Americans deserve healthcare that treats them as patients, not customers. A for-profit healthcare system cannot be a for-people healthcare system. 

While in Italy, my Uncle dislocated his arm. Italy’s healthcare program paid for the operation to reset his arm, his painkillers, and the taxi that brought him to the hospital.  My Uncle was not an Italian citizen, he did not pay Italian taxes, and he still did not have to pay for his treatment. Meanwhile, 42% of American cancer patients spend their life savings within two years.  

      It doesn’t have to be this way.

      America’s expensive and inhumane healthcare is a choice.

      We can provide efficient, high-quality healthcare for all Americans by learning from other countries.  Other nations, such as Italy, Canada, and Japan have a national payment system that covers all citizens, otherwise known as a “single-payer” system.  These programs are cheaper to operate than America’s current for-profit healthcare model and expand coverage to all citizens.

Single-payer systems keep costs down by:

• Maximizing the government’s ability to negotiate the price of drugs, equipment, and services

• Ending the flow of tax-payer dollars to private insurers

• Lowering administrative costs for healthcare providers

• Countering corporate consolidation within the healthcare industry

• Disarming the unhealthy incentives between for-profit insurers, drug/equipment producers, and healthcare providers to charge patients and each other as much as possible

      The purpose of healthcare should not be to extract wealth from our sick, injured, or elderly.  It should be to heal. The only healthcare policies I will support as your representative will recognize the fundamental value of every life.  Healthcare will be a right - not a benefit, not a privilege, and not a future bankruptcy.

Without competition, large corporations maximize leverage over the prices we pay, the quality of products available, and the types of services provided.

From 2007 to 2016, the price of EpiPens, a life-saving medical device, increased from around $100 to $600 per pair. The producer of EpiPen had gained almost complete control of the epinephrin-injector market. The cost of EpiPen production was only around $10 or less per device. EpiPen prices did not fall until public outcry yielded price-controls and lawsuits against EpiPen’s parent company.

For decades, American businesses have consolidated across most industries.

      There are many examples:

• 99% of cell phone service is provided by the same three companies. 

• Four companies control 65% of retail grocery stores. 

• Four airline carriers control 80% of the airline industry.

• 85% of beef distribution is controlled by four companies.

• Most Americans only have one or two options for high-speed internet.

• Most states have one or two dominant health insurance providers.

• Three investment groups collectively own the majority share of 40% of all publicly traded U.S. firms.

      This level of consolidation is raising prices, hurting independent businesses, and corrupting our government. Without our intervention, corporations will continue to gain unacceptable levels of leverage over customers, employees, communities, and ultimately the government.

Combating consolidation will require breaking apart excessively large corporations, aiding the growth of new competitors, enforcing anti-trust laws, and negotiating the prices of our most critical services, such as healthcare and education.  We can and must provide funding for new industries, infrastructure, and scientific research & development to make America the best place to build and innovate.

      As your representative, I will operate on a simple philosophy: People matter more than profits. My policies will restrain monopolization to empower workers, customers, and small businesses. The less a corporation is subject to competition, the more it must respect the needs of the American people.

As your representative, I will prioritize housing working class Americans over helping Wall Street make more money or millionaires make more mansions.

The median home price in America is around $400,000.  It has increased by about $100,000 since the beginning of COVID, 5 years ago.  There are now more people over the age of 70 buying houses than people under the age of 35. Childhood homelessness has more than doubled in twenty years, and the number of homeless Americans is the highest it’s been since 2007. Many Americans are now living with their parents into their 30s, living out of their cars, or spending tens of thousands of dollars in annual rent.

      The unaffordability of housing is injuring our ability to start a family, retire with dignity, and connect to a community.

      The inflation in housing has three primary causes: investor-led home ownership, wealth inequality, and our government’s insistence on maintaining high asset prices. Most Americans do not have the ability to outbid either corporate America or wealthy home buyers. The wealthiest Americans, and the firms they invest in, can pay much more for a house than your average American. This gap in buying power gets worse as wealth inequality increases and as our nation’s policies prioritize asset holders over aspiring asset buyers.

     Because land is an asset nearly everyone wants, land use needs to be protected in a way that helps all Americans get their first residential property.  Working families want homes to live in. Wealthy families own homes for supplemental income or vacation getaways. Corporate landlords buy housing as an investment to sell at a later date or rent permanently. We can’t expect future generations of Americans to compete with America’s largest investment groups.

      As your representative, I will pursue policies that prioritize renters and first-time home buyers.  I will support a federal, progressive land tax, designed to discourage ownership of large amounts of residential land. (Tax exemptions would be given for primary residences, farms, and commercial businesses.) Additionally, I will support lowering trade and production barriers for resources used in construction and support efforts to rebuild our communities with federal funding for housing and infrastructure.

As your representative, I will modernize American education by …

• Guaranteeing post-secondary academic and job-training programs for all students

• Guaranteeing Universal Pre-K

• Forgiving outstanding student loans

• Expanding federal funding for institutions that increase their student enrollment and decrease student expenses

Free and low-cost college and vocational programs exist in other developed nations and were once widely present in America.

Decades ago, most Americans could cover their college tuition with a summer job.  Now the median cost of tuition is more than $10,000 a year for four-year universities. Two-year community college tuition averages around $5,000 a year.

      America is supposed to be a nation where anyone can succeed with hard work and perseverance. We are not supposed to be constrained by how much money our parents have or where we are born.  Economic mobility is not supposed to be reserved for a small fraction of our society.  Yet, educational opportunities Americans used to have are increasingly out of reach.

      Meanwhile, other countries still provide free college and job-training programs to all citizens.

      In countries such as Germany, Denmark, and Finland, advanced education like public college and vocational programs are free or have insignificant fees.  These countries spend no more than America per student, yet avoid saddling millions of their children with decades of debt.

      Other nations keep the cost of education down by directly funding educational institutions and regulating their expenses.  This is superior to the American method of throwing tens of thousands of dollars in loans at 18-year-olds every year to match rising tuition prices. America’s student loan system has enabled colleges to repeatedly raise tuition to fund higher executive salaries, luxury amenities, expensive sports programs, and bloated administrative staff.

      As your representative, I will support replacing America’s student-loan model with direct funding for educational, vocational, and trade programs that are willing to negotiate the price of fees, tuition, and other student expenses. This will reduce educational costs while increasing educational opportunities for all students.

As your representative, I will oppose Donald Trump’s current tariff strategy.

Tariffs should be reserved for specific industries tied to national security, such as next-generation technologies. While inherently inflationary, tariffs can prepare America for dangerous events that disrupt global trade - such as warfare or contagious outbreaks.  When global trade sputters, as it did during COVID, we need to have American-made options to maintain our infrastructure, military, and healthcare. Tariffs achieve this by increasing the price of foreign products to encourage production in America.

      However, the current tariffs under the Trump Administration are counter-productive and illegal. Trump’s tariffs are being used to punish, bribe, or extort other nations and American companies. Tariffs should not be placed on products that cannot readily be produced in the United States, like coffee or tea.  There should never be tariff carve-outs for companies that ally with, donate to, or support the President’s administration.  Additionally, the power to impose tariffs is constitutionally given to Congress, not to the President.

Tariffs have to be used sparingly and only for the national interest.

‍ The three richest Americans have a net worth greater than the bottom 50% of Americans combined.  Jeff Bezos owns a yacht that costs $500 million dollars. It costs less to build a hospital or orphanage.

For decades, the American government has pursued policies favorable to our richest citizens.  Wealth inequality has skyrocketed since the 80s due to bailouts, subsidies, contracts, tax deductions, and tax cuts that prioritize the most affluent Americans.  There are financial maneuvers available to the wealthiest corporations and individuals that aren’t available to the majority of working families. While the value of assets, like stocks or land keep going up, the value of American labor keeps going down. Yet, we’ve designed a tax policy that more efficiently taxes labor than other forms of wealth.

     A fair, democratic, and successful America demands we adjust our taxes and expenditures to rebuild America from the bottom up. We live in a competitive society. People compete against each other for ownership of property, educational opportunities, legal representation, and access to our government. If a nation does not sufficiently tax its wealthiest citizens, they will eventually own most of the resources normal people need to attain wealth. We are living through this moment.

      As your representative, I will pursue tax policies that tax people who don’t need more money, cut taxes on people that do need more money, and reinvest in our communities, public services, and national infrastructure.

      I will encourage tax deductions and incentives for primary residential property, new and small businesses, and industries easily transferred overseas.

      I will prioritize increasing the top marginal tax rate on income over $250,000, introducing progressive tax rates for multi-million dollar estates, ending the “carried interest” loophole, and creating a “mark-to-market” plan for unrealized capital gains.

The will of the American people should never be eclipsed by the money of America’s most wealthy donors.

However, because of disastrous rulings like Citizens United v FEC, politicians are increasingly influenced by well-funded lobbyists and political action committees. Conventional wisdom amongst politicians is that you have to be a good fundraiser to be a good candidate. This is deeply perverse. The strength of a candidate should be their ability to represent the values and voices of their voters.

As your representative, I will pursue policies that limit the corrupting presence of money in politics. I will embrace reforms such as challenging Citizens United, banning stock trading for public officials, imposing contribution limits on Super PACs, creating a Matching Funds program for federal candidates, and taxing large donations to create public funds for grassroots campaigns.

The purpose of democracy is to represent the will of a nation’s people.  This is best achieved when voters have a large variety of viable candidate choices.  The more candidate choices - the more likely you feel represented in an election. Sadly, America has become constrained by a system that produces two large political parties, with very limited opportunities for political reform or new perspectives.

This two-party system is failing America.  It has allowed each party to hide its worst elements behind opposing the other’s. It discourages bipartisan collaboration, as each side tries to undermine the other for political clout.  It has bred a culture of extreme political tribalism, where members of each party not only disagree with each other, but often hate each other.

This combative, uncompromising level of partisanship is ending democracy with a new wave of political gerrymandering. Our elections are being rigged by politicians choosing which voters will be in their districts. We can end this assault on democracy by doing what other nations do, create an electoral system that encourages multiple parties, enables independent candidates, and elects House members based on the portion of votes they receive across their state.

As your representative, I will support two mechanics to protect democracy in America; Ranked Choice Voting and Proportional Representation within Multi-Member Congressional Districts.

Ranked Choice Voting (also known as Instant Runoff Voting) encourages people to vote for the candidates they like most, instead of trying to decide between which candidate they want to win and which candidates they think can win. It increases the likelihood that independent, non-establishment, or financially-underfunded candidates can win an election. 

It works by recreating a runoff election, but saves money and time by allowing voters to vote on just one day.  In a RCV election, candidates must win over 50% of the popular vote to be elected to office. However, voters submit a tiered list of candidates they want to see win. If no candidate reaches 50% of the vote in the first round of voting, the least popular candidate is dropped, and the voters that ranked them first will then have their second choices tallied. The cycle continues until one candidate is left with 50% of the vote. This system works best for electing single offices, such as Senators and the President.

An electoral system utilizing Proportional Representation of Multi-Member Districts will end gerrymandering and increase the share of new political parties in Congress. ‍

In South Carolina, only one of our seven Congressional districts is represented by a Democrat, despite 35% or more of voters choosing Democrats every election cycle. Using a PR-MMD election system like Ireland’s, our Congressional candidates would be elected based on their ability to achieve 1/7th of the vote across the entire state. PR-MMD disrupts the ability of the dominant political party in each state to carve up voters into districts that favor their chosen candidates. If implemented nation wide, the makeup of the House of Representatives would mirror popular consensus across the country.  Even smaller parties like the Libertarian, Green, or Working Families parties would likely have national-level representation.

Voters should choose their representatives. Representatives should not choose their voters.

The many differences within humanity do not lessen the compassion, protection, and dignity we all equally deserve. To accept injustice towards any member of our human family only invites it to befall someone else. 

Our government must recognize the inherent value within each and every person - no matter where we are from, what we look like, who we love, how we pray, and why we vote.

As your representative, I will proudly defend the rights of all people, American or otherwise. 

Reproductive rights, access to IVF, protections for transgender Americans, and marriage equality should be codified into federal law. 

America should not send aid to foreign governments that fail to recognize the shared rights of humankind.  The violent conflicts our world suffers will not be aided by my participance in Congress, be it in Palestine, Yemen, Sudan, or elsewhere. 

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” - MLK Jr.

As your representative, I will support…

• Citizenship for immigrants brought to the US as children. No child brought into our country has committed a crime. If you grow up here, this is your home. You belong here.

• Creating legal, accountable work-pathways for long-term residents with clean records. Legal pathways will allow immigrants to work openly, contribute to our tax base, and help grow our economy without the pain of breaking up families.

• Reforming the H-1B Visa program on behalf of both Americans and visa-holders. The existing system undermines the professional opportunities for American workers by allowing the exploitation of foreign professionals.

• Securing our border with additional funding for any necessary personnel or equipment.  We should know the identity of every person who enters our nation.

• Modernizing legal immigration with additional staff and support.  A functional system saves more money than managing a broken one. We can save resources and time by expediting a backlog of immigration requests. Opportunities for legal immigration reduce illegal crossings, the need for deportations, and deprive cross-border cartels of clientele.

• Ensuring humane treatment of asylum-seekers and non-citizens.

• Defending our freedoms and rule of law.

No administration should have unchecked power to detain people without due process. The Trump Administration has repeatedly endangered all of our people - regardless of citizenship status, legal residency, asylum processes, or documentation.  People have died in migrant detention. The vast expanse of ICE funding and personnel has effectively created a standing military presence within America, subject to the will of the president, not the people. ICE agents have injured, abused, and unlawfully detained every classification of American. Citizens, legal residents, and visa-holders have been detained for their political views, country of origin, or simply having the wrong skin color.  People have been detained for months without fair legal representation. People have been sent to foreign prisons without trial.

The needs of American immigration reform do not demand this level of cruelty or abuse. As your representative, I will protect the liberty, security, and dignity of all people within our borders.