Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Bill de Blasio: How to Revive the American Dream

Government policies matter and can make a difference. Strengthening the American Dream is about the basics:

● Make work pay by increasing the minimum wage, empowering unions to bargain collectively, ending abusive scheduling practices for hourly workers, getting people the overtime pay they deserve, ensuring equal pay for equal work and making sure employers follow the law and respect the rights of workers.

● End the squeeze on working parents by passing a paid family leave requirement and investing in child care, after-school programs and extended learning days. Let families with children have a chance to balance careers with quality time together.

● Ensure everyone can get a great education without drowning in debt. Rein in the cost of college and allow families to refinance student loans at lower rates. Give every child access to full-day pre-kindergarten. Education is still the best ticket to the middle class.

● Focus on research and innovation needed to develop the technologies of the future. Investments in medical and scientific research let us build whole new industries and give us the chance to create good jobs right here in ­America.

● Invest in infrastructure — in roads, bridges, rail, water, power and broadband. Businesses can’t grow if the foundation crumbles beneath them. A 21st-century economy needs 21st-century infrastructure.

● Strengthen and expand Social Security, not just for today’s seniors but also for today’s young people. Work is changing. A strong Social Security system will ensure that all workers, no matter the number of jobs they piece together during their careers, can count on a secure retirement.

● Strengthen the rules of the marketplace. We don’t build a future by turning the biggest banks loose to do whatever they want, and markets don’t create value when corporations can cheat people or roll over their upstart competition.

● Promote fair trade by embracing only those trade policies that strengthen our economy, create good jobs with good wages and establish fair rules of the road for companies around the world. Our trade agreements shouldn’t help multinational companies gut environmental, health and safety standards here and abroad under the guise of promoting commerce.

● Reform the tax code by ending the billions in tax breaks for corporations shipping jobs overseas and big oil companies, while leveling the playing field so that millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.

Rebuilding our middle class won’t be easy, but real change rarely is. It’s time to be bold.

The American Dream depends on it.

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Quoted from The Washington Post.