Amy McGrath, candidate for U.S. Senate from Kentucky, released her platform to address the issues facing Kentucky and our nation, and announced a statewide tour — where she is flying the plane herself — to discuss it with voters.
Playing on her military background, the platform is called Mission: Rebuilding Kentucky. It contains five major goals, with action steps under each.
In the introduction, McGrath lays out the devastation Kentucky has experienced due to the pandemic, then says:
These numbers were not inevitable. They reflect the inept leadership of Sen. Mitch McConnell, who went on a 25-day vacation without taking the action needed to address the devastating consequences of this pandemic.
Leaders don’t leave.
The unfortunate truth, though, is that McConnell abandoned our state a long time ago.
The introduction concludes:
But we cannot just build back to normal, because normal is what got us here in the first place. Our state can and must come back from this virus stronger than ever and reemerge as a leader in our country and the world.
Summary of the platform
Here is a bulleted summary of the platform. You can read the complete document here. Note that the details in the full document are important, and go into specific policy proposals that give weight and teeth to the proposals. Read the summary below, then spend a few moments reading the entire plan at the link above.
- Immediately address the economic pain caused by this pandemic and McConnell’s inaction so that Kentucky families can keep a roof overhead and food on the table.
- Guarantee that every single Kentuckian has health care and that their coverage is not a financial burden
- Provide relief to our families (unemployment bonus until the unemployment rate falls, a moratorium on evictions, a 15% increase in SNAP benefits and rent support)
- Protect Main Street by offering financial support for state and local governments.
- Ensure schools have the funding, testing and equipment needed to re-open.
- Support small businesses through continued access to PPP loans
- Help the restaurant industry and its workers
- Ensure good-paying jobs are available across a variety of sectors around the commonwealth.
- Make sure every Kentuckian has access to affordable health care and prescription drugs, regardless of employment status or income level.
- Create a public option and lower the Medicare buy-in age to 55 to ensure every Kentuckian has access to affordable health care regardless of employment status.
- Lower prescription drug prices and limit the power of Big Pharma so Kentuckians no longer have to pay over $2,000 per year on average for their prescriptions.
- Close the racial health gap
- Address the opioid crisis head on through increased funds for community-led efforts to prevent overdoses
- Ensure good-paying jobs are available across a variety of sectors around the commonwealth.
- Rebuild our infrastructure.
- Upgrade our broadband.
- Turn our country—and state—into a world leader in manufacturing again.
- Put workers before CEOs, provide better wages and labor protections.
- Pass the RECLAIM Act.
- Invest in minority-owned businesses and entrepreneurs.
- Build a Civilian Conservation Corps for the 21st century.
- Combat intergenerational poverty, address racial and economic inequities, and provide adequate educational opportunities so that our young people have the fair shot they deserve.
- Guarantee universal pre-K or Head Start.
- Provide federal grants to help our poorest school districts invest in infrastructure updates.
- Close the $23 billion dollar funding gap between majority white and majority non-white schools.
- Make college affordable with a national service plan.
- Expand apprenticeship and trade schools to cultivate the skills of all Kentuckians.
- Increase home ownership for Black and Latino families.
- Fix the corruption McConnell has created and benefited from and reform Washington so that our federal government actually works for everyday Kentuckians and not special interests and big corporations.
- Implement term limits.
- Expand voting rights.
- Get big money out of politics.
- End lobbyists’ stranglehold on our government.
- Hold our public officials accountable.
- Insulate public health appointees from political pressure.
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