Details raft of policy plans

Klobuchar details raft of policy plans for first 100 days

By ELENA SCHNEIDER

Sen. Amy Klobuchar wants to reenter the Climate Paris Accords, raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 and require publicly traded companies to disclose all political spending over $10,000 to their shareholders — and that’s just three out of 137 ideas she wants to put forward in her first 100 days as president.

On Tuesday, the Democratic presidential candidate released an exhaustive list of policy prescriptions — more than 137 bullet points, extending over 17 single-spaced pages — that she would prioritize in the first months of her administration. Klobuchar’s plans run from extending veterans’ benefits to their newborn babies to restoring the Clean Power Plan, a set of Obama-era environmental protections.

While Klobuchar’s list of 100-day priorities indicates the breadth of her policy plans, it's also light on the details. For example, Klobuchar’s outline includes a pledge to “propose a historic investment in America’s education system that will fully fund education, increase teacher pay and rebuild our crumbling school infrastructure,” but does not explain how much she’d plan to spend, nor how she would pay for such an effort.

Klobuchar has already released specific plans to tackle the opioid epidemic, to reinvest in the country’s crumbling infrastructure and to beef up antitrust oversight and consumer regulation. Some of her priorities released Tuesday overlap with those previous ideas.

But Klobuchar isn’t the only 2020 candidate aiming to stand out on policy. Elizabeth Warren turned “she has a plan for that” into her rallying cry, a strategy that’s helped move her up in national polling in recent weeks, while Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has based his entire presidential bid around fighting climate change. Many other 2020 contenders have released extensive policy plans covering a range of top Democratic priorities.