The Democrat Party Platform

Democrats try to hide socialist agenda in populist clothing with a platform that focuses on every group but middle-class whites.

By the AFP Staff

The 2020 Democratic Party Platform was approved at the virtual convention by party delegates via remote vote on Aug. 18. AFP reviewed the Democratic platform in detail, particularly as compared with the priorities put forth by President Donald Trump’s campaign team in its second-term agenda, which was accepted by the Republican Party alongside the 2016 platform in lieu of preparing a new platform for 2020 and reviewed for American Free Press Issue 36 & 37 by John Friend.

To briefly summarize, the agenda’s relatively vague priorities, which were expanded upon in the president’s nomination acceptance speech, include: creating jobs, eradicating Covid-19, ending U.S. reliance on China, improving healthcare and education, “draining the swamp,” defending law enforcement and bringing “violent extremist groups like Antifa to justice,” ending illegal immigration and protecting American workers, expanding innovation, putting America first in foreign policy matters, and defending American values including affirming the Constitution within the courts, protecting unborn life, defending freedoms of religion and supporting Second Amendment rights.

WHY DOES A PARTY PLATFORM EVEN MATTER?

Progressive news site “Vox.com” addressed this question in a 2016 article, saying, “While party platforms don’t have the force of law, it’s useful to have a sense of what goals we can expect representatives elected from the party to push for once in office.” But do those elected actually vote in line with the ideals?

“In 25 years, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress voted in accordance with their platforms 82% of the time,” associate professor Lee Payne at Stephen F. Austin State University told Vox. “So the platform is significant, because it is Democrats’ most concrete statement, as a party, of what they stand for. It shouldn’t be taken literally—but it should be taken seriously.”

As much as the [2020] platform is the most progressive document to come out of a major national party in U.S. history, it’s far from clear this is anything close to what a possible Biden presidency would achieve or even push for. The platform isn’t written to take into account practical constraints, legislative trade-offs, or the hard-nosed political calculations that every president has to make—it exists in the world of ideals. . . . It’s not written as legislation. Additionally, since this is a public-facing document, it’s Democrats’ attempt to make their agenda sound appealing—they’ll emphasize the stuff they think is popular.

PLATFORM REVEALS DEEP DIVISIONS IN PARTY

Certainly the platform includes a few policy positions with which nearly all Americans would agree, but the differences between the two parties are clearly extensive. Even among Democrats, reports The New York Times, the platform has “reinforced divisions among the party’s moderates and its liberal wing, which has expressed disappointment that the official Democratic agenda does not support ‘Medicare for all.’. . . Some refused to vote for the platform as a form of protest.”

In analyzing “What the Democratic Party Platform Actually Says,” The Times points out it is “a largely symbolic document that broadly outlines the party’s agenda,” and covers “a sweeping set of policies on key issues including healthcare, climate change and the economy.” It “does not contain specific legislation or binding commitments. Taken as a whole, however, it provides a broad look at the party’s agenda and the principles and values that Democrats, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., embrace.”

Attempting to bridge this vast intraparty divide, the platform committee took into consideration 110 pages of policy recommendations developed by the “Biden-Sanders unity task forces” that focused on climate change, criminal justice reform, the economy, education, healthcare, and immigration. “Politico.com” notes:

The task force recommendations don’t include . . . wide-scale systemic upheaval. . . . A single-payer healthcare system such as “Medicare for All,” a “Green New Deal” overhauling environmental policy, and doing away with Immigration and Customs Enforcement are not among the policy proposals. But while the recommendations hew more closely to priorities laid out by Biden during the primary, like expanding the Affordable Care Act through a public option, they also include ambitious time lines for reaching certain environmental benchmarks, such as eliminating carbon pollution from power plants and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for new buildings.

As is clearly evident upon reading the Democratic Party Platform, and as President Trump noted in his acceptance speech, “There has never been such a difference between two parties or two individuals in ideology, philosophy or vision than there is right now.”

While the two major parties have always held differing positions regarding how and to what degree the federal government should provide for the domestic needs of the people—differences that in the end are often difficult to discern given the similar votes cast on both sides of the aisle—a comparison of the two sets of policies in 2020 show them to be shockingly divergent.

Were the Democratic platform to actually be implemented by the Harris-Biden ticket, the U.S. will surely face more violent domestic upheaval than even has been experienced recently during the response to Covid-19 and the BLM/Antifa-led uprisings around the nation.

If these documents truly reflect the foundational beliefs and values of Americans, and we really are this deeply divided, the ideological chasm between us is greater than ever and we truly are a house divided. Let us hope the Democrats’ campaign rhetoric as incorporated in the platform simply reflects a temporary, knee-jerk focus on hot-button issues in an attempt to churn up enough outrage to result in “blue” votes.

It is impossible in this limited space to include a thorough listing of the stunning number of programs and projects the Democratic platform proposes to implement in coming years, and we encourage readers to review the document firsthand. It is available online at UC Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project, which offers the platforms of parties that received electoral votes starting in 1840. (See www.presidency.ucsb.edu.) What follows is a high-level overview of the Democratic Party Platform’s main content areas, which the reader can compare and contrast with the Republican Party’s 2020 “Resolution Regarding the Republican Party Platform” and its 2016 platform.

SUMMARY GOAL: MASSIVELY ADVANCE THE NANNY STATE

Upon reading the nearly 100-page platform, one could accurately summarize the Democratic Party’s overarching principles and values thus: It is the federal government’s responsibility to fund new and vastly increased programs throughout the nation, to be led by greatly expanded federal agencies, to ensure that all Americans, but especially those in “non-majority” populations, will be housed, fed, educated, provided healthcare and childcare, and financially supported via services of the state, because systemic discrimination, oppression, and lack of access to resources is an inherent shortcoming of our “democracy” so that Americans cannot provide basic necessities of life for themselves and their families. The party “must right the wrongs in our democracy [and] redress the systemic injustices that have long plagued our society.”

Given the number of mentions in the document, the Democrats assert these systemic injustices apply primarily to women-of-color, families-of-color, and communities-of-color (referenced 48 times), LGBTQ+ individuals (26 times), transgender people (nine times) especially black transgender women, and “non-binary persons.” In fact, the Democratic Party is concerned enough about these particular Americans that as part of its effort to “Eliminate Racial, Gender, and Geographic Health Inequi ties,” it “will ensure that all transgender and non-binary people can procure official government identification documents that accurately reflect their gender identity . . . fight to end violence against transgender Americans and particularly against black transgender women . . . and prioritize the investigation of hate crimes against transgender and non-binary people.”

COVID-19

The platform first addresses how the party will protect Americans and lead the nation in recovering from the “Covid-19 pandemic.” It begins by repeatedly asserting that President Trump is directly responsible for the deaths and increased unemployment attributable to the virus. In fact, the opening five paragraphs of this first section (as is the case with numerous other sections) are dedicated solely to lambasting the president. “Make no mistake: President Trump’s abject failure to respond forcefully and capably to the Covid-19 pandemic—his failure to lead—makes him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. . . . President Trump’s dereliction of duty has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, the loss of tens of millions of American jobs, and lasting harm to our children’s education and future.”

As for what they’ll do differently, heroically, “Democrats will save lives by using every available tool to beat back this pandemic.” They’ll make testing free and expand funding to health departments to better conduct contact tracing; in fact, they will “act swiftly to stand up a comprehensive, national public health surveillance program for Covid-19 and future infectious diseases,” recruiting at least 100,000 contact tracers to “monitor” their fellow Americans. The funding promises continue: expand health insurance coverage, provide direct, increased support to states, have the federal government cover a higher percentage of the bill, add incentives for states to expand Medicaid, “substantially increase funding” for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and health departments everywhere, and “support medical and public health research grants for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs).”

THE ECONOMY

“To prevent President Trump’s recession from becoming a depression,” Democrats believe we must act immediately to make ambitious investments that will support and create jobs. “We urgently need to”: extend significant aid to state and local governments, school districts, public and nonprofit colleges and universities, especially HBCUs and MSIs; provide funding for child care and education; make significant, immediate grants and loans to help small businesses, prioritizing “support for black entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs of color, as well as women entrepreneurs”; enact robust paid sick leave protections; increase public investment in 5G and broadband infrastructure to offer low-income Americans subsidies to access the internet.

Through “forging a new social and economic contract with the American people,” Dems will raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, support unions, vigorously protect all private-sector workers’ right to strike, and establish the federal government’s role in promoting and facilitating collective bargaining, guaranteeing public-sector employees the right to bargain.

The Democrats will fund almost anything if it will create “good, union jobs”: infrastructure, a “clean energy revolution,” a “second great railroad revolution” for high-speed rail and Amtrak, innovative water technologies for drinking water and safe wastewater systems, including replacing lead pipes, broadband/5G technology, innovation hubs, career, technical education, and high-quality job training programs, adult literacy and other skills development programs, state small business grant and lending initiatives especially for small businesses owned by women and people of color, programs supporting businesses owned by women and people of color; and will ensure the USDA takes a more proactive approach to supporting training and resources for farmers of color. They’ll make “historic federal investments” to create jobs across the country in aerospace, artificial intelligence, advanced materials, biotechnology, clean energy and vehicles, support the U.S.’s role in space, and strengthen “NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth (NOAA) observation missions to better understand how climate change is impacting our home planet.”

By this point, readers may wonder how much more money Democrats can possibly plan to spend from the federal government given the national deficit currently stands at about $26.5 trillion. [See more on this on page 20 of this issue of AFP.] Not to worry, such spending “opportunities” continue for another 40+ pages!

ENDING POVERTY

The party will “make sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes” while continuing to fund low-income Americans’ lives: reform the tax code “to be more progressive and equitable”; provide immediate, marked relief for working families; expand access to credit by creating a public credit reporting agency; support the 10-20-30 funding approach, (direct 10% of federal funding to communities where 20% or more of the population has been living below the poverty line for 30 years or longer); raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour; guarantee equal pay for women; increase funding for food assistance programs; increase housing supply; “supercharge” investment in the Housing Trust Fund; make energy efficiency upgrades for millions; provide Section 8 housing support for every eligible family; improve and upgrade public housing and expand availability; act swiftly to end homelessness among veterans and “enact strong protections for LGBTQ+ youth, especially black, Latino, and Native American LGBTQ+ youth”; provide legal support to fight wrongful evictions; vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, and the disparate impact standard; hold lenders accountable for discriminatory practices and use the federal government to enforce settlements against discriminatory lenders; combat gentrification, penalize predatory lending practices, and maintain homeownership.

HEALTHCARE

When it comes to healthcare for Americans, while the platform falls short of demanding Medicare for All, as noted, numerous “enhancements” will be made to the Affordable Care Act. It promises “universal healthcare coverage; reduced prescription drug prices, premiums, and out-of-pocket costs; the reining in of overall healthcare expenses; and tackling the deep-seated inequities in our healthcare system. The lowest-income Americans . . . will be automatically enrolled in the public option without premiums.” They’ll double investments in community health centers and rural health clinics; expand the National Health Service Corps; empower Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices; invest in training and hiring more mental health providers, substance use disorder counselors, and peer support counselors; make medication-assisted treatment available to all who need it; support expanded access to mental health and substance use disorder care in prisons and for returning citizens; make investments in the Medicaid system to provide home and community-based services; extend ACA coverage to Dreamers and lift the five-year waiting period for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program eligibility for low-income, lawfully present immigrants; work to equitably improve maternal-child services to at least halve our nation’s high maternal mortality rate; invest in community health worker care-forces; support increased and sustainable funding for health and medical research and federal grants; and increase the federal investment in research and development for new medications through the NIH.

The Democrats promise to “restore nondiscrimination protections” in health insurance for LGBTQ+ people, guaranteeing they have full access to needed healthcare and resources, including by “requiring that federal health plans provide coverage for HIV/AIDS treatment and HIV prevention medications, gender confirmation surgery, and hormone therapy.”

REFORMING CRIMINAL JUSTICE

This hot-button issue is only vaguely addressed in the platform, which does not include a call to “defund the police,” as far-left activists demand. It states, “Democrats believe we need to overhaul the criminal justice system from top to bottom,” and includes a plan to “reimagine public safety.” For instance, it reasonably recommends “every school should have sufficient funding to employ guidance counselors, social workers, or school psychologists to help guarantee age-appropriate and racially equitable student disciplinary practices, rather than turning to police to resolve these issues,” and suggests looking to “innovative police departments that have enacted evidence-based reforms to change their approach” through training, implementing and “strong standards governing conflict resolution, de-escalation, and use of force.” Of course, the Dems want to ensure the federal government takes charge by establishing “strict national standards governing the use of force.”

The platform claims: “It is past time to end the failed ‘War on Drugs,’ which has imprisoned millions of Americans—disproportionately people of color—and hasn’t been effective in reducing drug use.” The hypocrisy of this otherwise reasonable position has become a sticking point even for many Democrats, who point to vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s record in California: “Over Harris’s seven years as top prosecutor [in California], her attorneys won 1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale, according to data from the DA’s office,” reported The Mercury News. She also actively opposed cannabis legalization as a California state senator.

Joe Biden’s longstanding record of support for “tough on crime” laws is also unassailable. He authored what he’s called the “Biden Crime Law,” the 1994 “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act,” signed by then President Clinton, which is widely regarded as being directly responsible for the explosion in incarceration, especially for drug-related charges, because it supercharged the “war on drugs” and incentivized states to build new prisons and hire more law enforcement personnel in an attempt by the Democrats to be perceived as tougher on crime.

To reverse their failed policies, Democrats now suggest that, rather than involving the criminal justice system, increased use of “drug courts, harm-reduction interventions, and treatment diversion programs” should be used, as they acknowledge that “substance use disorders are diseases, not crimes. Democrats believe no one should be in prison solely because they use drugs. Democrats will decriminalize marijuana use and reschedule it through executive action on the federal level.” To accomplish this, they will increase funding for public defenders and for the Legal Services Corporation, and allow “judges to determine appropriate sentences” by “fighting to repeal federal mandatory minimums, incentivize states to do the same, and make all sentencing reductions retroactive so judges can reconsider past cases where their hands were tied.”

In the platform’s sole reference to the Tenth Amendment-backed states’ rights, they wish to allow states to “make their own decisions about recreational use [of cannabis]. The Justice Department should not launch federal prosecutions of conduct that is legal at the state level.” And in a single move that would open the doors to housing, educational funding, and employment for millions of Americans—without need of any new federally funded programs—they wisely suggest, “All past criminal convictions for cannabis use should be automatically expunged.”

“HEALING OUR NATIONAL SOUL”

The Democrats again kick off their plan to “heal the soul of America” by playing the blame-game: “President Trump’s words and actions have given safe harbor and encouragement to bigots, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, and white supremacists. It’s time to root out domestic terrorism in all its forms and pass a domestic terrorism law that is consistent with the constitutional right to free speech and civil liberties.”

Given later statements, it seems doubtful this law will crack down on far-left terrorists. To combat “domestic terrorists” Democrats will “increase funding and support for security investments and protection at houses of worship,” “confront white nationalist terrorism and combat hate crimes perpetrated against religious minorities,” and “work to restore trust with our Muslim communities.”

Additionally, “Democrats recognize that the threat landscape has evolved dramatically since Sept. 11. Our counterterrorism priorities, footprint, and tools should shift accordingly, including to respond to the growing threat from white supremacist and other right-wing terrorist groups.” Perhaps as expected, they “support removing the Confederate battle flag and statues of Confederate leaders from public properties.”

Oddly, they suggest the Federal Reserve should address the disproportionately high unemployment rates among people of color through “making racial equity part of the mandate of the Federal Reserve” and will “direct the Chair of the Federal Reserve to report on the extent of racial employment and wage gaps, and how the central bank is countering them.”

Of course, they suggest affirmative action should be re-implemented to benefit all but nonveteran white men: “We will restore and build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces policy, and use the purchasing power of the federal government to incentivize private companies to recruit and advance people of color, women, people with disabilities, and veterans.”

Apparently, unfettered access to abortion is part of what’s needed to heal our souls. “Democrats believe every woman should be able to access high quality reproductive healthcare services, including safe and legal abortion. We oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to women’s reproductive health and rights, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment and protecting and codifying Roe v. Wade.”

When it comes to the Second Amendment, sweeping changes are suggested: enact universal background checks, end online sales of guns and ammunition, close “dangerous” loopholes that currently allow stalkers and some individuals convicted of assault or battery to buy and possess firearms, and adequately fund the federal background check system; close the “Charleston loophole” and prevent individuals who have been convicted of hate crimes from possessing firearms; ban the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; incentivize states to enact licensing requirements for owning firearms and “red flag” laws; pass legislation requiring that guns be safely stored in homes; hold gun companies responsible for their products and prioritize repealing the law that shields gun manufacturers from civil liability.

On a positive note, Democrats are “concerned about the potentially harmful effects of corporate consolidation in the media industry . . . and will [allegedly] reinstate and strengthen media ownership rules and direct federal antitrust agencies to investigate the economic impacts of mergers in the media industry.” But they insist on globalizing efforts by appointing “an independent media professional to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, to ensure that the news and information projected around the world by the federal government meets the highest standards of fact-based and unbiased journalism.” Who will determine these “standards” and what constitutes factual material without bias?

SAVING OUR “DEMOCRACY”

Many will note another hypocritical undertone in how Democrats intend to “save our democracy”: “We will strictly enforce ethics laws and improve transparency across the federal government in order to rebuild trust with the American people and will protect civil servants and whistleblowers from political retribution.”

They’ll further protect every individual’s voting rights, reform the “broken campaign finance system,” build an “effective, transparent federal government” (assumedly via massive funding increases), make Washington, D.C. the 51st state and guarantee self-determination for Puerto Rico, support U.S. territories, and fight privatization of the U.S. Postal Service in part by allowing the USPS to deliver alcohol by mail and by developing banking facilities within post offices.

IMMIGRATION

“Democrats commit to building a 21st century immigration system that reflects our values, repairs past harms, heals our communities, rebuilds our economy, and renews our global leadership. We will start by righting the wrongs of the Trump administration.” They’ll halt building of the southern border wall; terminate travel and immigration bans; reinstate, expand, and streamline protections for Dreamers and the parents of American citizen children; protect and expand the existing asylum system; halt enforcement of and rescind the American immigrant wealth test; develop a fast-track to immigration program; eliminate immigration barriers, such as the three-and-10-year bars, and remove the 10-year waiting period for waivers; end workplace and community raids; invest in community-based alternatives to detention and end for-profit detention centers; end the freeze on green cards for new immigrants; increase funding for inclusion and citizenship services, legal support, English classes and bilingual education, workforce development, and adult education;

EDUCATION

Here again, the Democrats will offer all things to all people: free pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds, expand Head Start and Early Head Start; increase funding to states to guarantee that families can afford child care; make major investments to increase quality; triple Title I funding, which benefits schools that serve low-income students; expand universal free school meal programs; support wraparound healthcare and nutrition services, before-and-after-school programs, adult education classes, and other services; increase investment in public schools; ban for-profit private charter businesses from receiving federal funding; oppose private school vouchers; reinvigorate and increase funding for the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights; make public colleges and universities tuition-free for students whose families earn less than $125,000 (roughly 80% of Americans); double the maximum Pell Grant award and double federal support for TRIO programs; support making community colleges tuition-free for all students, including Dreamers.

OUR MILITARY

To “ensure that our military has no peer,” the Dems will “responsibly” end “the forever wars”; end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen; invest in technology and forces to accelerate defense transformation; reinforce alliances and partnerships that enhance our collective security; rebalance our investments, improve the efficiency and competitiveness of our defense industrial base, conduct rigorous annual audits of the Pentagon, and end waste and fraud; allow anyone to serve in combat roles and reverse the transgender ban; fight rape and sexual harassment, end retaliation and impunity, take care of survivors; modernize VA healthcare; treat veteran suicide as the public health crisis it is by increasing mental health and suicide prevention supports.

FIGHTING THE “CLIMATE CRISIS”

“Climate change is a global emergency. We have no time to waste in taking action. . . . We will use federal resources and authorities across all agencies [and] we will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and, on day one, seek higher ambition from nations around the world, putting the United States back in the position of global leadership where we belong.”

As the leaders of all things global, U.S. Democrats want to drive “a coordinated global health and economic response to the Covid-19 pandemic” and contribute “not just more aid, but better aid.” They intend to: revitalize American diplomacy; reinvent alliances, partnerships, and international institutions; invest in State Department reforms; expand and reform the Foreign Service; rejoin and reform the WHO, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN Population Fund; ensure the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) reclaims its position as the world’s premier development agency; reaffirm America’s commitment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; provide the budgetary support and statutory authorities necessary to make sure our aid institutions, including the new U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, are successfully integrated into broader international and private-sector development efforts; lead international efforts to help developing countries.

At home, the party will: eliminate carbon pollution from power plants by 2035; dramatically expand solar and wind energy deployment; within five years install 500 million solar panels and 60,000 wind turbines; build a modern electric grid; make energy-saving upgrades to up to two million low-income households and affordable and public housing units within five years; increase funding for programs that enable energy efficiency improvements for low-income families; transition the entire fleet of 500,000 school buses and three million governmental vehicles to zero-emission vehicles; invest in modernizing our freight infrastructure; apply a carbon adjustment fee at the border to products from countries that fail to live up to their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement; partner with farmers to make the American agriculture sector the first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions; substantially increase investments in voluntary conservation programs; create an environmental justice fund to make historic investments aimed at eliminating legacy pollution; and support the most historically far reaching public investments and private sector incentives for research, development, demonstration, and deployment of next-generation technologies.

They will: fully integrate climate change into foreign policy and national security strategies and incorporate climate issues as key priorities at the Department of State, Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, the Peace Corps, and USAID; convene a world summit aimed at new and more ambitious global targets to reduce carbon pollution; revive and expand climate-related foreign assistance including by recommitting to the Green Climate Fund; restore funding to the Global Environment Facility and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; revitalize and expand the Global Health Security Agenda; restore the White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense; develop a global public health system; establish a Global Health Emergency Board to harmonize crisis response; ensure the U.S. remains the leading funder and technical partner of the WHO.

In short, the Democratic platform is based on a fairytale world filled with promises that, if fulfilled, would bankrupt America, make life for the overwhelming majority of middle-class Americans no better, and expand even more the government’s role in our lives.

Unsustainable Debt Will Soar

By AFP Staff

While Democratic activists demand we “stop climate change” to protect future generations, the party’s insistence on unbridled federal spending conveys an utter lack of concern for our posterity. The grassroots Concord Coalition, “a non-partisan organization that advocates putting the national debt on a sustainable course and protecting future generations,” believes, “like the Minutemen at Concord, that we have a moral obligation to leave the country better off for our children and grandchildren.” The coalition cautions that debt is rising even without increased spending but “could rise even more rapidly if elected officials move forward with additional spending programs or tax cuts without ‘paying’ for them through other budgetary changes. This debt growth will damage the economy, undermine our standard of living, and leave our children and future generations worse off.”

As AFP goes to press, the “U.S. National Debt Clock” shows the deficit at $26,505,315,299,968 ($26.5 trillion), according to the Concord Coalition. In light of this, cost analyses of even partial aspects of the Democratic Platform become even more concerning.

The 2020 platform outlines the use of federal resources “to counter climate change because Democrats believe we must embed environmental justice, economic justice, and climate justice at the heart of our policy and governing agenda.” The platform outlines numerous programs creating more government intervention into the lives of Americans by mandating changes in energy usage by consumers, manufacturers, building codes, transportation and agriculture.

While the platform does not offer an estimate of the cost to implement these changes, “Biden’s plan released in July had many of the same goals with an estimated price tag of $2 trillion,” according to the Times Record News.

In an opinion piece in Newsweek, founder and president of Turning Points USA Charlie Kirk wrote that the Democratic National Convention features “Populist Rhetoric to Hide Socialist Plan”:

The Democratic Party has abandoned the working and middle classes—both in policy and, now, in programming. [During the convention], the Democratic Party’s desperate attempt to appeal to blue-collar workers with fake populist rhetoric is on full display. Don’t fall for it. Behind the talking points and media spin, the true “progressive” socialist policy agenda of the 2020 Democratic National Convention would be a disaster for the American people. . . . Actions speak louder than words, and the Democratic National Convention’s snub of American workers in favor of well-connected elitists and extremists perfectly illustrates the party’s true allegiances.

Utopian socialist schemes [about ending “climate change”] don’t come cheap. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a fracking ban alone would destroy about 19 million jobs nationwide and shrink the country’s GDP by $7.1 trillion in the space of just four years. . . . Never forget, the Green New Deal is estimated [by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office] to cost a stunning $93 trillion—or about $600,000 per household.

On top of all that, the Democratic Party’s pledge to eliminate the president’s tax cuts would cost Americans an average of $1,400 every year, affecting 82% of all taxpayers. And that is only part of Biden’s plan to hike taxes by a record-shattering $4 trillion.

“TheHill.com” reports “Biden’s plans would increase revenue by $3T, spending by $5T.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s plans would increase tax revenue by $3.375 trillion and raise federal spending by $5.35 trillion over a 10-year period, according to an analysis released Monday by the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM).

These include raising the top individual income tax rate from 37% to 39.6%, subjecting earnings above $400,000 to Social Security payroll taxes, taxing capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income for people with income of more than $1 million, raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, increasing the tax rate on foreign profits, and creating a 15% minimum tax for corporations with income on their financial statement of more than $100 million.

Plans to lower prescription drug prices would reduce federal spending by about $1.3 trillion, while other healthcare proposals—including lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60, expanding ObamaCare insurance marketplaces and making ObamaCare’s premium tax credit more generous—would increase federal spending by about $1.6 trillion over 10 years.

The article adds:

Infrastructure and R&D would increase spending by $1.6 trillion in the 10-year period.

Education plans—which include universal pre-K, expanding funding for Title I schools, two years of debt-free community college and tuition free public college for students from families making below $125,000—would increase federal spending by $1.9 trillion from 2021 through 2030. Expanding and supporting low-income housing would increase spending by $650 billion and plans to increase Social Security benefits would increase spending by $291 billion over a decade.

The Democrat Dream: Government Expande to Gargantuan Size

By the AFP Staff

As an example of the burgeoning federal government dreamed of by Democrats, the agencies specifically mentioned in the platform to receive increased funding, staffing, and/or authority include:

• The Department of Labor

• Department of Justice

• Department of Agriculture

• Department of Education

• Department of Veteran Affairs (VA)

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth (NOAA)

• Housing Trust Fund

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

• Health departments throughout the nation

• National Health Service Corps

• Medicare

• Medicaid

• Legal Services Corporation

• Public defenders

• Office of Civil Rights

• U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

• U.S. International Development Finance Corporation

• White House National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense

• Intelligence agencies

• Peace Corps

• Federal resources and authorities across all agencies, for fighting climate change

• Creation of a new public credit reporting agency