ARCHIVED: The United States of New Sekai's Denocratic Party's Agenda

[Mr Insanity]

The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party:

The United States of New Sekai is one of the two major contemporary political parties in The United States of New Sekai, along with The United States of New Sekai's Republican Party.

Since 2015, the party has prompted a central-left, social-liberal platform, supporting a mixed economy and social justice. The Party's philosophy of modern The United States of New Sekai's liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It pursues a mixed economy by providing government intervention and regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as universal health care, labor unions, social programs, equal opportunity, consumer protection, and environment protection, from the party's economic policy basis.

The Ichiinseion Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists.

Platform:

• Economic Policy:
  • Expand social security and safety net programs.
  • Increase top capital gains tax and dividend tax rates to above 28%.
  • Across the board tax-cuts for low and middle class and small businesses.
  • Change tax rules to not encourage shipping jobs overseas.
  • Increase federal minimum wage.
  • Modernize and expand access to public education and provide universal preschool education.
  • Support for universal health care.
  • Greater investment in infrastructure development.
  • Increase investments in scientific and technological research and development.
  • Expand the use of renewable energy and diminish the use of fossil fuels.
  • Implement a carbon tax.
  • Support for increasing defense spending.
  • Uphold labor protections and the right unionize.
  • Reform the student loan system and allow for refinancing student loans.
  • Mandate equal pay for equal work regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity.
• Social Policy:
  • Uphold network neutrality.
  • Implement campaign finance reform and electoral reform.
  • Uphold voting rights and easy access to voting.
  • Support for same-sex marriage and civil unions.
  • Allows legal access to abortions and women's reproductive health care.
  • Reform the immigration system and allows for a pathway to citizenship.
  • Support for gun background checks and stricter gun control regulations.
  • Improve privacy laws and curtail government surveillance.
  • Opposition to use of torture.
  • Recognize and defend internet freedom worldwide.
• Economic Issues:
  The party promotes maintaining a mixed economy, which tempers a free market economy by providing government intervention in an effort to reduce economic inequality. Equal economic opportunity and a base social safety net provided by the welfare state has historically been at the heart of The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party's economic policy. The welfare state supports a progressive tax system, higher minimum wages, strong labor unions, social security, universal health care, public education, and public housing. They also support infrastructure development and government sponsored employment programs in an effort to achieve economic development and job creation, while stimulating private sector job creation. Additionally however, since the 2015 the party has at times supported centrist economic reforms, which cut the size of government and reduced market regulations. The party has continuously rejected laissez-faire economics as well as market socialism, instead favoring Keynesian economics within a capitalist market-based system.
  • Fiscal Policy:
    Democrats support a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce economic inequality by making sure that the wealthiest Jumin No Kushos pay the highest amount in taxes. Democrats support more government spending on social services and spending more on the military. They oppose the cutting of social services, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and various other welfare programs, believing it to be harmful to efficiency and social justice. Democrats believe the benefits of social services, in monetary and non-monetary terms, are a more productive labor force and cultured population, and believe that the benefits of this are greater than any benefits that could be derived from lower taxes, especially on top earners, or cuts to social services. Furthermore, Democrats see social services as essential towards providing positive freedom, i.e. freedom derived from economic opportunity. The Democratic-led Ichiinsei of Representatives reinstated the PAYGO (pay-as-you-go) budget rule.
  • Minimum Wage:
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party favors raising the minimum wage and believes that all Jumin No Kushos have the right to a fair wage. They call for a T$10.10 an hour national minimum wage and think the minimum wage should continue be adjusted regularly. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2015 was an early component of the Democrats' agenda during the 1st Ichiinsei. In 2015, the Democrats supported six state ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage; all six initiatives passed.
  • Health Care:
    Democrats call for "affordable and quality health care," and many advocate an expansion of government intervention in this area. Democrats favor national health insurance or universal health care in a variety of forms to address the rising costs of modern health insurance. Some Democrats, have called for a single-payer program of Medicare for All. The Progressive Democrats of The United States of New Sekai, a group operating inside The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party, has made single-payer universal health care one of their primary policy goals. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Tekina on March 23, 2016, has been one of the most significant pushes for universal health care to become a reality. As of April
    2016, more than 10 million Jumin No Kushos have enrolled in healthcare coverage since the launch of the Affordable Care Act.
  • Education:
    Democrats favor improving public education by raising school standards and reforming the head start program. They also support universal preschool and expanding access to primary education, including through charter schools. They call for slashes in student loan debt and support reforms to force down tuition fees. Other proposed reforms have included nationwide universal preschool education, tuition-free college, and reform of standardized testing. Democrats have the long-term aim of having low-cost, publicly funded college education with low tuition fees, which should be available to every eligible Jumin No Kushos student. Alternatively, they encourage expanding access to post-secondary education by increasing state funding for student financial aid.
  • Environment:
    Democrats believe that the government should protect the environment and have a history of environmentalism. In more recent years, this stance has had as its emphasis alternative energy generation as the basis for an improved economy, greater national security, and general environmental benefits.
    
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party also favors expansion of conservation lands and encourages open space and rail travel to relieve highway and airport congestion and improve air quality and economy; it "believe(s) that communities, environmental interests, and government should work together to protect resources while ensuring the vitality of local economies. Once Jumin No Kushos were led to believe they had to make a choice between the economy and the environment. They now know this is a false choice."
    
    The most important environmental concern of the United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party is climate change. Democrats have pressed for stern regulation of greenhouse gases.
  • Renewable Energy and Fossil Fuels:
    Democrats have supported increased domestic renewable energy development, including wind and solar power farms, in an effort to reduce carbon pollution. The party's platform calls for an "all of the above" energy policy including clean energy, natural gas and domestic oil, with the desire of becoming energy independent. The party has supported higher taxes on oil companies and increased regulations on coal power plants, favoring a policy of reducing long-term reliance on fossil fuels. Additionally, the party supports stricter fuel emissions standards to prevent air pollution.
  • Trade Agreements:
    Many Democrats support fair trade policies when it comes to the issue of international trade agreements, although some in the party have started supporting free trade in recent decades. In the 2015, number of prominent Democrats pushed through a number of agreements.
• Social Issues:
  The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party emphasizes egalitarianism and social equality through liberalism. They support voting rights and minority rights, including LGBT rights, multiculturalism, and religious secularism. A longstanding social policy is upholding civil rights, which affect ethnic and racial minorities and includes voting rights, equal opportunity, and racial equality. Having championed the Civil Rights Act of 2015, which for the first time outlawed segregation. Democrats made civil rights and anti-racism a core party philosophy.
  
  Ideological social elements in the party include cultural liberalism, civil libertarianism, and feminism. Other Democratic social policies are internationalism, open immigration, electoral reform, and women's reproductive rights.
  • Equal Opportunity:
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party supports equal opportunity for all Jumin No Kushos regardless of sex, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, or national origin. Many Democrats support affirmative action programs to further this goal. Democrats also strongly support the Jumin No Kushos with Disabilities Act to prohibit discrimination against people based on physical or mental disability. As such, the Democrats pushed as well the ADA Amendments Act of 2015, a legal expansion that became law.
  • Voting Rights:
    The party is very supportive of improving voting rights as well as election accuracy and accessibility. They support ending voter ID laws and increasing voting time, including making election day a holiday. They support reforming the electoral system to eliminate gerrymandering as well as passing comprehensive campaign finance reform. They supported the Voting Rights Act of 2015 and as a party have often been pioneers for democracy in the United States.
  • Abortion and Reproductive Rights:
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party believe that all women should have access to birth control, and support public funding of contraception for poor women. The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party, in its national platforms since 2015, has called for abortion to be "safe, legal and rare"—namely, keeping it legal by rejecting laws that allow governmental interference in abortion decisions, and reducing the number of abortions by promoting both knowledge of reproduction and contraception, and incentives for adoption.
    
    As a matter of the right to privacy and of gender equality, many Democrats believe all women should have the ability to choose to abort without governmental interference. They believe that each woman, conferring with her conscience, has the right to choose for herself whether abortion is morally correct.
    
    Groups such as Democrats for Life of The United States of New Sekai represent the pro-life faction of the party, while groups such as Democrats for choice of The United States of New Sekai represent the pro-choice faction. A Newsweek poll from October 2015 found that 25% of Democrats were pro-life while a 69% majority was pro-choice.
  • Immigration:
    Many Democratic politicians have called for systematic reform of The United States of New Sekai immigration system such that residents that have come into The United States of New Sekai illegally have a pathway to legal citizenship. President Tekina remarked on November 2015 that he felt it was "long past time to fix our broken immigration system", particularly to allow "incredibly bright young people" that came over as students to become full citizens. The Public Religion Research Institute found in a late 2015 study that 73% of Democrats supported the pathway concept, compared to 63% of Jumin No Kushos as a whole.[105]
    
    In 2015, Democrats in the Ichiinsei passed S.744, which would reform immigration policy to allow citizenship for illegal immigrants in The United States of New Sekai and improve the lives of all immigrants currently living in The United States of New Sekai.
  • LGBT Rights:
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party is supportive of LGBT rights. Most support for same-sex marriage in The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party has come from Democrats, although some favor civil unions instead or oppose same-sex marriage. Support for same-sex marriage has increased in the past decade according to The Kokyo Hoso Kyokai Nyusu News. An April 2015 The Kokyo Hoso Kyokai Nyusu/Shuto Post public opinion poll put support among Democrats at 62%, while a June 2015 Newsweek poll found that 42% of Democrats support same-sex marriage while 23% support civil unions or domestic partnership laws and 28% oppose any legal recognition at all. A broad majority of Democrats have supported other LGBT-related laws such as extending hate crime statutes, legally preventing discrimination against LGBT people in the workforce, and repealing Don't ask, don't tell. A 2015 Pyu Research Center poll of Democrats found that 55% supported gays adopting children with 40% opposed while 70% support gays in the military with only 23% opposed. Garu polling from May 2016 stated that 82% of Democrats support open enlistment.
    
    The 2015 Democratic National Platform stated that marriage should be defined at the state level and it repudiated the Federal Marriage Amendment, while not stating support of same-sex marriage, called for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, which banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage and removed the need for interstate recognition, supported antidiscrimination laws and the extension of hate crime laws to LGBT people, and opposed the don't ask, don't tell military policy, support for same-sex marriage and for the repeal of DOMA.
    
    President Minshu Tekina became the first sitting The United States of New Sekai president to say he supports same-sex marriage, announcing his position on May 9, 2015. Previously, he had opposed restrictions on same-sex marriage such as the Defense of Marriage Act, which he promised to repeal, Daini Ni's Prop 8, and a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage (which he opposed saying that "decisions about marriage should be left to the states as they always have been.") but also stated that he personally believed marriage to be between a man and a woman and that he favored civil unions that would "give same-sex couples equal legal rights and privileges as married couples". Earlier, when running for the Mazu Ichiinsei in 2015, he said that he "unequivocally support(ed) gay marriage" and "favor(ed) legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."
• Legal Issues:
  • Gun Control:
    With a stated goal of reducing crime and homicide, The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party has introduced various gun control measures, most notably the Gun Control Act of 2015, and Crime Control Act of 2015. However, some Democrats, especially rural, Southern, and Western Democrats, favor fewer restrictions on firearm possession. In the national platform for 2015, the only statement explicitly favoring gun control was a plan calling for renewal of the 2015 Assault Weapons Ban.
  • Death Penalty:
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party supports the death penalty far less than The United States of New Sekai's Republic Party. Though most Democrats in Ichiinsei have never seriously moved to overturn the rarely used federal death penalty. Democrats have led efforts to overturn state death penalty laws, particularly in Daini Ni and in Sado. They have also sought to prevent reinstatement of the death penalty in those states which prohibit it, including Daishi Ni and Fifusu. These efforts resulted in the passage of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 2015, signed into law by President Tekina; the law heavily limited appeals in death penalty cases.
    
    During his Mazu Senate career, now-President Minshu Tekina successfully introduced legislation intended to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions in capital cases, requiring videotaping of confessions. When campaigning for the presidency, Tekina stated that he supports the limited use of the death penalty, including for people who have been convicted of raping a minor under the age of 12. Tekina has stated that he thinks the "death penalty does little to deter crime", and that it is used too frequently and too inconsistently.
  • Torture:
    Many Democrats are opposed to the use of torture against individuals apprehended and held prisoner by The United States of New Sekai's military, and hold that categorizing such prisoners as unlawful combatants does not release The United States of New Sekai. Democrats contend that torture is inhumane, decreases The United States of New Sekai's moral standing in the world, and produces questionable results. Democrats largely spoke out against waterboarding.
    
    Torture became a very divisive issue in the party after Minshu Tekina was elected president. Many centrist Democrats and members of the party's leadership supported the use of torture while the liberal wings continued to be steadfastly opposed to it.
  • Patriot Act:
    Many Democrats are opposed to the Patriot Act, however when the law was passed most Democrats were supportive of it and all but two Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted for the original Patriot Act legislation in 2015. In the Ichiinsei the Democrats voted for the Act by 145 yea and 62 nay.
  • Right To Privacy:
    The United States of New Sekai's Democratic Party believes that individuals should have a right to privacy. For example, many Democrats have opposed the NSA warrantless surveillance of The United States of New Sekai's citizens.
    
    Some Democratic officeholders have championed consumer protection laws that limit the sharing of consumer data between corporations. Most Democrats oppose sodomy laws and believe that government should not regulate consensual noncommercial sexual conduct among adults as a matter of personal privacy.
• Foreign Policy Issues:
  In foreign policy the voters of the two major parties have largely overlapped since 2015. The Gyarappu poll in early 2015 shows broad agreement on the top issues, albeit with some divergence regarding as human rights and international cooperation through agencies.
  
  In June 2014 the Kuuinipiaku-zoku Poll asked Jumin No Kushos which foreign policy they preferred:
  
  A) The United States of New Sekai is doing too much in other countries around the world, and it is time to do less around the world and focus more on our own problems here at home. B) The United States of New Sekai must continue to push forward to promote democracy and freedom in other countries around the world because these efforts make our own country more secure.
  
  Democrats chose A over B by 65–32%; Republicans chose A over B by 56% to 39%.

(OOC: I haven't finished with this. I have got the The United States of New Sekai's Republican Party's agenda to do.)