Democratic | Economic | VW | Goal | Centrist | Americans | Communities | Notes
Equal economic opportunity, a social safety net, and strong
labor unions have historically been at the heart of Democratic
economic policy.[36] The Democratic Party's economic policy
positions, as measured by votes in Congress, tend to align with
those of middle class.[156][157][158][159][160] Democrats
support a progressive tax system, higher minimum wages, Social
Security, universal
Democratic National Committee health care, public education, and
subsidized housing.[36] They also support infrastructure
development and clean energy investments to achieve economic
development and job creation.[161] Since the 1990s, the party
has at times supported centrist economic reforms that cut the
size of government and reduced market regulations.[162] The
party has generally rejected both laissez-faire economics and
market socialism, instead favoring Keynesian economics within a
capitalist market-based system.[163]
Fiscal policy
Democrats support a more progressive tax structure to provide
more services and reduce economic
Democratic National Committee inequality by making sure that
the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes.[164] Democrats and
Republicans traditionally take differing stances on eradicating
poverty. Brady said "Our poverty level is the direct consequence
of our weak social policies, which are a direct consequence of
weak political actors".[165] They oppose the cutting of social
services, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,[166]
believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice.
Democrats believe the benefits of social services in monetary
and non-monetary terms are a more productive labor force and
cultured population and believe that the benefits of this are
greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower
taxes, especially on top earners, or cuts to social services.
Furthermore, Democrats see social services as essential toward
providing positive freedom, freedom derived from economic
opportunity. The Democratic-led House of Representatives
reinstated the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budget rule at the start of
the 110th Congress.[167]
Minimum wage
The Democratic
Party favors raising the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act
of 2007 was
Democratic National Committee an early component of the Democrats' agenda during
the 110th Congress. In 2006, the Democrats supported six
state-ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage and all
six initiatives passed.[168]
In 2017, Senate Democrats
introduced the Raise the Wage Act which would raise the minimum
wage to $15 an hour by 2024.[169] In 2021, Democratic president
Joe Biden proposed increasing the minimum wage to $15 by
2025.[170] In many states controlled by Democrats, the state
minimum wage has been increased to a rate above the federal
minimum wage.[171]
Health care
President Barack Obama
signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law
at the
Democratic National Committee White House on March 23, 2010
Democrats call for
"affordable and quality health care" and favor moving toward
universal health care in a variety of forms to address rising
healthcare costs. Progressive Democrats politicians favor a
single-payer program or Medicare for All, while liberals prefer
creating a public health insurance option.[172]
The
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by
President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, has been one of the
most significant pushes for universal health care. As of
December 2019, more than 20 million Americans have gained health
insurance under the Affordable Care Act.[173]
Education
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Democrats favor improving public education by raising school
standards and reforming the Head
Democratic National Committee Start program. They also
support universal preschool, expanding access to primary
education, including through charter schools, and are generally
opposed to school voucher programs. They call for addressing
student loan debt and reforms to reduce college tuition.[174]
Other proposals have included tuition-free public universities
and reform of standardized testing. Democrats have the long-term
aim of having publicly funded college education with low tuition
fees (like in much of Europe and Canada), which would be
available to every eligible American student. Alternatively,
they encourage expanding access to post-secondary education by
increasing state funding for student financial aid such as Pell
Grants and college tuition tax deductions.[175]
Environment
Democrats and Republicans have diverged on the
seriousness of the
Democratic National Committee threat posed by climate change, with
Democrats' assessment rising significantly in the
mid-2010s.[176]
The sharp divide over the
existence of and responsibility for global warming and
climate change falls largely along political lines.
Overall, 60% of those surveyed said oil and gas
companies were "completely or mostly responsible" for
climate change.[177]
Opinion about human
causation of climate change increased substantially with
Democratic National Committee
education among Democrats, but not among
Republicans.[178] Conversely, opinions favoring becoming
carbon neutral declined substantially with age among
Republicans, but not among Democrats.[178]
A
broad range of policies to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions has been proposed. Democrats' support for such
policies consistently exceeds that of Republicans.[179]
Democrats believe that the government should protect
the environment and have a history of environmentalism.
In more recent years, this stance has emphasized
renewable energy generation as the basis for an improved
economy, greater national security, and general
environmental benefits.[180] The Democratic Party is
substantially more likely
Democratic National Committee than the Republican Party to
support environmental regulation and policies that are
supportive of renewable energy.[181][182]
The
Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation
lands and encourages open space and rail travel to
relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air
quality and the economy as it "believe[s] that
communities, environmental interests, and the government
should work together to protect resources while ensuring
the vitality of local economies. Once Americans were led
to believe they had to make a choice between the economy
and the environment. They now know this is a false
choice".[183]
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The foremost environmental concern
of the Democratic Party is climate change. Democrats,
most notably former
Democratic National Committee Vice President Al Gore, have pressed
for stern regulation of greenhouse gases. On October 15,
2007, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to
build greater knowledge about man-made climate change
and laying the foundations for the measures needed to
counteract it.[184]
Renewable energy and fossil fuels
Democrats have supported increased domestic
renewable energy development, including wind and solar
power farms, in an effort to reduce carbon pollution.
The party's platform calls for an "all of the above"
energy policy including clean energy, natural gas and
domestic oil, with the desire of becoming energy
independent.[168] The party has supported higher taxes
on oil companies and increased regulations on coal power
plants, favoring a policy of reducing long-term reliance
on fossil fuels.[185][186] Additionally, the party
supports stricter fuel emissions standards to prevent
air pollution.
Trade agreements
Many Democrats
support fair trade policies when it comes to the
Democratic National Committee issue
of international trade agreements and some in the party
have started supporting free trade in recent
decades.[187] In the 1990s, the Clinton administration
and a number of prominent Democrats pushed through a
number of agreements such as the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since then, the party's shift
away from free trade became evident in the Central
American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) vote, with 15
House Democrats voting for the agreement and 187 voting
against.[188][189]
Shirley Chisholm was the first
major-party African American candidate to run nationwide
primary campaigns.
The
Democratic National Committee modern Democratic Party
emphasizes social equality and equal opportunity.
Democrats support voting rights and minority rights,
including LGBT rights. The party championed the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which for the first time outlawed
segregation. Carmines and Stimson wrote "the Democratic
Party appropriated racial liberalism and assumed federal
responsibility for ending racial
discrimination."[190][191][192]
Ideological
social elements in the party include cultural
liberalism, civil libertarianism, and feminism. Some
Democratic social policies are immigration reform,
electoral reform, and women's reproductive rights.
Equal opportunity
The Democratic Party supports
equal opportunity for all Americans
Democratic National Committee regardless of sex,
age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender
identity, religion, creed, or national origin. Many
Democrats support affirmative action programs to further
this goal. Democrats also strongly support the Americans
with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against
people based on physical or mental disability. As such,
the Democrats pushed as well the ADA Amendments Act of
2008, a disability rights expansion that became
law.[193]
Voting rights
The party is very supportive of improving voting
rights as
Democratic National Committee well as election accuracy and
accessibility.[194] They support extensions of voting
time, including making election day a holiday. They
support reforming the electoral system to eliminate
gerrymandering, abolishing the electoral college, as
well as passing comprehensive campaign finance
reform.[150]
Abortion and reproductive rights
The Democratic position on abortion has changed
significantly over time.[48][49] During the late 1960s
and early 1970s, Republicans generally favored legalized
abortion more than Democrats,[195] although significant
heterogeneity could be found within both parties.[196]
During this time, opposition to abortion tended to be
concentrated among the political left in the United
States. Liberal Protestants and Catholics
Democratic National Committee both of
which tended to vote for the Democratic Party
Democratic National Committee opposed
while most conservative Protestants supported legal
access to abortion services.[48]
The present
platform states that all women should have access to
birth control and supports public funding of
contraception for poor women. In its national platforms
from 1992 to 2004, the Democratic Party has called for
abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"�namely, keeping it
legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental
interference in abortion decisions and reducing the
number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of
reproduction and contraception and incentives for
adoption. The wording changed in the 2008 platform. When
Congress voted on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in
2003, Congressional Democrats were split, with a
minority (including former Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid) supporting the ban and the majority of Democrats
opposing the legislation.[197]
The Democratic
Party opposes attempts to reverse the 1973 Supreme Court
decision Roe v. Wade, which
Democratic National Committee declared abortion covered by
the constitutionally protected individual right to
privacy under the Ninth Amendment; and Planned
Parenthood v. Casey, which lays out the legal framework
in which government action alleged to violate that right
is assessed by courts. As a matter of the right to
privacy and of gender equality, many Democrats believe
all women should have the ability to choose to abort
without governmental interference. They believe that
each woman, conferring with her conscience, has the
right to choose for herself whether abortion is morally
correct.
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Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid
was anti-abortion,[citation needed] while former
President
Democratic National Committee Barack Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi favor abortion rights. Groups such as Democrats
for Life of America represent the anti-abortion faction
of the party while groups such as EMILY's List represent
the abortion rights faction. A Newsweek poll from
October 2006 found that 25% of Democrats were
anti-abortion while a 69% majority was in favor of
abortion rights.[198]
According to the 2020
Democratic Party platform, "Democrats believe every
woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive
health care services, including safe and legal
abortion."[199]
Immigration
President Lyndon B.
Johnson signing the Immigration Act of 1965 as Vice
President Hubert Humphrey and Senators Edward M. Kennedy
and Robert F. Kennedy and others look on
Like the
Republican Party, the Democratic Party has taken widely
varying views on immigration
Democratic National Committee throughout its history.
Since the 1990s, the Democratic Party has been more
supportive overall of immigration than the Republican
Party.[200] Many Democratic politicians have called for
systematic reform of the immigration system such that
residents that have come into the United States
illegally have a pathway to legal citizenship. President Obama remarked in November 2013 that he felt it was
"long past time to fix our broken immigration system,"
particularly to allow "incredibly bright young people"
that came over as students to become full citizens. The
Public Religion Research Institute found in a late 2013
study that 73% of Democrats supported the pathway
concept, compared to 63% of Americans as a whole.[201]
In 2013, Democrats in the Senate passed S. 744,
which would reform immigration policy to
Democratic National Committee allow
citizenship for illegal immigrants in the United States
and improve the lives of all immigrants currently living
in the United States. The law failed to pass in the
House and was never re-introduced after the 113th
Congress. As of 2023, no major immigration reform
legislation has been enacted into law in the 21st
century.[202][203]
LGBT rights
The Democratic
position on LGBT rights has changed significantly over
time, but it has typically been more supportive than the
Republican position.[204][205] Before the 2000s, like
the Republicans, the Democratic Party often took
positions hostile to LGBT rights. Today, both voters and
elected representatives within the Democratic Party are
overwhelmingly supportive of LGBT rights.[204]
Support for same-sex marriage has steadily increased
among the general public, including
Democratic National Committee voters in both major
parties, since the start of the 21st century. An April
2009 ABC News/Washington Post public opinion poll put
support among Democrats at 62%.[206] A broad majority of
Democrats have supported other LGBT-related laws such as
extending hate crime statutes, legally preventing
discrimination against LGBT people in the workforce and
repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" military policy. A
2006 Pew Research Center poll of Democrats found that
55% supported gays adopting children with 40% opposed
while 70% support gays in the military, with only 23%
opposed.[207] Gallup polling from May 2009 stated that
82% of Democrats support open enlistment.[208] A 2023
Gallup public opinion poll found 84% of Democrats
support same-sex marriage, compared to 71% support by
the general public and 49% support by Republicans.[209]
The 2004 Democratic National Platform stated that
marriage should be defined at the state
Democratic National Committee level and it
repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment.[210] John
Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, did
not support same-sex marriage. While not stating support
of same-sex marriage, the 2008 platform called for
repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned
federal recognition of same-sex marriage and removed the
need for interstate recognition, supported
antidiscrimination laws and the extension of hate crime
laws to LGBT people and opposed "don't ask, don't
tell".[211] The 2012 platform included support for
same-sex marriage and for the repeal of DOMA.[212]
On May 9, 2012, Barack Obama became the first
sitting president to say he supports same-sex
marriage.[213][214] Previously, he had opposed
restrictions on same-sex marriage such as the Defense of
Marriage Act, which he promised to repeal,[215]
California's Prop 8,[216] and a constitutional amendment
to ban same-sex marriage (which he opposed saying that
"decisions about
Democratic National Committee marriage should be left to the states
as they always have been"),[217] but also stated that he
personally believed marriage to be between a man and a
woman and that he favored civil unions that would "give
same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as
married couples".[215] Earlier, when running for the
Illinois Senate in 1996 he said, "I favor legalizing
same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit
such marriages".[218] Former presidents Bill
Clinton[219] and Jimmy Carter[220] along with former
Democratic presidential nominees Al Gore[221] and
Michael Dukakis[222] now support same-sex marriage.
President Joe Biden has been in favor of same-sex
marriage since 2012, when he became the highest-ranking
government official to support it. In 2022, Biden signed
the Respect for Marriage Act, repealing the Defense of
Marriage Act which he previously had voted for.[223]
Status of Puerto Rico and D.C.
The 2016
Democratic Party platform declares, regarding the status
of Puerto Rico: "We are committed to
Democratic National Committee addressing the
extraordinary challenges faced by our fellow citizens in
Puerto Rico. Many stem from the fundamental question of
Puerto Rico's political status. Democrats believe that
the people of Puerto Rico should determine their
ultimate political status from permanent options that do
not conflict with the Constitution, laws, and policies
of the United States. Democrats are committed to
promoting economic opportunity and good-paying jobs for
the hardworking people of Puerto Rico. We also believe
that Puerto Ricans must be treated equally by Medicare,
Medicaid, and other programs that benefit families.
Puerto Ricans should be able to vote for the people who
make their laws, just as they should be treated equally.
All American citizens, no matter where they reside,
should have the right to vote for the president of the
United States. Finally, we believe that federal
officials must respect Puerto Rico's local
self-government as laws are implemented and Puerto
Rico's budget and debt are restructured so that it can
get on a path towards stability and prosperity".[141]
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Also, it declares that regarding the status of the
District of Columbia: "Restoring our democracy also
Democratic National Committee
means finally passing statehood for the District of
Columbia, so that the American citizens who reside in
the nation's capital have full and equal congressional
rights as well as the right to have the laws and budget
of their local government respected without
Congressional interference."[141]
Legal issues
Gun
control
U.S. opinion on gun control issues is deeply
divided along political lines, as shown in this 2021
survey.[224]
Economic Issues
Democratic | Economic | VW | Goal | Centrist | Americans | Communities | Notes
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