Mitch Perry
The Democratic Party platform’s most recent draft was published Friday, and is ready for your reading enjoyment, before it’s reviewed and ultimately approved this coming weekend in Orlando.
With Bernie Sanders‘ only leverage these days to exert as much of his influence as possible on this hallowed document, it is instructive to learn the Bernster thinks it’s a good start but needs more work, according to a piece he wrote on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website Sunday.
On the issue of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Democrats have a bit of a problem. That’s because their leader, Barack Obama, is 100 percent behind it, as are a number of Democrats.
Hillary Clinton used to be one of those Democrats, but no longer, undoubtedly pushed to oppose something she formerly called a “model” agreement by Sanders. Donald Trump rails against it daily as well, but the language in the platform says only there are “a diversity of views in the party.”
Sanders doesn’t understand that, since both he and Hillary oppose it. “If both Clinton and I agree that the TPP should not get to the floor of Congress this year, it’s hard to understand why an amendment saying so would not be overwhelmingly passed,” he writes, forgetting about Obama’s stance on the issue.
On the minimum wage, the DNC says they do support calls for raising it to $15, but support what Governors [Jerry] Brown in California and [Andrew] Cuomo in New York have proposed — doing it incrementally, year-by-year.
On Social Security, the platform calls for taxing “some of the income of people above $250,000.”
Regarding Wall Street, the platform says “we acknowledged that there is room within our party for a diversity of views on a broader financial transaction tax.”
On campaign finance, the platform calls for reversing not only 2010’s Citizens United decision, but also the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, which equated speech with money.
Bernie’s thoughts on the rest?
“We need to have very clear language that raises the minimum wage to $15 an hour, ensures that the promised pensions of millions of Americans will not be cut, establishes a tax on carbon, and creates a ban on fracking,” he writes. Currently, there is no ban on fracking, nor anything at all about a carbon tax.
Sanders says amendments on those items will be introduced in Orlando, so stay tuned.
In other news …
Well, the only thing we’ve reported on since last week was the fact that Tampa City Councilman Frank Reddick has endorsed Betty Reed in Senate District 19 race, which may move some votes Ms. Reed’s way.
