Pete Buttigieg

Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg (born January 19, 1982) is a mayor of South Bend, Indiana since 2012 and a former intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, where he achieved the rank of Lieutenant.

Political Spectrum


Beliefs


Immigration
Buttigieg's public statements were generally supportive of immigrants. In 2017, he told WSBT that he supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and giving its recipients a path to citizenship. More recently, in January of 2019, he told CBS that he thinks sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border is a waste of time for troops. He has also repeatedly stated during interviews, that, as a religious man, he believes religion teaches people to take care of others, including immigrants.

Along with Sen. Gillibrand, Sen. Harris, Sen. Sanders, author Marianne Williamson, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang Buttigieg raised his hand when asked at the first Democratic debate whether he believes crossing the border illegally should be a civil offense rather than a crime. He made a connection between the criminalization of unauthorized border crossings and family separation policies enacted by Trump Administration saying: "That criminalization is the basis for family separation. You do away with that, it's no longer possible. The Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. For a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages, has lost all claim to ever use religious language again."

Buttigieg opposes the Trump administration's aggressive deportation policies.

Healthcare
Buttigieg prime healthcare proposal for his 2020 election campaign is Medicare-for-all-who-want-it plan, a spin on Senator Sanders’s “Medicare for all” slogan — it allows employer-sponsored and individual private insurance to remain but gives all Americans the option of joining a government health program.

Buttigieg would create an optional government insurance plan into which uninsured people would be automatically enrolled and people with employer-sponsored insurance would be permitted to join. He also wants to expand federal subsidies for private insurance purchased on the Obamacare marketplaces, making them more generous and lifting the income eligibility cap that currently leaves many middle-class families cut off from federal assistance. He covers other ground as well, proposing a fix for surprise medical bills and an out-of-pocket spending cap for Medicare beneficiaries.

This plan “will cost about $1.5 trillion over a decade, paid for by cost savings and corporate tax reform,” Buttigieg wrotes in an op-ed for The Washington Post.

Gun Laws
In August 2019 just days after the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas which killed at least 31 people in total the South Bend, Indiana, the mayor released his proposal to combat domestic terrorism in a post on thought sharing website Medium. The plan called “An Action Plan to Combat the National Threat Posed by Hate and the Gun Lobby” includes certain gun regulations such as a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and new red flag laws designed to disarm domestic abusers.

Buttigieg promises to invest in comprehensive prevention programs while also resume funding and add additional resources on gun violence research which have been halted as of November 2019. He would also make efforts to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) ending the gun industry immunity from civil and class action lawsuits.

Religion
When asked whether he supported codifying the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights Supreme Court decision, presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said while visiting Chicago that such an idea should be "taken seriously" but did not directly say whether he supported it.

"I think that's something that deserves to be taken seriously. I haven't seen the full range of ideas on how to do that," the mayor of South Bend, Ind., said of codifying the decision.

Buttigieg considers himself a Christian, he has made his faith a cornerstone of his campaign, and explicitly attacked the idea that “Christian” and “Republican” are synonymous terms. In his twenties, Buttigieg's father had been affiliated with Jesuit seminarians, wound up as a secular intellectual after his trip to France in the Sixties. His mother is still a Christian. . During an interview on a popular podcast "The Breakfast Club" Buttigieg criticized Republicans for their views on abortion, saying, "Right now, they hold everybody in line with this one piece of doctrine about abortion." Acknowledging the moral complexity of the issue, he qualified, "Then again, there's a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath. So even that is something we can interpret differently." He agreed with the host that, in any case, only women should make that decision.

LGBT Rights
Buttigieg came out as gay in June 2015, becoming Indiana's first openly gay mayor. He is also the first openly gay Democratic Presidential Nomination contender. He has been vocal about his support for equality and opposition to anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Much of that has been in the context of contrasting himself with Vice President Mike Pence, whose views on LGBTQ issues have been criticized by Buttigieg.

On Oct. 10, 2019, Buttigieg released an in-depth, 18-page policy plan describing his reform proposals aimed to equal the rights and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals. The most important among those were:


 * Prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people;
 * Ending the blanket ban on gay and bisexual men donating blood;
 * Protecting the rights of intersex individuals;
 * Improving access to health care for LGBTQ individuals;
 * Reducing LGBTQ disparities in mental health;
 * Ending the HIV epidemic by 2030;
 * Protecting LGBTQ students in schools from bullying;
 * Ending conversion therapy by declaring it a form of consumer fraud;
 * protecting the rights of LGBTQ families and having their relationships recognized as valid by the government;
 * Ending youth homelessness;
 * Providing more funding for LGBTQ programs and initiatives;
 * Protecting the public safety of LGBTQ, particularly transgender, individuals;
 * Addressing the high rates of criminalization within the LGBTQ community;
 * Honoring LGBTQ veterans;
 * Protecting LGBTQ seniors;
 * Celebrating LGBTQ history and culture and recognizing the contributions of LGBTQ people;
 * Advocating for LGBTQ rights globally;
 * Appointing qualified LGBTQ people to positions in his administration;
 * Launching the We Belong National Mentorship Program, which will call on leaders within the public and private sectors to mentor and more fully support LGBTQ youth.

In July 2019 Buttigieg has been endorsed by the largest LGBT PAC, LGBTQ Victory Fund

Wall Street Regulations
Buttigieg calls for overhauling federal arbitration law to allow consumers to sue credit card companies in court; passing “strict regulations on predatory lenders;”; reviving the enforcement authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; and strengthening the antitrust standards, among others.

According to figures from the Center for Responsive Politics Buttigieg's campaign cashed in $935,000 from financial sector employees during the first three quarters of 2019, the most of any Democratic candidate. Among donors who accounted for that sum were several well-known figures of the financial world. Such as: William Ackman, billionaire founder of Pershing Square Capital; Roger C. Altman, a former deputy treasury secretary, and founder and senior chairman of the investment banking firm Evercore; Richard M. Cashin, founder of private equity firm One Equity Partners; Jonathan Gray, the billionaire president of Blackstone Group; billionaire hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group; billionaire investor Daniel Ziff; Allen & Company investment banker Stanley S. Shuman; and Robert Wolf, a Wall Street fundraiser for Obama and founder of investment advisory firm 32 Advisors.

Estate Tax
During an interview with CNBC Mayor Buttigieg said he favors a higher marginal tax rate for top income earners. Although not "as high as it was historically,". He also said that the US government should consider introducing a wealth tax: "We should consider a wealth tax. I think it makes sense. I think one of the things that’s appealing about it is it’s not very distortionary compared to an income tax, and that’s important."

He also came forward with criticism of the Estate Tax: "''The least distortionary tax probably is the estate tax, because you’re dead.", and laid out his alternative proposition: 'We should think about turning to a more equitable use of the estate tax, especially for the biggest and wealthiest estates. I’m interested also — if we could find the right way to implement it and the devil’s in the details — in a financial transactions tax.''".

Buttigieg promised to eliminate President Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and impose a capital gains tax on the top 1% of all earners to fund his middle-class oriented proposals such as: subsidizing pre-kindergarten and childcare, reducing college tuition at public universities, investing in public housing, increasing income tax credit by about 1,000 for middle-class earners and investing in workforce training. He hopes that the new charge will bring about 2,1 trillion to the treasury.

He is in favor of a 15 dollar minimum wage.

Income and Corporate Taxes
Asked by the New York Times reporter whether he supports raising income taxes, he said he is intrigued by a top rate of 49.9999 percent. “There’s something about paying the majority of a dollar that comes your way to Uncle Sam that I think people have more trouble with,” he explained. He also said he would favor a financial transaction tax.

As part of an effort to fund his "Medicare For All Who Want It" proposal Buttigieg aims to bring the Corporate Tax rate to the pre Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 level of 35%. According to the non-partisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation that would raise an estimated $1.4 trillion.

Social Security
While speaking at an AARP Forum in Iowa, Buttigieg said he’d like to increase the cap of income eligible for payroll taxes from what it is now at $132,900 to about $250,000. “I have a very personal stake in making sure that Social Security and Medicare are there when you retire and when I retire, and if you look at the numbers, that won’t happen without some adjustments”.

In November of 2019, he released a set of policy proposals aimed at ensuring that older Americans have access to affordable long-term care and can maintain their economic independence after retirement. The plan, entitled “Dignity and Security in Retirement,” calls for a new national long-term care benefit program, while strengthening the long-term care insurance market. To help elderly struggling with the costs of care which according to the AARP ranges from 50,000 up to 100,000 dollars a year depending on the type of care provided, Buttigieg proposed his signature idea: a benefit program, dubbed Long-Term Care America, which would give eligible seniors $90 per day that they could put toward care costs such as hiring a home health aide or paying for a nursing home. This would be open to people 65 or older who need help with two or more daily activities of living, according to the plan.

The mayor says his benefit program would first cover catastrophic costs, allowing long-term care insurance to cover people who need less care. He also says he would broadly strengthen the private market. Buttigieg’s plan also focuses on boosting the number of direct care workers, supporting unpaid family caregivers, promoting access to care in homes and communities, and extending Social Security. His plan would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour—something he and other candidates have proposed in the past—and establish a National Direct Care Workforce Standards Board to help regulate the industry and set policies for issues such as compensation, training, and recruitment.

Along with the proposals stated above, Buttigieg put forward his plan to establish a “public option” 401(k) program. It would require employers to chip in a 3% match to workers’ accounts after a 1.5% contribution from the worker. It would contain two pre-tax savings accounts: One for retirement specifically and a “Rainy Day Account” that allows some money to be used for any reason and without penalty.

The public option 401(k) would first be available to large corporations and scale down over its life to smaller employers. Employers who offer defined-benefit pensions or retirement benefits similar to the public option 401(k) would be exempt.

Global warming
In September of 2019 South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg unveiled a three-pronged plan on how he would combat climate change if elected president.

Buttigieg's plan tracks with some other 2020 Democratic hopefuls' proposals with its focus on farmers and disadvantaged communities, and by setting a goal for net-zero emissions by 2050. But the plan differs from some by calling for an economy-wide carbon price and by targeting a "thriving" carbon removal industry by 2040.

Buttigieg calls for generating 100 percent of electricity in the U.S. by 2035 without producing carbon emissions, a goal that would leave room for continued use of nuclear energy and the potential for natural gas or coal plants that would capture their emissions. By 2040, the plan calls for net-zero emissions for all new heavy-duty vehicles, buses, rail, ships and aircraft. And it calls for net-zero emissions from all other industries — including steel, manufacturing and agriculture — by 2050.

Buttigieg would renew the United States' commitment to the Obama-era Paris climate agreement and would double the United States' pledge to the Green Climate Fund. Buttigieg also calls for the elimination of tax subsidies for fossil fuel industries and for banning new leases on public lands of fossil production.

A key tenet of the plan also focuses on building a "resilient nation that can stand up to the extreme weather and sea level rise" in part by prioritizing disaster preparedness and by making sure that all federally funded infrastructure projects gauge climate risk.

The Buttigieg campaign puts the climate plan's price tag between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. The proposal outlines federal investments that in turn are expected to trigger trillions more in private, state and local investment.