Lawmakers, together with the Poor People’s Campaign, poor and low-wealth advocates, labor unions and progressive organizations unveiled a bold Congressional agenda Monday detailing plans to deliver relief to the American people during the first six months of 2021 and to govern with the urgency and vision that this moment requires.
“The People’s Agenda: A Progressive Roadmap for Congress in 2021” virtual event featured remarks from Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Reverend Dr. William J Barber II, and Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, along with testimony from members of Congress, movement leaders, and members of the public demanding progress. Click here for the full video of the event.
The seven planks outlined in The People’s Agenda are:
· Provide COVID Relief that Meets the Scale of the Crisis and Addresses the Disproportionate Harm to Black, Indigenous, People of Color and Other Vulnerable Communities
· Put People Back to Work, Give Workers More Power, and Transform to a Clean Renewable Energy Economy.
· Ensure Health Care for Everyone
· Defend and Expand Voting Rights, Strengthen Democracy and End Corruption
· Dismantle Racism, White Supremacy and Inequality in All Institutions
· End Endless Wars and Invest in Diplomacy and Peace
· End Corporate Greed and Corporate Monopolies
“We see this launch of the People’s Agenda as a huge first step towards healing the nation. The Poor People’s Campaign is proud to have helped shape these priorities extensively, including the policy recommendations of poor and impacted leaders, economists, public health experts, researchers and faith leaders put forward in our Moral Agenda, Moral Budget, Jubilee Platform and 14 Policy Priorities for the First 100 Days,” Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and President of Repairers of the Breach. “We are encouraged by the commitment of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to moral policy that lifts from the bottom. The price of inequality is too high and the deaths from unjust policies are too many to not address. The only way to heal the nation and have domestic tranquility is to first establish justice. This agenda sets us on the path towards doing just that.”
“As of today, I know 42 people who have died because of this relentless coronavirus and this wicked healthcare system,” Zillah Wesley, a Washington, D.C. -based national organizer for the Poor People’s Campaign. “This also has been a very hard time for me. Seeing my community and other communities devastated has been heartbreaking. Seeing the hurt, pain and anxiety in people’s faces and myself feeling the guilt of not being able to do more.”
“While working in a big box retailer in March I was diagnosed with COVID-19. I suffered from shortness of breath, incredible fatigue, coughing and other debilitating symptoms. Even after returning to work, my medical bills have piled up as I continue to suffer from the after-effects of COVID,” Claire Chadwick, an essential, low-wage worker and licensed Baptist minister from Kansas. ‘From CT scans to heart monitors, asthma inhalers and a multitude of doctors appointments, the bills have multiplied.”
“The People’s Agenda centers many of the needs and demands of the 140 million people who were already poor or one storm, fire, health care crisis, job loss or other emergency from economic ruin, the 700 people who were dying each day from poverty and inequality before the pandemic, and those who have been most impacted by the public health crisis and economic recession as well as the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy,” Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary. “This is why the Poor People’s Campaign is endorsing these progressive and nonpartisan priorities, which we have helped to shape and inform. And we will push lawmakers in the House and the Senate from both sides of the aisle to enact these legislative priorities now, because lives depend on it.”
“We (Apache-Stronghold) are at the forefront fighting for all of you – every single one of you. Because when we’re fighting for our religion; when we’re fighting for the environment, because you cannot separate the two; we are fighting for every single life out there. No one can live without water, no one can live without clean air,” Vanessa Nosie, indeginous activist with the Apache-Stronghold protecting the sacred, holy land of Oak Flat. “So yes our voices need to be heard. I am glad I’m working with you all to make this change happen because I have children and I’m gonna have grandchildren and I want them to have a right to have a good future to have a system that works for them and not continuously against them.”
“The People’s Agenda is the culmination of months of works to identify our shared progressive priorities for the start of the new Congress. As we heard tonight, people across this nation are organizing and working for change – and at the Progressive Caucus, we stand ready to be their voice and their champion in the halls of Congress,” said CPC Chair, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. “Congress must govern with the urgency that this moment requires and restore power to the hands of the people. The People’s Agenda unveiled tonight is a promise to the American people that we will fight for them and deliver transformative and bold policy change in the new year.”
The People’s Agenda: A Progressive Roadmap for Congress in 2021
- Provide COVID Relief that Meets the Scale of the Crisis and Addresses the Disproportionate Harm to Black, Indigenous, People of Color and Other Vulnerable Communities starting with the 140 million poor and low-income people and those left out of previous packages.
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- Put Money in People’s Pockets, without regard to immigration or any other status:
- Provide $2,000 monthly stimulus checks
- Continue expanded unemployment benefits
- Provide rent and mortgage assistance to stop evictions and keep people in their home
- Raise the minimum wage to at least $15
- Cancel up to $50,000 in student debt and freeze payments and cancel medical debt
- Fully fund and provide universal access to social safety net programs
- Protect Essential Workers and Expand the Workforce:
- Provide hazard pay, strong workplace health and safety protections, paid leave and necessary equipment to frontline workers, including family physicians and others excluded
- Provide a roadmap to citizenship for all essential workers
- Create childcare and 600,000 long-term care jobs to care for seniors, children, and others
- Defeat the Virus and Prepare for Universal Vaccination:
- Ensure equitable, culturally competent distribution of free vaccines, treatment, and testing for all, regardless of race, geographic, immigration, economic, gender or other status
- Ensure robust protections for people in congregate settings, such as schools, nursing homes, churches, and prisons, jails, and detention facilities
- Collect accurate disaggregated data by race, socioeconomic status, occupation, and geography to inform all efforts and reach all communities
- Create 100,000 new public health jobs to ensure effective contact tracing and response
- Support domestic manufacturing through the Defense Production Act to replenish supplies
- Fund global efforts for universal vaccine access
- Fund State, Local, and Tribal Governments to provide critical services, including public health, education, transportation, unemployment, affordable housing, and safety net.
- Provide Direct Assistance to Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses, with a focus on small and minority-owned businesses, and a requirement to keep workers on payroll and in benefits.
- Put Money in People’s Pockets, without regard to immigration or any other status:
- Put People Back to Work, Give Workers More Power, and Transform to a Clean Renewable Energy Economy.
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- Expand collective bargaining, the right to unionize, and workplace democracy in all policies
- Invest in a bold green infrastructure package that prioritizes frontline communities, advances clean renewable energy and public transit, fixes roads and bridges, provides job training and re-training and rebuilds communities with new and better schools, water and sanitation systems, and universal broadband
- Dramatically curtail air, water, land, and climate pollution, and promote a just worker transition
- Create resilience jobs to help communities prepare for and respond to climate-related disasters
- Build a strong families infrastructure package by investing in the caregiving economy, public education, paid leave, and universal childcare and providing equal pay, living wages, and benefits to childcare, public education, and domestic workers
- Renegotiate and negotiate fair trade policies that protect domestic manufacturing and good jobs, and strengthen worker power and environmental protections everywhere
- Ensure Health Care for Everyone by taking important steps to expand healthcare and make equitable investments into public health infrastructure as we work towards Medicare for All.
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- Automatically enroll anyone who loses their job into Medicare
- Expand traditional Medicare to lower the eligibility age to 50 and cover all children up to age 25
- Lower prescription drug prices through direct negotiating drugs across all payers
- Increase funding for all public health care systems, including community health centers, behavioral health providers, Indian health providers, and rural and veterans’hospitals
•Protect access to all health and reproductive services for women and the trans community, and address the maternal mortality crisis and its disproportionate impact on communities ofcolor
- Ensure that mental health and substance use treatment is provided at no out of pocket cost
- Defend and Expand Voting Rights, Strengthen Democracy and End Corruption to return the vote and voice back to the people.
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- Protect the right to vote by passing a broad and comprehensive voting rights bill that eliminates barriers to voting, in particular for Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, people with disability, currently and formerly incarcerated people, and others
- Provide statehood to more than 700,000 people living in the District of Columbia
- End corruption and the dominance of big money and corporate interests by eliminating secret corporate spending in elections, implementing a public campaign finance system, strengthening Congress, and toughening lobbying and ethics laws for members of Congress and groups
- Dismantle Racism, White Supremacy and Inequality in All Institutions to create justice, ensure equality and opportunity for all and end the racial wealth gap.
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- Establish a commission on truth, racial healing, and transformation, and a commission to study and develop reparations
- Ensure non-discrimination protections for BIPOC and LGBTQ people across the board
- Pass a comprehensive policing reform bill to ensure that policing reflects community values and upholds civil rights, demilitarize the police, and invest more resources in communities
- Reduce criminalization and incarceration through sentencing reform, legalizing cannabis, expunging records, and providing restorative justice
- Create a just immigration system by passing a roadmap to freedom that ensures fairness, citizenship, family unity, ends the criminalization of immigrants for profit, creates humane alternatives to detention and deportation, and upholds protections for people seeking safety
- Fully meet and fund all trust obligations to Tribal Nations and communities
- Prevent gun violence, including by implementing universal background checks and banning semi- automatic weapons
- End Endless Wars and Invest in Diplomacy and Peace to stop massively increasing Pentagon budgets that fuel wars and sap communities of vital investments in education, housing and more.
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- Repeal old authorizations for use of military force, require Congressional approval for all wars and acts of war, and end the U.S. wars in Yemen and Afghanistan including air and drone wars
- Reduce Pentagon spending to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse while maintaining support for personnel and families
- Invest in diplomacy, development, peace building, and education through grassroots-fueled aid
- End executive powers to enact unilateral sanctions and end military aid to repressive regimes
- End Corporate Greed and Corporate Monopolies to end poverty and stop poor and working people from getting poorer while huge corporations and the wealthiest get wealthier.
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- Strengthen and expanding antitrust laws to end monopolistic practices, protect consumers’ and workers’
interests, and guarantee fair markets to ensure equal footing for small businesses
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- Restructure our tax system to reward labor and support families, and make the wealthy, corporations, and Wall Street pay their fair share
- Implement standards for large corporations receiving aid, subsidies and government contracts, including maintaining good U.S. jobs with benefits, narrow gaps between CEO and worker pay, and ensuring gender and racial diversity in particular in top management
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