Archives Archives - Page 2 of 986

As far as I’m concerned, you’ll be voting for communist tyranny. Here are pages 21 thru 25 of the Democratic Party ~~Manifesto~~ Platform.<!–more–>
______________

Homeownership is at the center of the American Dream—and yet it has never been in reach for all. Decades of red-lining, rising income inequality, and predatory lending practices targeting low-income families and people of color have made homeownership all but impossible for millions of working families. Homeownership has long been central to building generational wealth, and expanding access to homeownership to those who have been unfairly excluded and

End of p.20

discriminated against is critical to closing the racial wealth gap. We have a nationwide shortage of affordable housing units, and tens of millions of Americans live in homes that pose risks to their health and safety. Homelessness has reached crisis proportions in a growing number of states, and housing costs that rise faster than wages have put the squeeze on renters in many of our biggest cities.

Housing in America should be stable, accessible, safe, healthy, energy efficient, and, above all, affordable. No one should have to spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, so families have ample resources left to meet their other needs and save for retirement.

Democrats believe the government should take aggressive steps to increase the supply of housing, especially affordable housing, and address long-standing economic and racial inequities
in our housing markets. We support innovative approaches to eliminating the racial wealth gap in America. Rehabilitating housing and expansion of housing owned by land trusts will increase the amount of housing available for secure homeownership. We will equalize access to affordable credit and improve access to down payment assistance to help families of color, low-income families, and rural buyers purchase homes. We will increase funding for assistance to first-time purchasers and homeowners to navigate the financing and servicing of their homes. We will create a new tax credit of up to $15,000 to help first-time homebuyers, and will make the tax credit refundable and advanceable, so buyers can get assistance at the time of purchase, instead of having to wait until they file their taxes.

Democrats will supercharge investment in the Housing Trust Fund to greatly expand the number of affordable, accessible housing units on the market. We will expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to incentivize private-sector construction of affordable housing, and make sure urban, suburban, and rural areas all benefit. We will make energy efficiency upgrades for millions of low-income households, affordable housing units, and public housing units in metropolitan and rural areas to save families money on their energy bills and provide safe and healthy homes. And Democrats will leverage existing programs, including at USDA, to build more affordable, accessible housing and retrofit existing housing in rural areas. We will ensure all federally supported housing projects, from new builds to retrofits, include mandatory requirements for labor standards, accessibility, and civil rights protections.

Democrats are committed to ending homelessness in America. Democrats commit to providing Section 8 housing support for every eligible family, and will enact protections to keep landlords from discriminating against voucher recipients. We will increase investments in public housing to expand availability for the first time since the 1990s, and improve and upgrade existing public housing to ensure safe living conditions for residents, protecting tenants’ rights to return if extensive renovations are needed. Democrats support a housing-first approach to ending homelessness, because having a stable and safe place to live is essential to helping a person tackle any other challenges they may face, from mental illness to substance use disorders to post-traumatic stress disorder. We will act swiftly to end homelessness among veterans and will enact strong protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth, especially Black, Latino, and Native American LGBTQ+ youth, who too often find themselves on the streets.

End of p.21

Democrats will enact a new Homeowner and Renter Bill of Rights to protect families from abusive lenders and landlords. We will empower renters by working to establish a national tenant right to organize, and support outreach and education to help tenants advocate to preserve and expand affordable housing. And Democrats will provide legal support to fight wrongful evictions.

America’s history of using public policy and private lending restrictions to close neighborhoods off to Black families and other people of color and strip equity from their communities is long, painful, and unresolved to this day. The Trump Administration has made matters worse by gutting fair lending and fair housing protections for homeowners. Democrats will vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, and the disparate impact standard, and hold lenders accountable for discriminatory practices. We will also ensure that federal housing programs are better designed to affirmatively further fair housing. We will use the federal government to enforce settlements against discriminatory lenders, and require communities to proactively review housing patterns and remedy local policies that have a discriminatory effect. We will work to ensure that residential property and mortgage ownership records are publicly available and easily accessible, so that homeowners can always know who services their mortgage and who truly owns their debt. Democrats will give local elected officials tools and resources to combat gentrification, penalize predatory lending practices, and maintain homeownership, including exploring targeted rental relief when exorbitant rent increases force long-term residents from their communities and tackling persistent racial bias in appraisals that contributes to the racial wealth gap.

Leveling the Economic Playing Field

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

Reforming the Tax Code to Benefit Working Families

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

Democrats will take action to reverse the Trump Administration’s tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest Americans and rewarding corporations for shipping American jobs overseas. We will
crack down on overseas tax havens and close loopholes that are exploited by the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. We will make sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.

We will make sure investors pay the same tax rates as workers and bring an end to expensive and unproductive tax loopholes, including the carried interest loophole. Corporate tax rates, which were cut sharply by the 2017 Republican tax cut, must be raised, and “trickle-down” tax cuts must be rejected. Estate taxes should also be raised back to the historical norm.

End of p.22

Democrats will reform the tax code to be more progressive and equitable, and reduce barriers for working families to benefit from targeted tax breaks, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit. Our program of reform will provide immediate, marked relief for working families, including more generous, refundable tax credits to benefit low- and
middle-income families, and easier and more equitable access to tax provisions that help working families build wealth, including by equalizing tax benefits for retirement contributions and providing more accessible tax breaks for homeownership.

Curbing Wall Street Abuses

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

We will strengthen and enforce the Obama-Biden Administration’s Dodd-Frank financial reform law, including the Volcker Rule, to protect American workers from the impacts of future
financial crises, and will support an updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall. And when justified by the law, we will back criminal penalties for reckless executives who illegally gamble with the savings and economic security of their clients and American communities.

Democrats will expand access to credit by creating a public credit reporting agency to provide a non-discriminatory credit reporting alternative to the private agencies, and will require its use by all federal lending programs, including home lending and student loans. And we will strengthen banking regulations, including the Community Reinvestment Act, to ensure equitable access to credit and banking products for all Americans, and reinvigorate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to ensure that banks, financial institutions, and lenders cannot prey on consumers.

We commit to revisit and repeal sections of existing bankruptcy law that frequently lead to debtors losing their home as the result of medical debt, divorce, job loss, or just bad luck. We will also give bankruptcy judges the authority to “cram down,” or modify, mortgages for primary residences during bankruptcy proceedings, so working families can benefit from the same debt relief tools currently available to those who own assets like vacation homes and yachts.

Ending Poverty

Democrats remain committed to ending poverty and enabling all Americans to live up to their God-given potential. We recognize that the official poverty rate, as measured and communicated by the federal government, fails to capture critical needs like housing, education, health care, transportation, energy, and other necessities, and therefore understates the true share of Americans living in poverty. We will support the 10-20-30 funding approach, to direct at least 10

End of p.23

percent of federal funding to communities where 20 percent or more of the population has been living below the poverty line for 30 years or longer. Directing more federal investment to the communities most in need will help create jobs; improve and expand housing; modernize and expand transportation, clean water, wastewater, energy, and broadband infrastructure; and promote shared prosperity.

We will raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and guarantee equal pay for women, two measures that in combination will pull millions of families out of poverty. We will make it easier
for working families to benefit from targeted tax breaks, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, which too often go unclaimed by the lowest-income tax filers. We will significantly expand affordable housing and build new public housing for the first time since the 1990s, and guarantee Section 8 benefits to all who qualify—all of which will help reduce housing costs and increase housing availability for low-income families.

Democrats believe health care is a human right. We will incentivize states to expand Medicaid and enroll low-income people who do not otherwise have health insurance in a new, high-quality public option without premiums. We will double investments in community health centers and rural health centers, and expand mobile health units, to make it easier for low-income people to access health care.

In the wealthiest country on earth, it is a moral abomination that any child could ever go to bed hungry. Democrats will increase funding for food assistance programs, including SNAP, WIC, and school meals. We will also remove barriers that keep the formerly incarcerated from accessing food assistance.

Cuts to the Legal Services Corporation have imperiled access to justice in civil court for low-income defendants and litigants alike in matters concerning access to public benefits and
housing, eviction proceedings, and custodial cases. Democrats will significantly increase investment in the Legal Services Corporation to ensure those who cannot afford private
representation can nevertheless equitably access the civil justice system and have their day in court.

Democrats will provide substantially higher levels of support for programs and institutions that boost economic development in America’s most impoverished communities, including by
doubling funding for CDFIs, expanding the Community Development Block Grant, increasing the number of Rural Business Investment Companies, and expanding and making permanent the

New Markets Tax Credit

One in four American households are either unbanked or underbanked, putting them at risk of losing money due to exorbitant fees or usurious interest rates. Democrats will support and
encourage efforts in Congress to guarantee affordable, transparent, and trustworthy banking services that are language-accessible for low- and middle-income families, including bank
accounts and real-time payment systems through the Federal Reserve and easily accessible service locations, like postal banking.

End of p.24

Protecting Consumer Rights and Privacy

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

In the 21st century—and especially in the COVID-19 pandemic—it is all but impossible for consumers, students, workers, and people with disabilities to opt out of using the internet to
shop, socialize, learn, work, bank, and live. Democrats are committed to policies that will protect individuals’ privacy and data rights while continuing to support and enable innovation and improve accessibility in the technology sector. We will update the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights proposed by the Obama-Biden Administration, including adding strong national standards to protect consumers, employees, patients, and students from data breaches, and work with Congress to pass it into law. Democrats will take additional steps to protect student data privacy, particularly in preschool and K-12 settings where most students are under 18, and ensure that data collected in schools is used only for education, not for commercial purposes. And we support updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which has not been significantly amended since the 1980s, to afford the same protections to digital content as physical content.

Tackling Runaway Corporate Concentration

Democrats are concerned that the increase in corporate concentration across a wide range of industries, from hospitals and pharmaceutical companies to agribusiness and retail chains, could be stifling competition and innovation and creating monopoly conditions that harm consumers. We will direct federal regulators to review a subset of the mergers and acquisitions that have taken place since President Trump took office, prioritizing the pharmaceutical, health care, telecommunications, technology, and agricultural industries, to assess whether any have increased market concentration, raised consumer prices, demonstrably harmed workers, increased racial inequality, reduced competition, or constricted innovation, and assign
appropriate remedies. Democrats will direct regulators to consider potential effects of future mergers on the labor market, on low-income and marginalized communities, and on racial
equity, as well as on consumer prices and market competition. And as a last resort, regulators should consider breaking up corporations if they find they are using their market power to engage in anti-competitive activities.

Guaranteeing a Secure and Dignified Retirement

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

End of p.25

You can download the entire Democratic Party ~~Manifesto~~ Platform here:
https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

Same old game, same old field, same old rules, same old prize

You may think you are voting for Joe Biden, but what about safety on our streets and in our homes?

You may think you are merely voting against Trump – Here’s what you’ll actually be voting FOR

Record snowfall in Billings Montana

You may think you’re voting for Biden … but paying for sex-change surgery?

You may think you’re voting for Creepy Uncle Joe, but in reality you’ll be voting for a bankrupt nation

You may think you’re voting for Uncle Joe, but in reality you’ll be voting for more and more power-hungry bureaucrats

Toxic waste from solar panels

Democrats will “make the U.S. agriculture sector the first in the world to achieve net-zero emissions”

You may think you’re voting for Biden, but in reality – Dem Party Platform – Pages 11 thru 15