38 | Rolling Stone | July 2019
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IMAGESButtigiegquestioned the fairness
of bailing out college grads who
earn 80 percent more on aver-
age than nongrads: “As a progres-
sive,” he said, “I have a hard time
getting my head around the idea.”
Legalize Weed
The Problem It Solves:Marijua-
na has become legal in a dozen
states, but Americans are arrest-
ed for it in disproportionately
high numbers. In 2017, 650,000
people were arrested for pot pos-
session, six times the number
for heroin, despite an opioid ep-
idemic that claimed 48,000 lives.
And black Americans are more
than three times as likely to be ar-
rested as whites, despite similar
usage rates.
Prominent Backers: 2020 can-
didateCory Bookerintroduced
the Marijuana Justice Act, which
would federally legalize marijua-
na and invest $5 billion in com-
munities hardest hit by the Drug
War. The legislation — support-
ed by most of the Senate’s 2020
contenders — would also expunge
past pot convictions. “You can’t
just legalize marijuana and say,
‘Solved the problem,’ ” says Maria
McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, of
the Drug Policy Alliance. “You
have to make an effort to repair
those harmed.”
Biggest Obstacle: With the pros-
pect of reaping billions in feder-
al tax dollars from this lucrative
new industry, centrist Dems and
even a few Republicans are feel-
ing pressure to act. But compet-
ing alternatives (simply exempt-
ing legal states from federal pot
busts, for example) are clouding
prospects for Booker’s bill.Joe
Biden — who called legalization
a “mistake” as recently as 2010
— could be an impediment. Mari-
juana Justice Act co-sponsor Rep.
Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) believes the
2020 race will be clarifying: “My
hope is this will be one of the top
issues that candidates run on,” he
says, giving the next president a
“mandate to implement change.”
Medicare for All
The Problem It Solves:America
spends twice as much on medi-
cal care as other developed coun-
tries, getting worse results: Nearly
30 million remain uninsured, life
expectancy is dipping, and two-
thirds of American bankruptcies
are caused by medical debt.Prominent Backers: Sanders’
Medicare for All legislation — re-
introduced in April and co-spon-
sored by fellow 2020 candidates
Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala
Harris andWarren — would trans-
form Medicare into single-pay-
er, universal coverage, displacingcal spending, while nonpartisan
studies show savings of nearly $3
trillion, or 10 percent. Perhaps
the more potent political obsta-
cle? At least 1 million employees
of private insurance firms could
lose their jobs in the transition.Reparations
The Problem It Solves:Econom-
ic disadvantages for black Amer-
icans have been compoundedprivate insurance. It would cover
U.S. residents from birth and is
tax-financed — meaning no premi-
ums or co-pays at the hospital or
doctor’s office. The government
would pay providers and negoti-
ate drug prices with Big Pharma.Biggest Obstacle:Republicans
who screamed about “death pan-
els” under Obamacare are already
blasting Medicare for All as a slip-
pery slope to Venezuelan social-
ism. But such criticism should
be liberating for progressives, ar-
gues McElwee: The lesson is that
Republicans will fight like hell re-
gardless, so Democrats may as
well shoot for “the thing that does
the job and makes the most dif-
ference in people’s lives,” he says.
Medicare for All would cost $33
trillion over a decade, but net U.S.
spending on health care could ac-
tually decrease. Even the right-
wing Mercatus Center — funded
by the Koch brothers — projects
a $2 trillion reduction in medi-since the end of slavery through
discriminatory policies ranging
from the Homestead Act, which
provided free land to white set-
tlers, to JimCrowsegregation, to
the redlining that blocked black
families from buying desirable
housing. The economic impacts
are profound: The median net
worth of black families in Amer-
ica stands at $3,500; for whites,
it’s $147,000.Prominent Backers: 2020 can-
didate JuliánCastro propelled
the issue into the national de-
bate in March when he asked, “If,
under the Constitution, we com-
pensate people because we take
their property, why wouldn’t you
compensate people who actually
were property?”Booker has intro-
duced legislation to form a feder-
al commission that would put for-
ward a reparations proposal — a
bill that fellow 2020 contenders
Harris and Beto O’Rourke have
pledged to sign.Biggest Obstacle: Estimates for
fair repayment for the value ex-
ploited from slaves run as high as
$14 trillion. Even the free-spend-
ingSanders has blanched at try-
ing to resolve American racial
disparities by “just writing out a
check.” Support for reparations is
limited — favored by just 26 per-
cent in recent polling — and any
move to make amends for the sin
of slavery could set off a racist
firestorm in a country where dis-
mantling Confederate statuary is
enough to spark a riot.Tax the Rich
The Problem It Solves:Ameri-
can income inequality is nearly
as severe today as it was before
the Great Depression. Three bil-
lionaires, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates
andWarrenBuffett, holdmore
wealth than the bottom 50 per-
cent of Americans combined. Re-
publican policy is making things
worse: The 2017 Trump tax law
cut the effective corporate tax
rate in half, while producing “no
indication of a surge in wages” for
regular workers, according to the
Congressional Research Service.Prominent Backers: Ocasio-Cor-
tez, Sanders and Warren have
each proposed tax hikes to nar-
row America’s economic divides
— and to raise the funds required
to finance their sweeping poli-
cies. AOC calls for raising the top
tax bracket to 70 percent for in-
come earned above $10 million
a year. Sanders proposes hiking
the estate tax on the value of for-
tunes in excess of $1 billion to 77
percent. Warren seeks an annual
wealth tax, rising to three percent
for billionaires, which would raise
$2.75 trillion over a decade.Biggest Obstacle: Nothing unites
the GOP as much as its aversion
to taxes, so Democrats would un-
doubtedly have to go it alone.
But tax policy can be changed
with just 50 votes in the Senate.
And targeting the wealthiest is
popular with the public, with 60
percent backing Warren’s wealth
tax. “If you own a home, you’re
already paying a wealth tax —
it’s called a property tax,” War-
ren tweeted. “I just want the ul-
tra-rich to pay a wealth tax on
the diamonds, the yachts and the
Rembrandts too.”PROGRESSIVE
PLAYERS
Clockwise from
left: Sanders,
Ocasio-Cortez
and Warren.
Sanders’ 2016
campaign was
a turning point,
says Princeton
historian Julian
Zelizer: “He put
big, radical
ideas center
stage, showing
you can get
away with it
and do well
politically.”