Campaign Co-Chair Meets With Elizabeth Warren

It's not every day when a U.S. Senator who is known as a champion for the middle class and progressive policies far and wide comes to town, so when my sister Kari, who serves as the co-chair of my campaign for U.S. Representative, heard that Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be speaking at the Greenfield Middle School in our hometown, she went to the event and got to meet with Sen. Warren, and also Massachusetts State Rep. Paul Mark, who introduced Sen. Warren.

Kari told me the crowd was so huge that the auditorium was full and they needed to have the crowd overflow into the school gymnasium. 

Why Should Social Security Recipients Pay Taxes on a Tax?

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Many on Social Security have to pay taxes on this tax. This, in and of itself, is wrong. People work for decades, paying into the Social Security Trust Fund, and then when it comes time to collect what they have paid into the system, they are taxed again. This makes no sense to me.

What's more, the threshold at which they must start paying taxes on their social security income has not changed since the 1980s. As a result, many elderly people actually have to pay into the system upon retirement, just at the time when their ability to pay takes a dramatic turn.

Any tax reform must address this problem.

Supply Side Economics Has Failed, Again and Again, and Again!

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Giving tax breaks to the rich does nothing to help those beneath. We need a comprehensive strategy to let people rise into the middle class.

The whole premise of supply side economics is flawed, because it presumes that if you give a tax break to the wealthy that they will actually allow any of it to trickle down to the masses.

The way to grow the economy is to put more money into the hands of those who drive the economy - the middle class. The middle class spends money when they have it to spend. This enhances the bottom line of the companies with which they do business, which, in turn, need to hire more people to keep up with expanding demand. 

Under this scenario, Bubble Up Economics, everyone benefits, not just the ultra-rich at the top 1 percent.

Enhance Education from Kindergarten through College

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I have worked in higher education since 2004. College students must be prepared for the rigors of advanced education, starting in K-12.

Simply affording people the opportunity to go to college to earn a degree is not enough. I have taught first-year college students all the way up to students at the end of their degree programs. I was shocked at how ill-prepared many students were upon entering college, as I needed to teach many of them skills I was fortunate to learn as early as elementary school. At first, I assumed these students had simply forgotten these lessons, but in time I realized that many of them had never learned the lessons in the first place.

The key to making sure college students are successful and can pay back the loans they take out while in college is to make sure they have the skills to succeed upon enrollment. Only then can we have hope that graduation rates will improve, and students can enter the workforce with the skill set employers require and need, and then repay their debts they incurred seeking their degrees.

Civil Rights Are Rights For All

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Civil Rights is no longer solely the focus on the color of a person's skin, but their sexual orientation and gender. I support equality for all people, just as the Founding Fathers intended when they declared that all men were created equal.

My philosophy on civil rights is simple. I was born a heterosexual white male. I did not choose to be white, I did not choose to be straight, and I did not choose to be a man. I was born this way. If I can be born this way, is it not equally possible that a person could be born gay, black, Latina, Asian, etc? Why should we treat anyone who is different than us differently when they have no control over these dynamics?

Civil rights legislation is a moral responsibility, and I will vote for laws that expand and protect the rights of all people, regardless of their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion, their nationality.

Protection for the Dreamers

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There is no easy solution, but deporting millions of people, many of whom are Dreamers whose only home is America, is not the answer.

Dreamers are the kind of immigrants the president claimed would have a place in American society. They contribute to the economy, they own businesses, they are students, and their only crime is being brought here illegally by their families when they were too young to have a say.

Sending such people to their country of origin is incredibly preposterous and Un-American. They should have protection in the law, not have their lives ruined by it.

Protecting the Central Florida Environment

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In Central Florida, protecting the environment is perhaps even more important than other locations, but it also presents unique challenges.

Being good stewards of our planet's natural resources and beauty is in everyone's interest, because we all live here. We all breathe the air and drink the water, so if these resources become compromised, we all suffer.

There are other ways we can suffer, too, such as economically. This district is situated close but not really close to the mega tourist attractions in Orlando area, and I don't see people going out of their way to stay in Citrus County, or Lake County, or Sumter County, or Marion County if they want to spend their vacations at Orlando area theme parks.

That's OK, though. We have natural assets tourists love too, such as campgrounds, fishing streams, lakes for boating, canoeing and kayaking opportunities. We have beloved manatees people can see up close.

These kinds of attractions bring different kinds of tourists, but they can still aid our local economies if we do our part to maintain our natural resources, keeping them safe and beautiful for permanent and transient residents alike.