Signature policies
Economy
- All-In Economy: fund research into new industries, increase work benefits, and improve job training
- Raise minimum wage to $15
- Comprehensive financial reform policy
- Strengthen banking regulations and enforce prosecutions of financial crimes more strictly
Gun Control
- Require point-of-sale background checks
- Policies that create paper trail of gun owners
- Close "boyfriend loophole" and and pass federal red flag laws
- Spend $100 million annually on supporting local gun violence programs
- Ban assault weapons
- Repeal immunity laws protecting gun manufacturers and dealers
- Declare gun violence a public emergency and allocate more funding
DOMESTIC POLICIES
Climate
- Make wildfire resilience a top priority of the U.S. Forest Service by providing additional funding and investing in new technology to detect and mitigate the impact of fires
- Transition to clean energy: 80% clean energy nationwide by 2028
- Invest in communities that have been impacted by coal pollution or the transition to clean energy
- Create realistic, but quick transition to 100% clean energy
Health Care
- Create a Medicare-like public option to compete with private companies
- Expand enrollment for the Affordable Care Act
- Cap health care prices and ban surprise medical bills
Criminal Justice
- Address financial injustice in the legal system: fund $2.5 billion over 10 years for public defense
- Reduce incarceration by 50% by 2030 and promote the use of alternatives to prison pioneered in New York City
- Increase funding for local organizations that address the injustices in the legal system for minorities
Education
- Cutting the cap on student-loan payments by 50% and forgiving loans tax-free after 20 years
- Direct investments to improve college attendance rates among minorities and lower-income students
Policies abroad
Immigration
- Co-funds advocacy group called Partnership for a New American Economy (pushes lawmakers to protect "dreamers," undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children)
- Wants to rescind Trump’s travel ban
- Shift the funds from Trump’s wall to smarter, less extreme security measures
Foreign Policy
- Supported the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
- Willing to consider military force for a humanitarian intervention, to pre-empt an Iranian/North Korean missile test, and to protect oil supplies
- Supports the U.S.'s level of aid with Israel
- Against the B.D.S. movement, which according to him, undermines one of the U.S.’s most important allies and the only democracy in the Middle East
Controversies
- Bloomberg has faced criticism that he cannot carry out his policies, because they run directly against his interests as a billionaire
- As mayor, Bloomberg implemented the stop-and-frisk policy, which disproportionately affected people of color. He defended the policy for years before apologizing last year
- Pattern of crude and insensitive comments towards women, the LGBTQ+ community, and minorities
Sources: Mike Bloomberg 2020, Axios,
Photo Credits: Mike Bloomberg/Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0; Mayor Bloomberg, Lionel Barber and John Ridding (8741690060)/Grace Villamil/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0;