A contract with progressives
by digby
Most people probably remember that New York mayor Bill de Blasio recently drew up a progressive manifesto called a Progressive Agenda to Combat Income Inequality based upon the concept Newt Gingrich pioneered with his Contract for America back in 1994. Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and Angela Terkel looked into how closely Hillary Clinton’s policy views and record hews to their agenda:
A look at Clinton’s position on each of de Blasio’s agenda items:
1. Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Clinton has called for raising the federal minimum wage, though she hasn’t explicitly come out in favor of $15 an hour, as former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a likely Democratic challenger, has done. That said, though, the bill currently being pushed by Senate Democrats doesn’t call for that level either, settling instead for $12.
2. Reform the National Labor Relations Act to enhance workers’ rights. Clinton hasn’t made statements on this issue recently, but in the past she has sponsored the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have expanded avenues for unionization. And in 2008, she pledged to make “pro-labor” nominations to the NLRB.
3. Pass comprehensive immigration reform. Clinton basically stunned immigration advocates recently by going further than President Barack Obama on deportation relief. She supports comprehensive reform, too.
4. Oppose trade deals that “move power to corporations at the expense of American jobs, workers’ rights, and the environment.” This is probably the biggest TBD on the list. Clinton has avoided discussing the specifics of the trade deal currently being negotiated, but her past statements suggest she’s relatively in line with de Blasio.
5. Pass national paid sick leave. Clinton has spoken out repeatedly in favor of paid sick leave policies, calling it “outrageous” that the United States doesn’t have a guarantee for mothers of newborns and recently calling out the state of Pennsylvania for potentially interfering with Philadelphia’s paid sick leave law.
6. Pass national paid family leave. Clinton’s campaign launch video showcased her advocacy for this policy.
7. Make pre-K, after-school programs and child care universal. In 2007, Clinton unveiled a $5 billion plan to make child care universal and affordable, matched dollar for dollar by state funding. As first lady, she pushed for more federal funding for after-school programs. And Clinton’s history of advocating for dramatic expansions of child care (Head Start, frequently) is too long to detail here.
8. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC was expanded under the 2009 stimulus and those expansions were extended through 2017 under the American Taxpayer Relief Act. Clinton hasn’t offered an opinion on this recently. But in 2007, she called for expanding and simplifying the EITC.
9. Allow students to refinance student loan debt. Clinton has said she supports this measure, arguing that “the interest rates are still so low for most other debt and they’re still fixed at too high a rate for student loans.”
10. Close the carried interest loophole. She has said she wants to close it.
11. End tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Clinton wants to do this too.
12. Implement the “Buffett Rule” so millionaires pay their fair share. Nothing notable from Clinton on this specific proposal (it came into being while she was at the State Department). But she supported raising the top-end Bush tax rates (which did get raised), and Buffett himself supports her candidacy.
13. Closing the CEO tax loophole that allows corporations to take advantage of “performance pay” write-offs. Again, it’s pretty clear where Clinton stands. In April, she wrote in The Des Moines Register: “Something is wrong when CEOs earn 300 times more than a typical American worker and hedge fund managers pay a lower tax rate than a truck driver or a nurse.”
I guess I’m not surprised by this. Recall that Clinton was ranked the 11th most liberal Senator back in 2008 when she ran (as compared to Obama, who was ranked 23rd.)
Not that her Senate voting record is the final word. But I have little doubt that on most domestic issues Clinton will be more or less like Obama, perhaps a bit more progressive depending on the outcome of the election in the congress. (If Democrats can take back the Senate with liberal Senators like Russ Feingold, it may be possible to push the center of gravity a bit further left, even with nutballs running the House.) It remains to be seen where she’ll come down on trade. And on women’s issues, I think she is likely to be quite aggressive — they have been the project of her entire adult life.
I still maintain the real action in this election will be on foreign policy and I don’t know yet where she’ll come down. There are many crosscurrents working in that sphere and it’s hard to predict where she and her advisors are going to go. The world is unstable in unpredictable ways right now. Thaty’s not usually a positive when it comes to American policy. I still hold out a little bit of probably naive hope that she will be better on surveillance and privacy, having been through the mill in her own life as political enemies spent decades digging into her personal business for their own ends. (Yeah, I know — naive.)
Anyway, this is where she fits in de Blasio’s agenda FWIW.
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