The Progressive Promise

1. Advancing justice, dignity, and peace for all. 

At the Progressive Caucus, we believe that government must be the great equalizer of opportunity for everyone. We are committed to passing legislation that advances justice, dignity, and peace for all people. 

• Realizing the goal of a universal, high-quality, Medicare For All health care system for all. 

• Advancing the right of every American to retire with security and dignity.

• Ending poverty and income inequality and securing a living wage for all people.

• Protecting the fundamental right to organize. 

• Ending mass incarceration and advancing equal justice under the law.

• Taking urgent, inclusive, and transformative action on climate change. 

• Upholding the fundamental reproductive rights of all people. 

• Ending our forever wars, cutting the bloated Pentagon budget, and prioritizing diplomacy.

• Advancing humane, fair and just immigration laws.

• Advancing racial justice and equity. 

2.  Tackling systems of oppression and dismantling structural racism      and discrimination. 

Embedded in our nation’s history is a painful legacy of oppression, racism, and genocide. At the Progressive Caucus, we believe that elected leaders have an obligation to confront this legacy and dismantle the systems of oppression and discrimination that allow racism to persist in this nation. In order for any legislation to be truly inclusive and transformative, it must advance the goal of racial justice. 

• Advancing racial justice and equity in every policy.

• Supporting a truth commission and reparations to address and repair the continued effects of slavery and discrimination.

• Transforming our budgets and priorities to reinvest in Black, Brown, and indigenous communities and reimagine the role of institutions that exacerbate injustice and inequality. 

• Challenging harmful stereotypes and efforts that demonize immigrant, Black, Brown, indigenous, and LGBGTQ communities and actively opposing any legislation or policy that marginalizes those communities.

    3. Taking on systems that privilege the wealthy and powerful to demand a government and economy that works for the people.

We believe elected officials should be beholden to the people, not to wealthy donors and powerful CEOs. At the Progressive Caucus, we reject pay-to-play and revolving door politics and fight for a democracy where the power is in the hands of the people, not concentrated among the rich and well-connected. We reject the failed politics of the past that prioritized the deregulation of financial industries and big polluters and tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations over the well-being of the public. And we support bold policies to close the gap between the rich and everyday Americans and ensure our government delivers essential services to every person in this country. 

• Ensuring regulation of industry with strong consumer protections.

• Strengthening oversight of financial institutions.

• Democratizing our society by getting money out of politics, eliminating political corruption, and protecting and expanding access to the ballot box.

• Ensuring that all of our economic and tax policies address or decrease income inequality.

• Protecting the federal government’s role in delivering essential goods, taking on monopolies, and disciplining markets.

    4.  A commitment to sweeping, transformative change.

Recognizing that the problems facing this country are enormous, we are committed to delivering solutions that meet the scale of the crisis. Faced with decades of disinvestment in working class communities, unprecedented income inequality, and a federal budget that fails to meet the needs of millions, we believe that Congress must take sweeping action to deliver the bold policies that this moment demands. The challenges facing this nation are structural -- and Congress must be deliberate and explicit in dismantling these institutional barriers to prosperity, peace, and justice. 

• Demanding bold and visionary legislation to address the needs in every community and rejecting incrementalist approaches that fail to deliver urgent transformative change.

• Opposing counterproductive and false narratives on government deficits that have led to decades-long disinvestment in low-income communities, communities of color, families, and working people. 

• Reversing decades-long disinvestment in low-income communities, communities of color, families, and working people.

• Delivering structural change that unrigs the rules for working people and forces the wealthy to contribute to our shared prosperity.