Contract for the American Dream

How to build a democratic movement by MoveOn.org.

1. In­vest in Amer­ica’s In­fra­struc­ture.
Re­build our crum­bling bridges, dams, lev­ees, ports, water and sewer lines, rail­ways, roads and pub­lic tran­sit. We must in­vest in high-speed In­ter­net and a mod­ern, en­ergy-sav­ing elec­tric grid. These in­vest­ments will cre­ate good jobs and re­build Amer­ica. To help fi­nance these pro­jects, we need na­tional and state in­fra­struc­ture banks.

2. Cre­ate 21st-Cen­tury En­ergy Jobs.
We should in­vest in Amer­i­can busi­nesses that can power our coun­try with in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies like wind tur­bines, solar pan­els, ge­ot­her­mal sys­tems, hy­brid and elec­tric cars, and next-gen­er­a­tion bat­ter­ies. And we should put Amer­i­cans to work mak­ing our homes and build­ings en­ergy ef­fi­cient. We can cre­ate good, green jobs in Amer­ica, ad­dress the cli­mate cri­sis, and build the clean en­ergy econ­omy.

3. In­vest in Pub­lic Ed­u­ca­tion.
We should pro­vide uni­ver­sal ac­cess to early child­hood ed­u­ca­tion, make school fund­ing eq­ui­table, in­vest in high-qual­ity teach­ers, and build safe, well-equipped school build­ings for our stu­dents. A high-qual­ity ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, from uni­ver­sal preschool to vo­ca­tional train­ing and af­ford­able higher ed­u­ca­tion, is crit­i­cal for our fu­ture and can cre­ate badly needed jobs now.

4. Offer Medicare for All.
We should ex­pand Medicare so it’s avail­able to all Amer­i­cans, and re­form it to pro­vide even more cost-ef­fec­tive, qual­ity care. The Af­ford­able Care Act is a good start and we must im­ple­ment it – but it’s not enough. We can save tril­lions of dol­lars by join­ing every other in­dus­tri­al­ized coun­try – pay­ing much less for health care while get­ting the same or bet­ter re­sults.

5. Make Work Pay.
Amer­i­cans have a right to fair min­i­mum and liv­ing wages, to or­ga­nize and col­lec­tively bar­gain, to enjoy equal op­por­tu­nity and to earn equal pay for equal work. Cor­po­rate as­saults on these rights bring down wages and ben­e­fits for all of us. They must be out­lawed and pros­e­cuted.

6. Se­cure So­cial Se­cu­rity.
Keep So­cial Se­cu­rity sound, and strengthen the re­tire­ment, dis­abil­ity and sur­vivors pro­tec­tions Amer­i­cans earn through their hard work. Pay for it by re­mov­ing the cap on the So­cial Se­cu­rity tax, so that up­per-in­come peo­ple pay into So­cial Se­cu­rity on all they make, just like the rest of us.

7. Re­turn to Fairer Tax Rates.
End, once and for all, the Bush-era tax give­aways for the rich, which the rest of us – or our kids – must pay even­tu­ally. Also, we must out­law cor­po­rate tax havens and tax breaks for ship­ping jobs over­seas. Lastly, with mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires tak­ing a grow­ing share of our coun­try’s wealth, we should add new tax brack­ets for those mak­ing more than $1 mil­lion each year.

8. Tax Wall Street Spec­u­la­tion.
A tiny fee of 1/20th of 1% on each Wall Street trade could raise more than $100 bil­lion an­nu­ally with lit­tle im­pact on ac­tual in­vest­ment. This would re­duce spec­u­la­tion, “flash trad­ing,” and out­ra­geous bankers’ bonuses – and we’d have a lot more money to spend on Main Street job cre­ation.

9. End the Wars and In­vest at Home.
Our troops have done every­thing that’s been asked of them, and it’s time to bring them home to good jobs here. We’re send­ing $3 bil­lion each week over­seas that we should be in­vest­ing to re­build Amer­ica.

10. Re­store Our Democ­racy.
We need clean, fair elec­tions - where no one's right to vote can be taken away, and where money doesn’t buy you your own mem­ber of Con­gress. We must ban anony­mous po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence, slam shut the lob­by­ists’ re­volv­ing door in D.C. and pub­licly fi­nance elec­tions. Im­mi­grants who want to join in our democ­racy de­serve a clear path to cit­i­zen­ship. And we must stop giv­ing cor­po­ra­tions the rights of peo­ple when it comes to our elec­tions and en­sure our Ju­di­ciary’s re­spect for the Con­sti­tu­tion. To­gether, we will re­claim our democ­racy to get our coun­try back on track.