Joe Biden

Democrat

• Age at Inauguration: 78
• Experience: U.S. Senate - Delaware (1973-2009); U.S. Vice President (2009-2017)
• Education: University of Delaware (BA), Syracuse Law (JD)
• Interesting Fact: Biden is Delaware's longest serving senator

Key Platform Points

• Empower the middle class through comprehensive reform: better education, altering the tax code to favor middle class, universal health care, and other such endeavors

Economy and Taxes

• Reform tax code to support middle class
• Raise the top individual income tax rate to 39.5%
• Raise capital gains taxes to same rate as ordinary income
• Rebuild the middle class as the backbone of economy
• Raise the federal minimum wage to $15/hour
• Supports free trade between countries and is against imposing tariffs
• Increase taxes on the wealthy
• Repeal the Trump tax cuts
• Close all tax loopholes
• Triple the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $3,000 per child
• Supports renegotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership
• Supports increase in infrastructure spending
• Pursue a trade policy that benefits American farmers
• Invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure
• Supports changing USMCA
• Replace secret-ballot elections for unions with public card-check system
• Provide a federal guarantee for public sector employees to bargain for better pay, benefits, and working conditions
• Allow the National Labor Relations Board to levy fines against employers who violate labor laws
• Ensure that workers can exercise their right to strike without fear of retaliation
• Impose a national ban on "right-to-work" laws
• Extend the right to organize and bargain collectively to independent contractors

Website

Donate

Corporations

• Raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%
• Hold corporations accountable in terms of worker's rights and privileges
• Reduce tax breaks given to top executives in companies
• Supports investigating big tech companies first to determine further actions
• Strengthen enforcement of antitrust laws to protect small and medium-sized farmers
• Expand access to credit for small businesses
• Will not accept corporate PAC, lobbyist, or fossil fuel industry donations for his campaign

Criminal Justice and Drugs

• Prioritize prevention and rehabilitation in the criminal justice system
• Reduce the number of incarcerated people and reinvest the savings in federal spending in communities impacted by mass incarceration
• Create a new $20 billion grant program to invest in efforts proven to reduce crime and incarceration, like addressing factors such as illiteracy and child abuse
• Decriminalize marijuana and expunge all prior marijuana use convictions
• Believes legalizing marijuana should be left up to the states
• End all incarceration for drug use alone and instead divert individuals to treatment
• End the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity
• Use the president's clemency power to secure the release of individuals facing unduly long sentences for certain non-violent and drug crimes
• Eliminate mandatory minimums
• End cash bail
• Eliminate the death penalty
• Eliminate private prisons
• Empower the US Department of Justice to hold police departments accountable for abuses
• Stop jailing people for being too poor to pay fines and fees
• Restore Pell Grant access to people who are incarcerated
• Set a national goal of ensuring 100% of formerly incarcerated individuals have housing upon reentry
• Invest in public defenders' offices to ensure defendants' access to quality counsel
• Ensure human prison conditions by ending the practice of solitary confinement and requiring states to fix health problems such as a lack of clean water and clean air
• Increase spending on juvenile justice from $60 million to $1 billion
• Create a new grant to encourage states to place non-violent youth in community-based alternatives to prison
• Require states to keep juvenile records private so that minors have a real chance to reach their full potential as adults
• Counter the rise in hate crimes

Education

• Supports two years of free community college
• Provide universal, high-quality pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds
• Include in federal infrastructure legislation funding specifically for improving public school buildings
• Invest in school vocational trainings and partnerships between high schools, community colleges, and employers
• Update curriculum and skills to accommodate rapid technological change
• Triple spending on Title 1 schools and require districts to give educators "competitive salaries"
• Freeze student debt for graduates making less than $25,000 a year
• Ensure the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is fixed, simplified, and actually helping teachers
• Double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, and social workers so kids get the mental health care they need

Environment

• Supports the Green New Deal
• Targeting net-zero emissions and a 100% clean energy economy by 2050
• Calls for public investments of $1.7 trillion in clean energy and other environmental initiatives over 10 years
• Total would reach $5 trillion with investments from state/local governments and private companies
• Invest specifically in green infrastructure (buildings, water, and transportation), and clean energy such as biofuels and wind and solar energy
• Those funds would be generated by undoing the Trump tax cuts
• Take American agriculture to net-zero emissions by dramatically expanding a USDA program that pays farmers, under five-year contracts, to adopt environmentally friendly practices
• Build 500,000 charging stations throughout the U.S. for electric vehicles
• Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
• Supports setting a price on carbon to push companies to reduce their emissions
• Ban new oil and gas permits on public lands
• Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies
• Supports developing new nuclear technologies as part of an effort to fight climate change

Foreign Policy

• Recommit to alliances with China
• Encourage trade with foreign nations for economic stimulus
• Use military power sparingly and only when necessary on the world stage
• Strengthen alliance with NATO
• Withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan
• Supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine

Government Reform

• Overturn Citizens United v. FEC
• Pass a constitutional amendment to entirely eliminate private dollars from U.S. federal elections
• Create a public financing system for federal campaigns
• Supports DC statehood
• Supports automatic voter registration
• Sign an executive order blocking any future White House administration from interfering with investigations by the Justice Department
• Pass a total ban on lobbying by foreign governments
• Ban lobbyist from donating to candidates they lobby
• Require all candidates for federal office to disclose tax returns dating back 10 years

Gun Control

• Supports universal background checks
• Close the loophole that allows individuals to buys guns online or at gun shows without a background check
• Supports banning military-style assault weapons
• Supports a voluntary federal buyback program for military-style assault weapons
• Ban high capacity ammunition magazines
• Proposes fingerprint lock on firearms

Health Care

• Doesn't support Medicare for All
• Supports creating a public option to expand health care coverage
• Supports keeping private insurance
• Supports building on the Affordable Care Act's foundation
• Limit copayments to $1,000
• Expand coverage to low-income Americans in 14 states that have blocked the Affordable Care Act
• Plan to lower prescription drug prices:
• Supports giving the federal government the ability to negotiate drug prices for Medicare
• Incentivize drug companies to charge prices that are comparable to those paid in other developed countries
• Limit launch prices for drugs that face no competition
• Any drug that's price is increased above the inflation rate would not qualify to be covered by Medicare or Medicaid
• Allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries
• Eliminate a tax break drug companies receive for advertising their medicines to consumers
• Give a $5,000 tax credit to family caregivers
• Adequately fund our rural hospitals and community health centers
• Allow undocumented immigrants to be covered under a government-run health plan
• Expand federal funding for mental health and substance use disorder services and research
• No one should be required to pay more than 8.5% of income toward health insurance premiums
• Unrestrict federal help to pay for insurance premiums

Immigration

• Supports a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S., including Dreamers
• Supports boosting security at ports of entry
• Make all Dreamers citizens immediately
• Supports increasing foreign aid to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in an effort to reduce the flow of asylum seekers to the U.S.
• Increase the number of refugees accepted annually
• Keep crossing the border a criminal offense
• Grant immigrants with a Phd green cards

LGBTQ+ Rights

• Stated that passing the Equality Act would be his first legislative action
• Lift the ban preventing transgender people from serving in the military
• Supports same-sex marriage

National Security & Veterans Affairs

• Stated that passing the Equality Act would be his first legislative action
• Lift the ban preventing transgender people from serving in the military
• Supports same-sex marriage

Social Security & Welfare

• Boost social security benefits for retirees, particularly those who have been receiving checks for more than 20 years, had their spouse die or are living close to the poverty line
• Set a minimum social security benefit so that all workers who put in at least 30 years of work would be guaranteed a benefit equal to at least 125% of the federal poverty level
• Let public sector workers, including teachers, to begin receiving pension benefits sooner than the 10 years that many of their plans currently require
• Prioritize persistent poverty rural communities
• Form a commission to consider reparations proposals for African Americans

Women's Rights

• Pro-choice stance
• Doesn't support the Hyde Amendment
• Pass the Equal Rights Amendment
• Believes equal pay for women is "common sense"
• Provide for the unique needs of incarcerated women
• Reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act

Children

Economic:
• Triple the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 to $6,000 per child

Health:
• Supports creating a public option to expand health care coverage
• Make an unprecedented investment in school mental health professionals to double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, and social workers
• Provide funds to ensure that there is an early childhood development expert in every community health center

Education:
• Ensure that every single person needing child care gets an $8,000 tax credit
• Provide universal, high-quality pre-K for all three- and four-year-olds
• Supports two years of free community college
• Invest in school vocational trainings and partnerships between high schools, community colleges, and employers to connect students to jobs
• Triple investment in Title I schools to eliminate the funding and achievement gap
• Include in federal infrastructure legislation funding specifically for improving public school buildings
• Update curriculum and skills to accommodate rapid technological change
• Increase federal funding for special education provide funds to ensure that there is an early childhood development expert in every community health center

Child Welfare:
• Double funding for home visiting programs so more families can receive coaching on child health, prenatal practices, and child maltreatment
• Increase spending on juvenile justice from $60 million to $1 billion
• Create a new grant to encourage states to place non-violent youth in community-based alternatives to prison
• Require states to keep juvenile records private so that minors have a real chance to reach their full potential as adults
• Recognize Dreamers as US citizens and end child separation

Other:
• See Biden's Environment and Gun Control stances for more related to children's policy