For You, Not the 1%

We must hold our own government accountable.

I’ve watched in horror, I’ve marched in protests, I’ve donated to causes, and none of these are enough. The current administration, top to bottom, must be held accountable for the violence, corruption, and malfeasance it has brought upon this country. 

Articles of impeachment should be drawn up for every single member of the administration, followed by criminal prosecution for the never before seen levels of corruption currently on display.

Voting rights are under assault.

Between the SAVE Act, gerrymandering, and inconsistent SCOTUS opinions on which redistricting efforts can proceed, our very right to choose our leaders is under threat.

We must focus on expanding voter access including: same day registration, No-Excuse Absentee Voting, automatic voter registration, and voting holidays.

There are lots of incredibly qualified people out there, who should be running for office but can't because of the incredible barriers to entry, and endless torrent of money working against us. Campaigns needs to move to public funding models. States need to amend their corporation codes to prohibit the use of money as speech.

Federal agencies need their independency restored and codified. The FBI, DOJ, and FCC, should be working to protect the people and enforce the laws of the country. They are not the President's personal shield against accountability.

Our ecosystems are in danger of collapse.

We must rejoin the Paris Agreement, re-enact the Endangerment Finding, and drastically accelerate adoption of clean energy technologies, while simultaneously expanding mass transit.

One of our greatest failures has been to allow the externalized costs of fossil fuel use to remain separate from the price. We need to levy excise and carbon taxes, to account for health impacts, clean-up and mitigation efforts, as well as economic adaptation to a changing climate.

Science is how we make progress.

Years of funding cuts to education, attempts to dismantle the Department of Education, and a promoted disdain for scientists and scientific education, leave this country vulnerable to falling behind the rest of the world.

We already see a lack of general understanding in basic sciences across our populace, which has led to distrust of a highly trained group of people whose sole objective is to improve the world by understanding everything better.

We need to restore and enhance scientific funding, and education. We need people who understand what AI is and what it isn't, how disease surveillance prevents or mitigates global pandemics, and how the human impact on our environment risks everyone.

Nobody is illegal on stolen land. Abolish ICE.

We are a country of immigrants and built by immigrants. Immigrants are the backbone of our economy, and essential to our growth. We should be welcoming more immigrants into the country, not fighting to keep them out. We should yearn to be the country proud to display the Mother of Exiles at her shores.

People who uproot their lives, and separate themselves from their communities to come to this country, do so by and large to improve their families' lives and increase their sense of security. And they should have every right to do so.

If we truly want to address any sort of perceived immigration crisis, then the way to do so is by building a longer table: work to undo decades of US interference and economic destabilization.

Our private insurance system is broken, costly, and profit driven.

It’s long past time that this nation moved to a single payer health model.

Healthcare is a human right, and nobody should have to ration their care. Medicare for All (M4A) would reduce costs and expand access. Both individuals and employers are already effectively paying for this in the form of premiums.

The ultra-wealthy have enjoyed a free ride for long enough. 

Between lower rates, favorable tax code enabling abuse of loopholes, corporate subsidies, and an archaic SCOTUS precedent, the ultra-wealthy receive far more in benefits and protections from the US Government than they contribute to our collective sacrifice.

Wealth should be taxed if it can be used as collateral. No more Buy, Borrow, Die.

There is no reason billionaires should exist, and every cent of wealth that they hoard is value created by employees who were not rewarded for their labor.

As we move towards an AI driven future, wealth created through AI needs to be additionally taxed to encompass not only environment harms generated through extreme resource demands, but also to account for the job losses that follow with automation.

There is no unskilled labor.

Nobody should have to work multiple jobs just to survive. Nobody should be forced into poverty to reward the shareholders of a corporation.  The true costs of labor are externalized, when employers don't provide a living wage.

Worker productivity has risen, inflation has risen, the minimum wage has not. Minimum wage should be reclassified as a living wage, with no sub-minimum wages. Federal minimum wage needs to be $26 now, and codified to always increase with inflation and productivity.

The housing crisis is a systemic problem.

While we absolutely need to build much more housing, the crisis will not be solved by additional construction alone. We need to address the treatment of housing as an investment vehicle, as opposed to a right. While we need more housing construction, including public housing, we must also eliminate institutional ownership of housing.

Particularly prescient in San Francisco, we need to ban or extraordinarily tax the process of "flipping" houses. In an already extraordinarily expensive city, we see a dearth of starter homes available, because home values here are based on investment potential and not intrinsic value. Homes where a family could move in, renovate over time, and make it their own, are instead snatched up at absurd valuations, renovated, and relisted for even higher prices. The short timelines place additional strain on already limited construction resources, driving construction and trade costs even higher.

Further, we need to address the declining availability of rent controlled housing. One way to do this is to redefine the clock on rent control as rather than being tied to a fixed date, to rather be contingent on a fixed amount of time from the initial occupancy (ie after 15 years, the property is rent controlled).

The best cities are ones that are accessible to everyone by public transit.

You know what I love about getting around San Francisco? I can take Muni, Bart, or bike just about anywhere. But Muni and Bart are struggling, facing extra challenges from federal budget cuts, allocated funds being withheld, and a lack of prioritization for public transit construction projects.

I would work not only to restore federal matching dollars for our transit infrastructure projects, I would advocate to reallocate highway funding to transit programs. 

What biking infrastructure we have, and it is truly insufficient, fails to effectively protect cyclists, and is poorly maintained. I would partner with organizations like the California Bicycle Coalition, to help our city redesign our roads to be safe for cyclists, pedestrians, and vehicles.