Progressive Teddy Roosevelt helps points the way.
For those interested, I had promised to organize and group the leading Democratic economic proposals by subject matter, and in the meantime Bernie Sanders added his voice. So, adding Sen. Sanders to prior proposals by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Economic Policy Institute, along with reader comments, below is an attempt to bullet-point summarize some of the notable Democratic economic proposals as we head towards the next presidential election. (Many of the categories unavoidably overlap.) Overall, I find it a very useful way to track what policy ideas are under consideration, and where ideas may be lacking. (For example, I think more work needs to be done on developing jobs proposals.)
As always: please add, subtract, emphasize, disagree, etc.
Jobs
1. Invest in infrastructure and public and nonprofit employment programs that create jobs. e.g., proposals range from $745 billion to $1 trillion over different time periods.
2. Reform Federal Reserve Bank policies to emphasize full employment policy over inflation fears.
*/ Aside from infrastructure, the jobs policy proposals appear weak or limited.
Income Inequality
1. Raise the federal minimum wage. (Key: to $12/hr? 15/hr? a "living wage"?)
2. Raise the salary ceiling for mandatory time-and-a-half overtime pay from current $23,6660 to at least $56,660 (extending overtime protections to more than 6.1 million additional workers) and revise abuse of eligibility requirements (i.e., who falls under exempt management categories).
3. Strengthen collective bargaining and union organizing rights, and stop the spread of so-called "right-to-work" laws.
4. Provide $128 billion as a new tax credit for low- and middle-income workers, including increase to Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Care Credit.
5. Increase Social Security benefits.
6. Tighten enforcement of labor standards and associated penalties to stop "wage theft" and other abuses, including guaranteeing workers' access to courts instead of mandated arbitration.
7. Eliminate tax preferences that encourage exorbitant discrepancies between executive compensation and median worker pay.
8. Provide federal workers with a 4% salary increase.
Wage Equality/Fairness
1. Pass and enforce laws prohibiting gender and race discrimination in salary.
2. Provide earned sick leave and paid family leave.
Tax Reform
1. Repeal the law allowing U.S. corporations to defer paying taxes on foreign profits, and prohibit corporate tax inversions.
2. Restore Clinton-era marginal income tax rates starting at the $250,000 threshold.
3. Establish new income tax brackets - 45 percent at $1 million, 46 percent at $10 million, 47 percent at $20 million, 48 percent at $100 million, and 49 percent at $1 billion.
4. Capital gains and dividends taxed as ordinary income.
5. All itemized deductions will be capped at the 28 percent rate.
6. The estate tax will have a $2.5 million exemption and then a series of progressive marginal rates from 55 to 65 percent.
7. The mortgage-interest tax deduction for second homes is eliminated.
Climate Change
1. The United States must lead in obtaining international agreements to address climate change.
2. Begin transforming our energy and transportation systems away from fossil fuels and into efficient and sustainable energies.
3. Greatly accelerate the progress in wind, solar, geothermal and other forms of sustainable energy, and assist millions of homes and buildings to be weatherized.
4. Impose a $25 per-ton carbon tax.
5. Develop "green" federal building standards.
Immigration Reform
1. "Regularize" undocumented workers, either through a path to citizenship or some form of legal recognition.
Financial Industry Reform
1. Repeal Glass-Steagull.
2. Pass a financial transactions tax.
3. Pass a too-big-too-fail tax on banks with more than $50 billion in assets.
Healthcare
1. Medicare is allowed to bargain for lower prescription drug prices.
2. A public option is added to Obamacare.
3. Repeal of the Affordable Care Act's tax on expensive health plans.
Education
1. Establish universal pre-K.
2. Create a matching fund to help public universities cover rising tuition costs.
3. Allows students to refinance student loans at lower rates and shift to more affordable government loans.
Trade
1. Oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
2. Rethink "job exporting" trade agreements and stop "fast track" approval of trade deals.
3. Reduce trade deficit by stopping destructive currency manipulation by certain foreign governments.
Assorted
1. Increase anti-trust enforcement.
2. Reduce base Pentagon spending to 2006 levels, and reduce farm subsidies for commodity crops.
3. Repeal the debt limit deal of 2011 — including the budget sequestration — to finance increase in non-defense discretionary spending by nearly $1.9 trillion.
4. Pass meaningful campaign finance reform legislation.
5. Begin process to overturn Citizens United through Constitutional amendment process.
6. Restore federal research & development spending levels.
7. Encourage corporate governance reforms to increase labor participation on corporate boards and allow director's fiduciary duty to include concern for community and workforce and not just shareholder value. [Not clear that this can be done at the federal level.]