Today, the House New Democrat Coalition unveiled a comprehensive, pro-growth policy agenda.
After suffering enormous losses in the last two midterm elections, Democrats need a new strategy for recapturing Congress. Such a strategy should aim at winning back competitive districts, largely in suburban America, and it would target moderate voters, without whom the party cannot build electoral majorities.
The New Democrat Coalition’s prosperity agenda is an important step toward crafting a winning strategy. It presents a new policy blueprint for pragmatic Democrats, who want to break the political stalemate in Washington and get things done. Most important, it outlines a progressive, pro-growth alternative to a polarizing populism that can only narrow the party’s appeal.
This agenda aims squarely at lifting and expanding the middle class. It puts growth before redistribution, and builds on America’s strengths in rapid innovation and entrepreneurship. It seeks to expand vital investments in infrastructure and a skilled workforce, but it also recognizes that tax reform and regulatory improvement are also key catalysts of growth. And, crucially, the NDC recognizes that the right way to restore public confidence in government is not simply to enlarge it, but to reform and modernize it.
With this document, the NDC is assuming a position of intellectual and political leadership in the party. It’s important that its voice be heard, because its members know how to compete and win in precisely the kind of competitive districts Democrats need to retake.
