Approximately 20 Democratic presidential hopefuls are attempting to remove President Donald Trump from the White House in 2020.
Getting to Know Rep. John Delaney
“They effectively cut out half the field,” said former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) about the September presidential debate in Houston. “I don’t think ultimately voters want that to happen…I think they’re kind of like Thanos, snapping their finger and trying to get rid of half the field.”
Rep. Delaney referenced the Marvel superhero movie villain Thanos who eliminated many superheroes.
Although the Democratic National Committee (DNC) can stop him from getting airtime in the next presidential debate, that will not stop RegalMag.com from giving him a profile in the magazine’s series on 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
Delaney is running for president because he thinks the country needs a leader that will unite the nation, not divide the nation.
In 2016, President Donald Trump did a good job of reaching rural, blue-collar voters who believed that the Democratic Party had become too elitist.
As a result, Delaney likes to stress his blue-collar roots and strong family values.
Delaney found success as an entrepreneur and is one of the wealthiest Democratic presidential candidates in 2020.
He became a leading voice during his time in Congress and he stresses that faith is very important to him and his family.
One of Delaney’s boldest plans is his $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
The presidential candidate believes that spending on infrastructure is long overdue, with most money currently coming from state and local governments.
Delaney’s website emphasizes the fact that the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States a grade of D+ for the country’s infrastructure.
If Delaney gets elected, he will invest in rebuilding the country’s infrastructure, which will create jobs and improve the economy.
He would fund this ambitious infrastructure project by raising the corporate tax rate to 27 percent and increasing the federal gas tax to account for inflation.
Another bold initiative for Delaney is his commitment to African-Americans.
“The U.S. has a long and difficult history when it comes to the treatment of African-American and other minority communities,” Delaney said via his campaign website. “While we have taken meaningful steps to update our laws and regulations to address racial discrimination, we have still not ended systemic racism.”
To address income inequality between the races, Delaney wants to address access to capital and tackle the investment disparity.
Delaney will do this by creating nonprofit banks in minority communities in order to increase access to banking services.
He wants to ensure minority entrepreneurs have access to funding by doing things such as creating a new SBIC program to promote entrepreneurship and focus venture capitalist investment in communities of color.
The presidential candidate wants to restore anti-discrimination rules too.
Additionally, Delaney wants to invest in infrastructure funding in minority communities to address problems like inadequate water systems and enlarging public transportation.
Furthermore, Delaney wants to create a national grant program to finance start-up incubators and accelerators at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Lastly, he wants to implement a tax credit for venture capitalists that invest in minority-owned businesses.
More importantly, Delaney believes that closing the educational gap would lead to closing the wealth gap amongst various races.
Since school districts get much of their finances through property taxes, schools in less affluent areas find themselves at the short-end of the stick when it comes to education.
As a result, Delaney wants to increase funding to low-income schools via increased Title I funding.
Also, Delaney wants to increase universal education from pre-K-14, which means two free years of community college.
He sees expanding childcare availability from ages 0-3 in low-income areas as crucial.
Delaney wants to increase federal funding to community-based groups that focus on mentorship for struggling students.
Furthermore, Delaney wants to extend funding for families (parents) seeking education and job training.
In his effort to woo African-American voters, Delaney also wants to tackle criminal justice reform.
To tackle the discrimination in the criminal justice system, Delaney wants to end for-profit prisons.
He wants to end mandatory minimum sentences.
Delaney wants to increase funding for public defenders.
Boldly, he wants to end the death penalty.
With police brutality constantly in the news, Delaney wants to increase funding for body cameras for police officers.
The former congressman wants to end or limit the use of money bail in the federal criminal justice system, calling cash bail discriminatory and excessive.
Delaney wants federal funding to train police officers on issues like racial profiling.
He also wants to increase federal funding for recidivism reduction programs.
Despite his bold programs, Delaney has found it difficult to get his message to the masses because of the DNC’s debate process.
The DNC divided the first two sets of debates into two nights each with approximately 10 presidential candidates on the stage at one time.
As a result, each candidate received only minutes to set themselves apart from their opponents.
Because of this, very few stood out from the pack.
Now, the DNC will have only the top 10 Democratic presidential candidates at next month’s debate at Texas Southern University in Houston.
Each candidate had to receive money from 130,000 individual donors and get two percent of the vote in four qualifying polls.
Nevertheless, Delaney has vowed to stay in the race even though he has struggled to get over zero percent of the vote in the various polls.
“I am fully committed to staying in,” Delaney said. “When you’ve been in Iowa and New Hampshire as I have and you talk to voters, you realize very few voters are even decided at this point. And I think we’re going to have a dramatically changing field. I just think there’s a lot of action left in the primary.”
