Issues and Policies

This fact can no further be evident than the bustling boom in the tech sector which disproportionately benefits tech companies and venture capitalists in California as well as financial institutions and private equity firms in New York. The manufacturing engine of the Heartland has withered and died thanks to the GOP obstruction and focusing on social wedge issues that do nothing to put food on the table and instill the sense of American pride that our grandparents had. This I will change by actually legislating programs that benefit the 6th and bringing those federal dollars into our district and keep them here to circulate so all in the 6th can prosper.

The dirty truth is that all the manufacturing jobs of our grandparents are gone and moved off to China and others in the Far East. Unless we are willing to suppress American wages down to $2/hour those jobs aren't coming back here. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. But this does not need to spell doom for the 6th. My top initiative is to bring high-skill, high-pay, high-dignity manufacturing jobs to the 6th. The DACH region and Benelux have shown that western capitalist governments can continue to invest in manufacturing where their workers can enjoy high salaries along with the personal fulfillment of continuous training and education and not only compete, but thrive in the global marketplace. Building off the recent successes in bringing Ultium Cells and the under-construction Intel production facility here to our district, I will direct federal programing to create a advanced materials manufacturing hub in the Ohio River Valley so that this nexus will spawn many innovate high-tech manufacturing small businesses much like our neighbors across the State in Dayton already do with Wright-Patterson AFB.

The 6th has its heritage in mining and steel, and I intend to bring that heritage back and pull this sector into the 21st century. I was an Air Force Scientist officer, so I've seen through our classified programs a window into the future of what is possible. While CA and NY like to talk about tech and software, I *know* that the biggest roadblock to progress in tech are the chips that they run on. Software is nothing without hardware and the performance improvement of systems be they military or otherwise are overwhelming realized through the advanced manufacturing of hardware and the development of advanced materials. All one has to do is to take go down to the 10th and see what they are doing at WPAFB or the surrounding areas in Beavercreek, Kettering, and Fairborn and see how the programs they are working on can benefit from advanced manufacturing steel from our district. Likewise, the carbon fiber and nanomaterial revolution is nearly upon us only for us to seize with a stroke of the President's pen by authorizing an advanced manufacturing hub in the 6th that takes our coal and rare metal mining and puts them to use in high-skill applications to build the next generation of machines the world can use. If we must mine for coal, why are we listening to the GOP who's only bright idea is to burn this valuable resource.

Speaking of burning coal, it is high time we rekindle the spirit of the 1940s. As the US Air Force which is near and dear to my heart was born form this era, so was the unleashing of the power of the atom during the Manhattan Project. I refuse to believe we have lost our innovative spirit and will instruct the Dept of Energy to initiate the “Marietta Project” finally directing the full federal funding of a nation-wide program to commercialize fusion energy. A national moonshot program for commercializing fusion will bring unprecedented economic growth to our Nation but more importantly to us, this moonshot will require advanced Ohio Valley steel and advanced rare earth metals and trace gasses from Ohio Valley coal.

None of this can happen without the mobilization of a highly-skilled and highly-motivated workforce only of which our unions can help mobilize. I will direct the Dept of Labor to develop an unemployment and continuous training scheme that will be managed by sector-wide unions based on NAICS codes or otherwise that will charged, much like in the Dept of Defense, to maintain the well-being of the “Reserve Force” of workers in their sector. This will be done by authorizing unemployment benefits and insurance to be managed through the unions as well as unions being the primary public vessel providing inputs to the Dept of Labor on sector-wide standards of training and education for our highly-skilled workforce of the 21st century. This will encourage union membership and ensure workers will have access to unemployment and healthcare even if laid-off while also have access to training to keep their skills current so that can quickly reenter the workforce.

It is a mistake to think that one is either pro-union or pro-business. Businesses thrive with strong unions who provide an empowered, skilled, and motivated workforce. Sector-wide unions with the government's backing of nationwide programs will only benefit businesses. As an Acquisitions Officer, I saw first-hand how businesses often did not compete on operational expenses given the technical nature of Air Force procurement contracts but rather their SG&A efficiency or overhead. By transferring this responsibility to unions, business leaders can focus on making their capital work for their business. Furthermore, the training standards and programs that unions can provide will ensure employers know what type of employee they are hiring and the precise skill level they have ending the dreaded job postings that call for “entry level positions requiring 20 years of experience”. Sector-wide collective bargaining also ensures that mid-size businesses will not have their talent poached on salary alone due to uncompetitive practices of giant VC-backed monopolies. This will also incentivize employers to encourage union membership so that their employees can provide meaningful inputs to sector-wide collective bargaining.

In office, I will instruct the Dept of Labor to CODIFY STANDARDS FOR HOURLY-WAGE WORKERS that enforce not only an hourly minimum wage but one INDEXED to a 40hr work week. This will ensure hourly employees don't get abused by the two-tier payment systems that keep our citizens chronically underemployed. This is often a bigger problem than unemployment since underemployment doesn't get reported in federal unemployment statistics. A living wage should provide a life worth living. Just as veterans' benefits are automatically indexed to inflation, I will also codify that all the federal benefits to American workers be indexed, to include minimum wage standards. Just because we want to live like our parents in the 1960s, it doesn't mean we should be paid the same nominal wages as them.

One of my major initiatives will be to reinvigorate our public education system. Our Founding Fathers stated that the strength of our democracy is directly related to the strength of our education. Gone are the days of creating model citizens instilled with American values active in the civics of their local communities. NCLB and ESSA have diverted authority from teachers to administrators, funding concentrated to “successful” schools and created a generation of kids hyper-focused on STEM or rather “teaching to the test” hyper-focused on merely passing the reading and math sections of the SATs.

It is high time we reintroduce the “Whole Person Concept” to our education system. This is inspired by how our Military Academies prepare cadets to be become mentally, emotionally, and physically ready to become the next generation of officers. Likewise, our children should be mentally, emotionally, and physically ready to be Americans. I will work with the teachers' unions to make sure that their pay is increased to swell our educator ranks and reduce the teacher-student ratio to proper levels. I will have Congress instruct the Dept of Education to set nationwide standards from the inputs of teachers' unions where these broad standards are then left to the individual states to put “meat on the bones”. This will put the standards of education back in the hands of the most qualified to do so: our teachers. And just as above, teachers will be able to rely on continued professional development through unions ensuring the best educational practices are used on our kids.

The standards and funding will not be linked to standardized tests but through the Whole Person Concept. Yes, kids will learn the 3 R's but they will also learn STEM, social studies, history and practical life skills. These standards by being set locally will mean Texan teachers cannot stop Ohio kids from learning about our local Ohio leaders like Gen William Tecumseh Sherman and New Yorkers won't be able to say Ohio kids shouldn't learn about difference between chestnuts and buckeyes. I will also work with the Board of Governors to ensure these state and local standards will have a positive feedback loop where individual state university systems will base their admission standards on the Whole Person Concept ensuring the end of “teaching to the test”.

I will also have Congress authorize block grants for states to ensure kids have free school lunches made from locally grown foods that our farmers grow and free afternoon school programs to focus on the liberal arts be they music, art, or physical fitness and sports. One of my fondest memories of growing up was receiving a Presidential certificate signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger for meeting his standards of fitness. These afternoon programs will not only teach our children practical skills but also engage them in local civics and volunteer work strengthening our local communities. They will also prepare those that want to forgo college to learn trade skills and enter the workforce directly. College should not be an obligation for living a good like in America.

My opponents like to talk about how they want to construct more freeways and railway stops but we can't afford half measures. I've seen what aimless construction has done to Chinese cities as their local councils go bankrupt saddled with the burden of maintaining these construction projects without any economic activity to fill their coffers. I will not only ensure these roads and railways are completed but work with legislators in the Columbus, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh regions to ensure their programs are distributed throughout the region so that not only will the 6th gain in their economic prosperity but the roads and rail that we build will actually be used and have purpose, increasing commercial traffic throughout our region ensuring that our local councils will be able to secure revenue from these flows and fund their local priorities. Which leads me to my other point of interest, which is to bring back a manufacturing hub to Marietta that feeds into the economic prosperity of Cleveland. By doing this, we will ensure commercial flows have a reason to move up and down our district so all in the 6th can share in economic progress and not just Mahoning and Columbiana counties.

On the note of national infrastructure, I will push for Congress to instruct HUD or other appropriate cabinet agency to set minimum standards for our municipalities to provide the minimum level of public utilities to its citizens to include electricity, heat, water, sewage, and broadband. All these shall be implemented in the vein on anti-monopolistic practices that the DoD has worked hard to implement in their own agency — namely, utility transmission companies cannot be the utility generators or service providers. Or at the very list in cases of limited options for rural areas, Open Access Architecture will be enforced where any utility provider can share and use the same transmission network. There is no reason for any American to live in squalor.

To ensure all of the 6th gets to share in the prosperity of my agenda, I will also work with our farmers to fix the failures of the Farm Bill. I will direct the Dept of Agriculture to invest in scientific innovations of sustainable farming practices with specific focus on fertilizer use. Many of our farms in the 6th are running on razor thin margins and the cost of fertilizers is easily 20% of operating expenses.

One of my major goals will be to fund agricultural R&D in partnership with the University System of Ohio to develop publicly-funded seeds to free our farmers from current IP restrictions on reseeding. Americans shouldn't starve and farmers shouldn't lose their farms all because Monsanto's lawyers tricked some jury in Missouri.

Vertical farming funding will also introduce a virtuous cycle between our farmers and manufacturers here in the 6th. While we are on moonshot initiatives, I will also instruct the Dept of Interior to devise a plan on the construction of water resource management networks to include aqueducts to remove the threat of flooding in the southern and eastern states while transferring that excess water to the Heartland so our farmers' drought worries will be a thing of the past.

To maximize the revenue received of our farmers, I will instruct the State Department to increase their USAID outputs to the impoverished nations of the world and particularly those who via the bribing of cheap low-quality Chinese foodstuffs are succumbing to the anti-American Chinese hegemony. These countries we will provide high-quality American food aid as well as to the countries who contribute to our asylum and refugee crisis on our Southern Border.   If $1 of State Dept funding is equivalent to $10 in the Defense Dept, the strengthening of State's budget, increasing the power of our Diplomatic Corps, will give us the biggest bang-for-our-buck in fighting the nefarious interests of China, Russia, and Iran while giving us advanced warning on emerging threats be they military or human migration in nature.

The legal manifestation of my position is best represented by Ohio's recently constitutionally codified “Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety” amendment, i.e. Issue 1. This protects the Right to Life for all women while also ensuring the life of a viable fetus is maintained once it is able to survive outside the womb. However, even during post-viability, the medical exemptions to maintain a mother's life and health even in the later weeks of gestation — irrespective of fetal viability — are of primary importance. This law is a model for the Federal Government to follow if action should be required by Congress to protect women from those that would infringe on their rights. Thus, if the need arises to further advance this cause, I will support it; if an attempt to hinder, I will oppose.

That being said, it is also important for Congress to work with the Executive Branch to claw back some of the recent advances of reactionary forces made on the judicial front. As a lawmaker, I will work with the Department of Justice and amici curiae to advance legal thought, maintaining the rights of women and the conservative principles of “a small and limited government”. One of the main issues being that discrimination based on sex is merely an “intermediate scrutiny” standard.

I have a vested interest in elevating this standard up to “strict scrutiny”. Therefore, I will support any action to revive and advance the Equal Rights Amendment so that the Constitution enshrines women's rights to its rightful place as a fundamental right, forcing SCOTUS to adjudicate all matters of sex discrimination at the “strict scrutiny” standard.

For more details on my judicial philosophy please see my publicly released  PROCLAMATION FOR WOMEN.

I will expand Medicare to All and restore the guarantees of Social Security weakened by the GOP — your health and retirement are not a matter of political debate. These benefits will be broadly applied free from sex discrimination or religious influence. Shoring up national healthcare is the most surefire way to reduce your monthly expenditures and put money directly back into your pockets.

Your health and well-being should not be tied to your employment status. “Medicare for All” means it should apply to ALL Americans and cover ALL health: primary, dental, vision, reproductive, mental, and emergencies. A universal system guaranteed by the full might and force of the federal government means lower prescription drug costs, lower co-pays, and lower premiums. Use your hard-earned income to live, not to survive.

I will not allow the GOP to gut Social Security. Social Security is called an entitlement for a reason: you are ENTITLED to it. You lived and worked for America; it is your right to enjoy your golden years free from worry. Giant corporations from the coastal states make trillions in profits from the greatest capitalist market and economic landscape in the world; they benefited and grew rich from the hard work YOU put in so they must pay their fair share to support you — it's only right, it's only fair, it's only American. Real Americans respect and take care of their elders, real Americans know our elders are not “expenses” to be managed.

I will also use our industrial hub mentioned above to focus on advanced MedTech research and development to increase commercial activity between the national medical hub of Cleveland and our district. I will work with the Georgian and North Carolinian delegations to get NIH and CDC funding into this hub and further increase intellectual and economic activity in our district. Advanced R&D and improved medicine can only lower the costs of administering healthcare and improve our quality of life.

When we saw protestors in the Arab Spring, Ukraine, or Hong Kong rise up against their oppressors, we saw them wave the American flag. While we may bicker at home, abroad American Exceptionalism means something as our ideals are not just American ideals but ideals for all mankind. To maintain this view, we must honor our commitments and defend our allies against the Axis of Evil that is Russia, China, and Iran.

We must live up to our own standards and be an example to the world — the shining city upon a hill; a beacon of hope for the world. We must speak out against all forms of injustice and crimes against humanity. America must be a reliable partner and friend to all Free Peoples of the World. This is not an either-or choice; we are capable of helping ourselves and our allies bathe in the Light of Liberty. These I will fight for.

We must restore the preeminence of our diplomatic corps and expand our international aid to fight Communist Chinese influence. Our National Security Strategy must not only focus on the military but have a coherent plan to have our armed forces work in concert with our diplomats and intelligence agencies to derive synergies that give us an outsized benefit abroad unachievable in isolation. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Every diplomatic communiqué made saves us thousands of bullets and bloodshed.

We must bolster our industrial base to provide our allies all the means to resist tyranny and oppression. America is the Arsenal of Democracy and Ohio is the engine of that arsenal. Our factories built American military might and if I am elected, our factories will continue to build that might. We don't need politicians who follow the whims of out-of-state propogandists forgoing manufacturing and industrial jobs to the likes of Texas and California.

The notion that our elections are stolen or insecure is an utter farce. Republican politicians backed by Russian money spread these lies through our media, infecting our citizens with tales they freely admit are lies when under oath in the very courts they use to attempt to undermine our democracy. It is high-time real Americans reclaim the phrase “Election Integrity” from the traitors who seek to destroy America with this dog whistle. My policies outlined below are what real “election integrity” means.

The GOP uses the same perfidious and un-American tactics to suppress voting as their traitorous forefathers of yesteryear have employed. We are a Democracy: the ability to vote and to cast our vote with ease is core to the American ethos. Yet with a straight face they lie to us and try to resurrect the rotting corpse of Jim Crow.

I will put an end to all this by overturning Citizens United, passing the John Lewis VRA Act, and instructing the FEC to make their voting access standards on a per capita basis and not an administrative one — land doesn't vote, people do. The chronic under-serving of voters in urban areas and long waiting times must come to an end.

Our citizens deserve an end to gerrymandering, thus I will drive legislation giving the People and not politicians the sole right to determine district lines. While my fellow Democrats work to advance this in Columbus, I will work to advance it in D.C.

I am the ONLY candidate to have sworn an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and the ONLY candidate that has faithfully served the U.S. Constitution. You deserve an elected official with the honor and integrity that this oath and service commands.