Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken the world of politics by surprise the past couple of weeks, giving her support to the most liberal members of her party on trade, climate change and Wall Street. She has now joined her foremost competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland -- in signing on to the same ambitiously progressive program.
That united front contrasts with the discord in the Republican Party, where internal divisions have been on display this past week as GOP factions in the House dispute who will replace Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) as speaker.
This newly solidified Democratic agenda also contrasts with the situation in the party not all that long ago. After a catastrophic financial crisis and 15 years of declining incomes for typical American households, Democrats seem to have diminishing confidence in the potential of the free market to provide an improving standard of living.
"Bill Clinton said, 'The era of big government is over,' " recalled Ross Eisenbrey, the vice president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, citing the former president's State of the Union address in 1996. "Democrats for a long time have run from the notion that government can be -- often is -- the only solution to certain problems."
Today, the Democratic candidates -- the people who will present the party's ideas on national television in this week's primary debate -- are in agreement on the need for strict regulation of the financial sector and an increase in the federal minimum wage. They're also wary of the invisible hand of international commerce. They oppose a trade agreement in the Pacific negotiated by President Obama along with the construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian tar to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
That Democrats are in agreement on these points can obscure the fact that they haven't yet come to a consensus on several important points, as shown in this chart, and the discussion that follows. Viewers might hear more about these unanswered questions in the first Democratic debate on CNN at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday.
The minimum wage
Clinton, O'Malley and Sanders all agree that the federal minimum wage should be raised. The sticking point is by how much.
O'Malley and Sanders support a national floor on wages of $15 an hour. That's a crucial number for many workers, yet some prominent economists warn that doubling the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and then some, could be counterproductive. If the minimum wage is so high that employers don't make money by bringing more hands on deck, then they'll hire fewer people, and it will be harder for low-wage workers to get a job.
Clinton has not said exactly how much she thinks workers should be paid at a minimum. Earlier this year, Clinton called into a conference of workers agitating for a $15 minimum wage to offer her general support, but she did not commit to that figure. Over the summer,she had approving words for legislation in Congress that would raise the minimum to $12 an hour. Beyond that, she said, "Let's not just do it for the sake of having a higher number out there."
"Let's get behind a proposal that actually has a chance of succeeding," the former secretary of state added.
Social Security
Another unanswered question is what Clinton thinks should be done about Social Security. Sanders and O'Malley have both called for more generous benefits for retirees. They believe that too few workers have enough money to save for retirement, leaving them in a difficult financial position when they retire.
Younger people who hope to retire comfortably one day confront another kind of risk, too. The program's trust fund will be exhausted in about two decades, if current trends hold, and beneficiaries will no longer be paid in full.
To pay for expanded benefits, O'Malley and Sanders have suggested increasing taxes on workers with incomes above $250,000. Sanders has additionally proposed a tax on capital gains in excess of that figure, so his plan would likely do more to improve Social Security's finances over the long term. The program's trustees have forecast that Sanders's proposal would allow beneficiaries to be paid in full for the next five decades or so.
Clinton, though, has not yet said what she thinks she should be done about Social Security's solvency or about the incomes of current and future retirees. Earlier this year, shesaid that the next president should "make sure it is there, and we do not mess with it." Democrats, including President Obama and those close to Clinton, have previously considered a less generous formula for cost-of-living adjustments in Social Security, which would partially close the gap. Liberals in the party have steadfastly opposed those changes.
Yet without changes of some kind, Social Security will only be "there" in a diminished form for people in the middle of their careers today. To improve the program's books, Clinton has indicated she'd consider a tax along the lines of those proposed by O'Malley and Sanders. She has also indicated she wants to expand benefits for the poor retirees, although she has yet to commit herself firmly to either change.
The big banks
These three candidates also agree on the need for stricter regulation on Wall Street. Clinton's campaign released a detailed proposal on financial reform last week, calling for corporate leaders whose companies violate the law to face harsh penalties. They could be barred from working in any finance position and, in some cases, serve terms in prison under Clinton's plan. The document also calls for limits on computerized trading on the stock exchanges that critics say shortchanges investors and destabilizes markets.
In one respect, though, Clinton's proposal did not go as far as O'Malley and Sanders on the question of bank regulation. She did not advocate for the restoration of a law dating to the Great Depression that prohibited firms from combining risky investment banking (the business that makes the big bucks on Wall Street) with ordinary retail banking (the business you do when you stop by the bank down the street).
Clinton's husband repealed that law, known as the Glass-Steagall Act, during his presidency. It's one decision he made that his wife does not intend to reverse. Clinton's liberal critics say the end of Glass-Steagall was partly to blame for the recent financial crisis, a position that many Democratic economists reject. O'Malley and Sanders would ask Congress to reenact it, forcing major financial institutions to sell off desks doing business in the wrong category.
Yet even without Glass-Steagall, some banks could be forced to downsize or reorganize under her proposal. If regulators thought a financial institution posed a risk to the economy, Clinton would give them the explicit authority to force the bank to make changes or break apart. She'd also impose a tax on debt owed by the largest banks to discourage them from taking on too much risk, with short-term, high-risk liabilities taxed at a higher rate. And the proposal indicated that Clinton could support requirements that large banks keep extra funds on their balance sheets as a kind of airbag in case of a crash.
Together, these provisions could encourage the largest banks to make changes, according to experts on the financial system.
The guns
Clinton and O'Malley both argue for stricter gun control. Clinton would require not just customers at licensed gun dealerships to submit to a background check, according to a plan published by her campaign, but also some sellers doing business online or at gun shows. She would bypass Congress if necessary, using her executive authority as president if elected. She would also seek to give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives more manpower and equipment to identify dealers who are abusing their federal licenses and supplying guns to the black market. And she'd make it a federal crime to buy a gun for someone who couldn't pass a background check on his own. Experts on gun violence say that many people get a hold of a firearm who wouldn't be able to pass a background check by asking their romantic partners or someone in their family to make what is known as a "straw purchase."
O'Malley's proposal goes even further. He would require authorities to fingerprint anyone who wants to buy a gun, and he would make it illegal for any American under 21 to possess a handgun. He would set new federal standards for gun locks to prevent accidents at home, and he would establish a national registry of gun sales to make it easier for police to trace a weapon recovered at the scene of a crime to its owner.
Both Clinton and O'Malley would repeal a law passed in 2005 giving firearms manufacturers immunity from the kind of lawsuits that consumers can bring against most companies when a product is unsafe. Legal experts disagree about what the law really means -- in any case, gunmakers can't be held liable for crimes committed with their weapons. It is one point of contrast between those two candidates and Sanders, who voted for the law and has stood against gun control at several important points in his career.
In 1993, soon after his election to the House of Representatives, Sanders voted against the Brady bill, which first established the background-check system. More recently, he voted to expand background checks after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and he has consistently supported a ban on assault weapons.
"If you passed the strongest gun-control legislation tomorrow, I don't think it will have a profound effect," Sanders has said.
While gun-control measures could save some lives, gun violence is such a widespread problem in American life that background checks and laws on straw purchasing might have a relatively small effect. A more promising approach could be a mandatory buy-back program, but none of the candidates are discussing legislation of that scope.