By MIKE McCOMBS
Add two more names to the list of Democratic candidates for president who will have made the trip to Beaufort County.
Andrew Yang and Pete Buttigieg will visit this week.
Yang will speak Thursday at the North of the Broad Democratic Club meeting at the Grand Army of the Republic Hall at 706 Newcastle Street.
The gathering and greeting begins at 6:30 p.m., followed by the meeting at 7 p.m., but Yang probably won’t speak until roughly 7:45 p.m.
Buttigieg will hold a rally from 10 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Saturday. The rally is tentatively slated to be held at Whale Branch Middle School. Plans for the location have not been finalized. Follow YourIslandNews.com for potential updates.
Yang is known for his signature policy, called the “Freedom Dividend.” The Freedom Dividend is a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI), where all Americans 18 and older would receive $1,000 a month.
According to Yang, this will soften the blow of an increasingly difficult U.S. labor landscape as a result of current and future job elimination due to automation.
Yang’s two other major platform issues are Medicare for all and human-centered capitalism.
The founder of Venture for America (VFA), a non-profit that focuses on creating jobs in struggling American cities, Yang is pro-choice, opposes discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identification and wants the United States to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords.
Speaking before Yang will be the scheduled special speaker, Gloria Holmes, PhD, a professor at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. She teaches on “Cultural Diversity in Education,” preparing students to demonstrate an understanding of the depth and breadth of cultural diversity within the United States.
Buttigieg, the current mayor of South Bend, Ind., is a Rhodes Scholar and one of three combat veterans trying to earn the Democratic nomination. He was in U.S. Naval Intelligence and served in Afghanistan.
Among his platform planks are support for reducing income inequality, support for organized labor, universal background checks for firearm purchases, pro-environmental policies and support for the Equality Act.
Buttigieg wants to preserve DACA – the “dreamers” program for children of undocumented immigrants – end gerrymandering, overturn Citizens United and do away with the electoral college.
Yang and Buttigieg join a growing list of 2020 candidates who have visited Beaufort County since the spring. Previous candidates to swing through the Lowcountry include Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, John Hickenlooper and Marianne Williamson.
Above: Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang
