Breaking Down The Plans: Bernie Sanders

Breaking Down The Plans is a short political writing series that I am doing trying to break down 8 of each Presidential candidate’s plans (the issues that young people most care about) into factual bullet points that anyone can easily digest. I will give my opinion at the end as well as a link to the official website to read more. I’m doing this because 1. I’m a policy geek and 2. not everyone can sit through a 36-page plan. Also, if anything is in bold, it means that I feel it is significant in some way. We are gonna start with the highest polling candidate. Enjoy!

Climate change:

• Reaching 100% renewable energy for electricity and transportation by 2030
• Creating 20 million jobs in helping fight the climate crisis
• Investing $16.3 trillion dollars in climate efforts
• Guaranteeing a Just Transition for workers and frontline communities
• Declaring climate change a national emergency
• Creating a $40 billion Climate Resilency Fund for frontline communities
• Giving $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund
• Re-joining the Paris Agreement
• Re-authorizing the Civilian Conservation Corps and fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Corps
• Spending $1.52 trillion on renewable energy and $852 billion on clean energy storage
• Providing $2.18 trillion for low to middle class families and businesses to weatherize
• Regulating carbon dioxide, methane, and hydrofluorocarbons
• Creating a federal grant and 0 emissions vehicle program to have 100% renewable transportation
• Providing $2.9 trillion in grants to help low-middle income people switch to electric vehicles
• Spending $85.6 billion on a federal electric vehicle charging system
• Providing $407 billion for schools to transition to electric buses
• Spending $216 billion to replace all shipping trucks with electric trucks
• Investing $300 billion to increase public transportation ridership by 65% by 2030
• Building regional high-speed rails
• Spending $100 billion to decrease the cost of electric vehicles
• Investing $500 billion in decarbonization research
• Establishing a national materials recycling program
• Re-joining the Paris Agreement
• Ending fossil fuel financing overseas
• Funding a $40 billion survey to determine what communities are most vulnerable to climate change
• Establishing a Office of Climate Resilency for People with Disabilities
• Passing the WATER Act and the Rebuild America Act
• Investing $936.1 billion in sustainable and resilient infastructure
• Giving costal communities $162 billion to adjust to sea level rise
• Increasing funding for firefighting by $18 billion
• Providing $25 billion to repair the National Park System
• Raising taxes on the fossil fuel industry
• Creating a National Climate Risk report
• Ending fossil fuel subsidies
• Banning offshore drilling and fossil fuel extractions on public lands
• Ending all new fossil fuel permits
• Banning fracking and mountaintop removal coal mining as well as imports/exports of fossil fuels
• Placing a fee on Carbon Pollution Intensive Goods being imported
• Providing a “climate score” for all legislation proposed in Congress
• Ensuring all agencies abide by Executive Order 12898
• Overturning the Sandoval Supreme Court decision
• Dedicating grant funding to Tribes
• Expanding the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program by $25 billion
• Providing $215.8 billion for universal school meals and expanding SNAP by $311 billion
• Spending $100 billion on fossil fuel well cleanups
• Investing $410 billion in sustainable farming
• Investing $1.12 billion in Tribal land access
• Investing $36 billion in supporting local grocery and organic food efforts

Gun violence:

• Expanding background checks
• Ending the gun show loophole
• Banning the sale of assault weapons
• Prohibiting high-capacity magazines

Public education/student loan debt:

• Increasing funding for community driven school de-segregation strategies
• Establishing a dedicated fund to HBCUs and MSIs
• Fully funding the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights
• Banning for-profit charter schools
• Ensuring states cover fees for the SAT and ACT
• Providing $5 billion per year for career and technical education
• Requiring the federal government to spend 50% of funding on special education
• Giving teachers no less than $60,000 dollars per year
• Spending $5 billion per year to expand summer and after school programs
• Providing universal school meals per year
• Passing the Safe Schools Improvement Act and the Students Non-Discrimination Act
• Passing the College For All Act to eliminate tuition fees for every college
• Canceling student debt for 45 million borrowers
• Providing Pell Grants to low-income students
• Requiring states to cover the full cost of low-income student’s tuition
• Placing a cap on student loan debt interest
• Triple funding for the Work-Study Program
• Providing $1.3 billion for HBCUs and MSIs
• Doubling funding for TRIO programs and increasing funding for Grant Up

Immigration:

• Enacting a pathway to citizenship
• Expanding DACA and DAPA
• Providing immediate legal status for people eligible for DACA
• Restructuring ICE
• Ending family separation practices
• Establishing independent oversight of all DHS agencies

Gender equality:

• Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act
• Adopting equal pay through the Paycheck Fairness Act
• Fully funding Planned Parenthood, Title X, and other reproductive rights initiatives
• Expanding the WIC program
• Passing the Equal Rights Amendment

Racial equality/criminal justice:

• Ending cash bail
• Legalizing marijuana
• Eliminating private prisons and detention centers
• Abolishing the death penalty
• End all mandatory minimums
• Ending redlining
• Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour
• Banning for-profit prisons
• Making prison phone and video calls free of charge
• Providing state grants to reduce incarceration
• Witholding funding from states that continue cash bail
• Ending programs that give police military equipment
• Creating a federal database of police deadly force
• Establishing federal standards to use body cameras
• Conducting a US Attorney General investigation every time someone is killed by police
• Requiring and funding police training on racial bias
• Triple congressional spending for defense of poor communities to $14 billion yearly
• Reinstating a federal parole system
• Ending “three strikes” laws
• Expanding the use of alternatives to sentencing
• Spending more than $25 billion over 5 years to decriminalizing homelessness
• Creating an independent clemency board in the White House
• Banning children from being prosecuted in adult courts
• Ending solitary confinement
• Providing $5 billion annually to expand community schools
• Giving free medical care and the right to vote to incarcerated people
• Establishing an Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within the DOJ
• Giving families unlimited access to incarcerated relatives
• Removing questions regarding criminal history from job applications
• Funding Cure Violence
• Creating an Office of Disability in the DOJ
• Triple funding for Title I

LGBTQIA+ equality:

• Passing the Equality and Every Child Deserves A Family Acts
• Ensuring comprehensive healthcare for LGBTQIA+ people

Voting rights:

• Restoring the Voting Rights Act
• Making voter registration automatic
• Overturning Citizens United
• Abolishing voter ID laws
• Giving former felons the right to vote
• Making Election Day a holiday
• Abolishing super PACs
• Replacing corporate funding with public funding for elections

Read more about his plans: https://berniesanders.com/issues/

Opinion: Now that I have factually broken down his plans, I will give my opinion. Take it or leave it. Wow. Damn. There is a clear reason Bernie is so popular. He is the first candidate I reviewed who had a plan for everything on this list and the only candidate I would feel 110% confident in when it comes to beating climate change. I literally had to take a breather in the middle of breaking down his Green New Deal. Also, he has championed young people his entire career and that just deserves a fat shoutout !!