July 9 (UPI) — Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on Wednesday released series of policy recommendations drafted in joint task forces with his closest rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The 110-page document includes recommendations for policies from six eight-member task forces on issues such as health care, climate change, criminal justice reform, the economy, education and immigration.
While the task force offered some progressive policy proposals closer to those championed by Sanders during his campaign, the health task force focused on Biden’s signature promise to expand the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, which was implemented under his tenure in the as vice president rather than Sanders’ single-payer Medicare For All system.
The climate change task force provided more drastic proposals such as eliminating carbon pollution from power plants and working to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for new buildings. It still stopped short of provisions included in the Green New Deal, proposed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was on the task force.
In the wake of worldwide protests sparked by the police-involved killing of George Floyd, the task force on criminal justice called for measures to break the so-called school-to-prison pipeline as well as demilitarizing police forces and increased diversity in courts and police forces.
Biden’s campaign said the document has been submitted to the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee and added that the former vice president will review it personally.
“I commend the task forces for their service and for helping build a bold, transformative platform for our party and for our country,” Biden wrote on Twitter. “And I am deeply grateful to Bernie Sanders for working with us to unite our party and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come.”
Sanders also expressed the importance of uniting the party to defeat Trump despite “strong disagreements about some of the most important issues facing our country” among the pair and their supporters.
“Though the end result isn’t what I or my supporters would’ve written alone, the task forces have created a good policy blueprint that will move this country in a much-needed progressive direction and substantially improve the lives of working families throughout our country,” wrote Sanders.
