What is Klobuchar proposing?

Klobuchar would add tens of thousands of positions to the 75,000-member AmeriCorps program, which pays members basic stipends in exchange for up to a year of work on a variety of community service projects.

Klobuchar would also boost the corps members' living allowances and education bonuses. AmeriCorps money given to members to help pay for their post-secondary education is currently considered as taxable income; Klobuchar says she would make those awards tax-free.

Klobuchar’s campaign says the candidate would ensure new posts are targeted towards young people — high school students, community college students and students with vocational and technical certifications.

Klobuchar has also backed a plan to expand eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which pares back the student debt of workers in certain fields.

What about climate change and volunteer service programs?

Klobuchar wants to create a new “Climate Civilian Conservation Corps” branch of AmeriCorps, with the intent of recruiting 50,000 workers to a program that would maintain infrastructure, work on public lands and help the country reach 100 percent net-zero emissions by 2050.

The senator’s presidential campaign said Klobuchar would build a national program to train part-time volunteers on emergency responses and disaster relief. She would also build out the existing National Volunteer Care Corps program, which aims to assist older adults or people with disabilities.

What do medications have to do with this?

In 2017, Klobuchar and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced a bill that would require the Food and Drug administration to figure out how to reduce waste in drug vial sizes and doses like eye drops.

The problem, according to a 2016 study from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center researchers, is that billions of federal dollars can be wasted when expensive drugs are packaged in quantities larger than the amount needed. Leftover drugs still have to be paid for, the study authors said, meaning drug companies can artificially increase the amount of drug they sell for each patient.

Klobuchar’s office also pointed to a Department of Health and Human Services inspector general report that determined $195 million in government-funded Medicare reimbursements were issued for discarded drugs in 2013-2014.

Klobuchar says new legislation to address the problem will pay for the new volunteer corps programs.