Let's Work Together

The American Healthcare system is fundamentally broken. Compared to all other developed countries, we spend twice per person and get worse outcomes.  Some 20-40% of every dollar spent on private health insurance premiums goes to executive salaries, overhead, advertising and corporate profits.

This is not just inefficient, it’s unsustainable.  We need to think big… and act big.   

Over 90% of Medicare enrollees are happy with it.  Medicare is universal (if you’re 65 or older), and inexpensive (2026 premiums are about $220 per month).  It’s far more efficient than private insurance, with roughly one-fifth the administrative cost and none of the corporate profits or multi-million-dollar CEO salaries.  And through innovations like Medicare Advantage, many plans partner with existing healthcare providers.

What’s not to like?

Medicare for every American.  Period.

Millions of working families face the difficulty of finding quality daycare, and the near impossibility of finding quality daycare that’s also affordable.

This crushing burden is leaving our children vulnerable at the very time in their lives when they most need quality care to support their development and enable them to become their best selves.

The “private market” isn’t getting the job done.  We need government programs that ensure a sufficient number of daycare providers to meet the demand, assure that they are compensated fairly for the important work they do, and guarantee that quality daycare is affordable for every working family.

We must pass the Social Security Expansion Act.  This vital legislation increases benefits for most recipients, ensures the cost-of-living adjustment better reflects how seniors actually spend, and improves other aspects of this fundamental American social safety net program.  Most important, it keeps Social Security solvent through this century.  It is paid within the bill, by subjecting all income to social security taxes for those earning more than $250,000 per year. 

Trump’s illegal, reckless war against Iran has proven once again how foolish it is to be shackled to old, polluting, extremely volatile fossil fuels as our primary energy source.

Solar- and wind-generated electricity is cheaper than using fossil fuels, and the cost continues to fall.  Battery and other storage technologies make renewables reliable long-term solutions.  And not only will solar and wind lower consumers’ costs, they are far less polluting and don’t require the continual input of fuel.  Solar is ideal for de-centralized rooftop installations that  can reduce or eliminate homeowners’ electricity bills. Electric vehicles are cheaper over the course of their lifetime than gas and diesel-powered vehicles.  And the cost continues to fall as manufacturers scale up production and new battery technologies come online.

Despite all this, the corrupt Trump administration is doing everything it can to slow our transition to a cheaper, more reliable renewable energy system.  Instead, Trump openly extorted fossil fuel billionaires during his campaign, promising policies that would increase their profits by tens of billions of dollars in exchange for a billion in campaign contributions.  And unlike his many broken promises to working Americans, Trump has delivered on his pledge to his billionaire buddies.

When it comes to energy security, we must be bold and forward-thinking.  We must redouble policies to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy.  We need to reinstitute subsidies for renewables to assist working families in lowering their costs and adopting pollution-free alternatives.  We must support research to lower the cost of renewable energy generation even more. 

We can and must build an energy-abundant future for our kids and grandkids.

We often talk about the homelessness crisis and the severe shortage of affordable housing as if they are separate challenges.  In fact, both have the same root cause: a lack of housing supply.

We simply aren’t building enough new homes.

The reasons for this are complex.  The solutions must be multi-pronged, bold and forward-thinking.  We need to reconsider well-intentioned but outdated laws and policies that have contributed to the problem, including the way we conduct environmental reviews.  We need to ensure that builders have a sufficient supply of capable workers to ramp up production.  We need policies that encourage and facilitate the construction of affordable housing units, including innovative approaches, such as using recycled shipping containers.  We must also support the development of technologies that can make housing construction faster and less-expensive.

There is nothing more basic to supporting strong families than ensuring that no child goes without the basic necessities of life. 

The 2021 expansion of the child tax credit cut the child poverty rate by nearly half.  It was as simple as that.

We need a 2027 expansion that aims to eliminate child poverty in America, the richest country in the history of the planet.

Donald Trump is the most criminal, corrupt, incompetent, racist and dishonest President we’ve ever had.  And as someone who well remembers Watergate, I never thought I’d see a President who makes Richard Nixon look like a patriot.

Trump’s lawlessness and his contempt for the Constitution, and that of his entire administration, threaten the very fabric of our republic.  He and his enablers must be held to account for their actions.  On day one of the next Congress, I will demand robust investigations into the corruption and criminality of every member of the Trump administration who has violated the trust the American people placed in them.  It will be a long list, but I’m not asking to be sent to Congress looking for an easy job.

The brutality and lawlessness of ICE has been on display for all to see.   Sadly, this is merely another manifestation of how Trump and his acolytes have contempt for our laws and Constitution.  ICE must be abolished and replaced with an agency that adheres to appropriate law enforcement practices and guardrails, and whose officers are held accountable for their actions.

I will NEVER vote to fund ICE.

At the same time, we need ground-up reform of our broken immigration system.  Democrats must acknowledge that the approach of the first three years of the Biden administration led to chaos and many Americans’ loss of confidence in the administration’s actions.

Humane immigration reform must include secure, orderly borders; clear, sustainable policies that regulate the number of immigrants and asylum seekers we accept each year; a sufficient number of seasonal and temporary workers to keep our economy growing; a path to legal status for law-abiding undocumented immigrants; and adequate resources to eliminate the backlog of immigration cases.

Trump’s illegal, reckless war against Iran has proven once again how foolish it is to be shackled to old, polluting, extremely volatile fossil fuels as our primary energy source.

Solar- and wind-generated electricity is cheaper than using fossil fuels, and the cost continues to fall.  Battery and other storage technologies make renewables reliable long-term solutions.  And not only will solar and wind lower consumers’ costs, they are far less polluting and don’t require the continual input of fuel.  Solar is ideal for de-centralized rooftop installations that  can reduce or eliminate homeowners’ electricity bills. Electric vehicles are cheaper over the course of their lifetime than gas and diesel-powered vehicles.  And the cost continues to fall as manufacturers scale up production and new battery technologies come online.

Despite all this, the corrupt Trump administration is doing everything it can to slow our transition to a cheaper, more reliable renewable energy system.  Instead, Trump openly extorted fossil fuel billionaires during his campaign, promising policies that would increase their profits by tens of billions of dollars in exchange for a billion in campaign contributions.  And unlike his many broken promises to working Americans, Trump has delivered on his pledge to his billionaire buddies.

When it comes to energy security, we must be bold and forward-thinking.  We must redouble policies to accelerate the transition to a renewable energy economy.  We need to reinstitute subsidies for renewables to assist working families in lowering their costs and adopting pollution-free alternatives.  We must support research to lower the cost of renewable energy generation even more. 

We can and must build an energy-abundant future for our kids and grandkids.