Amy Klobuchar's first 100 days as president would include massive rollbacks of Trump's policies

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Amy Klobuchar's first 100 days as president would include massive rollbacks of Trump's policies

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., speaks at the National Organization of Black County Officials annual Economic Development Conference in Detroit, Friday, May 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Associated Press

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

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  • Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota unveiled a comprehensive plan for her first 100 days in the White House if she is able to obtain her party's nomination and unseat President Donald Trump.
  • The plan makes a number of promises in key policy areas like immigration, climate change, the economy.
  • Much of the plan consists of rolling back Trump administration policies and implementing new initiatives.
  • Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota unveiled a plan for her first 100 days in the White House Tuesday that emphasizes massive rollbacks of President Donald Trump's policies as well as the implementation of new initiatives.

The 100-day plan of action addresses a swath of key policy areas, including climate change, immigration, the economy, ethics reforms, and more.

Read more: Amy Klobuchar is running for president in 2020. Here's everything we know about the candidate and how she stacks up against the competition.

The first component of the plan, obtained by INSIDER, pledges to reenter the United States into the Paris Climate Accords, a move many Democratic candidates have vowed to take if they can manage to unseat Trump in 2020.

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Immediate immigration moves include:

  • Beginning negotiations with Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to stop deportations of immigrants benefiting from Barack Obama-era legal status programs like the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Temporary Protected Status, and Deferred Enforcement Departure.
  • The policy of family separations at the border, as well as the national emergency declaration funding border wall construction, would be suspended.
  • The campaign claims their immigration reforms would reduce the federal deficit by as much as $158 billion.

On the economy, Klobuchar aims to make several key reforms:

  • Repeal only some parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that she deems "regressive" and equalize capital gains and regular income tax rates.
  • Force publicly traded companies to disclose political activity to shareholders that is greater than $10,000.
  • US companies moving jobs overseas would also be subject to more scrutiny, as Klobuchar would order the IRS to "crack down on attempts to minimize tax liability through outsourcing."

Klobuchar promises to develop a plan that would halve childhood poverty within a decade and eliminate it entirely "within a generation." She aims to do this by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Care Tax Credit, and boosting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

The ambitious plan also calls for a series of gun control reforms, including:

  • Banning so-called assault weapons, bump stocks, and large capacity magazines.
  • Directing the Centers for Disease Control to study gun violence as a public health crisis.
  • Stopping individuals who have committed acts of domestic abuse from buying or owning firearms, otherwise known as the "boyfriend loophole."

Read more: Here's the lineup for the first 2020 Democratic presidential debates taking place later this month

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On foreign policy, Klobuchar pledges to make key changes to rebuild what the campaign describes as poor relationships with allies and global partners under Trump.

  • Her first trips abroad as president would be to visit Canada and Europe in an effort to "begin restoring trust with our most important allies."
  • Restore US diplomatic missions to their previously much larger funding levels.
  • The plan also promises to create new cybersecurity programs via executive order and a "cabinet-level task force on election cybersecurity."
  • Easing travel restrictions to Cuba and allow credit use "to the maximum extent allowed by current law while respecting human rights and property claims against the Cuban government."

At the end of the 18-page list of proposals, Klobuchar also pledges to continue updating the list of priorities for the first 100 days of her prospective presidency.

"Senator Klobuchar is committed to governing from opportunity and taking administrative actions when it comes to our foreign policy and security, veterans, health care, education, income inequality, worker protections, economic justice, immigration reform, unions, civil rights, climate change, the environment, criminal justice reform and gun violence prevention," the plan reads. "She will be updating these goals with your ideas."

Klobuchar is the first 2020 candidate to roll out this type of detailed agenda for her first 100 days in office. The release of her plan comes as her poll numbers have stagnated between 1% and 2% in Morning Consult's daily surveys since March, the month after launching her campaign.

While Klobuchar generated some buzz around the time of her February launch, her understated and cautious style of campaigning has been drowned out by the 23 other candidates seeking the Democratic nod, many of whom are more willing to take bold, newsworthy stances and frequent cable news shows than Klobuchar.

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Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for example, has seen her poll numbers surge as she's carved out a niche for herself as 2020's "policy wonk," rolling out new progressive policies nearly every week and eschewing big-dollar fundraisers to run an entirely grassroots campaign.

Klobuchar is branding herself as a pragmatic, moderate Midwestern Democrat who is willing to work hard and across the aisle to achieve Democratic priorities - but she'll have to compete with several other Democrats also running in that lane, especially former Vice President Joe Biden.

Read more: Joe Biden's running as a bipartisan moderate, but he keeps flip-flopping on key policy issues to please the Democratic base

Klobuchar's path to the nomination relies on her succeeding in early primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, and other nearby states that went to Trump in 2016, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Biden, a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania who boasts high levels of support among organized labor groups, is so far dominating that lane with 37% support in Morning Consult - and sucking up a lot of air from fellow moderate candidates like Klobuchar, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney.

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But with over seven months before the first votes of the Democratic primary are officially cast in Iowa, Klobuchar still has plenty of time to reinvigorate her campaign and set herself apart from the rest of the field - and the 100-day plan could help by giving voters a lot more concrete information on her priorities and where she stands.

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