal court. Since
then, conservative Supreme Court Justices have built on those restrictions —
making it nearly impossible for
defendants to receive habeas relief even when they have actual proof of
innocence. We should repeal these overly restrictive habeas rules, make it
harder for courts to dismiss these claims on procedural technicalities, and
make it easier to apply new rules that emerge from these cases to people who
were wrongfully imprisoned before those rules came into effect.
Protect the rights of
survivors. Crime victims have the
right to safety and justice, the right to be consulted and informed about the
status of their case, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect. We
should provide support for those who have experienced trauma, including medical
care and safe housing. This is particularly true for those who have experienced
sexual assault or violence at the hands of an intimate partner. I’ll also fight
to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and provide full funding to
eliminate the rape kit backlog across the country.
Appointing a diverse
judicial bench. The justice system should
reflect the country it serves. Judicial appointments are primarily white and male, and
large numbers tend to have a prosecutorial background.
Diversity of experience matters. That’s why I have pushed for increasing the
professional diversity of our federal judiciary to insulate the courts
from corporate capture, and
why I support gender and racial diversity for judicial nominees. I’ll appoint a
diverse slate of judges, including those who have a background defending civil
liberties or as public defenders.
Take into account the
views of those most impacted by the system.As
President, I will establish an advisory board comprised of survivors of
violence, along with formerly incarcerated individuals. I’ll consult with this
advisory board and listen to the needs of those who have first-hand experience
with the system as we find fair and just solutions to the challenges we face.
Reforming Incarceration
The federal prison population has grown 650% since
1980, and costs have ballooned by 685%. This explosion has
been driven in large part by rules requiring mandatory minimum sentences and
other excessively long sentencing practices. These harsh sentencing practices
are not only immoral, there’s little evidence that they are effective. As president
I will fight change them.
Reduce mandatory minimums. The 1994 crime bill’s
mandatory minimums and “truth-in-sentencing” provisions that require offenders
to serve the vast majority of their sentences have not proven effective.
Congress should reduce or eliminate these provisions, giving judges more flexibility in
sentencing decisions, with the goal of reducing incarceration to mid-1990s
levels. My administration will also reverse the Sessions memo that
requires federal prosecutors to seek the most severe possible penalties, and
allow federal prosecutors discretion to raise the charge standards for
misdemeanors and seek shorter sentences for felony convictions.
Raise the age for criminal liability. We know that cognition
and decision-making skills continue to develop beyond the teenage years.
For that reason, many states have
raised the age of adult criminal liability to at least 17, or granted
additional discretion to prosecutors when charging offenders between the ages
of 16 and 18. The federal government should do the same — raising the age of
adult criminal liability to 18, eliminating life-without-parole sentences for
minors, and diverting young adult offenders into rehabilitative programs
wherever possible.
End the death penalty. Studies show that capital punishment is often applied in a
manner biased against people of color and those with a mental illness.
I oppose the death penalty. A Warren administration would reverse Attorney
General Barr’s decision to move
forward with federal executions, and Congress should abolish the death penalty.
Use the pardon and clemency powers broadly to right systemic
injustices. The president has significant powers to grant clemency and
pardons, and historically presidents have used that power broadly. But
today’s hierarchical process
at DOJ results in relatively few and conservative clemency recommendations.
I’ll remove the clemency process from DOJ, instead empowering a clemency board
to make recommendations directly to the White House. I’ll direct the board to
identify broad classes of potentially-deserving individuals for review,
including those who would have benefited from retroactivity under the First
Step Act, individuals who are jailed under outdated or discriminatory drug
laws, or those serving mandatory minimums that should be abolished.
Improving conditions in prison. Today prisons are
often understaffed and overcrowded,
making them dangerous for both inmates and corrections officers. Even as we
fight to reduce incarceration levels, we should support improved staffing
levels and better training for corrections officers, and humane conditions for
those behind bars. As president, I will:
Ensure that incarceration meets basic human
rights standards. From inadequate health care to dangerous overcrowding,
today our prison system is not meeting the government’s basic responsibility to
keep the people in its care safe. I’ll embrace a set of standards for the
Bureau of Prisons to fix this. That includes accommodating religious practices,
providing reasonable accommodations for prisoners with disabilities, and
limiting restrictive housing in
accordance with evidence-based best practices. We should ensure that trans
people are assigned to facilities that align with their gender identity and
provide the unique medical and psychiatric care they need, including access to
hormone treatments and help with adjusting to their care. And we should
eliminate solitary confinement, which provides little carcerative benefit and
has been demonstrated to harm prisoners’ mental and physical health,
in favor of safe alternatives.
Protect special
populations. Vulnerable individuals
like pregnant women, victims of domestic violence, people with disabilities,
and LGBTQ+ individuals often require special protections while behind bars.
I’ll implement a rigorous auditing program to ensure that prisons are adhering
to legal requirements to
protect LGBTQ+ individuals and others from sexual violence and assault while
incarcerated, and prosecute prison staff who engage in misconduct. I’ll ensure
that juveniles are not housed in adult facilities. I’ll also eliminate the use
of solitary confinement for protective purposes. Instead, I’ll direct the
Bureau of Prisons to establish a set of standards and reforms to protect the
most vulnerable in our prison system in a way that does not involve confining a
person for more than 20 hours a day.
Invest in programs that
facilitate rehabilitation. The
evidence is clear: providing education and opportunity behind bars reduces recidivism when
people leave prison. But when prison populations went up and budgets went down,
rehabilitation services were often the first cuts. In a world where the vast
majority of prisoners will eventually leave prison, this makes no sense. I’ll
double grant funding for these services in our prisons, expanding programs
focused on things like vocational training, anger management, and parenting
skills.
Expand mental health and
addiction treatment. 14% of prisoners
meet the threshold for serious psychological distress, and many more struggle
with addiction — but too often, they receive prison time rather than treatment.
And instead of increasing access to treatment in prison, the Bureau of Prisons has reduced it.
Providing mental health treatment during incarceration reduces recidivism. We
must take a comprehensive approach to incarcerated people who face mental
health and addiction challenges, including requiring an adequate number of
counselors and addiction specialists, individualized treatment, and increased
access to medication-assisted treatment.
Eliminate private
prisons. I have called to eliminate private prisonsthat
make millions off the backs of incarcerated people. We should also end
all-foreign or “criminal alien requirement” facilities, which are reported to
have higher negative outcomes.
Support Reentry
The period after release from prison can be
challenging for returning citizens. During this critical period, they are more
likely to be unemployed, more likely
to be rearrested, more likely
to overdose, and more
likely to die. Recidivism rates
remain high, in part because our prisons have not fulfilled their
rehabilitative function, and in part because lack of opportunity after release
drives individuals to re-offend. On top of all of this, more than 60,000
inmates in our prisons are there because of technical violations
of their parole — for offenses as minor as a speeding ticket. We need
evidence-based programs and interventions to break the cycle of incarceration
and set formerly incarcerated individuals up for success when they return to
their families and their communities. This is particularly true for youth and
minors, who are especially vulnerable when returning to an unstable
environment. Here are some of the steps I will take.
Pressure states to eliminate collateral sanctions. Millions of Americans are
currently on parole or probation. We know that reducing the barriers to full
reintegration in society reduces recidivism, but the system is rife with
collateral consequences that hamper reentry for formerly incarcerated people
who have served their time — from restrictions on occupational licensing to housing to
the disenfranchisement of
over 3 million returning citizens. We should remove those barriers and allow
those who have served their time to find work and fully rejoin their
communities.
Reduce needlessly restrictive parole requirements. Technical parole and
probation violations make up a large number of all state prison admissions,
sometimes for infractions as minor as a paperwork error. While many rules are
made at the state level, the federal government should seek to remove those
barriers wherever possible, reduce parole requirements for low-level offenders,
and remove the threat of jail time for minor parole violations.
Reduce discrimination during reentry. I’ll reverse the guidance that
exempts privately run re-entry programs that contract with the Bureau of
Prisons from anti-discrimination laws, restoring protections for individuals
with disabilities and those that encounter discrimination on the basis of their
sexual orientation or gender identity.
Establish a federal expungement option. Many states provide
a certificate of recovery for
nonviolent offenders who have served their time and maintained a clean record
for a certain number of years. This should be replicated at the federal level.
Ensuring Reform at the
State and Local Level
The federal government oversees just 12% of the
incarcerated population and only a small percentage of law enforcement and the
overall criminal legal system. To achieve real criminal justice reform on a
national scale, we must move the decisions of states and local governments as
well.
My administration will work with state and
local governments and incentivize adoption of new federal standards through the
grantmaking process. Federal grants make up nearly one third of
state budgets, and states and local authorities spend about 6% of their budget on
law enforcement functions. My administration would reprioritize state and local
grant making toward a restorative approach to justice, and expand grant funding
through categorical grants that require funds to be used for criminal justice
reform and project grants that require funding to be allocated to specific
programs.
When necessary, my plan would also use federal enforcement authority. My
administration would expand on the
Obama-era practice of using Department of Justice consent decrees and other
judicial settlements to enforce federal standards and remedy constitutional
violations at the state and local level. My plan would also leverage the
federal government’s Spending Clause authority and ability to impose civil
rights mandates using cross-cutting requirements to ensure that state and local
governments comply with federal criminal justice reform standards.
The
vigorous contest of Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination has
produced excellent policy proposals to address major issues. Senator Elizabeth
Warren released her plan to protect communities from gun violence. This is from
the Warren2020 campaign (Read it here).
“The conversation about
gun violence in America is shifting — but not just because we’ve seen a spike
in violence fueled by the NRA and the Trump administration’s dangerous policies
and extremist rhetoric. It’s also because of the tireless work of activists,
organizers, and community leaders who have been fighting for reform at the
state and local level.
“If you need proof that the majority
of Americans support common sense gun reform, look at what’s happening in state
legislatures and city councils across the country. Moms, students, and faith
leaders have been packing hearing rooms and taking back spaces formerly reserved
for NRA lobbyists. Survivors of mass shootings are doing the critical work of
turning our attention to the daily gun violence in cities that doesn’t make
headlines.
“And it’s working. States that pass
expanded background checks see lower rates of gun-related deaths and gun
trafficking. States that disarm domestic abusers see lower rates of intimate
partner gun violence. States with extreme risk laws have been successful in
reducing gun suicides and have used them to prevent potential mass shootings.
Community-based violence intervention programs are popping up in cities across
the country.
“Together, we can build on this
momentum. We can build a grassroots movement to take back the Senate, eliminate
the filibuster, and pass federal gun safety legislation that will save lives.
And from the White House, I’ll make sure that the NRA and their cronies are
held accountable with executive action. If we turn our heartbreak and our anger
into action, I know we can take the power from the NRA and the lawmakers in
their pockets and return it to the people.”
Charlestown, MA – Prior to her appearance at the Everytown presidential forum,
Elizabeth Warren released her plan to confront gun violence in America.
Yesterday, she called on Walmart to stop selling
guns — one of the largest gun retailers in the world.
Elizabeth will set a goal of reducing
gun deaths in this country by 80%, starting with an ambitious set of executive
actions she will take as president. In order to break the hold of the NRA and
the gun lobby, she will pass her sweeping anti-corruption legislation and
eliminate the filibuster to pass gun legislation in her first 100 days. She
supports federal licensing, universal background checks, a military-style
assault weapon ban, higher taxes on guns and ammunition, and closing the
loopholes to make it harder for someone violent to get a gun.
We know that Black and Latinx
Americans have borne the brunt of the gun violence tragedy in our country.
Instead of focusing solely on law enforcement and incarceration, Elizabeth will
invest in interventions designed to stop gun violence before it occurs by
piloting evidence-based community violence intervention programs at scale.
She will call on Congress to repeal
the liability shield that protects the industry – and then go further, by
establishing a federal private right of action to allow survivors of gun
violence to get their day in court. Her plan also includes $100 million
annually for gun safety research, and commits to study the reforms we enact to
see what’s working, and send Congress updated reform proposals on an annual
basis.
These are just a few of the names
etched into the American consciousness, synonymous with senseless loss and
enduring grief.
It’s been a week since these latest
attacks, and on average every day 100 people are killed in the U.S. by a gun —
in shootings that occur in our homes, on our streets, at our playgrounds.
The victims are our neighbors and our
friends. Someone’s mother, someone’s child, someone’s sibling.
There is no shortage of horrifying
statistics about our gun violence epidemic.
Our firearm homicide rate is 25 times higher
than other comparable countries.
Our firearm suicide rate is
nearly 10 times higher.
Women in the U.S. are 21 times more
likely to be shot to death than women in other high-income countries, most
killed by an intimate partner.
And while the majority of
Americans — including a majority of
gun owners — support sensible gun legislation, even the most basic proposals,
like universal background checks, are consistently blocked by far-right
ideologues in Congress who are bought and paid for by
the gun industry, their NRA partners, and
a supporting army of lobbyists and lawyers.
Faced with a complex and entrenched
public health crisis, made worse by the ongoing inability of a corrupt
government to do anything about it, it’s easy to despair. But we are not
incapable of solving big problems. We’ve done it before.
In 1965, more than five people died in
automobile accidents for every 100 million miles traveled. It was a massive
crisis. As a nation, we decided to do better. Some things were obvious:
seatbelts, safer windshields, and padded dashboards. Other things only became
clear over time: things like airbags and better brake systems. But we made
changes, we did what worked, and we kept at it. Over fifty years, we reduced
per-mile driving deaths by almost 80% and prevented 3.5 million automobile
deaths. And we’re still at it.
In 2017, almost 40,000 people
died from guns in the United States. My goal as President, and our goal as a
society, will be to reduce that number by 80%. We might not know how to get all
the way there yet. But we’ll start by implementing solutions that we believe
will work. We’ll continue by constantly revisiting and updating those solutions
based on new public health research. And we’ll make structural changes to end
the ability of corrupt extremists to block our government from defending the
lives of our people — starting with ending the filibuster.
Here’s what that will look like.
As president, I will immediately take
executive action to rein in an out-of-control gun industry — and to hold both
gun dealers and manufacturers accountable for the violence promoted by their
products.
I will break the NRA’s stranglehold on
Congress by passing sweeping anti-corruption legislation and eliminating the
filibuster so that our nation can no longer be held hostage by a small group of
well-financed extremists who have already made it perfectly clear that they
will never put the safety of the American people first.
I will send Congress comprehensive gun
violence prevention legislation. I will sign it into law within my first 100
days. And we will revisit this comprehensive legislation every single year —
adding new ideas and tweaking existing ones based on new data — to continually
reduce the number of gun deaths in America.
Executive Action to Reduce
Gun Violence
Reform advocates are engaged in a
valuable discussion about gun reforms that can be achieved by executive action.
We must pursue these solutions to the fullest extent of the law, including by
redefining anyone “engaged in the business”
of dealing in firearms to include the vast majority of gun sales outside of
family-to-family exchanges. This will extend requirements — not only for
background checks, but all federal gun rules — to cover all of those sales.
This includes:
Requiring background checks. We will
bring the vast majority of private sales, including at gun shows and online,
under the existing background check umbrella.
Reporting on multiple purchases. We
will extend the existing requirement to report bulk sales to nearly all gun
sales. And I’ll extend existing reporting requirements on the mass purchase of
certain rifles from the southwestern border states to all 50 states.
Raising the minimum age. We will
expand the number of sales covered by existing age restriction provisions that
require the purchaser to be at least 18 years old, keeping guns out of the
hands of more teenagers.
My administration will use
all the authorities at the federal government’s disposal to investigate and
prosecute all those who circumvent or violate existing federal gun laws. This
includes:
Prosecuting gun traffickers. Gun
trafficking across state lines allows
guns to move from states with fewer restrictions to those with strict safety
standards, and gun trafficking across our southern border contributes to gang
violence that sends migrants fleeing north. I’ll instruct my Attorney General
to go after the interstate and transnational gun trafficking trade with all the
resources of the federal government.
Revoking licenses for gun dealers who
break the rules. Only 1% of gun dealers are responsible for 57% of guns used in
crimes. My Administration will direct the ATF to prioritize oversight of
dealers with serial compliance violations — and then use its authority to
revoke the license of dealers who repeatedly violate the rules.
Investigating the NRA and its cronies.
The NRA is accused of exploiting loopholes in federal laws governing
non-profit spending to divert member dues into lavish payments for
its board members and senior leadership. I’ll appoint an attorney general
committed to investigating these types of corrupt business practices, and the
banks and third-party vendors — like Wells Fargo — that
enabled the NRA to skirt the rules for so long.
To protect the most
vulnerable, my administration will use ATF’s existing regulatory authority to
the greatest degree possible, including by:
Protecting survivors of domestic
abuse. We will close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by
defining intimate partner to include anyone with a domestic violence conviction
involving any form of romantic partner.
Reversing the Trump administration’s
efforts to weaken our existing gun rules. We will rescind the Trump-era rules
and policies that weaken our gun safety regime, including rules that lower the standards for
purchasing a gun, and those that make it easier to create untraceable weapons
or modify weapons in ways that circumvent the law. This includes overturning
Trump-era policies enabling
3-D printed guns, regulating 80% receivers as firearms,
and reversing the ATF ruling that allows a shooter to convert a pistol to a
short-barreled rifle using pistol braces.
Restrict the movement of guns across
our borders. We will reverse the Trump administration’s efforts to make
it easier to export U.S.-manufactured
weapons by transferring exports of semi-automatic firearms and ammunition from
the State Department to the Commerce Department, and we will prevent the import
of foreign-manufactured assault weapons into the United States.
The shooting in El Paso
also reminds us that we need to call out white nationalism for what it is:
domestic terrorism. Instead of a president who winks and nods as white
nationalism gets stronger in this country, we need a president who will use all
the tools available to prevent it. It is completely incompatible with our
American values, it is a threat to American safety and security, and a Warren
Justice Department will prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law.
Structural Changes to Pass Gun Safety Legislation
The next president has a moral
obligation to use whatever executive authority she has to address the gun
crisis. But it is obvious that executive action is not enough. Durable reform
requires legislation — but right now legislation is impossible. Why? A virulent
mix of corruption and abuse of power.
Big money talks in Washington. And the
NRA represents a particularly noxious example of Washington corruption at work.
Over the last two decades, the NRA has spent over $200 million on
lobbying Congress, influencing elections, and buying off politicians — and
that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The NRA spends millions poisoning our
political discourse with hateful, conspiracy-fueled propaganda, blocking even
modest reforms supported by 90% of American voters.
In the wake of the Sandy Hook
massacre, the American people rallied for reform. President Obama suggested
several serious legislative changes. The Senate voted down an assault weapons
ban. It rejected a background checks proposal, even though 54 Senators from
both parties voted for it, because of a right-wing-filibuster. These were the
bare minimum steps we needed to take. And six years later, Congress still
hasn’t done a thing.
This pattern repeats itself throughout
our government. When money and influence can override the will of a huge
majority of Americans, that is corruption, pure and simple.
It’s time to fight back. I
have proposed the most sweeping set of anticorruption reforms since
Watergate — a set of big structural changes that includes ending lobbying as we
know it and slamming shut the revolving door. My first priority when I’m
elected President is to enact this package to get our government working for
everyone again.
But anti-corruption legislation alone
won’t be enough to get gun safety legislation done. After decades of inaction,
Democrats have rallied behind a number of important gun reforms. If we continue
to allow bought and paid for extremists in the Senate to thwart the will of the
people, we will never enact any of them.
Enough is enough. Lasting
gun reform requires the elimination of the filibuster.
Legislation to Reduce Gun
Violence
When I am president, I will send
Congress comprehensive legislation containing our best ideas about what will
work to reduce gun violence.
It starts by ensuring that safe, responsible ownership is the standard for
everyone who chooses to own a gun. We’ll do that by:
Creating a federal licensing system.
States with strict licensing requirements experience lower rates of gun
trafficking and violence. A license is required to drive a car, and Congress
should establish a similarly straightforward federal licensing system for the
purchase of any type of firearm or ammunition.
Requiring universal background checks.
I’ll expand background checks via executive action — but Congress should act to
permanently mandate universal background checks. And I’ll push Congress to
close the so-called “Charleston loophole”
that allows a sale to proceed after three days even if the background check is
not complete.
Increasing taxes on gun manufacturers.
Since 1919, the federal
government has imposed an excise tax on manufacturers and importers of guns and
ammunition. Handguns are taxed at 10% and other guns and ammunition are taxed
at 11%. These taxes raise less in revenue than the federal excise tax on
cigarettes, domestic wine, or even airline tickets. It’s time for Congress to
raise those rates — to 30% on guns and 50% on ammunition — both to reduce new
gun and ammunition sales overall and to bring in new federal revenue that we
can use for gun violence prevention and enforcement of existing gun laws.
Establishing a real waiting period.
Waiting periods prevent impulsive gun violence, reducing gun suicides by 7–11% and gun
homicides by 17%. Over the past 5
years, a national handgun waiting period would have stopped at least 4,550 gun
deaths. The federal government should establish a one-week waiting period for
all firearm purchases.
Capping firearms purchases.
About one out of four of
firearms recovered at the scene of a crime were part of a bulk purchase.
Congress should limit the number of guns that can be purchased to one per
month, similar to a Virginia law that
successfully reduced the likelihood of Virginia-bought guns being used in
criminal activity.
Creating a new federal anti-trafficking
law. Congress should make clear that trafficking firearms or engaging in “straw
purchases” — when an individual buys a gun on behalf of a prohibited purchaser
— are federal crimes. This would give law enforcement new tools to crack down
on gun trafficking and help keep guns out of the wrong hands.
Raising the minimum age for gun
purchases. I’ll extend existing age requirements to virtually all sales, but
federal law is currently conflicting — for example, a person must be 21 to
purchase a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, but only 18 to purchase a
rifle. Congress should set the federal minimum age at 21 for all gun sales.
We can also do more to
keep military-style assault weapons off our streets. We’ll do that by:
Passing a new federal assault weapons
ban. The 1994 federal assault weapons ban successfully reduced gun deaths
but was allowed to expire ten years later. Congress should again ban the future
production, sale, and importation of military-style assault weapons, and
require individuals already in possession of assault weapons to register them
under the National Firearms Act. Just as we did successfully with machine guns
after the passage of that law, we should establish a buyback program to allow
those who wish to do so to return their weapon for safe disposal, and
individuals who fail to register or return their assault weapon should face
penalties.
Banning high-capacity ammunition
magazines. High-capacity magazines were used in 57% of mass shootings from 2009
to 2015, allowing the shooters to target large numbers of people without
stopping to reload. Congress should enact a federal ban on large-capacity
magazines for all firearms, setting reasonable limits on the lethality of these
weapons.
Prohibiting accessories that make
weapons more deadly. Gun manufacturers sell increasingly deadly gun
accessories, including silencers, trigger cranks, and other mechanisms that
increase the rate of fire or make semi-automatic weapons fully automatic.
Congress should ban these dangerous accessories entirely.
We should also do
everything possible to keep guns out of the hands of those at highest risk of
violence. We’ll do that by:
Passing extreme risk protection laws.
Extreme risk protection orders allow families and law enforcement to petition
to temporarily restrict access to firearms for individuals in crisis or at
elevated risk of harming themselves or others. Congress should pass a federal
extreme risk law and create a grant system to incentivize states to enact their
own laws that clearly define extreme risk.
Prohibiting anyone convicted of a hate
crime from owning a gun. Too often, guns are used in acts of mass violence
intended to provoke fear in minority communities; more than 10,000 hate crimes
involve a gun every year. Any individual convicted of a hate crime should be
permanently prohibited from owning a gun, full stop.
Protecting survivors of domestic
abuse. Domestic violence and gun violence are deeply connected — in an average
month, more than 50 women are shot
and killed by an intimate partner. I’ll close the boyfriend loophole, but
Congress should make that permanent, and expand the law to include individuals
with restraining orders or who have been convicted of stalking.
Securing our schools. Parents
shouldn’t have to buy bullet-proof backpacks for
their children — guns have no place on our campuses or in our schools. Congress
should improve the Gun-Free School Zones Act to include college and university
campuses, and apply to individuals licensed by a state or locality to carry a
firearm.
If we want real,
long-lasting change, we must also hold the gun industry accountable, including
online sites that look the other way when sellers abuse their platforms. We’ll
do that by:
Repealing the Protection of Lawful
Commerce in Arms Act. Nearly every other industry has civil liability as a
check on irresponsible actions, but a 2005 law insulates firearms and dealers
from civil liability when a weapon is used to commit a crime, even in cases
when dealers were shockingly irresponsible. No one should be above the law, and
that includes the gun industry. Congress should repeal this law, immediately.
Holding gun manufacturers strictly
liable for the harm they cause through a federal private right of action. Gun
manufacturers make billions in profit by knowingly selling deadly products.
Then they are let completely off the hook when people take those deadly
products and inflict harm on thousands of victims each year. State tort law
already recognizes that certain types of products and activities are so
abnormally dangerous that the entities responsible for them should be held
strictly liable when people are injured. Congress should codify that same
principle at the federal level for guns by creating a new private right of
action allowing survivors of gun violence to hold the manufacturer of the
weapon that harmed them strictly liable forcompensatory damages to
the victim or their family.
Strengthening ATF. The NRA has long
sought to hobble the ATF, lobbying against staffing and
funding increases for the agency and getting its congressional allies to
impose absurd restrictions on
its work even as the agency struggled to meet its basic responsibilities.
Congress should fully fund ATF’s regulatory and compliance programs and remove
the riders and restrictions that prevent it from doing its job.
Regulating firearms for consumer
safety. Today there are no federal safety standards for
firearms produced in the United States. We can recall unsafe products from
trampolines to children’s pajamas — but not defective guns. Congress should
repeal the provision of law that prevents the Consumer Product Safety
Commission from regulating the safety of firearms and their accessories.
Tightening oversight for gun dealers.
Today there is no requirement for federally-licensed gun shops to take even
simple steps to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands. Congress should
pass basic safety standards for federally-licensed gun dealers, including
employee background checks, locked cabinets, and up-to-date inventories of the
weapons they have in stock.
Holding gun industry CEOs personally
accountable. I’ve proposed a lawthat would impose
criminal liability and jail time for corporate executives when their company is
found guilty of a crime or their negligence causes severe harm to American
families — and that includes gun industry CEOs.
Tragedies like the shootings we
witnessed in El Paso and Dayton capture our attention and dominate the
conversation about gun reform. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg of gun
violence in America. Everyday, we lose one hundred Americans
to gun violence, with hundreds more physically injured and countless more
mentally and emotionally traumatized. And Black and Latinx Americans have borne
the brunt of the gun violence tragedy in our country.
In the past, those statistics have been used to justify increased policing
and strict sentencing laws. Communities already traumatized by gun violence
were doubly victimized by policies that locked up their young people and threw
away the key. We’ve got a chance to show that we’ve learned from the past and
to chart a new path. It starts by acknowledging that gun violence is a public
health crisis, one that cannot be solved solely by the criminal justice system.
We can start to do that by investing
in evidence-based community violence intervention programs. Federal grant
funding today focuses significantly on law enforcement and incarceration,
rather than interventions designed to stop gun violence before it occurs. The
data in urban communities indicate that the majority of violence is perpetrated
by a small number of
offenders, and many cities have found success with programs that identify those
at highest risk of becoming the victim or perpetrator of a violent gun crime,
then employing strategies to interrupt the cycle of violence before it
escalates. Programs that engage the surrounding community, employ mediation to
prevent retaliation, build trust with law enforcement, and provide needed
long-term social services have been proven to de-escalate tensions and dramatically reduce violence.
As president, I’ll establish a grant program to invest in and pilot these types
of evidence-based intervention programs at scale.
Annual Research and Annual
Reauthorization
Historically, when Congress works to
address big national issues, we don’t simply pass one law and cross our
fingers. Instead, we continue the research — into new policies and around the
consequences of our existing policies — and then come back on a regular basis
to update the law.
We don’t do this with guns. Not only
have we not passed meaningful legislation in almost a generation, but thanks to the NRA, for
decades Congress prohibited federal funding from being used to promote gun
safety at all, effectively freezing nearly all research on ways to reduce gun
violence. Last year, Congress finally clarified that the CDC could in fact
conduct gun violence research — but provided no funding to do so.
This ends when I’m President. My
budget will include an annual investment of $100 million for DOJ and HHS to
conduct research into the root causes of gun violence and the most effective
ways to prevent it, including by analyzing gun trafficking patterns, and
researching new technologies to improve gun safety. These funds will also be
used to study the reforms we enact — to see what’s working, what new ideas
should be added, and what existing policies should be tweaked. And every year,
I will send Congress an updated set of reforms based on this new information.
That’s how we’ll meet our goal.
The
vigorous contest of Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination has
produced excellent policy proposals to address major issues.Senator
Elizabeth Warren details a plan for Rural America that “will help create a new farm economy where family farmers have
financial security and the freedom to do what they do best. Farmers of all
backgrounds will finally have the economic freedom to pursue diverse,
sustainable farming — and get paid up front for doing so. Americans will have
a steady and affordable supply of food. Kids in rural communities will have
healthy lunches grown in their backyards and packaged at local food hubs run by
small town entrepreneurs. Taxpayers won’t pay twice — once at the grocery
store and once through their taxes — for overproduced commodities. We will
replenish our soil and our water to chart a path towards a climate solution and
achieve the goals of the Green New Deal.”Here are the details, as provided by
the Warren campaign:
Charlestown, MA – Elizabeth Warren released her plan to invest in rural America and build a new farm economy. Her plan includes creating a public option for broadband and ending government giveaways for private internet service providers, investing in rural health care, and taking strong anti-trust action against hospital mergers that threaten access to basic services. She outlines how her plans for universal child care and high-quality early education, student debt cancellation, building and rehabilitating affordable housing, and tackling the opioid crisis will restore opportunity in rural America.
Warren also lays out how she will replace the government’s failed approach to the farm economy and address our climate crisis head-on by paying farmers for sustainable farming practices that can help us fight climate change.
Warren released her plan before kicking of a 4-day tour across Iowa. Read more about her plan to invest in rural America here. Read more about her plan to build a new farm economy here.
My Plan to Invest in Rural America
A strong America requires a strong rural America. Rural communities are home to 60 million people, hundreds of tribal nations, and a growing number of new immigrants who account for 37% of rural population growth. These communities feed our nation. And they are leading the country in sustainable energy, generating 99% of America’s wind energy and pioneering efforts to harness solar energy.
But both corporate America and leaders in Washington have turned their backs on the people living in our rural communities and prioritized the interests of giant companies and Wall Street instead. Burdened by student debt, young people are leaving rural communities to find jobs elsewhere. Big broadband companies exclude entire communities – especially tribal communities and rural communities of color – from access to high-speed Internet. Rural communities are losing access to quality health care. Climate change – from more severe floods to extreme heat – is changing the rural way of life. And farmers are forced to compete with giant agribusinesses on an uneven playing field.
Our failure to invest in rural areas is holding back millions of families, weakening our economy, and undermining our efforts to combat climate change. It’s time to fix this.
Protecting Access to Health Care in Rural Communities
Health care is a human right. But people can’t fully exercise that right in communities lacking access to basic services like primary, emergency, and maternity care. That is what’s happening across rural America, where the prevalence of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes is higher, as is the risk of dying from the leading causes of death in the country compared to urban areas. Barriers to coverage, disappearing health facilities, and a shortage of health professionals are denying rural communities the high-quality health care they deserve.
Insurance coverage continues to remain out of reach for many people living in rural communities – and even for those with coverage, rural America is quickly becoming a medical desert. In less than a decade, 112 rural hospitals have closed, with hundreds more teetering on the edge. Those that do remain open operate on razor-thin margins from uncompensated care, lower patient volume, and insufficient reimbursement.
That’s why I support Medicare for All, so that every person will have access to affordable care no matter where they live. That means access to primary care and lower health care costs for patients – and less uncompensated care for hospitals, helping hospitals stay afloat. We also need to increase reimbursement rates for rural hospitals and alleviate unnecessary restrictions that make it difficult for them to serve their communities. Medicare already has special designations available to rural hospitals, but they must be updated to match the reality of rural areas. I will create a new designation that reimburses rural hospitals at a higher rate, relieves distance requirements, and offers flexibility of services by assessing the needs of their communities.
But we can’t stop there. Higher rates of consolidation for both for-profit and non-profit hospitals are making it harder to access care. And yet, many hospitals can evade federal antitrust enforcement either because the value of the merger is too small to trigger mandatory review or because the Federal Trade Commission’s purview over non-profit hospitals is constrained. Vertical integration is also increasing as more hospitals acquire physician practices, and some states have deliberately sheltered hospitals from federal antitrust action. I will boost the federal government’s oversight of mergers and anti-competitive behavior to make sure that health care companies play by the rules and put the needs of patients first.
As President, I will direct the FTC to block all future mergers between hospitals unless the merging companies can show that the newly-merged entity will maintain or improve access to care. If a proposed merger helps maintain or improve access to health care, that’s fine. But when it is a first step to closing hospitals or slashing basic services, then a Warren administration will block it.
I’ll also put forward a set of reforms to strengthen FTC oversight over health care organizations, including establishing new federal regulations and guidance to require that all mergers involving health care centers be reported to the FTC. I’ll authorize the FTC to conduct reviews of non-profit hospitals for anti-competitive behavior, update Department of Justice guidance on vertical mergers, and crack down on vertically integrated health care companies that are raising costs without improving the quality of care. And I’ll work with states to repeal Certificate of Public Advantage, or COPA, statutes that shield health care organizations from federal antitrust review and can leadto the creation of large monopolies with little to no oversight.
We also have a responsibility to make sure that places that have experienced a loss in services or are otherwise medically underserved can better meet the needs of their communities. That’s why I will increase funding for Community Health Centers by 15 percent per year over the next five years. I will also establish a $25 billion dollar capital fund to support a menu of options for improving access to care in health professional shortage areas, including: constructing a new facility like a Community Health Center, Rural Health Clinic, School-Based Health Center, or birthing center; expanding capacity or services at an existing clinic; establishing pharmacy services or a telemedicine program; supporting a diabetes self-management education program; improving transportation to the nearest hospital; or piloting models like mobile clinics and community paramedicine programs.
Rural communities have been particularly impacted by the opioid epidemic, with the rate of opioid overdose deaths having been higher there than in urban areas in recent years. I’m pushing for $100 billion over 10 years to end the opioid crisis, including $2.7 billion for the hardest-hit counties and cities and $800 million in direct funding for tribal governments and organizations. Funding can be used for prevention and early intervention services at federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics and to train health professionals on treating substance use disorders in rural and other medically underserved areas.
To ensure access to quality health services, we must also close the health care workforce gaps across rural America. Nearly 60% of Health Professional Shortage Areas – those lacking sufficient primary care physicians, physician assistants, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, EMTs, and home health aides – are in rural regions. More than 3,600 additional doctors are needed to close the rural physician workforce deficit today, but Congressionally-imposed caps on medical residencies and unstable funding of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) have made this gap nearly impossible to close. What’s more, this shortage is rapidly increasing as rural physicians near retirement and fewerincoming medical students plan to practice in rural areas.
As President, I will make sure we expand our health care workforce by investing more resources in building the pipeline of medical professionals in rural areas. This starts by dramatically scaling up apprenticeship programs as proposed in my Economic Patriotism plan to support partnerships between unions, high schools, community colleges, and a wide array of health care professionals to build a health care workforce that is rooted in the community. I’ll lift the cap on residency placements by 15,000 – and because residents are more likely to practice where they train, I’ll target half of new placements in medically-underserved areas such as rural residency programs, residency programs with Rural Training Track programs, and the Indian Health Service (IHS), while working with rural programs to ensure that they can take full advantage of these increases. I’ll also significantly expand the NHSC loan repayment program to $15 billion and the IHS loan repayment program to $1 billion over the next 10 years to cover full loan repayment for 5 years of service and to increase the number of health professionals serving rural and Native American communities.
Building Economic Security in Rural America
My plan doesn’t stop at health care. Every American is entitled to some basic financial security, no matter where they live. But people living in rural communities face challenges that can threaten that security. My plans are designed to address these challenges and allow people in rural communities to thrive economically.
Take child care. Today, a majority of rural communities lack sufficient access to child care. On average, rural families spend more of their incomes on child care than families in urban areas. My plan for Universal Child Care will provide access to high-quality child care in every community that is free for millions and affordable for everyone. The federal government will also work closely with local providers and tribal governments to make sure there are high-quality child care options available in every community – including home-based child care services, which rural families are more likely to use.
Rural communities also face unique housing challenges. More than 150 rural counties have a severe-need for affordable rental housing and 38% of rural counties have moderately-severe rental housing needs. Home values in rural areas have also been slower to recover from the financial crisis. My housing planinvests $523 million to create 380,000 affordable rental homes in rural communities and provides an additional $2 billion to help homeowners with underwater mortgages still struggling to recover from the financial crisis. It also invests $2.5 billion to build or rehabilitate 200,000 homes on tribal lands, where overcrowding, homelessness, and substandard housing have reached crisis levels.
And the student debt crisis hits rural areas particularly hard. In part because of huge student debt burdens, young adults are leaving rural communities for jobs in cities. Just 52% of rural student loan borrowers remain in a rural area, compared to 66% of those who did not take out loans – and those with more debt are more likely to leave. My plan to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt will mean that recent graduates won’t need to flock to urban centers to find jobs that will help them pay down these loans. And my plan to provide universal free technical, two-year, and four-year public college will make sure that no student is ever put in this situation again. We need to make it possible for students to see rural communities as places of opportunity where they can live, work, and build a future for themselves.
A Public Option for Broadband
One of the best tools for unlocking economic opportunity and advances in health care, like telemedicine, is access to reliable, high-speed Internet. In the twenty-first century, every home should have access to this technology – but we’re not even close to that today. According to the FCC, in 2017 26.4% of people living in rural areas and 32.1% of people living on tribal lands did not have access to minimum speed broadband (25 Mbps/ 3 Mbps), compared to 1.7% in urban areas. And given the notorious loopholes in FCC reporting requirements, these figures underestimate the gap.
At the same time, while urban areas may be more likely to have access to fiber broadband, many residents can’t afford to connect to it. Nearly 27% of households in Detroit and Cleveland had no Internet access in 2017, and households with incomes below $35,000 comprise 60% of households without broadband access, despite making up just 31% of the national population.
We’ve faced this kind of problem before. Prior to the late 1930s, private electric companies passed over rural communities they felt offered minimal profit opportunities, leaving the families living there literally in the dark. Just like the electric companies eighty years ago, today’s biggest internet service providers (ISPs) have left large parts of the country unserved or dramatically underserved.
Not only that, they have deliberately restricted competition, kept prices high, and used their armies of lobbyists to convince state legislatures to ban municipalities from building their own public networks. Meanwhile, the federal government has shoveled billions of taxpayer dollars to private ISPs in an effort to expand broadband to remote areas, but those providers have done the bare minimum with these resources – offering internet speeds well below the FCC minimum.
This ends when I’m President. I will make sure every home in America has a fiber broadband connection at a price families can afford. That means publicly-owned and operated networks – and no giant ISPs running away with taxpayer dollars. My plan will:
Make it clear in federal statute that municipalities have
the right to build their own broadband networks. Many small towns and
rural areas have turned to
municipal networks to provide broadband access in places that the private
market has failed to serve – but today, as many as 26 states have
passed laws hindering or banning municipalities from building their own
broadband infrastructure to protect the interests of giant telecom companies.
We will preempt these laws and return this power to local governments.
Create an Office of Broadband Access in my Department of Economic Development that will manage a new $85 billion federal grant program to massively expand broadband access across the country. Under my plan, only electricity and telephone cooperatives, non-profit organizations, tribes, cities, counties, and other state subdivisions will be eligible for grants from this fund – and all grants will be used to build the fiber infrastructure necessary to bring high-speed broadband to unserved areas, underserved areas, or areas with minimal competition.
The federal government will pay 90 cents on the dollar for construction under these grants. In exchange, applicants will be required to offer high-speed public broadband directly to every home in their application area. Applicants will have to offer at least one plan with 100 Mbps/ 100 Mbps speeds and one discount internet plan for low-income customers with a prepaid feature or a low monthly rate.
Of these funds, $5 billion will be set aside specifically for 100% federal grants to tribal nations to expand broadband access on Native American lands. In addition to necessary “last mile” infrastructure, tribes will be able to apply for funds to build the missing 8,000 miles of middle mile fiber on tribal lands.
Appoint FCC Commissioners who will restore net neutrality. I will appoint FCC Commissioners who will restore net neutrality, regulatinginternet service providers as “common carriers” and maintaining open access to the Internet.And I will require all telecommunications services to contribute fairly into the Universal Service Fund to shore up essential universal service programs that provide subsidies to low-income individuals, schools, and libraries to increase broadband adoption, including signing into law and building on the Tribal Connect Act, so that we can work toward every tribal library having broadband access.
Bolster the FCC’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy. This office holds trainings, technical assistance, and consultations for Indian Country. Providing it with dedicated, increased funding to expand its capacity will help close the digital divide.
Improve the accuracy of broadband maps. Weak FCC oversight has allowed ISPs to greatly exaggerate how many households they serve and has given ISPs added fuel to downplay their failures and protect themselves from regulation. To provide universal broadband access and crack down on anti-competitive behaviors, the government has to know how extensive the problems are. I will appoint FCC Commissioners who will require ISPs to report service and speeds down to the household level, as well as aggregate pricing data, and work with community stakeholders – including tribal nations – to make sure we get this process right. Then, we will make these data available to the public and conduct regular audits to ensure accurate reporting.
Prohibit the range of sneaky maneuvers giant private providers use to unfairly squeeze out competition, hold governments hostage, and drive up prices. It’s time to crack down on all the anti-competitive behaviors that giant ISPs have used to steamroll the competition. We will return control of utility poles and conduits to cities, prohibit landlords from making side deals with private ISPs to limit choices in their properties, and ban companies from limiting access to wires inside buildings. We will make sure that all new buildings are fiber-ready so that any network can deliver service there, and we will also enact “Dig Once” policies to require that conduit is laid anytime the ground is opened for a public infrastructure project.
Ensure every person has the skills to fully participate
in our online economy. Even when there’s access to broadband internet
– and even when it’s available at an affordable price – people may still not
take advantage of it because they don’t know how to use it. That’s why I will
work to pass the Digital Equity Act,
which invests $2.5 billion over ten years to help states develop digital equity
plans and launch digital inclusion projects.
Creating and Defending Jobs in Rural America
Expanding broadband is just the first step to boosting economic opportunity in
rural communities. We need to do more to bring high-quality jobs back to rural
areas and small towns and negotiate trade agreements that keep jobs in the U.S.
– and don’t ship them overseas. That’s why I’ve committed to creating a National Jobs Strategy focused
specifically on regional economies and trends that disproportionately affect
rural areas and small cities. And why I will spend $2 trillion in green research,
manufacturing, and exporting to create more than a million new
jobs, reversing the manufacturing losses that many rural communities have
experienced over the last two decades.
I’ve also called for a $400 billion commitment in clean energy research and
development – funding that will go to land grant universities, rural
areas, and areas that have seen the worst job losses in recent years. I’ll
dramatically scale up worker training programs, spending $20 billion on
apprenticeships and instituting new sectoral training programs to boost job
opportunities for people across Rural America.
Immigration is also revitalizing local
economies and reversing population
decline in a number of rural communities. I’ve called for expanding legal
immigration – done the right way and consistent with our principles – to grow
our economy, reunite families, and meet our labor market demands. My immigration plan
will raise wages for everyone and make sure that businesses won’t be able to
get away with dirty tricks that undercut pay.
And I will build a new approach to
our trade policy to make sure that the new, high-quality jobs
we create stay right here in America. As part of my new plan, I’ll
fundamentally change our negotiation process so that rural communities are
explicitly represented at the table, and use our leverage to demand more for
workers and farmers by raising standards worldwide.
Bolstering Small and Local Business
Small businesses are critical to the economic vitality of rural communities,
but people in rural communities face challenges accessing capital and financial
services to start, grow, and operate their businesses. The number of rural counties
without a locally owned community bank has doubled since 1994,
and 86 new rural
banking deserts have appeared since 2008, leaving these communities with no
banking services within 10 miles. That’s why I’ve proposed allowing the
U.S. Postal Service to partner with local community banks and
credit unions to provide access to low-cost, basic banking services online and
at post offices.
What’s more, 25% of new rural
banking deserts have been in communities of color. Credit and small loans are
critical to starting and growing a small business, but longer distances between
a borrower and their bank are associated with more credit denials and higher interest rates on
loans. That’s why I will establish a $7 billion
fund to close the gap in startup capital for entrepreneurs of
color, which will support 100,000 new minority-owned businesses, provide over a
million new jobs, and further boost economic development in rural areas.
Private equity firms have further harmed local businesses, buying up everything
from mobile home parks to hospitals to nursing homes to local newspapers,
loading them up with debt, sucking them dry, and leaving workers to pick up the
pieces. I’ll rein in Wall
Street to hold private equity firms accountable and keep them
from destroying businesses that bring economic opportunity – and jobs – to
small towns and rural communities across the country. It’s time to
prioritize the long-term interests of American workers, not the short-term
interests of big financial institutions.
Building a New Farm Economy
Rural America is also the home of our nation’s agriculture
sector, but today, farmers are getting squeezed by giant agribusinesses that
are gobbling up more land and driving down prices. In 1935, there were 6.8 million farms in
the United States – but in 2017, there were just above 2 million. What’s more,
as the number of farms has decreased, the size of each remaining farm has
dramatically grown – from an average of 155 acres per farm in 1935 to an average
of 444 acres per farm
today. Meanwhile, the farmer’s share of the food dollar has plummeted to
just 14.6 cents in 2017
– the lowest number since
the USDA began reporting this figure in 1993.
That’s why I’ve pledged to
address consolidation in the agriculture sector by reviewing – and reversing –
anti-competitive mergers and breaking up big agribusinesses that have become
vertically integrated. I’ll also support a national right to repair law for
farmers, reform country-of-origin labeling, and restrict foreign ownership of
American agriculture companies and farmland.
And I’ll take it one step further – charting a new farm economy that
replaces our government’s failed approach with one that guarantees farmers a
fair price and protects our environment.
The cost of each and every one of these investments is fully offset by my plans
to make the ultra-wealthy and large corporations pay more in taxes. Those plans
include my annual two-cent wealth tax on
fortunes over $50 million and my plan to ensure
that very large and profitable American corporations can’t get away with paying
zero taxes. And the new investments I’m announcing today for universal
broadband access and health care options in rural areas can be offset by
changing the tax laws that encourage companies to merge and reduce
competition.
I want Washington to work for communities all over this country. From expanding
access to broadband to boosting investment in quality jobs, together we can
make big, structural change to create new opportunities all across rural
America
A New Farm Economy
Consolidation in the agriculture sector is leaving America’s family farmers
with lower prices
and fewer choices.
Giant corporations use their market share to squeeze farmers
from both sides. Farmers are pressured into taking on huge debts to pay the
high prices that a small number of large suppliers charge them for inputs like seeds and
fertilizer. Then, farmers are at the whim of a market that is controlled
by meatpackers and grain traders that
can pay them low prices for the
commodities they produce — prices that often don’t cover all the
money farmers had to spend in the first place.
All of this causes tremendous overproduction of
commodities. In the face of lower and lower
prices in the market, farmers are left to produce more to try and
break even. But this just causes prices to go down even further, benefiting the
huge corporations looking to buy goods on the cheap and leaving farmers dependent on the
government to backfill their costs.
As a consequence, the agriculture sector has become one of the largestpolluters in our
economy. As farmers are pressured to plant fence row to fence row and
use more fertilizer in search of a higher yield, rural communities lose their
soil and water and the environment suffers.
Much of this situation is the direct result of government policy. Our current
system of subsidies is supposed to make up
the difference between the low prices farmers get on the market and what they
have to pay to grow food. But instead it lets big corporations at the top of
the supply chain get away with paying artificially low costs while farmers
struggle and taxpayers make up the difference. It encourages overproduction by
guaranteeing revenue regardlessof prices or
environmental conditions. And it feeds climate change.
Farmers are stewards of the land, and they know this system of overproduction
is unsustainable — but without a change in incentives, they have no other
choice.
To fix this problem, we need big, structural change. That’s why I’m calling for
a complete overhaul of our failed approach to the farm economy. Instead
of subsidizing industrial agriculture and starving farmers and rural
communities, my new approach will guarantee farmers a fair price, reduce
overproduction, and pay farmers for environmental conservation.
By making this shift, we can raise farm incomes and reduce taxpayer
expenditures. We can break the stranglehold that giant agribusinesses have over
our farm economy, and expand economic opportunities for small- and medium-sized
farmers, family farmers, women farmers, and farmers of color. We can also
provide consumers with affordable, high-quality, and often local food, while
protecting our land and water and combating the existential threat of climate
change.
Replacing our government’s failed approach to the farm economy
Our agriculture markets are badly broken. American farmers spend their days
toiling over their crops, but at sale time, more than half report
negative income from their farming activity. In 2018, the median income farmers
made from farming activity before federal subsidies was negative $1,316. Why?
Because the market is paying farmers far less than what it costs them to
produce their goods.
And it gets worse. Farm subsidies that are necessary to keep farms afloat in
this market function as an incentive to overproduce by
guaranteeing payments only for certain commodities and encouraging farming
on marginal land. This squeezes small farmers, undermines sustainable farming
for the long-term, and damages our environment.
It hasn’t always been this way. During the New Deal, FDR’s administration
recognized the critical role farmers would play in getting our country out of
the Great Depression. His administration set up a system
that guaranteed farmers fair prices, tackled overproduction, and reversed environmental
degradation. And it worked: for decades, this system
gave farmers the security they needed to thrive, kept consumer prices stable,
and helped restore our country’s farmland.
But starting in the 1970s, giant agribusinessesconvinced the Nixon
Administration to change the system. Corporations called it “deregulating” the
farm economy, but of course, this didn’t actually mean reducing government
intervention. It just meant shifting that intervention from advancing the
interests of farmers, consumers, and the environment to protecting the bottom
line of giant agriculture corporations.
Now, the Department of Agriculture budgets over $10 billion each
year on post-sale subsidies that are supposed to make up for the low prices
that big corporations and livestock giants pay farmers on the market.
Meanwhile, Big Ag pockets the profit:
one study shows
industrial livestock giants, for example, have saved $35 billion over twenty
years from buying feed below the cost of production.
We need a new approach that uses taxpayer money more wisely, provides stable
access to food, and accounts for the complexities of the agriculture
markets. Just like workers need a living wage, farmers need a fair price — one
that covers the costs they have to pay to produce their goods. We need to
replace our failed system with a tried-and-true method that guarantees farmers
that fair price and ends overproduction. Building on the successful model of
the New Deal, my plan calls for a new supply management program — which studies show
would be billions cheaper for
taxpayers than our current subsidy program, yet provide farm incomes that
are higher.
Here’s how it will work. First, we guarantee farmers a price at their cost of
production. To do that, the government would offer farmers a non-recourse loan
that covers most of their costs of production — essentially, an offer to buy
their products at cost if a farmer can’t get a better price from a private
purchaser on the market before the end of the loan period. Farmers can either
repay the loan by selling their products or they can forfeit the products they
used as collateral for the loan at the end of the loan period.
If the farmer does not sell those products to a private buyer during that time
period, then the government will store the products in reserves. As supply
comes off the market as a result, prices will rise. And if prices rise beyond a
certain point, the government can release the supply from the reserves back
onto the market, stabilizing prices once again. This mechanism guarantees
farmers a fair price at a far lower cost than the current subsidy system.
In addition, to address overproduction, farmers will have the option of bidding
acres of land currently used to produce commodities into conservation programs.
USDA will offer attractive prices based on the environmental benefit that
repurposing the land towards conservation programs would provide. This will
provide farmers with the choice — and revenue — to diversify their farms,
rather than face mounting pressure to produce more and more of the same.
.
This approach has advantages beyond guaranteeing farmers a fair price for their
goods. It gives us the tools to stabilize farm income where farmers aren’t
getting prices at the cost of production, like commodity crops and dairy. It enhances
our foodsecurity by giving
the government access to reserves if needed — a particularly important consideration
as climate change continues to disruptfoodproduction. It addresses our
overproduction problem and helps reduce environmental
damage. And it keeps consumer prices relatively stable.
It would also save taxpayers billions. Because a supply management
program only pays for the
amount of commodities that it takes off of the market, it would substantially
reduce costs for taxpayers who, in the current subsidy approach, can end up
paying for every single bushel and bale that farmers grow.
Paying farmers to fight climate change
To transition to a sustainable farm economy, we also need to diversify our
agriculture sector. As President, I will lead a full-out effort to
decarbonize the agricultural sector by investing in our farmers and giving them
the tools, research, and training they need to transform the sector — so that
we can achieve the objectives of the Green New Deal to reach net-zero emissions
by 2030.
This begins with paying farmers for embracing techniques that promote a
sustainable future for all of us. Farmers are already adopting climate-friendly
practices — including proven and profitable techniques
like cover crops. But today,
there are far more farmers who
want to join land conservation programs than there are funds available to
support them. That’s because we have continually underfunded a
tried-and-true program — the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)
— that provides funding for farmers eager to transition to sustainable
practices, and that delivers substantial returns to
taxpayers.
My plan will make it economically feasible for farmers to be part of the
climate change solution by increasing CSP’s payments for sustainable farming
practices from around $1 billion today to
$15 billion annually – and expanding the types of practices eligible for
compensation – so that every farmer who wants to use their land to fight
climate change can do so. This will put our future investment in
conservation above the level we currently
fund commodity programs. And I will support staff at USDA to empower them in
the fight against climate change, from scientists in Washington all the
way down to the county-level offices tailoring solutions to challenges in their
local communities.
Research and innovation are also essential in supporting a transition to
sustainable farming. I will dedicate resources from the $400 billion
R&D commitment in my Green
Manufacturing Plan towards innovations for
decarbonizing the agriculture sector, including a farmer-led Innovation Fund
that farmers can apply to use towards pioneering new methods of sustainable
farming, like agroforestry.
Our land grant universities also have a critical role to play – but first, we
need to reclaim our land grant universities from Big Ag and restore
them to their core purpose of supporting our family farmers. My
Administration will reinvest inour
land grant universities and focus their agricultural efforts in part on
evaluating farmers’ ideas to decarbonize the agricultural sector and training a
new generation of farmers.
Take on Big Ag to level the playing field for family farmers
We also must take on Big Ag head on if we want to create a new farm economy.
When Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture told farmers to “get big or get out,”
he paved the way for
the giant agribusinesses that have eroded America’s
rural communities and turned the
agricultural sector into one of the largestpolluters, all
while making huge profits.
That ends now. I will use every tool at my disposal to level the playing field
for family farmers and hold agribusinesses accountable for the damage they’ve
wrought on our farmland.
Break up Big Agribusinesses. Under my plan to level the playing field for
America’s farmers I’ll use every tool I have to break up big
agribusinesses, including by reviewing — and reversing — anti-competitive
mergers.
Strengthen rules and enforcement under the Packers and
Stockyards Act.In 1921, Congress passed the Packers & Stockyards Act (P&S
Act) to protect independent farmers. But Trump has eliminated Grain
Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) — the office
responsible for upholding the
P&S Act — as an independent office. My administration will restore
GIPSA and make it easier for farmers to bring suits against unfair practices —
including by clarifying that they do not have to prove harm across the entire
sector to bring a claim.
Make sure programs benefit independent family farmers,
not the rich and powerful. Agribusinesses exploit loopholes to put
taxpayer dollars that should be going towards family farmers into their own
pockets instead. The Trump administration has handed over billions more into
the pockets of the wealthiest through trade war bailouts. On average, the top 1% of
recipients received over $180,000, and the bottom 80% percent received less
than $5,000. — all without Congressional authorization. I will prevent
huge factory farms from accessing funds intended to benefit family farmers,
like those for payment limitations and for programs like EQIP, and ban
companies that violate labor and environmental standards from accessing funds,
too.
Hold Big Ag accountable for environmental abuses. Agribusinesses
are the likely culprits for
polluting hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers and streams and causing dead
zones in our waters, including in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. I
will make agribusinesses pay the full costs of the
environmental damage they wreak by closing the loopholes that
CAFOs use to get away with polluting and beefing up enforcement of the Clean
Air and Clean Water Acts against them, including by working with state and
local officials.
Build out local and regional food systems that support rural farmers and their communities
Because giant agribusinesses control entire supply chains, many small farmers today must send their products to huge packaging and distribution centers that are hundreds of miles away from their farms and from the end consumer. This deprives rural communities from access to produce, contributing to food desertsand obesity.
I will provide farmers and rural communities with the resources they need to build thriving local and regional food systems so that every community has access to healthy food — and the billions in economic opportunities that come with it.
I will use the full power of federal and state procurement to ensure access to local, sustainable produce in all communities. My administration will expand the “Farm-to-School” program a hundredfold and turn it into a billion-dollar “Farm to People” program in which all federally-supported public institutions — including military bases and hospitals — will partner with local, independent farmers to provide fresh, local food.
To meet this additional demand, farmers will need access to local and regional supply chain infrastructure. USDA’s Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) currently invests $50M a year in local infrastructure-building projects — which experts estimate falls far short of meeting the substantialdemand. I will increase LAMP’s funding ten-fold, investing $500M a year over the next decade to fund food hubs, distribution centers, and points-of-sale that our rural and small town communities can use.
Create opportunities for diverse and beginning farmers
Farmers of color have experienced a longhistory of discrimination, some of it at the hands of the federal government. From 1910 to 1997, black farmers were stripped of 90% of black-owned farmland. They received a mere fraction of the value of the land they lost — a staggering loss of wealth that is a major contributor to the racial wealth gap. My plan will end the policies that have perpetuated this discrimination and help rural families of color build wealth and sustainable livelihoods.
Addressing the systematic dispossession of land in communities of color, including Black farmers and Native American communities. Over the past century, Black farmers were stripped of 90% of black-owned farmland and received a mere fraction of the value of the land they lost – largely because they held the land as “heirs’ property,” an unstable and much-exploited form of ownership. I will establish programs to assist heirs’ property owners and make sure they retain access to their land, including building on successes in the 2018 Farm Bill to allow heirs’ property owners to present additional types of documentation to not only access USDA programs, but also other federal programs in FEMA and HUD. I will also fully fund the relending programenacted in the 2018 Farm Bill to expand support services for farmers of color, including legal and technical assistance to help farmers hold on to their land – and prioritize lending organizations operating in states that have enacted model legislation that protects heirs’ property ownership.
Native American communities have also experienced challenges related to fractionated land ownership. This problem was caused by a destructive federal policy from the late 1800s that allotted tribal lands held in common to individual tribal members and sold additional tribal lands to non-Native settlers and commercial interests. This policy eventually led to roughly two-thirds of all reservation lands being taken from tribes without compensation. Several generations later, individual tribal allotments are now co-owned by many people — sometimes hundreds or thousands — making it difficult to use the land or coordinate activities on it.
Expand access to credit and land for new and diverse farmers. Women and farmers of color have been disproportionatelyexcluded from accessing the credit and land they need to farm. The Farm Credit System was founded a century ago as a government-sponsored enterprise to provide credit for farmers — but it has strayed from its central mission and instead is pocketing big profits. I will require FCS to allocate 10% of its $5 billion in annual profits towards supporting new and diverse farmers through regional lending mechanisms. I will make sure that farmers can access land, too, by stopping foreign interests from buying up American farmland and expanding the use of programs like the transition incentives program. Native American Community Development Financial Institutions also provide crucial access to credit in underbanked areas and for underbanked businesses, especially farmers. We should provide significant financial support to Native CDFIs.
Invest in protecting the civil rights of farmers of color. I will fully fund and staffUSDA’s Office of Civil Rights and administrative law courts — so that they have the resources necessary to resolve discrimination complaints at a reasonable pace. I will direct regular audits of USDA to ensure that it is not discriminating against farmers of color in issuing loans or subsidy grants. And I will increase the agency’s transparency by creating an online civil rights database that would regularly report on the complaint process.
***
My plan will help create a new farm economy where family farmers have financial security and the freedom to do what they do best. Farmers of all backgrounds will finally have the economic freedom to pursue diverse, sustainable farming — and get paid up front for doing so. Americans will have a steady and affordable supply of food. Kids in rural communities will have healthy lunches grown in their backyards and packaged at local food hubs run by small town entrepreneurs. Taxpayers won’t pay twice — once at the grocery store and once through their taxes — for overproduced commodities. We will replenish our soil and our water to chart a path towards a climate solution and achieve the goals of the Green New Deal.
Prior
to her appearance at the NALEO Presidential Candidate Forum, Elizabeth Warren
released her plan to root out the profit incentives standing in the way of real
reform of our criminal and immigration systems. Her plan would ban private
prisons and detention facilities, stop contractors from charging service fees
for essential services, and hold contractors accountable by expanding
oversight, transparency and enforcement.
“Last
month Caliburn International — a for-profit company whose subsidiary operates
Homestead, the largest detention center for unaccompanied migrant children
— hired John Kelly,
Trump’s former chief of staff. Caliburn has profited directly off of the Trump
administration’s inhumane immigration policies — while children at Homestead are
reportedly kept in unsanitary, prison-like conditions, often for months. Now
John Kelly is cashing in, too,” Warren stated.
“Rep.
Pramila Jayapal and I have demanded answers. But
this is just the latest example of private prison companies wringing billions
out of federal taxpayers. I’ve been after these
companies to come clean about their practices and human rights abuses. Every answer
just raises more questions.
“We
didn’t get here by chance. Washington works hand-in-hand with private prison
companies, who spend millions on
lobbyists, campaign contributions, and revolving-door hires — all to
turn our criminal and immigration policies into ones that prioritize making
them rich instead of keeping us safe. From 2000 to 2016, the private prison
population grew five times as quickly as the overall prison population. And the
profiteers multiplied, too: today, nearly 4,000corporations make
money off mass incarceration.
“President
Obama took steps to lower
the incarceration rate and wind down private prisons, but these companies got
their biggest break yet when Donald Trump landed in the White House. With
Trump, private prison companies saw their chance to run the same playbook for
our immigration system. They poured money into
lobbying for “alternatives” to ICE detention centers. And boy, did it pay off.
Private detention centers have made millions implementing Trump’s cruel
immigration policies, as the number of detained children quintupled in just
a single year. Today 73% of detained
immigrants are held in private detention facilities.
“The
companies running prisons and detention centers regularly sacrifice safety to
boost their bottom line. Private facilities have higher rates of
assaults than federal prisons. They violate federal
rules by putting incarcerated people into solitary confinement to fit more
bodies in the building. They impose forced laboron
immigrants just to make a buck. Multiple detainees have committed suicide. And now, under
Trump, babies are getting sick and dying from their
detention centers.
“The
government has also stood silently by while private contractors providing
services in both public and private centers come up with extortive schemes to
make millions off of the backs of incarcerated people. Prison phone
companies charge as much as
$25 for a 15-minute call, forcing families into debt just to stay
connected to loved ones. Commissary contractors mark up prices, and
companies coerce detainees to
work for as little as a dollar a day just to afford basic necessities like
toothpaste.
“While
contractors getting paid taxpayer dollars cut corners to maximize margins, the
government has turned a blind eye. Food companies make millions but serve bug-infested food
to save cash. An investigation into a prison transport company that allowed at
least five deaths and a sexual assault to occur under their watch has
gone nowhere.
“And
today, the exploitation doesn’t end when individuals emerge from prison or
detention. Current law pushes money into
the hands of for-profit supervision companies, many of which are run by the
same private prison corporations. These companies get rich by making people
just getting out of prison — often with huge debts — pay outrageous fees for
monitoring and supervision services like ankle monitors. Some have gone so far
as to threaten individuals with reincarceration.
“This
is exploitation, plain and simple. Our criminal and immigration systems
are tearing apart communities
of color and devastating the
poor, including children. Women — especially
women of color — are particularly saddled with the financial burden. We need
significant reform in both criminal justice and in immigration, to end mass
incarceration and all of the unnecessary, cruel, and punitive forms of
immigration detention that have taken root in the Trump Administration.
“The
first step is to end this private profiteering off cruelty.
“The government has a basic responsibility to keep the people in
its care safe — not to use their punishment as an opportunity for profit.
That’s why today, I’m proposing my plan to root out once and for all the profit
incentives perverting our criminal and immigration systems.
“Here’s
what I’ll do:”
Ban private prisons and detention facilities. There should be no place in America for profiting off
putting more people behind bars or in detention. That’s why I will shut
down the use of federal private detention facilities by ending all
contracts that the Bureau of Prisons, ICE, and the U.S. Marshals Service
have with private detention providers. And I will extend these bans to
states and localities by conditioning their receipt of federal public
safety funding on their use of public facilities.
Stop contractors from charging service fees for
essential services. Companies
shouldn’t be able to treat incarcerated individuals as captive profit
centers. We should prohibit contractors from charging incarcerated and
detained people for basic services they need, like phone calls, bank
transfers, and healthcare. I’ll also keep contractors from imposing
exploitative price markups on other services they provide, like commissary or package services.
And I’ll prohibit companies from charging for re-entry, supervision, and
probation services, too — because no one should have to pay for their own
incarceration, whether it’s inside a facility or outside of one.
Hold contractors accountable by expanding oversight,
transparency and enforcement. It’s
time to shine sunlight on the black box of private services that receive
taxpayer dollars. I’ll close the ridiculous FOIA loophole that
lets private prison subcontractors operate in the shadows. I will put in
place an independent Prison Conditions Monitor within the Department of
Justice’s Office of the Inspector General. The Monitor will keep
contractors from cutting corners to make a quick buck by setting
enforceable quality standards, regularly auditing and investigating
contractors, and terminating their contracts if they fall short. I’ll
direct the Department of Justice to prosecute companies that blatantly
violate the law. And I’ll make sure companies are held accountable no
matter who’s in the White House by allowing people to bring a lawsuit
against abusive contractors who violate their rights.
“Washington
hands billions over to corporations profiting off of inhumane detention and incarceration
policies while ignoring the families that are destroyed in the process. We need
to call that out for what it is: corruption. Incarcerating and detaining
millions for profit doesn’t keep us safe. It’s time to do better,” Warren
stated.
Read
more about Warren’s plan to end private prisons here.
Charlestown, MA – Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Senator from Massachusetts who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, laid out her vision of economic patriotism, calling for using new and existing tools to defend and create quality American jobs and promote American industry. Warren will continue to release individual plans reflecting how economic patriotism should shape our approach to specific parts of the American economy. She released the first plan: A bold $2 trillion investment of federal money over 10 years in American green research, manufacturing, and exporting — which includes ambitious new ideas to link American innovation directly to American jobs, and focuses on achieving not only the ambitious domestic emissions targets in the Green New Deal, but also spurring the kind of worldwide adoption of American-made clean energy technology needed to meet the international targets of the Green New Deal.
The plan is designed to ensure that American taxpayer investments in combating climate change result in good American jobs. The plan makes a historic $400 billion investment in clean energy research and development, and includes a provision that any production stemming from that federally-funded research should take place in the United States. It also makes a massive $1.5 trillion commitment to federal procurement of clean, green, American-made products over the next 10 years, and requires that all companies that receive federal contracts pay all employees at least $15 per hour, guarantee 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, let employees exercise collective bargaining rights, and maintain fair schedules at a minimum. According to an independent analysis from Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, these provisions ensure that Warren’s Green Manufacturing Plan would boost economic growth and create more than a million new jobs right here at home.
Warren’s plan also includes a Green Marshall Plan — a commitment to using all the tools in our diplomatic and economic arsenal to encourage other countries to purchase and deploy American-made clean energy technology. It creates a new federal office dedicated to selling American-made clean, renewable, and emission-free energy technology abroad, with a $100 billion commitment to assisting countries to purchase and deploy this technology — supporting American jobs while supplying the world with the clean energy products needed to cut global emissions.
Warren’s plan also identifies specific cost offsets that, according to the Moody’s economic analysis, cover nearly the entire cost of her plan: her Real Corporate Profits Tax, ending subsidies for oil and gas companies, and closing tax loopholes that promote shipping jobs overseas.
Warren’s Green Manufacturing Plan comes after her Public Lands Plan, two in a series of proposals as she continues to lay out her vision for how we implement the Green New Deal.
“The climate crisis demands immediate and bold action. Like we have before, we should bank on American ingenuity and American workers to lead the global effort to face down this threat — and create more than a million good jobs here at home,” Warren said.
Read more about Warren’s vision of Economic Patriotism here.
Read more about Warren’s Green Manufacturing Plan here.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a declared 2020 candidate for 2020 presidential nomination, came to Long Island City, where local activists rejected Amazon, to propose a plan to rein in big tech and other giant multi-national companies that use their economic power to stifle competition and intimidate government. Here is her proposal — Karen Rubin, News& Photo Features
Today’s
big tech companies have too much power — too much power over our economy, our
society, and our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private
information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And
in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation.
I want a government that makes sure everybody — even the biggest and most
powerful companies in America — plays by the rules. And I want to make sure
that the next generation of great
American tech companies can flourish. To do that, we need to stop this generation of big tech companies
from throwing around their political power to shape the rules in their favor
and throwing around their economic power to snuff out or buy up every potential
competitor.
That’s why my Administration will make big, structural changes to the tech
sector to promote more competition—including breaking up Amazon, Facebook, and Google.
How the New Tech Monopolies Hurt Small Businesses and Innovation
America’s big tech companies provide valuable products but also wield enormous
power over our digital lives. Nearly half of all e-commerce goes
through Amazon. More than 70% of all Internet traffic goes through
sites owned or operated by Google or Facebook.
As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their
resources and control over the way we use the Internet to squash small
businesses and innovation, and substitute their own financial interests for the
broader interests of the American people. To restore the balance of power in
our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the next generation
of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it’s time to break up our
biggest tech companies.
America’s big tech companies have achieved their level of dominance in part
based on two strategies:
Using
Mergers to Limit Competition.
Facebook has purchased potential competitors Instagram and WhatsApp.
Amazon has used its immense market power to force smaller competitors
like Diapers.com to sell at a discounted rate. Google has
snapped up the mapping company Waze and the ad company DoubleClick. Rather
than blocking these transactions for their negative long-term effects on
competition and innovation, government regulators have waved them through.
Using
Proprietary Marketplaces to Limit Competition. Many
big tech companies own a marketplace – where buyers and sellers transact –
while also participating on the marketplace. This can create a conflict of
interest that undermines competition. Amazon crushes small
companies by copying the goods they sell on the Amazon
Marketplace and then selling its own branded version. Google
allegedly snuffed out a competing small search engine
by demoting its content on its search algorithm, and it has
favored its own restaurant ratings over those of Yelp.
Weak antitrust enforcement has led to a dramatic reduction in
competition and innovation in the tech sector. Venture capitalists are now
hesitant to fund new startups to compete with these big tech companies because
it’s so easy for the big companies to either snap up growing
competitors or drive them out of business. The number of tech startups
has slumped, there are fewer high-growth young firms typical of
the tech industry, and first financing rounds for tech startups
have declined 22% since 2012.
With fewer competitors entering the
market, the big tech companies do not have to compete as aggressively in key
areas like protecting our privacy. And some of these companies have grown
so powerful that they can bully cities
and states into showering them with massive taxpayer handouts in exchange
for doing business, and can act — in the words of Mark Zuckerberg —
“more like a government than a traditional company.”
We must ensure that today’s tech giants do not crowd out potential competitors,
smother the next generation of great tech companies, and wield so much power
that they can undermine our democracy.
Restoring Competition in the Tech Sector
America has a long tradition of breaking
up companies when they have become too big and dominant — even if they are
generally providing good service at a reasonable price.
A century ago, in the Gilded Age, waves of mergers led to the creation of some
of the biggest companies in American history — from Standard Oil and JPMorgan
to the railroads and AT&T. In response to the rise of these “trusts,”
Republican and Democratic reformers pushed for antitrust laws to break up these
conglomerations of power to ensure competition.
But where the value of the company came from its network, reformers recognized
that ownership of a network and participating on the network caused a conflict
of interest. Instead of nationalizing these industries — as other countries
did — Americans in the Progressive Era decided to ensure that these networks
would not abuse their power by charging higher prices, offering worse quality,
reducing innovation, and favoring some over others. We required a structural
separation between the network and other businesses, and also demanded that the
network offer fair and non-discriminatory service.
In this tradition, my administration
would restore competition to the tech sector by taking two major steps:
First, by passing legislation that requires large tech platforms to be
designated as “Platform Utilities” and
broken apart from any participant on that platform.
Companies with an annual global revenue of
$25 billion or more and that offer to the public an online marketplace, an
exchange, or a platform for connecting third parties would be designated as
“platform utilities.”
These companies would be prohibited from
owning both the platform utility and any participants on that platform.
Platform utilities would be required to meet a standard of fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory dealing with users.
Platform utilities would not be allowed
to transfer or share data with third parties.
For smaller companies (those with annual global revenue of between $90 million
and $25 billion), their platform utilities would be required to meet the same
standard of fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory dealing with users, but
would not be required to structurally separate from any participant on the
platform.
To enforce these new requirements, federal regulators, State Attorneys General,
or injured private parties would have the right
to sue a platform utility to enjoin any conduct that violates these
requirements, to disgorge any ill-gotten gains, and to be paid for losses and
damages. A company found to violate these requirements would also have to pay a fine of 5 percent of annual revenue.
Amazon Marketplace, Google’s ad exchange, and Google Search would be platform
utilities under this law. Therefore, Amazon Marketplace and Basics, and
Google’s ad exchange and businesses on the exchange would be split apart.
Google Search would have to be spun off as well.
Second, my administration would
appoint regulators committed to reversing illegal and anti-competitive tech
mergers.
Current antitrust laws empower federal regulators to break up mergers that
reduce competition. I will appoint regulators who are committed to using
existing tools to unwind anti-competitive mergers, including:
Unwinding these mergers will promote healthy competition in the market — which will put pressure on big tech companies to be more responsive to user concerns, including about privacy.
Protecting the Future of the Internet
So what would the Internet look like after all these reforms?
Here’s what won’t change: You’ll still be able to go on Google and search like you do today. You’ll still be able to go on Amazon and find 30 different coffee machines that you can get delivered to your house in two days. You’ll still be able to go on Facebook and see how your old friend from school is doing.
Here’s what will change: Small businesses would have a fair shot to sell their products on Amazon without the fear of Amazon pushing them out of business. Google couldn’t smother competitors by demoting their products on Google Search. Facebook would face real pressure from Instagram and WhatsApp to improve the user experience and protect our privacy. Tech entrepreneurs would have a fighting chance to compete against the tech giants.
Of course, my proposals today won’t solve every problem we have with our big tech companies.
We must give people more control over how their personal information is collected, shared, and sold—and do it in a way that doesn’t lock in massive competitive advantages for the companies that already have a ton of our data.
We must help America’s content creators—from local newspapers and national magazines to comedians and musicians — keep more of the value their content generates, rather than seeing it scooped up by companies like Google and Facebook.
And we must ensure that Russia — or any other foreign power — can’t use Facebook or any other form of social media to influence our elections.
Those are each tough problems, but the benefit of taking these steps to promote competition is that it allows us to make some progress on each of these important issues too. More competition means more options for consumers and content creators, and more pressure on companies like Facebook to address the glaring problems with their businesses.
Healthy competition can solve a lot of problems. The steps I’m proposing today will allow existing big tech companies to keep offering customer-friendly services, while promoting competition, stimulating innovation in the tech sector, and ensuring that America continues to lead the world in producing cutting-edge tech companies. It’s how we protect the future of the Internet.
The venue for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s rally was strategic for her message: a former warehouse with dank walls now used for an entertainment space in Long Island City, the neighborhood that booted Amazon, despite its promise to bring 25,000 jobs, in exchange for a $3 billion tax incentive.
The message the declared 2020 Democratic candidate for president brought to the 600 eager supporters was that it is time to break up the high-tech companies that have come to wield out-sized economic power more like government, dictating demands and reclaim government for the people.
“We have these giant corporations — do I have to tell
that to people in Long Island City? — that think they can roll over everyone,”
she said, comparing Amazon to “The Hunger Game.”
“Giant corporations shouldn’t be able to buy out
competition. Competition has to be able to thrive and grow.”
“Who does government work for? Just the richest people and
corporations? I want government that works for the people.”
“I spent whole life wondering what happening to middle
class, why so much rockier, steeper, and even rockier and steeper for people of
color – what has gone wrong in America.
“Our government works great for giant drug companies, not for people needing prescription drugs; for giant oil companies, not for people who see climate change bearing down; great for payday lenders, not for people of color and communities and poor people who are targeted, whose lives are turned upside down.
“It’s corruption plain and simple and we need to call it
out.
“Whichever issue brought you here – income gap, climate change, affordable child care, housing – whatever issue brought you here, I guarantee decisions made in Washington that directly touch – runs straight through corruption in Washington…. We need big structural change.”
Her prescription: change the
rules of government, of the economy, of politics:
Where to start? Change the rules
of government by taking corruption head on.
“I introduced the biggest anti-corruption bill since
Watergate; it’s big, long, complex, but here are a few pieces:
“End lobbying as we know it. Stop the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington; make Supreme Court follow the basic rules of ethics. Anyone who wants to run for federal office, must release their taxes.
“We need workers to have more power, we need stronger
unions. Unions built American middle class and will rebuild the American middle
class.”
Warren is advocating an ultra millionaire’s tax: imposing 2%
tax for those with over $50 million in assets.
That means the top 0.1% -75,000 households. She estimates that would
generate $2.4 trillion.
In what sounds like an expansion of Obama’s
oft-taken-out-of-context line, “You didn’t build that,” Warren justifies the
wealth tax saying, “I’m tired of free loading billionaires. You built (or
inherited) your fortune, good for you, but you built it using workers we educated,
roads and bridges we paid to build, police – all helped. So yeah, you built a
great fortune, so give a little back to the American people (who enabled you).
It’s a property tax, she said, not unlike the property tax
that any homeowner, farmer, condo owner all pay, but includes the Picassos,
diamonds and yachts.
What would it do? It would fund universal child care, and
still have billions left over.
To change the rules of politics and protect our democracy, she said, “I want to see a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote and make sure every vote gets counted. Overturn Citizens United.” (adding that she isn’t taking any corporate PAC money, but is depending on grassroots donations, ElizabethWarren.com.)
“I don’t go to closed door meetings with millionaires. I’m
here with you.”
“My father was a janitor but his daughter got a chance to be
a teacher, a college professor, a Senator and a candidate for President of the United
States. I believe in opportunity because I’ve lived it. I want an American where
every child gets a chance to build a future.
“This is our moment. Dream big. Let’s win.”
She then took questions (the questioners were picked at
random):
Asked her view of Governor Andrew Cuomo trying to woo Amazon back after local
progressives including State Senator Michael Gianaris, who introduced her at
the rally, she said, “This is like ‘Hunger Games’ – it is
not just the enormous economic power, but the political power they wield.
“A handful of companies spend $50 million lobbying
Washington – a great return on investment if they get to keep Washington from
enforcing regulations, antitrust laws, hold back oversight. That’s not how
America is supposed to work. Corporate power… and billionaire power, all
those who make their voices heard through money. They fund the think tanks that
come to, predetermined conclusions, the public relations firms, the soft ads on
TV, controlling government, they tilt the playing field over and over against
everyone else.”
She reflected that she went to see Trump being sworn in, and
realized that with control of the White House and both houses of Congress, the
Republicans could have swept away health care and Medicare “by Tuesday.” “But
the next day, there was the biggest protest in the history of the world.”
“I want to rein in big tech. That won’t happen by talking
inside the Beltway, but in rooms like this.”
Asked whether her wealth
tax would cause billionaires like Trump to simply move outside the US, she
quipped, “That would be a bad thing?” but explained the 2% wealth tax would be
on all property where it is held, so a yacht in the Caribbean would be taxed. More tax treaties mean it can be tracked. The
IRS (now underfunded and understaffed) would step up enforcement. Even with a
15% cheat factor, you still get nearly $3 trillion in revenue. As for moving
and renouncing US citizenship to avoid the tax? There would be a 40% exit
penalty.
“You built your fortune here, you owe something to the
American people.”
Asked about addressing homelessness
and the lack of affordable housing, Warren said, “It’s a matter of values.
In the richest country in the history of the world, people shouldn’t be
sleeping in the street. I have a plan, a housing plan, but the first step is to
diagnose the problem: Why has the cost of housing gone up? Wages, adjusted for
inflation for four decades are flat, but housing costs have risen by
two-thirds. That puts a squeeze on families.”
She said that over the years, government has withdrawn investment in housing, while private developers have build the more profitable mcmansions and luxury high rises. “There’s been an increase in housing at the top but no increase for middle class and down. The federal government is not making investment in housing for poor, working poor and middle class. Meanwhile, across America, the housing stock has deteriorated, shrinking in size, but the population is expanding, so people are paying more and more for less and less.
“The answer: build more housing. I want to build 3.2 million
new housing units all across the country. That would decrease rents by 10%. I
want more housing for purchase, so families can build equity over time.
“Housing is how working families have built wealth
generation after generation – paying off the mortgage, and living on Social
Security, grandma can live with the family, the home passes on wealth to the
next generation.
“It is no surprise that for decades, from the 1930s, federal
government invested in subsidized housing for white people, but discriminated
against blacks. Red lined areas where federal government would block mortgages,
so that generation after generation [was deprived of home ownership to build
wealth]. In 1960, housing discrimination was legal, while the federal
government subsidized whites and discriminated against black neighborhoods. Then,
the gap between white and black home ownership was 27 points.
“Then civil rights made housing, voting discrimination
illegal, and we see black middle class recover.
“But then the big banks came along – looked to black, brown
home owners’ equity. They targeted black and brown people for the nastiest
mortgages – Wells Fargo, Bank of America. Greed.
“Today, the gap between white and black home ownership is 30
points. Race matters in America.
“My housing bill has something we haven’t seen anywhere
else: in formerly red-lined areas, first time home buyers or those who lost
their homes during the housing crash, will get assistance to buy again.”
Asked whether she would support ending the filibuster which
the Republican minority used to block progressive legislation during the Obama
administration, to block his judicial appointments, even the Merrick Garland
Supreme Court nomination, she said (not too coyly): “It’s all on the table,
baby. I’m on record for filibuster reform. The Republicans used filibuster to
block judicial nominees, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection
Board, the National Labor Relations Board. “Republicans get to do what they
want when they’re in power, and when we are, we drink a lot of tea. It’s all on
the table.”
“I get that things I’m asking for all are hard – attacking corruption,
changing the rules of the economy, democracy. I get that some people earn more
or less, but everyone should have an equal share of democracy.”
People, she said, saved the Consumer Financial Protection Board, which she created after the
2008 financial collapse. “The people saved it, and it’s already forced the
biggest banks to return $12 billion to the people they cheated.
“I’m calling for big structural change, but you don’t get
what you don’t fight for,” she said, citing the abolitionists, suffragettes,
union organizers, the foot soldiers of civil rights, gay rights activists. “They
were all told, ‘it’s too hard, give up now, and yet, every one of them stayed,
fought, organized, persisted [she said to big cheers], and changed. This is our
moment to change.
In an already crowded field of candidates – even the
progressive faction – Warren is the only one who has clearly spelled out policy
proposals and the underlying rationale, the powerful statistics of growing
inequality, that she has studied and worked to change for years to level the
playing field, “make government work for you”: campaign finance reform and
government reform; housing; tax reform.
And in this venue, it
was fascinating to see how she could be so factual, so academic, but so
enthusiastic and personable, her
audience asked for more detail about how she would address the critical
shortfall in affordable housing, even
taking her by surprise.
The evening was organized a little like a townhall, with Warren moving freely about a stage in front of a giant American flag, taking questions, and then at the end, offering to stay as long as necessary so anyone who wanted to take a photo with her could get their chance.
