May 1, 2026
The initiative is essential in defining what Democrats are for.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus released its “New Affordability Agenda” this week, an essential step in defining what Democrats are for. The agenda contains 10 concrete legislative reforms, each providing help for Americans sinking beneath the rising costs of basics: healthcare, energy, housing, childcare, wages. The goal is to forge an agenda that all but the most compromised Democrats could unite behind. Twenty-two national organizations endorsed the agenda on its release.
The CPC’s initiative comes at a critical time. This year’s congressional elections will largely be a referendum on the corruption, chaos, and catastrophes of Trump’s misrule, with Republicans facing a brutal reckoning. “Had enough?” will be the Democrats basic appeal. But the same polls that show growing dismay with Trump should sober Democrats, because voters don’t think much of either party. Voters basically believe, for good reason, that most politicians are bought and sold peddlers of false promises.
That leads much of the Democratic establishment to focus on Trump’s failures, arguing that voters won’t believe anything we promise in any case. The CPC’s effort is to break through that cynicism—of the party establishment and of the voters.
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Its New Affordability Agenda is essentially filling a vacuum left by the leaders of the party. It makes the tough strategic choice to put forth not what CPC chair Greg Casar hails as progressive “flagship reforms”—Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, tuition-free college, etc.—but rather sensible, immensely popular reforms that could center a platform that Democrats could unite behind.
The initiative recalls the Contract with America, the platform that Republican Newt Gingrich put forth for the 1994 elections when Republicans gained 54 seats and won the House majority for the first time in 40 years. That election was centered on voter dismay with the first years of the Clinton administration. Gingrich’s Contract promised voters that if elected, Republicans would introduce and pass within 100 days each item of a 10-point agenda. The agenda included only reforms that registered over 60 percent support in polls. Divisive right-wing passions like ending abortion or prayer in the school were omitted. It combined basic conservative shibboleths—tax cuts, a balanced budget, deregulation, welfare reform, a crackdown on crime and child pornography, plus some popular gimmicks like term limits. Gingrich lined up 300 candidates on the steps of the Capitol for a photo opportunity that suggested that if elected, they might really be able to do what they promised. The content of the contract was in many ways less important than the pledge and the photo.
As was done with the Gingrich Contract, the CPC released polls showing that its proposed reforms all enjoy 60 percent or greater popularity. It is built on 10 legislative proposals ready to be passed. Unlike the Gingrich contract, the CPC Affordability Agenda is focused on providing concrete help to working Americans struggling with wages that aren’t keeping up with the soaring costs of necessities. The reforms are summarized below.
The CPC initiative leads different efforts by progressive organizations to develop a bold, positive agenda for Democrats. The Working Families Party has released its Worker Guarantee, a six-point program that features both progressive flagship reforms—like Medicare for All and a National Union Jobs Program—with reforms that overlap with the CPC initiative. It has been endorsed by 18 members of Congress, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley, CPC chair Greg Casar, Ro Khanna, and Pramila Jayapal. The WFP supports candidates who will run on this guarantee, in the hope of building an ever-stronger progressive surge in the party.
Unions and citizen groups such as the Communications Workers of America and People’s Action have launched deep-listening sessions, extended discussions about what their members and activists want, to produce agendas that are built from the grassroots up.
Under Casar’s expansive vision, these efforts could be complimentary. The CPC’s Affordability Agenda provides the foundation for a Compact with America that could gain endorsement by the vast majority of the 435 Democratic candidates. The more radical Worker’s Guarantee by the WFP and others can unify and support progressives committed to the fundamental “flagship” reforms that the country needs.
Resistance to the calamity that is Trump 2.0 is essential. Yet rolling back the reaction is not enough. Americans are getting fleeced and looking for help. With its Affordability Agenda, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has launched the essential effort of ensuring that, with victory in the fall, help is on the way.
The Affordability Reforms promise to:
• Lower prescription drug costs by having government produce generic medications, providing them to the public at sharp discounts from current prices;
• Lower housing costs by providing direct assistance to first-time homebuyers and investing in affordable public housing;
• Lower energy costs by cracking down on price gouging by monopoly utilities and by taxing windfall profits that oil companies are pocketing from Trump’s Iran debacle, returning the money to consumers;
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• Lower childcare costs with a universal childcare program that caps costs at 7 percent of family income;
• Lower price gouging by banning surveillance pricing that would enable big retailers to charge different prices for the same goods;
• Lower food costs by eliminating corporate patents on seeds, enabling farmers to replant them, resulting in lower costs to consumers;
• Lower family-time costs by providing guaranteed paid vacation time for the 27 million workers currently deprived of it;
• Provide wage and hours assistance by hiking overtime pay to double normal time, providing relief or reward to workers often pressed into overtime work;
• Curb big money in politics, capping contributions to super Pacs to $5,000 a year, limiting the ability of billionaires to subvert democratic elections.
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