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Chris and I share many of the same values and policy goals – including the desire for a ceasefire, Medicare for all, free college tuition, affordable housing, and more. While I am grateful to everyone who has supported me in my campaign, I feel that it is time to unite behind another great candidate – Chris Ahuja. If we want to make a difference in November by defeating the 27-year-incumbent, we cannot afford to split our base of compassionate, forward-thinking voters. I have decided it is time to step aside because Chris is the real deal. He has run an excellent campaign with a team of volunteers and has spent many days knocking on doors and meeting neighbors. He is a genuine person who cares about the community and is actively involved with residents of his neighborhood - serving on the Tarzana Neighborhood Council and Feel The Bern SFV. When I reached out to him to offer to endorse him, he suggested we meet for coffee and I happily agreed. I expected to talk for 30 minutes to an hour. We sat and talked for almost two hours. He genuinely cares about people and has undertaken this challenging endeavor, while raising two kids, maintaining a loving marriage, and operating a small business. And he has a good shot to beat the current officeholder. If we want to improve the economy, to take care of the environment, to educate our youth, and to build a more equitable society, we need to unite behind Chris Ahuja for Congress and other compassionate, community leaders in other races. That is why I am proud to endorse Chris Ahuja for Congress in the 32nd District. We are stronger together. Let's get it done!
I am a blue-collar worker, committed to listening to, serving, and leading my community. Currently, I am a ride-share driver full-time and I volunteer regularly with a valley non-profit dedicated to building sustainable communities through regenerative agriculture. I have a B.A. in International Security and Conflict Resolution and minored in Arabic and Islamic Studies. While I lean left politically, I have always prided myself on my ability to perspectives opposite from my own politically. I believe that it is essential to listen to those we disagree with if we are to learn, find common ground, and come up with solutions to local and global challenges. In the course of my studies, I learned how to build consensus, how to approach political conflict holistically, and how to mediate disputes. Service has always been a major motivation for me. I am a chronic volunteer -- whether that means helping friends or strangers. I have volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, J Street, the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, and Shift Our Ways Collective. After receiving my B.A., I worked with kids with developmental disabilities for one year. Then, I worked in video production with my father before shifting gears towards the hospitality industry. For roughly 10 years, I worked in cafes and restaurants. On my journey to becoming a manager, I learned how to lead by example, how to listen to my team, and how to delegate. I plan to bring a fiercely progressive, yet cooperative approach to Washington politics. I am not your average Democrat.
Prior to seeing Chris Ahuja on the ballot, I saw no candidate who mourned for all who had lost their lives in Israel/Palestine. I saw no candidate who wanted to de-escalate the violence in Israel/Palestine. And I saw a 27-year-incumbent who was only showing compassion for one side -- an incumbent who seemed indifferent to the mounting death tolls. I feel a profound sorrow for each life lost. If you have friends or relatives over there, this ongoing catastrophe does not seem far away. It is with you every day. And when you forget about it, for however briefly, you feel guilty for forgetting. Over the course of my life, I have become friends with people on both sides. I have friends with relatives in Gaza and the West Bank and friends with relatives Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I am the type of person who tries to have compassion for everyone, but when you become part of my circle of friends, I go the extra mile for you. This open wound and endless killing hurts me personally - but not so deeply as it actually hurts my friends and their families, as their loved ones killed and injured. It disgusts me that the 27-year-incumbent only meets with community members on one side of this issue and does not see the need to de-escalate in order to save lives. We can hold emotional space for all of those suffering. And it is our duty as human beings to help minimize suffering anywhere we see it. The IDF pushing Hamas back out of Israel's borders was necessary and just -- in order to try to minimize the suffering of Israeli citizens. The goal of freeing the hostages is just. At the same time, when we deem everyone on the other side "animals" or "not human" and we wage war as if any amount of killing is justifiable to stop the "evil people," we become capable of genocide. We cannot create a sustainable peace with the mentality of justifying mass murder and with tools built to sustain war. If you support mass killing in order to get the "monsters," maybe you become a monster yourself. I do not fault Palestinians or Israelis for their feelings of anger, sadness, fear, grief, or even rage. If someone attacked my family, I would likely feel similarly. But acting violently based on those feelings or thoughts is how violence mestastasizes. They attack, we attack, they attack again. They say we started it, while we say they did. Loving parents are supposed to stop their children from fighting and to teach them to use nonviolent means of resolving their conflicts. No matter who started it, parents are not supposed let one of their kids kill the other one. War is a childish game where we "pay back" the pain we feel with brutality towards the group of people who made us feel that way. Some people think that the winner is the "toughest" side -- the one that can cause the most pain and fear. But when we can see the humanity in each person, when we are in touch with the sanctity of life, when we can acknowledge their feelings and our own, we realize that no one wins in war. We can recognize that our enemies ARE human, despite committing inhumane acts. This does not mean that people should roll over and accept being killed, injured, or otherwise traumatized. But we can learn to handle our grief, our anger, and our sadness without becoming violent. We can learn to recognize the traumas we have contributed to and those traumas which have left us with scars. We can acknowledge our hurtful words and deeds. And we can learn to reconcile. In the 21st century, the tools of war will only become more powerful, unless we choose to collectively heal from our traumas, to shift gears towards sustainability, and to invest our time, energy, money, and thoughts into creative ways to build a more peaceful world. I decided to run in order to help implement those shifts in our priorities as a nation, while representing the interests of the local community in DC.
Human Rights and International Law
Protecting civilians during war is paramount -- as are the prevention of war in the first place and its de-escalation once it begins. While military might is useful in securing America from invasion and protecting allies against attacks from state and non-state actors, minimizing civilian casualties in war is morally imperative and strategically useful. By definition, civilians are noncombatants and are never legitimate military targets. And strategically, every civilian casualty weakens support for US and allied military operations and serves as a recruitment tool for adversaries. As a corollary, the inconsistent application of international law by the United States weakens the protections afforded to Americans abroad and the protections afforded to civilians everywhere by strengthening international moral and material support for our adversaries.
The US has legal mechanisms for protecting civilians in war and in peace from despotic regimes -- including respecting and enforcing the Geneva Conventions, the Alien Tort Statute, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the issuance of international arrest warrants, and application of the Leahy Law and the Magnitsky Act, among other pieces of US legislation. While the Geneva Conventions apply to the treatment of noncombatants in war time, the ICCPR applies whether or not there is a war going on and guarantees a myriad of rights and is similar to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Leahy Law is supposed to prevent the US from arming countries involved in human rights abuses. In practice, the US ignores these requirements for many despotic allied regimes. Additionally, the Magnitsky Act was enacted to put sanctions on individuals involved in human rights abuses, to seize their assets, and to ban them from entering the US. Originally targeting Russian oligarchs, this law has also been ignored on various occasions. Specifically, Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu and Egypt under Abdel Fatah El-Sisi have imprisoned various individuals without charge or trial. Additionally, some of these individuals face conditions amounting to torture and occasionally die in custody. According to Physicians for Human Rights - Israel and Al Jazeera, Omar Daraghmeh and Arafat Hamdan died in custody this October in Israel. Daraghmeh had no known medical issues, while Hamdan was diabetic and was allegedly refused his medication. The Committee For Justice, based in Switzerland, documented three deaths in Egyptian custody in the first two months of 2023. This inconsistent application of human rights laws has adverse impacts for Americans illegally detained abroad, such as Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and the recently released Eyvin Hernandez. If international law is to be a credible deterrent for dictators, war criminals, and nefarious individuals, then it must be applied equally to nations and organizations which are friends and foes. Dictators like Vladimir Putin and Mohammed Bin Salman are made stronger by Joe Biden's refusal to get tough with allies who abuse civilians. The hypocrisy on the part of the US in enforcing international law makes it more domestically palatable for world leaders to ignore our pleas for justice and to shirk their responsibilities to sanction and arrest human rights abusers. It also makes US foreign policymaking more difficult by weakening US government credibility at home.
The United States - led by Congress - must uphold international humanitarian law if it is to protect Americans abroad and if it is to be a beacon of hope, justice, and freedom in the world.
Israel/Palestine
I am an American Jew with Israeli friends and Palestinian friends and this issue is deeply personal for me. I do not want to see any more deaths on either side.
As my father grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, antisemitism in America was still rampant. Only a decade before he was born, America had rejected Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. America rejected them after the Holocaust too -- until it finally accepted a small portion of them in 1948. In the 1960s, there were still places with signs which read, "No blacks, no Jews." Jews were not considered "white" or "Europeans" by many people. While some Jews could pass as "white," my dad had slightly darker complexion and he would get mistaken for Cuban, Native American, Italian, Greek, Mexican, and other ethnicities. As a very empathetic young man, my dad identified strongly with oppressed peoples - from Jews, to baseball players of color who were discriminated against, to Native Americans. One of his favorite athletes was Muhammad Ali -- a Muslim boxer who changed his name from his "slave name," Cassius Clay, and who went to prison for his refusal to fight in Vietnam. And yet, there were still stereotypes -- rooted in perceptions of world events, his own experiences, and ignorance. To his credit, he learned, but when my dad was growing up, there was a perception that the Arabs, especially Egyptians, hated "the Jews" and hated Israel because it was a Jewish state -- as there had been multiple wars between Egypt and Israel, in which many Arab states fought Israel all at once.
When I was studying for my Bar Mitzvah, I always heard this same stereotype from my Hebrew school teachers -- as a general Israeli point of view of why the Arab countries fought so many wars with Israel. They were all Israeli women, some of whom served in the armed forces. But, when I was a teenager, I had two friends who were Coptic Christian Egyptians. My dad asked, innocently worried, "Do they know you are Jewish?" I replied that they did and that they did not care. He was surprised, but glad to hear that response and his perspective underwent a shift. Still, we both generally accepted the official Israeli talking point that the many Arab countries hated Israel because it was a Jewish state -- even if some individuals did not. But something did not make sense to me, my Egyptian friends did not hate me. Why did some Egyptians hate Israel, while others did not? My dad -- and his dad -- would probably say that it does not matter why. When you are attacked, you have to fight back. And you have to win. That was how they were raised. In the shadows of the Holocaust and in the shadow of October 7th, I suspect it is how many Jews feel.
In high school, I met an Egyptian Muslim friend who also did not care that I was Jewish and we would debate about Israel and Palestine -- among other topics such as time travel and pop-culture. After my Bar Mitzvah, I joined a Jewish youth fraternity in high school called AZA and met friends who had relatives in Israel and relatives who survived the Holocaust. I identified strongly as Jewish, had bouts of keeping Kosher, and considered the idea of becoming a rabbi. At the same time, I felt some discomfort over the facts that my friend Ramsey had presented to me, regarding Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Furthermore, the fact that religion was never a point of contention for us made it clear to me that Islam -- other than extremist elements -- was not necessarily the root of the conflict between Jews and Arabs, or between Jews and Palestinians specifically.
I met Palestinian students while taking an Arabic class in college. In my class, neither my teacher, nor any of the students cared that I was Jewish or that some of the other students were or that one of them had relatives in Israel. My dear Arabic teacher Ghassan was a Palestinian from Jordan. He would years later be unjustly accused of antisemitism for using an Arabic map which called the land "Falastin." He did not make the map and he did not make up the Arabic name for the land.
I also took a course on the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" with an Israeli professor. As I learned more about the conflict, I learned how 750,000 Palestinians were made refugees and 15,000 were killed in the context of the Israeli War for Independence. I learned how some fled early on, some fled at gunpoint, and some were massacred in different villages and towns. And I learned how Israel used the fear of massacres as a tool for the "transfer" of the Palestinian populations out of hundreds of towns and villages. 1948 was indeed a "Catastrophe," or "Nakba" in Arabic, for the Palestinian people. When I went to Israel on a free "Birthright" trip, we met some Bedouin folks and some Druze and we met IDF soldiers, but we never talked about the Palestinians.
"The Arabs" who remained under Israeli rule after 1948 lived under a military dictatorship for the first 18 years of the state of Israel. My great political science professor Farid told us a snippet of his experience growing up as a Palestinian under Israeli rule -- though I cannot recall the details. His standout lecture brilliantly illustrated the idea that none of us are born inherently a member of any nation, race, ethnicity, or religion. None of us are stamped on our feet at birth "Made in China," "Made in the USA," Palestinian, Jewish, or Hindu. We are all the same.
For years, the Israeli state called the indigenous people "Arabs" and not "Palestinians," which served the argument that the people could be expelled because they could just go to another Arab country and it would be a homeland for them. It was a callous strategy that treated people as pawns and sought to justify the resulting violence and trauma. And it denied the connection of the indigenous Palestinians to the land and to the culture that they had built over time -- distinct and not simply "Arab." To prevent any semblance of nationalism or political activism among "Israeli Arabs," Israel banned national symbols, such as the Palestinian flag and used police brutality to suppress protests such as the "Land Day" protests of 1976. The Israeli government continues to expropriate land from the Palestinians by allowing settler outposts to be established illegally, and then retroactively legalizing them. Additionally, some IDF soldiers turn a blind eye to settler attacks against Palestinian civilians in places like Masafer Yatta. This policy of using violence, harassment, and intimidation to encourage "transfer" is a continuation of the Nakba.
Towards the end of college, I learned that an Israeli friend had lost a relative in a terrorist attack. It was heartbreaking. Terrorist attacks against civilians are never justified. Israelis have been traumatized by generations of war -- including the 1956 War, the 1967 War, the Yom Kippur War, and the Intifadas. The Second Intifada was particularly traumatizing -- as suicide bombings and bus bombings could occur at any time. Years of rockets have created additional trauma. At the same time, Palestinians have been continually dispossessed of their lands since 1948. When the war ended, refugees were supposed to be able to return -- but they were never allowed to do so. Nor was their trauma of the Nakba ever acknowledged by Israel. And, since 1967, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have endured military rule -- where individuals can be held without charge or trial in a system called "administrative detention," where individuals can be beaten or tortured -- though there are disputes about whether it is the norm, and where houses of families can be demolished for the actions of one family member who commits violent acts.
After the Second Intifada, Israel envisioned a complete separation from the Palestinian Territories -- but one in which they did not relinquish control. In service of that vision, Israel built security/separation barriers between Israel and the West Bank and between Israel and Gaza. This was framed by some Israeli commentators as a divorce. But, to Palestinians, this was just further imprisonment -- especially as this move was unilateral and Israeli security forces would continue to conduct raids and arrests at will. Israel also continued to take more land in the West Bank through settlements -- which were even illegal according to Israeli laws and courts.
Meanwhile, I had friends in America on both sides. I had a friend who defended Hezbollah -- as a social services organization and as a defender of Lebanon. I had a couple more friends who served in the IDF -- who did not hate Palestinians, but who wanted peace for Israelis. And I later became friends with two women from Gaza -- one who volunteered with a peace organization, despite having lost many relatives to Israeli bombing, and another who was a former boss. This is painful for me, as I care for all of these people deeply -- and as I care for the Jewish people deeply, half of whom live in Israel.
Hamas's attack on civilians on October 7th, which kicked off the latest round of violence in the region, were despicable and unforgivable. Kidnapping civilians and sexual violence are abhorrent. At the same time, while unjustifiable, these events did not occur in a vacuum. The cycles of violence have been going on since 1920s. This year was deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, even before the October 7th. Violence by Israeli settlers and the IDF against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank is unacceptable. The carpet bombing of Gaza is unacceptable. Even if the IDF drops leaflets telling people to evacuate, it has destroyed entire neighborhoods and killed people in the process of evacuating and people in "safe" areas.
The continuous cycles of violence will not resolve the conflict or end the Occupation -- as evidenced by the First Intifada, the Second Intifada, the "Intifada of the Individuals," Operation Summer Rains, Operation Autumn Clouds, Operation Hot Winter, Operation Cast Lead, Operation Returning Echo, Operation Pillar of Defense, Operation Protective Edge, etc. The leaders of Hamas and of Israel are lying to their peoples when they claim that continued violence will result in a strategic or moral victory. There are no winners in war -- only bereaved families. I have friends in Israel and with relatives in Israel. I have friends with relatives in Gaza. I fear for them both.
I support a ceasefire between the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinian militant factions, the mutually agreed return of hostages and prisoners, and long-term peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The current hostilities have inflamed emotions and fueled hate crimes against Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, and Muslims. There is plenty to be angry about and many of us are grieving. Yet hate and prejudice damage our capacity for compassion and injure our humanity. This hatred masks our anger and our fear, which rip away our sense of safety and belonging. We cannot let our pain and our legitimate anger morph into baseless hatred for one another. There are currently two peoples living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. That is not going to change. Both Palestinians and Israelis deserve equality, justice, and a thriving, peaceful, and sustainable future. It is in the interests of the diaspora communities in the United States, in the interests of the U.S. government, and in the interests of Palestinians and Israelis themselves to support efforts to re-humanize Palestinians and Israelis and to build such a future.
The return to the status quo of a military occupation of the Palestinian people, with unequal rights vis-a-vis Jewish Israelis is unacceptable. It is just as unacceptable to return to a situation in which an armed group committed to Israel's destruction rules the Gaza Strip. In order to pursue a sustainable, long-term peace agreement, the US also ought to support direct and indirect negotiations between the Israeli government and all Palestinian factions, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, as well as joint programs between Palestinian and Israeli civil society. Reports of war crimes ought to be investigated and -- unless and until there is some sort of negotiated truth and reconciliation agreement including amnesty between the parties -- perpetrators ought to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. To protect civilians and to encourage de-escalation, the US should also support an international arms embargo against all parties attacking civilians.
All people deserve the right to live in peace and dignity -- especially civilians, who are by their definition noncombatants. Palestinians and Israelis deserve an equitable, just, peaceful and thriving future.
Ukraine/Russia
The invasion of eastern Ukraine by Russia was indefensible. At the same time, it is unlikely that Ukraine will be able to militarily defeat Russia -- even with US aid. Additionally, roughly one sixth of Ukraine -- primarily in the east spoke Russian as their primary language and identified as ethnically Ukrainian. Having said that, Vladimir Putin's military escalation and invasion is not a solution to ongoing hostilities. In the modern era, the acquisition of territory through the use of force must be rejected -- as it will only encourage more war. As such, the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory is unacceptable.
The US ought to continue to encourage negotiations and while taking active steps to reduce Russia's military capabilities, including the imposition of sanctions on members of the government and the issuance of arrest warrants for members of the Russian government, and psychological warfare operations including the dissemination of photos of Ukrainian casualties, the translation of Ukrainian war reports into Russian, and the release of embarrassing information about Russian military and political elites.
Immigration
The United States immigration system is broken -- with some legal immigrants waiting years just to get an appointment for a visa. Meanwhile, the US relies heavily on exploiting immigrant labor in various industries, especially agriculture, but also tech. The United States ought to ensure that immigrants have the same rights as US citizens. This would both protect immigrants from being exploited and US laborers from being disregarded in favor of an exploited, cheaper labor source. Improvements to the system would include hiring more immigration judges and lawyers to expedite asylum hearings and visa requests, reforming laws so that employers are not able to pay immigrants less than American workers, and providing a path to citizenship for all immigrants can enjoy the rights and responsibilities of American citizens, including the ability to report unfair labor practices.
Climate Change
Climate change is the preeminent threat to human existence. Without major adjustments in our lifestyles, the systemic degradation and exploitation of our environment will kill us, as the ecosystems around us die. Between ocean acidification, deforestation, desertification, and loss of wetlands, and pollution, and the increased frequency of extreme weather events, the global food supply is under threat. And with that global food insecurity will come increasing political instability and mass migration. Additionally, with increased global temperatures has come the increased spread of tropical diseases. These threats have been noted as national security threats by the Pentagon as early as 2003 and continue to be noted -- as evidenced by the report Department of Defense Climate Risk Analysis 2021.
Yet there is hope. By shifting our ways, we can mitigate our harm to the environment, adapt to the changes to come, and heal the damage we have caused to our ecosystems. We need to build sustainable communities. We need to eliminate fossil fuels and carbon emissions, establish food security, justice, and sovereignty locally, reduce our energy footprint in travel for work and leisure, and foster sustainable economic growth through partnerships with each other and with the planet.
Key elements for building sustainable communities and combating climate change include:
This will take massive investment, but will yield high-paying jobs in green manufacturing, building retro-fits, and solar panel maintenance, which cannot be shipped overseas. Additionally, such changes will enable local communities, small and large, to thrive despite the ongoing threats of crop failure, food insecurity, and extreme weather events. Sustainable product design, business development, and education will ensure that communities face less pollution and stay healthier in the long run.
In fact, the United States already has a strategy to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 -- logically titled "The Long Term Strategy of the United States: Pathways to Net-Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2050" and published in November 2021. The tools of this approach include federal leadership, subnational and local government leadership, industry innovation supported by federal policies, and all-sectors on-deck in the pursuit of five paths to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Those paths to reduced emissions included decarbonizing electricity, electrifying the economy from industry to end-uses and switching to other clean fuels, cutting energy waste, and reducing methane and non-CO2 emissions. According to the report, through these strategies, which it lays out in more detail, the United States can reduce "net GHG emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030" and reach net-zero by 2050. Not only will such improvements help the world avert the dangers of a 1.5°C increase in planetary warming, but they will save lives. According to the same report, reducing air pollution alone, through clean energy, will help prevent nearly 300,000 premature deaths.
If we can afford to invest $1.7 trillion in a fighter jet program, we can afford to invest in sustainable communities -- especially when such investments yield a virtuous cycle of good paying jobs, more resilient communities, and billions of dollars in savings by reducing the negative impacts of climate change such as crop failure, flooding, droughts, and weather-related deaths.
The War Economy and Taxes - Shifting to Sustainability and Conflict Resolution
If we are serious about supporting our military and keeping taxes low, then we need to hold the Pentagon responsible for passing audits. If there is fraud, waste, or abuse, it needs to be detected, reported, and dealt with. According to the Department of Treasury, for the year 2023, we spent $775 billion dollars on the Department of Defense. Yet, according to USASpending.Gov, the Defense Department had outlays of $1.21 trillion dollars. That's a difference of over $500 billion dollars. For the year 2023, the Pentagon requested $773 billion. Yet $1.5 trillion dollars - nearly double the requested amount - was distributed to various component agencies of the DoD. Where are the extra outlays going? The Pentagon has failed to pass an independent audit for the sixth year in a row, according to a Reuters report by Mike Stone dated November 15, 2023. Out of 29 sub-audits, 22 failed - a 75.8% failure rate. Why is the Pentagon receiving nearly double what it asked for, when it is failing audits at an extremely high rate?
If we are to provide the equipment, services, and leadership our veterans need, we must be judicious about how we spend our money. If equipment is faulty or if programs are not yielding results for our veterans, then the public has a right to know. And if there is funding disappearing into programs that no one knows about or which are failing audits, the chances for fraud, waste, and corruption are manifold. This detracts from the commitments our government makes to our servicemembers and makes our military weaker. It is also a slap in the face to Americans who sacrifice their hard-earned dollars in taxes to pay the troops.
Lastly, it is unsustainable to fund a war industry forever. Weapons - by their nature - are often destroyed in war. If we want a sustainable military, we need a system of equipment, personnel, expertise, and R&D which is sustainable. This means less investment in resources which will be thrown away in the ash-heap of unnecessary wars. This means maintaining reserves of equipment, weapons, personnel, but not seeking to expend them. This means investing in de-escalation, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding mechanisms and research.
The Peace Economy
The annual funding for 2023 of the U.S. Institute of Peace was only $55 million -- 3% of the Pentagon's budget of $1.5 trillion. Considering that the US spent 12.8% of the FY 2023 budget on "defense," it is surprising that such a small allocation goes to the USIP mission "to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and development, and increase peacebuilding capacity, tools, and intellectual capital worldwide."
We have a moral obligation and a fiduciary duty to invest in preventing the costly ravages of war by funding our development of peacebuilding capabilities. Such investments would benefit Americans abroad and the research of the USIP could also be used to reduce conflict domestically as well. The cost savings in dollars and in lives would well be worth the expenditure.
Taxes
The middle class, the upper-middle class, the working poor, and the forgotten poor have all subsidized a lower tax rate for the billionaire class in this country. Oxfam America cited a 2021 White House study which found that "the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the US paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2%" while the average American paid 13%. It is an inescapable fact that our government could provide more social services for hard working Americans if it were to tax billionaires just a little bit more. According to Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), in November 2023, there were 748 American billionaires with $5.2 trillion dollars in net wealth. That is an average of over $6.95 billion for each individual. ATF proposes closing the "Stepped-Up Basis" tax loophole allowing billionaires to gift their unsold assets to their kids upon their death without taxes being paid. The ATF estimates that closing this loophole and similar loopholes could raise $325 billion over 10 years -- or $32.5 billion a year. While I would support such plans to close tax loopholes for billionaires and to increase taxes on wealthy corporations, my preference would be to institute a wealth tax on billionaires. A 10% wealth tax on those 748 Americans would result in $520 billion in government revenues and still leave each billionaire with $6.25 billion in net wealth. This would enable the government to fund a wide range of social services.
Free College
Currently, graduates struggle to pay their debts with entry-level salaries upon receiving their degree. According to a CNBC report by Annie Nova, ten million student loan borrowers are already in default or delinquent and there is currently $1.7 trillion dollars in student debt nationally. Improving the financial health of graduates ensures that they do not ruin their credit by running up more debt or choosing bankruptcy, enables them to stay housed, and gives them more flexibility to choose the right job for them, rather than choosing one out of desperation. Additionally, a lower student debt burden would enable students and graduates to spend more in other sectors of the economy, improving the nation's economic health overall.
Paying For It
According to Melanie Hanson of the Education Data Initiative in "How Much Would Free College Cost?," a First-Dollar Tuition-Free Program would cost $58.2 billion the first year of implementation. Even without the net wealth tax, such a plan would cost an estimated 1% of the annual federal budget, according to the EDI. This would help students and parents avoid billions of dollars of debt and allow graduates to enter the workforce with greater economic prospects.
Universal Healthcare
The United States healthcare system is failing most Americans. After a global health pandemic proved that we need each other to stay healthy in order for ourselves to stay healthy, we still do not have guaranteed healthcare in this country. No one should be forced to forego medical care or to be driven into unmanageable debt because of a health issue. A single payer healthcare system -- Medicare for All -- would save Americans money, improve individual health outcomes, and benefit society at large.
Each year 650,000 individuals face bankruptcy related to medical debt -- approximately 60% of all personal bankruptcies, according to Public Citizen. According to a report by KFF, one in ten Americans has significant medical debt -- with a total estimated US medical debt of more than $195 billion. Individuals would have better health outcomes and save billions by avoiding bankruptcy related to medical costs. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the NHEA estimated US total healthcare spending in 2022 was $4.5 trillion. And a study published in PLOS Medicine on January 15, 2020, concluded that 19 out of 22 economic analyses predicted that a single-payer healthcare system would save the US an average of 3.5% net savings of total healthcare costs within the first year of implementation. According to these analyses, Americans would save $157 billion in the first year of a single payer system. The majority of savings would come from streamlined, simpler billing and from reduced drug costs. With savings expected to increase every year, the boost to the US economy would be significant. A different study by several Yale scholars, published in the Lancet in 2020 claimed that Medicare for All would cost $458 billion less than that year's estimate of the national healthcare expenditure. In any case, such a savings is significant and would enable people to avert personal financial ruin.
Medicare for All would ensure that Americans can get the coverage they need when they need it -- regardless of their income. According to the US Census Bureau, roughly 26 million Americans, about 7.9% of the total population, were uninsured for all of 2022 -- meaning that they had no coverage for routine checkups, illnesses, or injuries, let alone chronic or acute conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, a stroke or cancer. According to the Commonwealth Fund, 43% of working age Americans had inadequate insurance in 2022. That means that 89 million people in 2022 were either underinsured, uninsured, or had gaps in their health insurance which left treatment beyond their reach, due to their inability to pay. It is common sense that untreated conditions may get worse without proper medical treatment. Medicare for All would prevent this commonplace tragedy from continuing to debilitate American workers.
By ensuring that Americans have access to affordable healthcare when they need it, Medicare for All would make Americans healthier and would strengthen the US economy. With more prompt treatment, Americans would have better health outcomes, miss less time from work, and be less likely to spread any contagious illnesses. As we saw with Covid-19, all Americans are safer when people are given the ability to take care of themselves when they are sick. Additionally, the removal of the burden of paying for healthcare from businesses benefits both employees and their employers. Because healthcare would not be tied to employment, employees would have more flexibility to choose jobs which more align with their ambitions. Additionally, companies would have less overhead, and the ability to reinvest their savings either in workforce raises or in research and development. In the end, everyone wins with a single payer system.
It is our moral duty to pursue a system which does not leave any member of society behind due to their inability to pay. Going to see a doctor ought to be as easy as calling the Fire Department or going to the library. Medicare for All will make it that easy.
Paying for It
According to a team of Yale researchers, in their study titled "Improving the Prognosis of Healthcare in the United States," the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system in the US would cost $61.5 billion annually over the first two years, which would be recouped via cost-savings within the first year, as the US would spend $458 billion less annually on healthcare. Excluding the net savings of $458 billion, after accounting for free university tuition for all and universal healthcare, the US would be left with $400.3 billion of revenues after the 10% wealth tax on the wealthiest 748 Americans.
Homelessness
Shelter is a human right. In one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, it is horrific that we have hundreds of thousands of people sleeping on the streets, under freeways, or in their cars each night. While plenty is being done at the state and local level to house individuals in shelters, the federal government has lagged behind in its duty to assist states and local governments dealing with homelessness. HUD's Section 8 subsidized housing has an extraordinary wait, is underfunded, and does not provide enough money to the needy to get enough of them housed. Furthermore, there has been a complete abandonment of the idea of public housing - as Section 8 is private housing which is subsidized with public dollars. While I am not opposed to Section 8, it is imperative that the federal government step in where the private market is failing and provide housing to low-income and extremely low-income folks. Additionally, public-private partnerships could pave the way forward for low-income individuals to purchase starter homes as first-time buyers. While the FHA does assist first-time buyers, the market has often put even modest homes out of reach for low-income individuals living paycheck to paycheck and unable to save. One potential solution might be to develop federally funded rent-to-own apartments for low-income and very-low income individuals. This could even be done in a mixed-income building, where some units are sold as condos and others are rent-to-own. This would assist developers, first-time buyers, and renters who might otherwise be financially unable to enter the affordable housing space.
Ending Homelessness
Nationally, according to HUD's 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, there were about 653,104 people experiencing homelessness on a given night in January 2023 in America. Of those people, California has 181,399 homeless individuals, with 123,423 unable to find beds or other shelters. With about 28% of all homelessness in the US, California has a lot of work to do to heal this moral wound. But, according to a press release by the Corporation for Supportive Housing dated December 20, 2022, California can solve homelessness by 2035 by investing $8.1 billion annually in housing, shelters, and supportive services. Assuming similar costs per homeless person around the country, the US would need to invest $29 billion per year in order to solve homelessness by 2035. If the United States wanted to end homelessness by 2035, closing existing tax loopholes could be the solution. Or my one-time wealth tax could fund the entire program. Adding a year of costs and a year to reach the goal, because the report was released last year, the entire program would cost $360 billion -- leaving $40.3 billion left over, after funding free college and the transition to universal healthcare (which would save taxpayers $458 billion annually compared to today's healthcare costs).
Universal Pre-K
According to a Policy Brief by the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) titled "Total Cost of Universal Pre-K, Including Facilities," the entire cost of funding universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds would be $351 billion over ten years. Initial construction costs of new facilities would account for $41 billion over the first two years. Thus, the remaining $40.3 billion from a 10% net wealth tax on billionaires would be used up by a universal pre-K program's construction costs and the US would have to find ways to fund the $4.2 billion annual budget deficit. At the same time, according to a report by the NPR's Planet Money from May 2021, one dollar invested into preschool yields 7-10% returns yearly and these children are less likely to drop out, to miss class, to repeat grades, and to end up in juvenile hall. If we can fund the Defense Department, Universal Healthcare, Free College, and End Homelessness, I think we can find a way to fund Universal Pre-K.
Copyright © 2024 Trevor Witt for Congress - All Rights Reserved.
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