Jobs & The Economy
Too many Americans are falling farther behind in today’s economy. Education, investment innovation and infrastructure are the keys to an economy that benefits everyone. “Work hard and follow the rules – your success is limited only by your abilities and aspirations.” This idea is the foundation of the American Dream.
Unfortunately, this is no longer true for too many young and middle-class American families like many here in the 10th District who are being left behind and shut out of the modern American economy. Too many American families are struggling to make ends meet, let alone get ahead and realize their dreams. Too many work part-time when they want to work full-time. Too many live paycheck to paycheck. We must take action to make sure the American Dream is alive and well for those who are willing to work hard to build a brighter future.
We must expand credit to help small businesses start and grow, and provide tax incentives and credits to those businesses who really are “job creators.” We must prioritize policies which encourage manufacturing, construction, and production of American goods by American workers for domestic and global markets.
We must retool our education system to prepare people of all ages for their first job, or their next job, without burying them in crippling debt that leaves them unable to engage in the American dream or the American economy.
We must direct our economic policies toward investment in education and research, innovation as a primary driver of job growth and infrastructure repair and improvements as fundamental to our economic growth both now and in the future.
No one should work forty hours a week and live below the poverty line. Work should pay enough to care for a family. We need a $15-an-hour minimum wage, indexed to inflation so that no one falls behind again.
By making wise investments in our future, I believe that we can and will spur the economic growth we need and create the good jobs Americans deserve.
Infrastructure
Fixing and expanding America’s tattered infrastructure will create jobs, boost the business climate and improve our daily lives.
Infrastructure is the backbone of our economy, and investing in our infrastructure is a wise investment in our future. With passage of the Build Back Better Act, Pennsylvania will receive about $18 billion over the next five years to invest in our state’s infrastructure.
Investing in infrastructure is one of the most effective ways for government to spur economic growth and create an environment that is beneficial to business and workers. According to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, every dollar invested in our infrastructure provides a boost to the economy of $1.44.
There are a wide array of investments we can make in expanding and upgrading our infrastructure, and our specific areas of focus should be:
- Roads and bridges
- High-speed internet – critical for rural towns and farmers
- Dams
- Electric Grid
- Airports
- High-speed intercity rail
Making these strategic investments will provide immediate jobs and will support businesses in their transport of goods, workers, and information, and help citizens to more freely move about and lower home energy bills. This can also free workers to live where they want to live instead of having to move where the jobs are.
In addition to the profound positive economic effects of investing in our infrastructure, these investments will make us safer, as our roads and bridges receive the repairs and upgrades they need to make them once again safe to use.
Education
Public education was once America’s biggest competitive advantage and the “port of entry” for new Americans. Our K-12 public schools need funds, innovation and respect, college students shouldn’t have to borrow the cost of a first home to get a degree, and we must broaden community college and non-college post-secondary opportunities.
Infrastructure may be the backbone of our economy, but strong public education is the engine that drives our economy forward.
A well-educated workforce is foundational to growing our economy and spurring the type of innovation that is the hallmark of American economic power. In order to have a workforce that is capable of keeping-up with the innovation economy and staying competitive in the global marketplace, we must have strong public education.
I believe in public schools and public-school teachers. We must restore a culture of respect for people who teach in public schools, and pay them according to the value we place on the future. Failing to adequately fund education, to trust our educators, and to compensate them for their work and their skills fundamentally drains the ranks of educators of the talented, thoughtful, proactive people who make education work. Public school teachers have held the ladder into the middle class for millions, and we are counting on them to do so for millions to come.
Schools do more than grant diplomas and prepare almost every American for the life ahead of us. They are the center of a community. Community schools deserve our support and we must defend them against those who would profit from stripping their funding.
Strengthening public education at the primary and secondary levels is non-negotiable, but we must also look to strengthen education at the post-secondary level. This means taking immediate action to make sure that college is affordable for future generations, while also working to address the student debt crisis for those already drowning in education-related debt.
I also understand that we need options for those who do not wish to go to college, but wish to expand their skills and education beyond high school. Vocational and technical schools, and programs like the apprenticeship programs run by organized labor, provide a viable and attractive alternative for those who wish to continue their education and training beyond high school to pursue a career capable of sustaining a family, but who do not wish to pursue a traditional college degree. We must work to strengthen these programs and inform our students about the array of options available to them if we want to build a strong, vibrant, and diverse workforce capable of responding to the demands of a rapidly changing economy.
Supporting the Agricultural Community
Farming is a central part of our district’s past and present. To ensure that is also part of our future, our farmers need labor-market stability, diverse markets and fair taxes.
Our district is diverse and our community isn’t just composed of the cities of the 10th District, but also some of the most fertile farmland in the United States. We have a strong agricultural community of which we should all be proud. Unfortunately the proud history of the American family farm, a tradition with deep roots in our community is under constant pressure.
Without our support, farming in Central Pennsylvania will become a memory, rather than a cornerstone of our community and tradition. I will stand-up and fight for our agricultural community and do all I can to preserve and strengthen a way of life that reflects our nation’s values and puts food on our tables every day.
Many family farms rely on seasonal workers to have a stable and reliable workforce. Calls for mass deportation and the failure of our leaders in Washington to enact meaningful immigration reform threaten the agricultural community, and we must take action to implement meaningful immigration reforms that give family farms the stability they need.
Investing in clean and renewable energy, like wind and solar, is a potential windfall to the agricultural community, which can install wind and solar arrays as a way to increase revenue, decrease overhead and realize greater stability while helping to protect the land, air and water on which their business depends.
Agriculture is an uncertain business that is subject to huge market swings. As a result, meaningful tax reform that ensures that those at the top pay their fair share, while small businesses, like family farms, and middle class families do not continue to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the tax burden, is extremely important to supporting the agricultural community. I will support this type of tax reform so that farming families do not have to sacrifice their financial security so that Wall Street billionaires can continue to live off of the hard work of middle-class families.
Healthcare
The Affordable Care Act needs to be strengthened, not repealed. Competitiveness in the insurance market – including public option plans – and allowing Americans over 50 to buy into Medicare are essential steps.
The COVID-19 pandemic put enormous strain on the already burdened healthcare system. The response of hospitals, doctors, nurses and support workers was nothing short of heroic. But the crisis also exposed serious cracks in how we care for people.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a huge step forward for healthcare in the United States. Through the ACA, millions of Americans were able to gain health coverage, including those previously barred from such coverage due to pre-existing conditions. From an economic standpoint the ACA was also effective at slowing the skyrocketing cost of healthcare in the United States, which represented a looming economic crisis. Repeated Republican attempts to roll back the advances made by the ACA by repealing with no real plan to replace it are unacceptable. I will stand up to protect the ACA to insure continued access to quality healthcare.
Of course, like any sweeping new program, the ACA is not perfect, and implementation came with a host of unintended consequences. While the ACA was a great first step in expanding access to healthcare for everyone, millions of Americans remain uninsured. I will work to meet these challenges by addressing the unintended consequences of the ACA, while working to expand access to quality, affordable healthcare so that we can all get the healthcare we need.
As the national debate over healthcare continues to rage, we must understand that insurance is only one piece of the healthcare system. The rest includes hospital systems, doctors and allied health, pharmacists, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, and public research and development. Much of this system is not competitive, which drives up costs and lowers access. We must focus on the entire system if we are going to lower costs and increase access to care.
We must work with states to remove unnecessary regulations that keep healthcare professionals from delivering the care that they are trained to deliver. For example, in many states nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants cannot open their own practice even though they deliver the same level of care at a lower price for basic medical services and screenings. We can also make it easier for Americans to purchase non-narcotic prescription medicines by allowing pharmacists to prescribe these medications without having to take time off from work to go in for a doctor’s visit.
In some parts of the country there is only one healthcare system for 100 miles in any direction and only one insurer on the exchanges. This lack of competition drives up prices and leads to poorer care. We can increase competition in these cases by providing public options, breaking up healthcare monopolies, and adding access to competitors through innovative technologies such as telemedicine.
Finally, many Americans would like to retire before they are eligible for Medicare, but may not be able to because of the high cost of private insurance. We need to allow Americans the option to buy into Medicare starting at age 50.
Women’s Health
A woman’s healthcare decisions should be made in private, between her, those who support her, and her medical caregiver.
I support methods like those in Colorado where they lowered their abortion rate by nearly 50% by providing teens with comprehensive sex education and access to contraceptives. The program also lowered teen pregnancy and STIs while saving tens of millions of dollars.
Women’s health is also about valuing the lives of women. We need to ensure that women have the time to heal after delivering their children, and that those who care for them are sufficiently trained and resourced to reduce the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world.
Social Security & Medicare
Social Security and Medicare are a sacred promise made generation to generation. Their preservation – not privatization – is non-negotiable. Social Security is 87 years old and working, so you won’t have to be.
I will stand up to protect Social Security and Medicare by supporting simple, common-sense reforms that will modernize these vital programs and make them secure for generations to come. Increasing lifespans, shrinking family sizes and falling wages are pushing the current Social Security system towards a revenue shortage. One proposed response to this is to promote dangerous plans to require Americans to gamble their savings in a largely unregulated and unstable stock market and to turn Medicare into a coupon scheme. In Congress, I will fight any attempts to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
Retirement and the security of having a basic, secure income are taken for granted today. But 80 years ago, the end of work often meant the onset of poverty for older people who didn’t enjoy the support of a large extended family.
Social Security has helped millions of Americans over the years. To make it solvent for years to come, we need to raise the income. It is completely unfair that billionaires pay Social Security tax on tiny fractions of their income, while most families pay on all their income.
There is a substantial longevity gap between income groups. Raising the retirement age without reducing this gap is wrong. Universal health coverage and skills training can begin to address this gap, and any increase in the retirement age should be very gradual.
If we do nothing, our current Social Security system can pay full benefits for two decades. While that is a legitimate concern, it’s not an immediate crisis. There are years to work out a reasonable plan if we start now, and many approaches. None of them are free.
We don’t need to do all of these things; just enough of them to make sure Social Security will continue to be there for the next generation. But the absolute best thing we can do to save Social Security and Medicare is to bring secure, high-paying jobs back to our country. There can’t be a decent national retirement system without a real, productive economy to support it.
Energy & The Environment
The threat of climate change is not debatable. We must change course, starting now, and when we do, we can not only save our planet’s future, but create whole new industries and millions of jobs.
There is now a consensus among scientists that the earth’s climate is changing dramatically, and that human behavior is the major contributor. When we deny climate change and the need for strong environmental protection, we do so at our own peril and at the expense of future generations – our own children and grandchildren.
Simultaneously, by refusing to take action to address environmental protection and climate change, we deny the economic opportunity represented by the development and deployment of clean and renewable energy. The switch to these alternative energy sources will not be immediate, but they will create countless well-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced, and represent an investment into communities both urban and agricultural that desperately need such investment to thrive.
I will support strong environmental protection measures that make sense, and I will be an outspoken advocate for investing in the type of clean and renewable energy that will benefit the agricultural community, grow the economy, create jobs and make our nation more secure by reducing our reliance on foreign oil. The economic opportunities presented by addressing the climate change crisis are real. Solar energy now employs more people than coal, oil, and gas combined. The increasing numbers of environmental tragedies that require federal intervention, like the water crisis in Flint, are opportunities for direct investment in communities, job training, and the creation of new industries.
We cannot continue on our current path, or worse, reverse course and undo the advances made in protecting our environment and claim to be responsible leaders or responsible citizens. I will lead the way in increasing environmental protection measures that make sure we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and I will fight to increase our investment in clean and renewable energy to grow our economy, create jobs, and increase national security.
Supporting Our Veterans
Our military does an outstanding job of keeping Americans safe. It is also an incredible social engine. I believe military service makes better citizens and more prosperous communities. We must continue to repay their service.
Our veterans give up something irreplaceable: years away from home, possibly their health, and potentially their lives. They also bring back powerful examples of selfless sacrifice, duty, and honor. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines give years of their lives in the field so others can freely and safely attend school, acquire social contacts, and build careers.
Education, financial assistance and lifelong medical care aren’t charity, they are the minimum that we need to do to support those who have earned it through their selfless service to our great nation.
Making sure that our veterans receive the ongoing support they have earned means addressing the issues in the VA system to guarantee quality, timely healthcare to our veterans. The VA makes decisions based on money and not on patient care. I believe that those who serve to keep America safe deserve the very best healthcare available. If we send men and women out to protect us, we cannot cut corners when they come back.