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Martin O'Malley's 15 Goals to Rebuild the American Dream (Detailed)
Aug 13 | 15 Goals to Rebuild the American Dream
Goal 1: Increase American families’ median net worth by $25,000 in 10 years.
Today in America, families’ median net worth has fallen to levels not seen since the late 1980s. The wealthiest 10 percent of households have captured 76 percent of all wealth in America—a far-higher share than most other developed nations, and a far cry from decades past. African-American and Hispanic families own just a fraction of the wealth of white families.
Reach wage growth of 4 percent annually by 2018. Today in America, wages for most workers have been flat or falling for decades. In real terms, the average wage peaked in 1973. In addition, recent gains in wage growth have accrued to top earners: wages have risen almost 10 percent since 2000 for earners at the 90th percentile, while wages have fallen by nearly 4 percent for earners at the 10th percentile.
Increase the number of families with adequate retirement savings by 50 percent within 8 years. Today in America, a third of all Americans have no retirement savings or pension—meaning that millions of future retirees are unlikely to have sufficient resources to maintain their current standard of living in retirement. Roughly two-thirds of those close to retirement are projected to have inadequate resources when they retire.
Cut the pay gap between full-time men and women workers in half by 2025. Women represent half the workforce, but earn less than men in almost every occupation. Overall, women make just 78 cents for every dollar men make—a gender pay gap of 22 percent, and one that, at current rates of progress, will take almost 45 years to close. If we could close that gap today—through paycheck fairness laws, strong family leave policies, and expanded access to quality, affordable childcare, among other measures—half of working single moms would be lifted out of poverty.
Goal 2: Generate 100% of American electricity with renewable energy by 2050.
Today in America, while fossil fuel pollution contributes to 200,000 deaths a year and a growing climate catastrophe, renewable energy technologies have not yet adequately scaled up, in part because of federal policies that still preference the fossil fuel industry. Governor O’Malley will tackle the climate crisis with a new American clean energy jobs agenda, comprised of detailed policies that will rapidly develop the renewable energy industry, create millions of new clean energy jobs, and end our reliance on fossil fuels
[link:https://martinomalley.com/climate/agenda/|
Click here to read the policy paper for a clean energy future].
Goal 3: Cut the unemployment rate among young people in half within 3 years.
Goal 4: Reach full employment for American veterans by 2020.
Today in America, more than 7 percent of veterans who have served on active duty since 2001, and more than 5 percent of all veterans, are unemployed. Fully 17.3 percent of male veterans aged 18-24, and more than 9 percent of women veterans aged 35-44, are jobless.
Goal 5: Put 11 million New Americans on the pathway to citizenship through comprehensive immigration reform.
Comprehensive immigration reform will help all families—by lifting wages, creating new jobs, growing our economy, expanding our tax base, and improving standards for all workers. Conversely, in the absence of reform, millions of families that contribute to this country every day are one traffic stop away from being torn apart. Only a nimble, data-driven immigration system will meet our economic needs and safeguard all American workers
Immediately extend executive action to safeguard at least 9 million New Americans from deportation. New American families need immediate relief as they wait for Congress to act. Today in America, tens of thousands of parents are separated from their U.S.-born children, while one in five undocumented adults is at risk of being separated from their spouse. And undocumented immigrants face higher incidences of labor abuses such as wage theft, intimidation, and dangerous working conditions.
Plan: Welcoming New Americans to Rebuild The American Dream
Goal 6: Ensure that all higher education students have the option to graduate debt-free within 5 years.
Today in America, nearly 70 percent of U.S. students graduate with student debt, averaging more than $28,000. Almost all states have seen double- or even triple-digit percentage increases in tuition over the past decade. Governor O’Malley will give every student the opportunity to attend college without taking on debt through his detailed plan for restoring investment in higher education, reducing tuition rates, and making other progressive reforms.
Click here to read the plan for making college debt-free for all Americans.
Goal 7: Improve college and career readiness, and increase college completion rates by 25 percentage points within 10 years.
Today in America, one-third of high school students are unprepared for entry-level college courses, and fewer than 40 percent of students of all ages graduate from four-year institutions within four years. Low-income students are the least likely to graduate, while achievement disparities between wealthy and poorer children in pre-K through 12th grade are more acute than at any time in the last 50 years.
Goal 8: End childhood hunger in America by 2020.
Goal 9: Reform our criminal justice system to save and redeem lives.
Today in America, our justice system has reinforced our country’s cruel history of racism and economic inequality. Governor O’Malley has outlined a comprehensive criminal justice reform plan, including measures to build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, ensure fairness in sentencing, reduce recidivism through reentry, and address the discriminatory and punitive application of student discipline.
Reduce recidivism by 20 percentage points within 10 years. Today in America, the incarceration rate is triple what it was in 1980 and is six times the rate of that of most developed countries. According to the most recent data, three out of four incarcerated individuals are re-arrested within five years of leaving jail or prison—more than half of whom are re-arrested within a year.
Click here to read the full criminal justice reform plan.
Goal 10: Cut deaths from gun violence—homicides, suicides, and accidents—in half by 2025.
Click here to read Governor O’Malley’s op-ed on gun reform.
Goal 11: Reduce deaths from drug overdoses by 25 percent by 2020.
Goal 12: Reduce infant mortality by 10 percent by 2020.
Goal 13: Require banks to separate commercial and speculative banking within 5 years.
Today in America, megabanks with more than $100 billion in assets comprise almost 60 percent of the financial services market, compared to just 17 percent in 1995, before the repeal of Glass-Steagall. Over that same period, the market share of smaller community banks, which are critical for small businesses and local investment, has fallen from nearly half to only a quarter.
Read Governor O’Malley’s letter to Wall Street, and his plan for protecting the American Dream from another Wall Street crash.
Goal 14: Restore America’s competition and antitrust laws, taking action within one year in office
Our nation’s antitrust laws were built to protect fair and competitive markets where small businesses, small farmers, and innovation could thrive. But the Reagan Administration reinterpreted those laws to protect “efficiency” instead, allowing bigger and bigger corporations to shut out competition in many once-vibrant areas of our economy.
Today in America, a handful of companies now control the vast majority of the market in industries ranging from beef, seeds, and milk; to airlines, semiconductors, and defense contracting and procurement—depressing wages and employment and dampening innovation. A first step to reversing this consolidation is to direct the U.S. Department of Justice to issue new policies to aggressively enforce our antimonopoly laws.
Goal 15: Implement public financing of congressional campaigns within 5 years
In the five years since Citizens United, super PACs, corporations, and other outside groups have spent almost $2 billion targeting federal elections—about two-and-a-half times what they spent, in total, between 1990 and 2008.
At the same time, for the first time in decades, the total number of small donors has begun to fall. In 2014, the top 100 donors to super PACs spent almost as much money as every single small-dollar donor combined. Our broken campaign finance system allows special interests to drown out the voices of everyday Americans and stymies policies that would benefit the middle class.
read: https://martinomalley.com/category/15-goals/
read the story behind @MartinOMalley's 15 Goals to Rebuild the American Dream: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251515899
20 replies
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and their "point of the day" which is released to the press/public for consumption. Let's do more than one thing at a time and get the country back on path.
PS. Thanks for another great post, bigtree. Keep up the good work.
