Task force makes policy recommendations for Joe Biden’s presidential bid

Political task forces Joe Biden formed with one-time rival Bernie Sanders to solidify support among the Democratic Party’s progressive wing recommended that the former vice president embrace proposals to combat climate change and institutional racism while expanding health care coverage and rebuilding a Covid-19-ravaged economy.

But they stopped short of urging Mr Biden’s full support for policies that could prove too divisive for many swing voters in November, like universal health coverage under Medicare For All or the Green New Deal environmental plan.

The task forces, formed in May to tackle health care, immigration, education, criminal justice reform, climate change and the economy, sought to hammer out a policy road map to best defeat President Donald Trump.

Their 110 pages of recommendations should help shape the policy platform Democrats will adopt during their national convention next month, even though the entire platform the party adopted in 2016 ran only about 50 pages.

The groups sought to help Mr Biden, a centre-left establishment candidate, engage sceptical progressives who had backed other 2020 candidates, especially Mr Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is under consideration for Mr Biden’s running mate.

Mr Biden hoped the task forces would promote party unity and help him avoid a repeat of 2016, when many Sanders supporters remained disillusioned enough that they stayed home rather than support Hillary Clinton against Mr Trump.

They recommend that Mr Biden commit to moving the US to being fully powered by renewable energy, and meeting other key environmental benchmarks, by 2035.

That is far more ambitious than the 2050 deadline he embraced during the primary.

They also call for a 100-day moratorium on deportations and a series of steps to overhaul the economy in an effort to reduce economic and racial inequality.

“While Joe Biden and I, and our supporters, have strong disagreements about some of the most important issues facing our country, we also understand that we must come together in order to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history,” Mr Sanders, a Vermont senator, said in a statement.

Mr Biden thanked Mr Sanders for “working together to unite our party, and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come”.

Still, the recommendations do not include a ban on hydraulic fracturing that could hurt Mr Biden in the energy-producing swing state of Pennsylvania.

There is also no endorsement for Medicare For All, which dominated debate during the Democratic presidential primary but could alienate voters afraid of losing their current, employer-based private health coverage.

Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, served on the environmental task force and said she was encouraged by the finished product even though it does not include specific recommendations on how many new jobs Mr Biden hopes to create in the sector or spell out how much money he would commit to making his promises a reality.

Also omitted is the Green New Deal, the comprehensive anti-climate change plan that Ms Prakash’s group champions.

Still, she said Mr Biden making the recommendations a centrepiece of his campaign can help bolster his support among young people, Latinos and working class voters.

“If Joe Biden takes this plan that he has signed off on and campaigns really, really hard on it, if he understands the economic opportunity that exists in tackling the climate crisis, if he can speak to the level of urgency and the level of swift, scalable action that we need to be taking, he will appeal to so many of the voters that he needs to unite,” Ms Prakash said.

Their conclusions come as Mr Biden and Democratic Party officials enter the main phase of writing the platform.

The campaign’s and the party’s entire policy apparatus acquired added weight as the coronavirus pandemic, resulting economic collapse and national reckoning on systemic racism spurred Mr Biden to start talking in bolder tones about the need to “rewrite the economy”.

Mr Biden plans to travel on Thursday to Pennsylvania, where he will detail the first leg of an economic package that his aides pitch as a direct preview of the policies he would pursue if he wins in November.

“This will be the largest mobilisation of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and R&D (research and development) since the Second World War, and that’s just a part of the plan,” senior adviser Jake Sullivan said, though the campaign did not attach a dollar figure.

Mr Biden’s economic plan is expected to mix policies he proposed to little fanfare during the primary with additional ideas developed since he became his party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Progressives who have been in contact with the Biden campaign noted that he has consulted with Mr Sanders and Ms Warren as part of his deliberations.

In Pennsylvania, Mr Biden is expected to emphasise American manufacturing and labour policies, including how government can aim its buying power to bolster US manufacturing.

That will likely include an emphasis on ratcheting up government purchases of medical supplies that would address the pandemic, something Ms Warren has pushed.

That announcement is expected to build on the task force recommendations.

Ms Prakash noted that the economic team did its work mostly via weekly teleconference sessions, thanks to the pandemic.

“It was very comical to do it on Zoom,” said Ms Prakash, whose group included former Secretary of State John Kerry, a key Biden surrogate, and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Mr Sanders’ highest-profile supporters during the primary.

“It was fun to see people in their natural element, with, like, kids running in and out and dogs.”