Members of the radical left have released a wish list of items they hope are incorporated in the next infrastructure bill, prioritizing climate change initiatives and mass amnesty.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) surveyed its 95 members, which include far-left members of the “Squad” — Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) — and released a list of priorities the CPC as a whole is advancing at the current stage of infrastructure discussions. The list includes five key areas, which include beefing up government-run health care and tackling climate-related issues while providing amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.
The leftists identified investments and climate jobs as a top agenda item, demanding at least 40 percent of investment funds to go to “communities on the frontlines of our economic, environmental, and public health crises.”
The leftists called for the establishment of what they dubbed a “Strong National Clean Energy Standard,” which they believe will create “millions of clean jobs in the renewable energy sector to help meet emissions reductions through binding, enforceable federal clean-energy standards.”
Additionally, the CPC called for the incorporation of a climate jobs program, which they said will “directly put Americans to work serving the public interest, including the robust funding of a Civilian Climate Corps, Public Health Jobs Corps, and Resilience Job Corps.”
They also called for a sizeable investment in resources “required” to address climate change.
The CPC identified mass amnesty, or the “Roadmap for Citizenship and Inclusion for Immigrant Communities,” as another top priority, demanding a roadmap to citizenship for “essential workers, TPS recipients, and Dreamers.”
“Strengthen the Care Economy” is listed as another priority. The CPC called for a $450 billion investment in Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) to help Biden’s stated support of creating jobs in the home care industry. Such jobs, the CPC said, should pay $15 an hour. Additionally, childcare access should be a “universal benefit,” and leaders should establish permanent paid family and medical leave, they said.
The caucus also demands a focus on housing, urging any infrastructure plan to include “Guarantee Housing Choice Vouchers” for all eligible Americans. They should “convert the funding status from annual appropriations to mandatory spending,” the CPC added.
Additionally, the CPC asked for $70 billion to “address the public housing repair backlog” and $45 billion “for the National Housing Trust Fund per year.” The leftists also demand to “make weatherization and energy efficiency upgrades consistent with the Green New Deal for Public Housing.”
Lowering drug prices rounds out the list of priorities, with the CPC asking to ” improve on H.R. 3 in a manner recommended by drug pricing advocates and the Biden-Sanders Unity Taskforce.” Recommendations include expanding the “numbers and types of drugs eligible for negotiation, launch prices, and inflation caps” and capping drug prices “at the average price in other OECD countries.”
“We agree that it’s time for transformative change and we look forward to working with the Biden Administration to expand on their proposal and ensure that the American Jobs Plan goes big to truly meet the needs of the public,” Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said in a statement that comes amid reports of the Biden White House working on courting far-left members of the Democrat caucus.
Democrat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) triggered a wave of reactions after identifying paid leave, child care, and caregiving as infrastructure in a Wednesday tweet, which she doubled down on a follow-up tweet on Friday:
Paid leave is infrastructure.
Child care is infrastructure.
Caregiving is infrastructure.— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) April 7, 2021
Americans agree:
Paid leave is infrastructure.
Child care is infrastructure.
Caregiving is infrastructure.And they want us to invest in all three. So let's get it done. pic.twitter.com/UFUtGaANhy
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) April 9, 2021
President Biden outlined his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan last month, deeming it a “once-in-a-generation investment in America unlike anything we’ve seen or done since we built the interstate highway system and the space race decades ago.”
“Democrats aren’t serious about fixing America’s infrastructure,” National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair said in a statement. “They’re serious about passing their socialist agenda by any means necessary.”
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