August 19, 2024
What does the Democratic party stand for? Well – now we officially know.
The Democratic party just released it’s 2024 party platform which will be passed during this week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In case you’re wondering I explained the Republican party platform in this video in July.
Now – what’s interesting about this DNC platform is – it was approved by the Democratic platform committee back on July 16th – before President Biden stepped down. So the wording in this 92-page document assumes Biden and Harris are the nominees and uses a lot of the language President Biden did on the campaign trail. Now – that’s just semantics – because party platforms are not specifically about one candidate – they are more about what policies the party as a whole stands for. This document has nine chapters each focuses on a different policy issue. It’s interesting to see which party policies Vice President Harris has already latched on to and which ones she has expanded on since becoming the nominee.
First – these are just some of the party policies that are the same between Biden and Harris
- Expand the child tax credit and earned income tax credit. Protecting anyone earning less than $400,000 a year from seeing any kind of tax increase while raising the taxes for billionaires and keeping the audits rates high on big corporations and partnership known to cheat the tax system.
- Continue the affordable care act credits that keep premiums low for many low income Americans, expand the $35/month insulin regulation to everyone not just seniors and of course both want to restore the abortion protections afforded under roe vs wade.
- There’s also almost two full pages dedicated to protecting the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
- As for Israel and Hamas and what’s going on in Gaza, the document reflects Biden’s rhetoric strongly supporting Israel while also pushing for a cease fire and a two-state solution that gives Israelis and Palestinians the right to “live in freedom and security in a viable state of their own.” That’s what the party stands for. But when it comes to Harris as the nominee – her rhetoric has been little stronger than Biden’s when it comes to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza but generally – at least so far – her stance has been similar to his
In the category of sort of the same – but expanded…from Biden to Harris
- The document says democrats will fight against “corporate greed” which was more of a Biden term – Harris has been using “price gouging” when she talks about this same topic. There was no mention of a “ban on price gouging” as Harris laid out during her economic speech last week.
- Under Biden, the party platform had the administration building or renovating 2 million homes nationwide to address the housing shortage – as I told you in this video Harris promised 3 million affordable homes. Both have supported a $10,000 or $25,000 credit for first time homebuyers.
The party platform also includes.
- A push to get congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $15/hour
- Fight for universal gun background checks, ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
- As for the border the party wants to reform the asylum system based on the bipartisan senate deal that was shot down earlier this year including the ability of the president to shut the border down when the system is overwhelmed.
Read more from the DNC about the platform here.
Read the actual DNC platform here.
