The Unity Task Force plan by Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders is shockingly outdated. President Trump has solved almost every policy challenge that the Democrats identify. The document, which is the product of extensive collaboration between Biden and Sanders, includes some of the most left wing proposals ever considered by the party. It urges liberal lawmakers to work toward a government health care system, enact new environmental regulations, overhaul the criminal justice system, and more.
Such proposals are usually excluded from the party platform for fear that they would alienate moderate voters. But the Democrats have shifted so far to the left that the party has become almost unrecognizable to some lifelong members. Pleased by the work of the Unity Task Force, Sanders has praised the former vice president for his new embrace of the radical platform, declaring that the platform is poised to make Biden the “most progressive president” since Franklin Roosevelt if he is elected.
Ideological extremism, however, is only half of this problem. Democrats have written dangerous prescriptions for mild diseases that have already been cured by Trump. According to the Unity Task Force, for instance, the federal government must spend gargantuan amounts of money on green energy and other environmental policy proposals since Americans have “the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live without fear of exposure to toxic waste.” It is clearly an undisputed objective.
From his very first day in the White House, Trump has implemented robust environmental protections, ensuring that Americans have access to clean air and clean water no matter where they live, without asking them to pay such exorbitant costs or endure regulations that reduce jobs and damage the economy. “That means being good stewards of our public lands, and prioritizing a clean up of polluted lands that threaten our most vulnerable citizens and threaten them very dearly, and implementing growth policies to unlock innovation and new technologies,” Trump declared.
Moreover, the Unity Task Force doctrine strives to reduce prescription drug prices and premiums, cut back overall health care expenses, and tackle inequities in the health care system. Democrats think these goals must be achieved only by implementing “universal health care coverage” through an inefficient single payer government program, but Trump has demonstrated with his actions that the opposite has been true.
Thanks to his emphasis on accountability and transparency, prescription drug prices have fallen in recent years, helping Americans save billions of dollars on medications. Trump has worked to improve the quality of health care for millions of our forgotten veterans by reforming and modernizing the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that our national heroes who are home do not die while they wait for routine medical care.
Another section of the Unity Task Force doctrine is dedicated to criminal justice reform. This is ironic given the role Biden played in implementing the “tough on crime” sentencing laws that created many of the problems he seeks to solve. Democrats want to enact bold changes to the criminal justice system to minimize police brutality and reduce crime. While their ambitions are laudable, their methods remain questionable. In what looks like an attempt to appease progressives, the doctrine pushes lawmakers to “reimagine policing for the benefit and safety” of citizens.
The truth is that no one else in Washington knows more about enacting effective criminal justice reform than Trump. The historic First Step Act made critical changes to the federal sentencing guidelines, established innovative new education programs for inmates, achieved reductions for nonviolent felons incarcerated under obsolete laws, and much more. The president has also signed an executive order on safe policing to address some of the worst deficiencies for outdated protocols without affecting the ability of law enforcement to protect innocent citizens.
As Trump has clearly demonstrated in almost four years as president, we can protect the environment without dismantling the energy sector, lower health care costs without turning medicine into a public utility, and reform the criminal justice system without defunding the police.
Madison Gesiotto is an attorney who serves with the advisory board of the Donald Trump campaign. You can follow her on Twitter @MadisonGesiotto.