Footer

Issues Post

<p><a href="/93db1285-273b-4d73-a411-0f1001be2a95"><strong>Contact us</strong></a><strong> </strong>if you see us mentioned in the press so we can link to it here.</p>

Latest Campaign Developments

News

Click this text to edit, or click this block to show more options on the sidebar.

Support Our Campaign!

<h3>Contribute now to support our campaign!</h3>

Landing Popup

<p>Volunteer</p>

Header

<p>News</p>

<p>Events</p>

<p>Issues</p>

<p>Contact</p>

<p>I'm Danny Province, and I'm running for the House of Representatives in Missouri's 4th congressional district. Thanks for dropping by the website; here's some short cuts.</p>

<p>Thanks for coming!</p>

<p>A new generation of politics is possible, with your help.</p>

Your contributions help us reach more voters.

We’re grateful for your donations!

Donate

News Post

Events Post

Headline Text Here

<h2>Privacy Policy</h2><p>Last updated: November 17th, 2025</p><p>Province4congress operates <a href="http://www.mysite.com">http://www.province4congress.com</a>. This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information we receive from users of the Site.</p><p>We use your Personal Information only for providing and improving the Site. By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.</p><h3>Information Collection And Use</h3><p>While using our Site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to your name, phone number, and e-mail.</p><h3>Communications</h3><p>We may use your Personal Information to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information for campaign purposes.<strong><br></strong></p><h3>Cookies</h3><p>Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer's hard drive.</p><p>Like many sites, we use "cookies" to collect information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Site.</p><h3>Security</h3><p>The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.</p><h3>Changes To This Privacy Policy</h3><p>This Privacy Policy is effective as of Nov 17th, 2025 and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page.</p><p>We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Service after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.<br></p>

Text

News Preview

Get Involved

Short Form

<h2>To Donate:</h2><p>The best way to support me is to set up a small recurring donation on <a href="https://secure.actblue.com/donate/danny-province-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><strong>ActBlue</strong></a>. They also take one-time donations if you prefer.  </p><h4>Thank you for considering donating to my campaign.  </h4>

Read below for some of our top priorities

Headline text here

<p>Lower Housing Costs</p>

<p>Medicare For All</p>

<p>Education Reform</p>

<p>Next Gen Infrastructure</p>

<h3>Modernizing the Economy</h3><p>America continues to rely on economic systems implemented in the 1960's. Since then, the population has gone from 180 million to over 340 million, yet we still use systems meant for half the people we have today. In 1969, there were 2.92 million federal employees. Today, there are 2.91 million federal employees. It's overdue to update the government for the economy of now.</p>

Priorities List

<h2>My background:</h2><h3>Teaching Debate</h3><span class="image image-framed image-right image-tilt-right" style="width: 40%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/fbe02f9d-33e5-458c-94f1-83d40d135108/fbe02f9d-33e5-458c-94f1-83d40d135108.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C1060%2C4032%2C1964&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="right" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none"></span></span><p>I have been a debate coach for the last 10 years. A good coach can teach public speaking, politics, and current events, along with the basics of economics, philosophy, and history. The temptation as a debate coach is just to teach argumentative tricks and scripts to read instead of expertise in the topics the kids speak about. I got a reputation for teaching kids the real subject matter, and they went on to great competitive success at tournaments as well as entering the best universities around the world. I couldn't be more proud of them.</p><h3 style="text-align: right">Starting a Small Business</h3><span class="image image-framed image-left image-tilt-left" style="width: 40%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/7eb90b5f-bbe9-4796-ae59-b22eb6156c67/7eb90b5f-bbe9-4796-ae59-b22eb6156c67.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C762%2C4032%2C2262&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none"></span></span><p style="text-align: right">In 2021, while China was still under the zero-covid lockdown, I partnered with Harbinger to open a new debate school in Beijing. It was a great success and now serves a few hundred students a year. We went from $0 revenue to over $1 million annual revenue and from 3 employees to almost 30 now.</p><span class="image image-framed image-right image-tilt-left" style="width: 25%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/ac34fb7c-0e4f-4c9e-9baa-6fd5964e03a1/ac34fb7c-0e4f-4c9e-9baa-6fd5964e03a1.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=156%2C0%2C1546%2C1276&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="25" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none"></span></span><p style="text-align: right">I really enjoyed navigating the tricky business climate in China at the time. Not only was the zero-covid policy happening and the economy slowing down, but the government also issued the "double-negative" policy limiting what schools like mine could teach. Despite this stronger government intervention and weakening economy, we were profitable every semester and a runaway success. I know that its entirely possible to create economic growth and have a more muscular government at the same time, and fixing our government's economic policies is actually what will create an environment where opportunities are widespread again.</p><p style="text-align: right"></p><h3>Struggling after the Great Recession</h3><span class="image image-framed image-right image-tilt-left" style="width: 40%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/03cf288d-ac68-4c01-a444-5921b29fda77/03cf288d-ac68-4c01-a444-5921b29fda77.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=92%2C48%2C404%2C672&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none"></span></span><p>I was born in Warrensburg and in college at UCM from 2006 - 2010, and I was working at KMOS-TV during that time. I was on duty when the admin started walking the hallways going from office to office laying people off, and what I remember is the fear everyone had that day. I was making $10/hour at the time, more than student employees typically were supposed to, so I thought I might be on the list. Luckily it was too little to be of their notice, but to me, it was a lot; I didn't know it yet but $10/hour was the highest pay I would earn for the next several years.</p><p>After graduating I couldn't find a job in TV, and bounced around between unemployment and temp jobs. I worked in a unionized brick factory. I mowed lawns on construction sites. I ended up something close to an overnight janitor at age 26, $8/hour and college degree in hand. Finally I got into graduate school in 2015 and went straight to China upon graduation where my career took off.</p><p>I definitely would not have made it through without the support of my Dad when I had nothing else going for me. I know what its like to throw ice in the toilet, or go without heat on a snowy winter night, or skip eating a couple days at the end of the month. I want to make the necessities for life like housing, healthcare, and food more affordable so its a little easier for people living that struggle. When that struggle gets easier, more people will be able to rise above it.</p><h3>Conversion to the Democrats</h3><span class="image image-framed image-left image-tilt-left" style="width: 40%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/fabd9344-c28f-42e8-bc4f-d4a43866dc14/fabd9344-c28f-42e8-bc4f-d4a43866dc14.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C500%2C333&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none"></span></span><p>When I was a teenager, I was watching Fox News and considered myself conservative. Like most men growing up in the Midwest it just seemed natural, and the other men in my area were all Republicans too. I marched in a parade for them. Much to my shame, I remember arguing passionately in favor of the Iraq War in high school debate club, fully aware of what a trump card weapons of mass destruction was. I attended a McCain rally in '08, and at that point I was already souring because it had long become clear they had lied about WMDs and many other things. At that point I was paying close enough attention to realize the great recession was being caused by the conservative obsession with deregulation and moral hazard.</p><p>It was indeed a leopards ate my 18-year-old face moment. The republicans had sent my generation to die in the desert for oil, and then sacrificed a decade of our economic lives on an altar to neoliberalism. All those years I was struggling, I was painfully aware republicans were working to slow the economic recovery by shrinking stimulus and sequestration. I began arguing against them to anyone that would listen, and over time I got better at it. My best friends in college had also been republicans and later became democrats. My father and I stopped watching Fox News in the morning and switched to Morning Joe on MSNBC. I've had a lot of success at shifting my friends and family to the left. What works is not compromise and capitulation; its standing whole-heartedly for your values, and being there when their party lies to them or betrays them, so they can see there's still something to believe in.</p>

<p>Send us a message about what's on your mind and we'll get back to you with the relevant information.  Submitting information here does not sign you up for the mailing list or volunteer list for the campaign, so feel free to send a contact without making a commitment.</p>

<p>We’ll respond ASAP!</p>

Long Form

<p>I was lucky enough to go from the great recession in the United States to the tail-end of China's golden age.  I know what it's like to struggle and to succeed.  I've fallen down the ladder and climbed my way back up.  It's not about bootstraps: it's about the availability of opportunities.</p>

Page Intro

<h2>Jefferson City Protests</h2><p>Join social activist groups from across Missouri in a day of action at the state capitol to protest the GOP's agenda to strip abortion rights, eliminate the income tax, divert tax dollars to private schools, gerrymander the state, and deny our referendum results. </p>

<h2>Hometown Kickoff</h2><p>Join us for a town-hall Q&amp;A event before the Missouri campaign season officially begins. The event takes place at the University of Central Missouri, Union 229 at 6pm. </p>

Announcement

<p><strong>Missouri is ripe for a backlash election. </strong> Overreach by the Missouri state legislature and the republicans at the federal level have made the people of Missouri ready for a change. However, backlashes don't just materialize out of thin air; they happen because people put in the time to organize and make them happen.  That's what we'll be doing over the next year in western Missouri, and we'll need all the help we can get! Sign up here to hear about opportunities to help with campaign or voter registration events.</p>

Our Campaign’s Top Issues

Issues

<p>Real success does not come from personal achievements, it comes from lifting up others and believing in their future.</p>

Quote

Privacy Policy

<p><strong>Below are events I will be at and invite anyone else to attend to. The more people come together, the more power our voices have.</strong></p>

Campaign Events

Events

<p>Danny Province</p>

Volunteer

Contact

Home

About

<p>This section is still being written: please check back later.</p>

<p>I believe that people in the US and in the Mo 4th district understand the trade-offs of lenient gun control, and decided those trade-offs are ones they are willing to accept. That said, we allow people on the terrorism watch list to buy guns and that has close to 90% public approval to change. So some modest regulations are needed.</p>

Gun Control

<h3>Pre-clearance for women's reproductive health</h3><p>Women are facing an unprecedented assault on their rights and improvements in quality of life over past decades. The supreme court overturning Roe v Wade was just another step in years of eroding the right to an abortion. States have invented random regulations on room sizes or contracts with hospitals to further try to eliminate all options. If they do ban abortion overall, they still need to keep pushing just to establish their conservative credentials. So they come after birth control, in-vitro fertilization, and they even write bills to ban ectopic pregnancy abortions that have a 100% fatality rate: a law that just condemns unlucky women to death.<br></p><p>Any democrat in congress needs to resist these restrictions and codify access to abortions into the law, not just rely on the courts to do it for them. However, we actually learned a way to prevent this kind of erosion through regulation with the civil rights act. Local authorities were required to seek preclearance for changes to their election system and if it seemed like they were just trying to find a way around the civil rights act, it wouldn't be approved. We should implement a similar preclearance regime for abortion regulations, where they must get approval from the department of health and human services. This should apply to any reproductive care, including birth control and IVF.</p><h3>Rights in the workplace</h3><p>Conservatives have reacted to the crisis for young men by trying to roll back the gains of feminism. Women's liberation really came through the ability to work and earn a living independent from men, and the ability to control when to have children was a major barrier to overcome to make equality possible. That's a big piece of the motivation for these attacks, which spills over into other Republican policy entrepreneurship. Trump repealed Biden's executive order against employment discrimination by gender and sexual orientation. Project 2025 calls for eliminating the disparate impact test that protects women from workplace policies that pretend to be neutral but actually cause significant disadvantages to women. They gutted the federal agencies responsible for protecting women from workplace discrimination like the EEOC and the OFCCP. They have disqualified several women-majority fields like nursing from counting as professional degrees, which reduces the availability of federal money and scholarships for those career paths.</p><p>These changes need to be reversed and the disparate impact test can also be codified into law. Democrats need to start acting like the supreme court is a hostile entity, because it is. Too often the party has left it to the court to safeguard the rights of Americans instead of implementing legislation to protect those rights. There were several versions of this legislation introduced in recent sessions of congress like the Pay Equity for All Act or the Paycheck Fairness Act. Democrats should put together a large number of pro-women policies as well as reversing the Republican policy attacks into a single omnibus bill and pass it like was done with housing. Republicans whittled away these rights bit by bit over years, and Trump's own moves are split into several small actions; too small to draw media attention individually. A massive bill pulling all these issues together is much harder for Republicans to resist because they'd have a high profile vote against a lot of women's rights all at once.</p><h3>The crisis for men in America is not a reason to reverse feminism</h3><p>Feminism's big gains came in the 2nd half of the 1900's, with women gradually closing the wage gap and having additional laws and rights protected by our institutions. After 2000, there are very few increases in women's rights to speak of; progress on issues like the wage gap just continued through momentum and cultural change while institutional protections remained in place. By contrast, the crisis among young men only really started after the great recession in 2008. Feminism is not the cause of men's struggles, and it makes no sense to reverse women's equality as a way to try to help men. However, this economic pain for men does cause a surge of anti-feminist political action. We've seen this happen in other places like <a href="https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/07/23/gender-politics-and-right-wing-politics-clash-in-south-korea/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">South Korea</a> and <a href="https://www.epc.eu/publication/From-provider-to-precarious-How-young-mens-economic-decline-fuels-th-63effc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the European Union.</a> Democrats need to argue forcefully and loudly that economic pain is the cause of men's struggles to present an alternative to the far right antifeminist narrative.</p>

<p>Women face an aggressive assault on their rights by people trying to turn back the clocks. It goes beyond abortion rights to worker rights, ability to get a divorce, and to access birth control. I am committed to resisting this attack and defending their hard-fought gains towards equality.</p>

Women's Issues

<h3>ICE is out of control and needs to be brought to heel</h3><p>Trump has tried to turn them into a personal army, and their conduct has been horrifying over the last year.  The way to deal with ICE is to recombine the agencies for immigration services and enforcement together.  While ICE exists with only the mission to go after immigrants, it positions the organization and the immigrants as enemies.  That naturally attracts the kind of people that hate immigrants and want to harass them.  The Republican push to over-fund the agency and pay signing bonuses worth more than a teacher in Missouri makes in a year also attracts people willing to do anything for enough money.  The result is that ICE has begun behaving like a state-sanctioned KKK, using <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/09/13/nx-s1-5507125/the-supreme-court-clears-the-way-for-ice-agents-to-treat-race-as-grounds-for-immigration-stops" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">race as a legal justification</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/28/doj-la-protesters-false-claims" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">lying as a matter </a>of course, telling latinos <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX7I4znDOKk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">they have no rights</a>, systematic <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/07/21/you-feel-like-your-life-is-over/abusive-practices-at-three-florida-immigration" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">violence and abuse of human rights</a>, etc.</p><p>Because ICE was staffed by people sympathetic to Trump's anti-immigrant bigotry, they as an organization have not resisted the drift towards fascism as other agencies have.  If these people had to also provide support services to immigrants as part of their job, bigoted individuals would be much less likely to want to join the agency.  That's what existed prior to 2002, when the department of homeland security was created and immigration and naturalization services was dissolved.  The INS combined visa enforcement and immigrant support services within one agency.  Its functions were split apart by Republicans into several agencies including ICE, and that change is systemic incentives was a mistake. </p><h3>Restoring the INS</h3><p>By reintegrating the immigration agencies together, Democrats can take the <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/press-release/congress-approves-unprecedented-funding-mass-detention-deportation-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$170 billion appropriated to ICE in 2025</a> and redistribute it across the immigration system.  To understand the sense of scale, Biden's border bill only proposed <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/what-is-the-bipartisan-border-bill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$20 billion for things like courts and migrant processing</a>.  If we simply abolish ICE, that funding level is lost and Democrats take a unpopular position when a better option was available.  The downside is that this means many of the jackbooted thugs from ICE would not be fired, but integrated into the new agency until a Democrat wins the Presidency.  Under the new Supreme Court directive that the executive can fire anyone at any time in an executive agency, the President would have access to logs of abuses and the power to purge those new INS employees that deserve to be purged.  It would be something I would be looking for a candidate to promise in the democratic presidential primary.</p><p>This two-step isn't as immediately satisfying, but would go much further towards fixing America's broken immigration system.  Visa overstays for example <a href="https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/how-many-people-overstay-visas/#:~:text=The%20Pew%20Research%20Center%20estimates,unauthorized%20immigrants%20now%20living%20here." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">account for over 40%</a> of unauthorized immigrants in the country. About another <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/22/qa-how-pew-research-center-estimates-the-number-of-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/#:~:text=How%20many%20immigrants%20had%20these,into%20the%20U.S.%20(1.0%20million)" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">18% are applicants</a> for refugee status.  The long processing time from months to years also creates a bigger incentive for people to come through irregular methods instead.  Combine all these points and our lack of administrative capacity for immigration is really the majority of our immigration system's problem.  This reintegration is a way to take the massive budget given to immigration enforcement and turn it towards actually solving the real structural problems in our system.</p>

<p>The majority of immigration problems in the country comes from a lack of legal capacity to handle large numbers.  We need more judges and lawyers, not more masked thugs, in order to solve the process.  Even if you agree with ICE's mission, its badly structured as an organization.  Restructuring our immigration agencies is necessary to actually solve our immigration problems.</p>

Immigration reform

<h3>My Experience</h3><p>I was a debate teacher for 10 years; 2 years at Central Michigan University and 8 years in Beijing. At various times I taught kids from grade 3 up to undergraduate, but it was almost entirely in private schools and extracurricular settings. I gained a small amount of renown within the city; enough that I was invited to effectively start my own small cram school. I really enjoyed the business management aspects while continuing teaching. Almost everyone working for me was in their early 20's, so there was a common feeling between raising up teenage student athletes and training their coaches.</p><p>I wish I could say that this experience gives me great insight into education policy, but it doesn't. I did not go through traditional teacher training, I never worked in a traditional day school, and the teachers I trained worked in my system instead of the American system. Trying to replicate my experience within the US system would be unwise. Whereas in other issues like healthcare I support whole institutional change, I don't perceive the issues in America's education system as having fundamental root causes in their institutional design becoming outdated. So I will not approach the US education system with the same radical intent.</p><p>Instead, my experience makes me good at understanding the difficulties our teachers face in <em>implementing</em> the policies. I ran a successful program and then built up a 2nd successful program; I'm good at figuring out how to make policy work in the real world. I'm also someone very experienced in making private school work without needing support from the state; so I can bring a lot of credibility on not opposing private schools while also not letting them bleed resources from the public school system.</p><h3>The NEA policy platform</h3><p>I endorse the first eight of the National Education Association's nine policy statements. The complete list can be <a href="/policy-statements-2024-2025.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">found here</a>. To summarize, I support:</p><ol><li><p>Affirmative action in hiring teachers</p></li><li><p>Not siphoning public funding to private schools</p></li><li><p>Universal pre-K</p></li><li><p>Standards for teacher evaluation and accountability</p></li><li><p>Incorporating digital technology and online classrooms into a student-centered education model.</p></li><li><p>Using charter schools as a tool for innovation within the education system rather than a tool to evade the normal standards of that system.</p></li><li><p>Support for the community school model</p></li><li><p>Support for a restorative justice approach within schools and anti-discrimination practices.</p></li></ol><p>The last policy statement is on the role of Artificial Intelligence in education. The NEA's position is risk averse, setting a high standard that peer-reviewed research must validate the use of AI before it can be incorporated into classrooms. That stands in stark contrast to the way the internet and computers were much more eagerly adopted and the freer hand teachers had to experiment with and utilize new technology.</p><p>Teachers are obviously worried that the drive behind AI incorporation is to get rid of them, and they are not wrong about that. Just as some states utilized charter schools to enhance their goal of siphoning the public education system's resources out of the system, those same forces are excited at the prospect of cutting education budgets down to the bone without basic compensation for teachers. I fully agree with the part of the NEA statement that AI must not be utilized to displace educators because AI cannot fulfill that role.</p><p><strong>What AI is close to replacing is textbooks</strong>. It can recite information and problem sets its been programmed with as well as any electronic textbook while at the same time answering basic questions and giving basic observational feedback. I remember having typing class in 2002, and the typing program realizing I had a problem with pausing after making mistakes, and giving me targeted exercises to solve the issue. I found that <em>incredibly</em> helpful, just like a teacher giving personalized feedback. But the fact that it can sometimes do the same thing as a teacher does not mean it replicates the teacher, in the same way that just because sometimes I can repair my car does not mean I can replace a car mechanic. Experts are expected to be able to assess the entirety of a system and be able to intervene where needed: AI is just not held to that standard because the current level of the tech can't reach it.</p><p>So while I fully appreciate the general threat AI represents to teachers in the education system, I worry about angst morphing into general hostility and resistance. The education system embraced the internet and computer tech quickly because they realized it was going to be omnipresent in my generation's adult lives and lack of familiarity would hamstring our futures. They were right and I'm extremely grateful for that. AI is here; it's going to become omnipresent in America over a similar timeframe. Kids are already showing how much use they get out of it to do their schoolwork. We can't afford to drag our feet and try to keep it out of kids lives, we have to try to master it and place it in its appropriate role instead. So I would encourage educators to adopt a more forward leaning approach about what that role is, and I think "the new textbook" is it.</p>

<p>My private school did not attempt to replace public schools; I worked extensively with students from both systems for years and without any government subsidies.  Systems like private school and AI can have a role, but that role is not to divert funding away from the public school system.</p>

Education

<p>No one can know everything about every issue our government will deal with. If you have other issues not addressed on this page, feel free to use the <a href="/93db1285-273b-4d73-a411-0f1001be2a95">contact form</a> to message me about them. It could be to ask me my stance on an issue, or to send me information about <strong>your</strong> issues. One thing I have found I really enjoy about campaigning is hearing from people about the areas of their expertise. So tell me what you think; you might persuade me as well. Thank you to those who take the time to reach out.</p>

<p>If you want me to clarify a position, address an issue not listed here, or just want to tell me about the issues that matter to you, feel free to <a href="/93db1285-273b-4d73-a411-0f1001be2a95">contact me</a> and tell me so.</p>

Additional Issues

<h3>The New Mexico Model</h3><p>New Mexico just began offering <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/21/new-mexico-universal-free-childcare-campaign" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">free universal child care</a> at the end of 2025.  I can summarize the program in just a few parts.</p><ol><li><p>New Mexico has a large state fund made from payments on natural resource extraction.  Fossil fuel companies contribute to it, and the state uses it to fund their education system. The fund itself is larger than the New Mexico state budget each year, and accumulates returns as an investment fund does.  The universal childcare program is paid for with these returns instead of the principle, so the fund continues growing at the same time.</p></li><li><p>New Mexico centralized childcare programs under the Early Childhood Education and Care Department (ECECD) so that all of the programs in the state were searchable and subject to a single regulatory overseer.  Childcare providers get licensed and listed, and parents can sign up at no-cost for providers in their area.</p></li><li><p>Teachers and childcare providers organized and pushed for this program's creation at the same time they pushed for increased wages.  The state implemented a starting wage at $18/hour for licensed care providers and is seeking to recruit several thousand more licensed providers who will be paid by the state instead of by families.  The estimated savings for families is an average of $12,000/year, so families save money while care providers make more.</p></li></ol><p>Only a few states have these natural resource wealth funds like New Mexico, and New Mexico did not use their own fund at first either.  They created the Early Childhood Trust Fund using covid-19 relief funding for early expansion of the program in 2021 so they could prove the concept and convince voters to amend their constitution to continue funding it in 2022.  Since we're talking about trust funds, the federal government can invest money and it will continue generating returns over time instead of being wasted or lost.  The federal government should establish a national early childhood trust fund in the same manner as the highway trust fund and use it to help support childcare for young children.  </p><p>The costs by state program range from about $1 billion in New Mexico to an additional $5 billion in a state like New York.  Wealthier states wouldn't have an issue with these costs through modest tax changes (New York's annual budget is $250 billion) but poorer, less populated states without natural resource funds would struggle (South Dakota's annual budget is just $7.3 billion).  A national funding mechanism would be necessary to make the program implementable in all 50 states.   After that, you could still implement the rest of the program from the state level.</p>

<p>New Mexico has pioneered an incredible new model for universal child care.  They jumpstarted the program using federal relief funds during covid-19.  This model could be implemented nationally with another round of funding from the federal government dedicated to that purpose.</p>

Child and Family Care

<h3>Purchases</h3><p>Republican policy this term has been a frontal assault on American agriculture by cutting the demand for our farmers’ products. Republicans have cut <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/snap-cuts-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-leave-almost-3-million-young-adults-vulnerable" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">SNAP by about $18 billion</a> per year, meaning the government will not help hungry families buy that amount of food. USAID, which provided food assistance to the hungry overseas, also <a href="https://betterworldcampaign.org/blog/what-us-farmers-get-from-americas-engagement-in-the-un" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">bought $2 billion</a> worth of US food each year. Meanwhile Trump’s trade war has caused <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/28/soybeans-sacrificed-in-trumps-china-gamble-00583232" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">China to cut off imports of US agriculture products by half</a>, another $15 billion annual loss for farmers. To offset the damage, Republicans committed to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/05/business/farmer-bailout-trump-tariffs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">giving American farmers about $10 billion/year</a>. Not only is it not enough to cover the damage of their policies, but in effect they are paying farmers to <strong>NOT</strong> feed the people that were eating the food before.</p><h3>Intellectual Property</h3><p>While the recent harms are important and should be reversed, they compound the long-time problems US farmers have been facing. The harassment of farmers who don’t even use a companies patented seeds or being forbidden from repairing their own vehicles and machines are examples of how IP law has overly favored big agriculture companies. Reform of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 is complicated because it is codified into several international treaties, and thus requires some international coordination to alter. But something immediately possible is right-to-repair legislation, which I would support. Right-to-repair forces manufacturers to provide access to the software and tools necessary to repair their products so owners can repair it themselves. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/right-to-repair-farmers-challenge-john-deere-control-equipment-rcna199651" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Six states have passed right-to-repair, but 5 of them exempted farm equipment</a>, and Missouri's state legislature has voted against any right-to-repair at all. I would reintroduce the Agricultural Right to Repair Act to overrule these state-based exemptions that are effectively giveaways to big Ag.</p><h3>Subsidized transitions</h3><p>Other national democrats have introduced legislation to assist farmers that want to transition their farming practices. This includes transitioning CAFOs to pasture-based livestock farms, changing manure management practices and implementing some climate change agricultural projects. The important thing to me is that <a href="https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/30869-proposed-bill-would-fund-transition-out-of-cafos" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the bill offers economic offsets</a> to pay for voluntary change instead of forcing an economic cost on the farmers. If the economic incentives make sense for them; great! If not, then they aren't forced to change.</p><h4>My Focus</h4><p>As clean energy subsidies and environmental regulations made coal no longer profitable, it caused significant damage to the economy of West Virginia. I worry about similar consequences for Missouri’s farmers being pushed past an economic breaking point by policies aimed at non-agriculture related goals. For that reason, my focus is on shielding farmers from paying the economic cost of our national strategy, and these policies do that. The difference is this; we want to support the industry that feeds people at home and as a tool of national policy abroad. They are using the withholding of food as their tool. When our leaders don't want to feed people, they don't think about how their policies will affect the ones that do the feeding. It's simple as that.</p>

<p>Republican policies have reduced purchases of US Agricultural products by over $30 billion this year, and proposed a $10 billion band-aid to cover their mistakes. Democrats would reverse the cuts in direct purchases, restore trade competitiveness, and I would support two additional cost-cutting bills Republicans have opposed.</p>

Write a short blurb about an issue your campaign is highlighting. Try to keep the text a similar size between the various issue blurbs.

<p>Agriculture</p>

<p>Join us for a town hall Q&amp;A with local democratic candidates for office.  February is the start of Missouri's official campaign season.  </p>

Hometown Kickoff

<p>A Town Hall Q&amp;A event with local candidates.  </p>

<h3>Yes to Medicare for All</h3><p>I was really tempted to just write "Medicare for all" over and over again for this issue, but I did have something more I wanted to say. Ultimately I will fall in line on whatever Medicare for all proposal the progressive caucus decides to support in 2027; we won't see eye to eye on some other economic policy areas but on this one they are just 100% in the right.</p><h3>Costs are out of control</h3><p>The morning my mom died, I woke up hearing her wheezing but trying to hide it to not wake up my father beside her. The night before, she had refused to eat, she said because of an upset stomach from chemotherapy. I was in college on practically a full-ride, but living at home because it seemed like my Mom may not make it. I just cannot shake the feeling she might have wanted to die to take the financial pressure off my family. It was barely a few days later when it was clear that financial pressure had totally lifted. My Dad made an off-handed remark about how strange it was that life insurance and social security money was flooding in when it would have been so much more helpful had it come just a week before.</p><p>I am still painfully aware that medical bankruptcy is the most common form of bankruptcy in America. We pay on average $13,432 per person for healthcare while comparable countries average $7,393. The next closest country to us is still only $9,688. Global Pharmaceutical companies get 75% of their profits from just our country; triple the rest of the world combined. We overpay on overpaying for medicine.</p><p>What other countries have figured out that we haven't is that this is fundamental to our private healthcare system. In a typical industry, demand is more elastic than supply; meaning its more sensitive to prices and goes up and down more quickly. That's not true in healthcare, most demand only goes down because people literally can't afford to pay the high prices. The market dynamic is supposed to discourage unneeded healthcare like optional screenings, not to cut off poor people from access to medicine. But functionally unlimited demand means prices will be as high as we allow these companies to extract.</p><h3>What healthcare system should we adopt?</h3><p>At this point I will take any model from any of the other developed countries on par with our wealth. If it were up to me, I would probably pick the German system with statutory health insurance that everyone is automatically enrolled in but you can opt out if you buy high class private insurance instead. It's a little on the expensive side but still 33% less than ours, and they actually have lower wait times! Technically, this is not a single payer socialized system, which I think Americans would find easier to accept, but 90% of Germany uses the government offered insurance because private can't offer a better deal. Just like medicare and medicaid have far lower admin costs than private healthcare, government plans in other countries are also just cheaper and yet get better results than we do.</p><p>So just offer government insurance already! I'm not even coming from an ideological capitalism/socialism stance on this issue: the global evidence is just abundantly clear that our way of doing medicine is outdated and wildly inefficient by comparison. Any government sponsored system is better than this system, and yet even the most limited public option couldn't pass when I was young in 2010. We're using more caution in creating price limits on insulin and other drugs than creating AI or restarting nuclear bomb testing. It is by far the most incompetent thing our country still does is tinker around the edges of this system instead of just building a one based on well-proven modern practices from the rest of the world. It's like we're riding in horse-drawn carts and yelling at other countries with cars that internal combustion leads to tyranny.</p><h3>The key battle that we need to anticipate</h3><p>I think its very likely that we will be able to pass modernized healthcare should democrats ever regain control of the congress and presidency.  The Overton window on healthcare <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/654044/view-healthcare-quality-declines-year-low.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">has shifted so much</a> since 2010 that I believe a public option will pass through a Democratic congress today.  I want to focus on a key under-discussed point: what your company spends on your healthcare now is considered part of your compensation package.  If the US passes medicare for all, that spending should not go back into the company's pocket: it belongs to you the workers.  They report how much they spend on your healthcare already; the government should make sure that money goes into workers' pockets if medicine is socialized.  </p><p>Corporations are going to viciously fight against that.  It is such a huge amount of money in a one time raise that there will be massive investor pressure to take as big a slice of that pie as possible.  Because of the lack of labor power in this country, it will be up to the government to pre-empt that move.  We have to aggressively write enforcement into the law that stops what would otherwise be an historic level of wage theft.  That would be the piece of the healthcare law I would aggressively fight for when it becomes possible to pass it.</p>

<p>We've tried for decades to save the private healthcare system from spiraling costs, and Republicans have fought to keep prices rising. Strong government intervention works in every other wealthy country to reduce costs by thousands of dollars per person compared to us. Our system is antiquated by comparison.</p>

Healthcare

<h3>My life in China</h3><p>I suspect of all the things I have to say about US-China relations, the majority of people googling me and China are looking for info about the several years I lived there. I moved to Beijing in July 2017 and moved back to the US in March 2025. The debate coach that trained me had a connection to a debate company there, and I was hired at a generous starting salary considering the low cost of living. I started off teaching public speaking class and quickly grew into a leading role teaching debate and politics due to my students' competitive success.</p><p>In 2021 I was invited to become a business partner with Harbinger, a new debate company that quickly came to dominate American public forum in the country. It was a big success: my goal had been to open a new branch in Beijing and to get from $0 - $1 million revenue in 4 years, but we did it in 3. A couple dozen people are still working there and the business continues growing after I've stepped aside and moved home. In the interest of transparency, I do continue to enjoy an annual payment on the lower end of 5-digits from my ownership stake after returning to the US, but I have stopped "working" there to focus on full time campaigning in 2026.</p><h3>Why come back? Taiwan</h3><p>Both the Taiwanese government and the American government heavily debate the possibility of China attacking Taiwan in the year 2027. I think those estimates are correct for a number of reasons: China is constructing a blue-water navy design, but would struggle to utilize it if they remain encircled by the island chain including Taiwan. The big population decline in military-age adults resulting from the one child policy is beginning, meaning China's military numbers will begin to wane. Lastly, a significant amount of US firepower in new ships and planes will roll out in 2029. This is the high water point of China's military strength compared to American counterbalancing for the foreseeable future, and attacking Taiwan would only get harder after 2027.</p><p>Consequently I saw it as too risky to stay in Beijing. I was a fairly high profile teacher and I could teach politics as long as I steered clear of a few taboo history subjects like Tiananmen. That was a restriction I could live with because it didn't require me to teach anything in particular, the taboos were not particularly core in any way to my subjects, and the kids were still learning far more about politics than if I wasn't there. But in the event of an invasion of Taiwan, there would be a radical shift in that culture, and I would naturally be one of the main authorities many of the kids would come ask about the conflict. Face to face with the kids that could end up being drafted to fight that war some day, I would not be able to steer clear of the topic. America may also intervene, and China <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/world/asia/hong-kong-black-hand.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blamed American meddling</a> for unrest in Hong Kong and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58687071" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">arrested Canadian nationals</a> to retaliate against a Canadian arrest. So there is a troubling pattern that I could have ended up on the wrong side of.</p><p>I admit that's reading the tea leaves to quite an extent, but I correctly predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine in November 2021 while many people were telling me it would never happen. I have a pretty good track record at this kind of prediction, so I see the risk of staying as too high. If I was there and conflict began, I wouldn't be able to keep teaching as normal and wouldn't be able to do anything to help. If I win this election the year, I may still not be able to do much, but I have more chance of making a difference than if I stayed home. A credible actor to talk with, someone that government officials in China trusted with teaching their own children, could make a difference. Lord knows the Trump administration can't play that role by themselves.</p><h3>A Bipolar World (again)</h3><p>America seems to have forgotten the logic of how to live in a world with other superpowers. After 1990, we began throwing our weight around and demanding concessions diplomatically, economically, even militarily. In exchange for America's advanced technology, access to our market, and investment capital, countries were mostly willing to meet our demands. We were also unrestrained in the use of military force on those who wouldn't meet them. Our failures were largely our own fault rather than an adversary's. Trump's foreign policy now is a continuation of that behavior; demanding tribute from those that still wish to remain in our good graces.</p><p>We can't continue like this, we need to accept that China is now a superpower equivalent to us and return to a logic more similar to the cold war. In great power competition, we must show generosity to our would-be allies in order to keep them from becoming our foes. The more we try to extract concessions from other countries instead of engage in mutually beneficial policy, the more we push them into China's arms. This part of the cold war's logic is sound and the longer it takes us to relearn that lesson the worse off America will be.</p><p>On the other hand, I oppose the cold embrace of real politik justifying alliances with any government regardless of their immorality. Millions of people died around the world in the first cold war because we simply couldn't stand to lose anywhere at anytime. We sponsored death squads, bombed civilians, armed terrorists and more in conflicts that served practically no strategic purpose other than the appearance of winning. Thankfully we no longer need to choose between our principles and our advantage: in the internet age, an immoral army has no chance of winning over public opinion. One need look no further than America's support of Israel the last few years to see that. We must start standing up for an international order that other countries want to be a part of again.</p><h3>Reciprocity in trade</h3><p>America has long accepted large asymmetries in trade policies with China under the theory of specialization. Economists say that individual countries specializing in different aspects leads to better overall results. For smaller countries with fewer people and resources, that analysis is probably sufficient. However, countries as large and diverse as US and China can't help but be invested in most economic sectors anyways, and we feel the hollowing of any one of them such as the loss of manufacturing in the U.S.</p><p>Trump's approach to the trade war was to try to deal with China the same way as other countries around the world, and issue tariff and trade policy updates sporadically to gain an upper-hand. That doesn't work because China's command economy allows them to issue new strategic policy whenever they want with no pushback, while the U.S. system will always be slower and more deliberative, resulting in us always being too slow to adapt. What we should do instead is establish a rule of law system with automatic measures that are intended to mirror the trade policies China makes that are intended to be asymmetric.</p><p>What that would look like is automatic tit-for-tat moves: they ban American social media companies, then we ban Chinese social media companies. They launch cyberwarfare attacks on us, then we launch proportionate cyberattacks back. If they require technology transfer of intellectual property to do business there, we can require the technology transfer of intellectual property here. When they try to steal that IP, as happened <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/chinese-business-owner-employee-plead-guilty-sentenced-stealing-trade-secrets-sedalia" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">in Sedalia in 2013</a>, we can retaliate against the businesses engaged in these crimes, not just the individuals. This also provides the natural framework for mutual de-escalation: whatever actions they cease towards us, we can cease reciprocal actions towards them.</p><p>That system would be just as fast as the Republican solution of just giving the executive unilateral authority over trade, but far more predictable and less capricious for the sake of businesses trying to make long term plans and investments. It also reflects our country's belief that the system of generally free trade America created is a more fair and economically beneficial system for the world than the system of protectionism China utilized and offers as an alternative. Asymmetry is what creates the potential for one party to exploit the other. It's up to America's leaders to make that case for the American system, and the Republican retreat into nationalist imperialism only undermines our claims to being a better steward of international trade.</p>

<p>I lived in China for 8 years and built a small business in the city of Beijing.  I want to contribute my experience to managing the economic relationship between our two countries, and hopefully avoid a conflict as we did in the first cold war.</p>

China

<p>I have been a supporter of the one state solution since leaving college around 2011; I came to the realization that the two state solution was not possible. The one state solution would be a single country with special obligations to both nations of Israelis and Palestinians, with equal and reciprocal rights for both groups. Just as Israel was created to serve as a refuge for the Jewish peoples scattered across the world, it has scattered indigenous Palestinians across the world as well. I support a model in which the government has a special obligation to both peoples within and abroad; to speak as an advocate for both and allow both an equal right of return.<br></p><span class="image image-framed image-left image-tilt-left" style="width: 40%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/99bf51e1-e6c2-4d0c-b0bd-cfcf1d7410c5/99bf51e1-e6c2-4d0c-b0bd-cfcf1d7410c5.jpeg?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C678%2C283&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="left" alignwidth="40" tiltdirection="left" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none"></span></span><p>We have international models for how such a solution could work; in the good Friday agreement of Ireland, the reconciliation courts of Rwanda, and especially the anti-apartheid movement of South Africa. Whether we're talking about a majority country freeing a minority as happened in the US, or a minority granting rights to the majority as in South Africa, the people with total power over the situation beforehand remained more economically and politically powerful than those newly enfranchised. The two state solution on the other hand has not been a realistic option in my lifetime. To ask the Palestinians, with a hostile nation on their border that’s blockaded their ports and militarily occupied them for decades, to have no military is to ask them to remain victims. Neither side could be expected to give up Jerusalem. You can’t deport 700,000 Jewish settlers. The two state solution is just impossible to work out at this point and has had decades of international support to try.</p><p>Some people now argue that the one state solution is impossible because its unpopular. That there is too much spilled blood between the two sides after Oct 7th for the two sides to live together. Well 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda and they've managed to live in one country. The Irish conflict with Britain lasted hundreds of years and had even more people die from things like the potato famine, and they've managed to make peace and live with the North Ireland carve out. Some people pay special attention to Palestinians saying they oppose the one state solution. Setting the legitimacy of such polls aside, the logical extension of such an argument is that Palestinians prefer to be victims of apartheid and genocide: an odious claim that should not be entertained.  Given the choice between the current system and citizenship, its difficult to imagine Palestinians would prefer the current system.<br></p><p>In the short term, America must immediately cut off all weapon shipments. Whatever legitimate military concerns Israel may once have had, its conduct in the last 2 years has completely disqualified it as they do more harm than good. Saving the lives of the people being systematically starved, imprisoned, and executed is not just righteous but our obligation: because its our planes, dropping our bombs, for billions of our dollars.  In the long term, the US should give up the 2-state fiction and begin pursuing a real one state solution.</p>

<p>I have been a one state solution supporter since 2011.  I was not surprised by how far Israel went after the Oct 7th terrorist attack. The attack on Israel and the warcrimes in Gaza are symptoms of the same underlying problem of an Apartheid system. The 2 state solution America has pursued my entire life led us here; it's time to change course and live up to our own values.</p>

Israel-Palestinians

<p>Bring your own sign to show what you are protesting!</p><p><strong>Suggestions: </strong><br>Abortion rights being taken away<br>Mandatory sick leave being taken away after the referendum<br>$50 million tax dollars sent to religious private schools by vouchers<br>Eliminating the income tax<br>Gerrymandering and ignoring the will of the people</p>

Jefferson City Protests

<p>Protests against the Missouri GOP 2026 agenda at the state capitol building.</p>

<p><strong>We're just getting started!</strong> Thank you for checking out the new campaign website.  We'll post more news stories here in the future.</p>

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has b

<p>The Website is up!</p>

<h3>The economic urgency of AI</h3><p>The US invested over <a href="https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$100 billion in AI</a> this year, roughly 40% of the global investment and <a href="https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">92% of US economic growth</a> for the year. I'll credit Kyla Scanlon with the phrase "America is now one giant bet on AI" and plenty <a href="https://www.profgalloway.com/americas-best-bet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">more analysis of why here</a>. If AI does not pay off on the current investments, the economy will experience a downturn similar to the dot com bubble in 2000-2001; not a disaster, but a setback. However, if we keep investing faster than revenue growth and inflate the bubble more, the potential economic harm will just keep growing and growing. Revenue for AI companies must already increase 100x in the next 5 years to justify the investment, and the gap continues to grow right now.</p><p>In the recent past we simply waited for bubbles to pop before intervening. But we don't have to do that; we can start taking precautionary measures right now. The academic literature suggests broad sweeping solutions with <a href="https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/economic-perspectives/2018/4" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interest rates</a> or <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105905601730816X" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tax rates</a> that target investors over the industry they are investing in. Instead, we should impose requirements on the industry to be prepared for potential losses. We already do this with banks and capital requirements because of the structural risk banks can pose to the economy like 2008. If AI poses a structural risk to the US economy, we should impose capital requirements on the excess debt they are accumulating as well: make AI companies pay a percentage of their excess debt-investment into an insurance account that will be used in the event of a crisis. As these companies deleverage, they can get the insurance money back.</p><p>Right now, there's been bipartisan support for the unregulated state of the AI industry because Republicans don't support regulations on anything and because of the imposing status of California (Silicon Valley) and New York (Wall Street) on the Democratic party. The push for AI regulation is going to come from the left in the other 48 states that are not riding the AI financial rocket until it explodes. So its important for democrats running in midwest seats to lead that charge.</p><h3>The bad use case of AI is to obscure ownership and responsibility</h3><p>The common theme of how AI has been abused across our society is to create something ownerless when ownership gets in the way of what people want to do. For example, AI models trained off copying the articles and artwork of writers and artists without payment or attribution. However, there are much worse abuses that have not become well known to the American public. These are the areas that should be addressed in AI regulation.</p><ul><li><p>AI used in contexts known for persistent racial or gender discrimination like <a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/10/31/ai-bias-resume-screening-race-gender/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hiring decisions</a> or <a href="https://news.tulane.edu/pr/ai-sentencing-cut-jail-time-low-risk-offenders-study-finds-racial-bias-persisted" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">parole decisions</a>. Because the human data the AI learns from has these biases, the AI imposes the same pattern even when its supposedly programmed not to calculate race. In one instance, the AI worked out race based on subjects addresses to still impose a racial bias anyways. However the business or local government and the AI company all try to leave fault with each other when the lawsuits come. There is nothing in the government statutes saying who bears responsibility, and the Trump administration issued an executive order <a href="https://www.quinnemanuel.com/the-firm/publications/when-machines-discriminate-the-rise-of-ai-bias-lawsuits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">not to enforce the relevant statutes</a> on the basis of disparate impacts. Legislation is needed to codify this responsibility.</p></li><li><p>During the stop-killer-robots debate about an international ban on AI based weapons, the United States government was the leader of the opposition to such a treaty. The US argued there is no extra risk posed by AI weapons compared to traditional weapons because there was no use case for relying only on AI targeting without human oversight. What that means is America thought no one would be crazy enough to just let AI decide who to kill instead of people deciding. But <a href="https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Israel did exactly that with Project Lavender</a>. They allowed AI to decide kill targets with practically no human intervention, so that way individual soldiers would not be guilty of the widespread targeting of civilians. Making it so no one bears responsibility for the targeting of civilians in Gaza is the modern day equivalent of Nazi gas chambers built when the German soldiers couldn't stomach the mass shootings anymore. America bears a terrible moral stain for letting that happen. We should reopen talks on banning fully autonomous weapons.</p></li><li><p>Young people have begun using AI for pornographic purposes that we should not allow. Specifically, they have AI use the likeness of people that never agreed to appear in pornography. This happens to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/21/celebrities-victims-of-deepfake-pornography" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">celebrities </a>but even more damagingly to friends and classmates in school. Kids don't understand people not just owning their body but owning the right to access their body or use their likeness. AI allows them to ignore that ownership and permission to create something that most victims would be horrified to discover. This use of AI to recreate a real person's likeness in this context should simply be banned.</p></li><li><p>Conservatives are now using authorless AI videos to create fake political content. For example <a href="https://www.theroot.com/racist-ai-videos-of-black-women-complaining-about-their-2000070131" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the racist tiktoks</a> about SNAP. Far right parties <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/11/far-right-mps-fake-news-misinformation-left-study" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">across the globe</a> now utilize this communication strategy (known as lying) with regularity. Meanwhile, fake news purveyors have <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">way more difficulty</a> selling slop to the left. There have been cases of people in the US being punished for making deepfakes of the political figures themselves, but we have not stopped anyone from creating deepfakes of random people to use as villains for their outrage machine. These are effectively scam artists and they rely on anonymity in producing these fakes to avoid potential accountability. While we are already requiring age-gating and ID verification of AI users because they are opening it up to pornography, we should also hold people legally liable for this kind of fake political content as well as develop a universal AI watermark for all AI video. We can let professionals register the videos they create instead of using a watermark for things like AI-generated video in movies.</p></li></ul><h3>AI in Education</h3><p>This is addressed on my <a href="/a6dd9a67-9ecc-4a48-ba53-dd7f24d2ddf5/10558059-64b8-44c4-9381-e5d312f14ddd">Education page</a>.</p>

<p>The AI industry has already gotten away with too much and grown into an economic bubble that is not threatening the US economy yet, but will if it continues on its current trajectory.  We need AI regulation sooner rather than later and its up to Midwest Democrats specifically to offer those solutions.</p>

Artificial Intelligence

<h3>Solving the cost of living crisis is our number one priority</h3><p>America's cost of living has become a full blown crisis this decade, but its been a steadily growing threat my entire adult life. I remember plenty of months in my twenties where I or a roommate would run out of money and struggle to pay bills. This was the biggest culture clash I experienced moving to China; Subway rides were 50¢, a good lunch was $3-$5, and for the first time in my life I didn't have to keep track of how much I paid for utilities. My rent in 2025 for a nicer loft apartment in Beijing was actually cheaper than my rent for an apartment in rural Missouri.</p><p>That difference in cost of living is ridiculous and why the NYT wrote "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The American Dream is Alive, In China</a>." We as a country must solve this affordability crisis as our #1 priority because its leaving Americans without the money to do anything else but survive. There are three major drivers of the affordability crisis: housing, healthcare, and education costs. Inside each of these three areas is a very complex series of problems, and you can check my analysis of them on their individual issue pages. Here I will write about the broad pattern repeating in each of them, and what an Abundance agenda means.</p><p>Housing, healthcare, and education are all necessities for modern life that have become predatory and subject to artificial scarcity. Various decisions by many different people limit their supply and drive up their cost. During the high inflation after covid-19, <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/story/2023/03/14/housing-costs-are-a-main-reason-inflation-is-still-high" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">70% of the inflation pressure was housing</a>. We are paying <a href="https://www.pgpf.org/article/why-are-americans-paying-more-for-healthcare/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">twice as much</a> for healthcare per person as other wealthy countries do. The cost of college continues to rise <a href="https://myelearningworld.com/college-tuition-inflation-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">three times faster</a> than the inflation rate across the economy. But its important to realize that even if we are not buying a house or going to college now, <strong>all of us </strong>pay for the elevated price of the housing, healthcare, and education needed by every business' employees. These necessities for every worker drive up the price of every purchase across the economy.</p><h3>The meaning of an Abundance Agenda</h3><p>The policy prescriptions for each industry might be complex, but the general pattern is the same: we want to dramatically increase the supply so that the cost comes down. An "abundance" of housing, medical care and education options brings down the cost. In America's cold-war past, we resisted government intervention in these markets and were very receptive to even private education and the market supplying these necessities. <strong>My main argument is that we should think of these more like public goods than market goods.</strong> The logic of markets is to reach efficiency: only producing as much supply as maximizes the profit. A public good is one where you want mass availability so that everyone can use it cheaply.</p><p>I know from my small private school in Beijing. The reason I could do so well as to start a private school is because the ability to provide competitive-level debate teachers in person in China is very limited. Because of the mismatch in supply and demand, the price of my classes rose quite high until I only had as many students as I could handle teaching in one semester. We even delayed hiring teachers and expanding classes in 2022 due to the weak economic condition. Imagine your kid's high school having less class during a recession.</p><p>For education, healthcare, and housing, we are actually better off if there is a significant oversupply because the rest of the economy benefits from keeping these costs down. No matter what you buy, it will be cheaper if the people you buy it from have more affordable housing, cheaper health insurance, and paid off tuition. But its also a big improvement for each of those 3 industries as well if there was a government intervention to improve cost and quality. An abundance of education opportunities means our kids can fully realize their potential instead of being passed over for someone deemed more likely to succeed. An abundance of healthcare means people don't need to be financially wiped out by disease in the family (<a href="https://www.abi.org/feed-item/health-care-costs-number-one-cause-of-bankruptcy-for-american-families" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">60% of all US bankruptcies</a> are from medical debt). An abundance of housing means people can reliably move nearby to where work is rather than being priced out of economic opportunity. Ultimately, an abundance agenda is about creating <strong>an abundance of opportunity</strong>; making opportunity cheap and widely available enough that people don't feel trapped by circumstances beyond their control.</p>

<p>Our #1 priority needs to be solving the cost of living crisis crushing Americans' economic future. That comes down to 3 things: Housing, Healthcare, and Education.</p>

Abundance

<p>There is a big debate today about if men are facing an independent crisis, or if they are just suffering more from the same social problems as women.  The confusion comes from comparing the results rather than the causes in three topic areas: economics, education, and social connections. Using the economics example, women seem to be <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/5528062-gender-flip-job-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">outperforming men now</a> when they have the same qualifications.  For people under 30, the wage gap has closed to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/gender-pay-gap-in-us-has-narrowed-slightly-over-2-decades/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">women earning 95¢ for every $1</a> a man earns, the smallest it has ever been.  This could be that men are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/young-men-struggling-slowing-job-market-college-degree-rcna224482" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">failing in a way that women aren't</a>, or it could be that both men and women are suffering from <a href="https://jacobin.com/2025/07/masculinity-crisis-gender-inequality-class-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the same economic headwinds</a>, just more so for men.  So let me explain my starting points and how that guides my understanding of the recommended policy responses.</p><h3>Men and Women are both not the cause of Men's problems.</h3><p>Right now, the right seems to insist on blaming feminism and the loss of traditional gender roles.  Feminism's main gains were in the 1970's - 2000's.  Since then, feminists have simply been on the defensive, trying to limit how much conservatives are able to roll back those gains.  But the men's crisis really only kicked off in the 2010's, for example with <a href="https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/08/02/when-the-men-buck-the-trend-recent-advances-in-mens-lfpr/#:~:text=That%20downward%20trend%20is%20evident,it's%20over%204%20years%20old." target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a significant number of men</a> losing work after the great recession.  There was another drop off after covid-19 with a recovery to the 2010's level you can see on that same chart.   </p><span class="image image-base image-center" style="width: 65%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/2186bfa0-26f9-4cae-9d88-326ed67b3f94/2186bfa0-26f9-4cae-9d88-326ed67b3f94.png?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C837%2C585&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="center" alignwidth="32.5" variant="base"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none;"></span></span><p>Men got by for decades just fine with feminism.  It is true that men can gain economically from suppressing women's rights, but they do not have to suppress women in order to gain economically: and that's what the conservative position to roll back feminism really implies.  Even if conservatives were right, I <em>still</em> wouldn't support their attacks on women because we should not try to succeed through disadvantaging others as a matter of morals.  </p><p>That said, I also hear an equally troubling narrative from the left: "<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/30/whats-the-matter-with-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">What's the Matter with Men?</a>" You see a penchant for leftists <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/what-did-men-do-to-deserve-this" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">throwing shade at the idea there even is</a> a men's crisis.  When they do accept it, people on the left or center-left tend to think men have brought it on themselves.  This is most acute in the realm of dating, where there is an underlying current of belief that if a man can't date or find a relationship, then its a problem with him in particular.  There is an assumption that maybe he's already a toxic Andrew Tate acolyte, or he doesn't take care of himself, or he isn't "economically viable," or he's too scared to put himself out there, etc. etc.  There's such a variety of could-be red flags, but the underlying assumption is if you were a decent man, you could get a girlfriend.  </p><p>I think the narratives that locate the fault within men themselves are just as wrong and harmful as the anti-feminism narratives on the right.  Does anyone really think young men today are more sexist than 50 years ago? Or that men have worse hygiene than 50 years ago? The next step of the argument typically borrows from the anti-feminist narrative: that men were always "this bad" and that now that women are closer to equality, men can't compensate through the subjugation of women anymore.  Usually with some evolutionary-pop psychology sprinkled over it to give it a veneer of academic legitimacy on the left.    However we know that men's support for feminism kept increasing until the last several years when it fell off a cliff.</p><span class="image image-base image-center" style="width: 60%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/bb7ca692-e71e-4f26-8582-b7a0e144f501/bb7ca692-e71e-4f26-8582-b7a0e144f501.webp?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C640%2C554&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="center" alignwidth="30" variant="base"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none;"></span></span><span class="image image-framed image-right" style="width: 40%;"><span class="image-inner-wrapper"><img src="https://run.imgix.net/e7eedaa9-b47c-4de8-8cb1-849a801dea33/9214dc33-a969-493f-8688-520447ccfb73/9214dc33-a969-493f-8688-520447ccfb73.webp?ixlib=js-3.8.0&amp;bri=0&amp;con=0&amp;sat=0&amp;high=0&amp;shad=0&amp;usm=0&amp;rect=0%2C0%2C640%2C611&amp;w=1500" alt="" caption="" align="right" alignwidth="40" variant="framed"></span><span class="caption" style="display: none;"></span></span><p>After this step of the argument, they modify it to claim that boys have recently changed for the worse, usually blaming technology, video games, and social media.  That also flies in the face of findings like this one that the more online men are, the <strong>less</strong> sexist they become.  Higher internet usage is also associated with higher economic status, not lower.  The men using technology more tend to be less toxic and wealthier than those who are more offline.  </p><p>These poor diagnoses have undermined the quality of proposed solutions.  The right's attack on non-traditional gender roles doesn't actually help whatever is really hurting men; it just subjugates women as a form of compensation.  The left's approach, to treat it as though something in men's nature is the real cause of their problems, leads to disregard for their pain.</p><h3>The solution for men is not endurance</h3><p>When the DSM which guides psychological treatment addressed <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">toxic masculinity</a>, they were addressing something real and argued for rethinking what masculinity means.  Unfortunately, the view that has emerged years later might be best summarized by Scott Galloway's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO9rSnOyJQQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Provide, Protect, Procreate</a>.  His approach was to jettison the masculine traits labeled toxic (e.g. aggression, conflict-oriented) and to stitch back together the remaining parts.  I think the result is unfortunate, because in the absence of the ability to "win rewards," it seems to me this in practice becomes a call to endure.  This is what I hear:</p><p><em>It may be incredibly difficult to succeed in today's American economy, but men should just endure the process and try their best anyways.  Work long hours, tolerate tough working conditions, put up with poor treatment; because what it means to be a man is to endure the rat race until you succeed.  Conflict is justified by being on defense: that you should put yourself out there to endure attacks so that your loved ones don't have to.  But conflict for personal gain is still innately suspect. In the realm of social connection, men should endure as much rejection as possible.  Work out more, do more housework, find whatever ways to make yourself more valuable you can; sacrifice enough to make yourself desirable to others.  Don't overburden them with your own emotions or needs, you should endure your emotions and needs and have so much social connection that nobody has to support you: you support them. </em></p><p>If what defines men is their ability to endure, then what defines men is their sacrifice and suffering.  This is an accident; its not as though Scott Galloway or similar thinkers went out of their way to position men this way.  Instead, we need to reject the method of trying to stitch back together masculinity from traditions that remain when its more toxic aspects are removed.  What makes a man has to be rethought anew.</p><p>Similarly, I reject solutions that are based upon there being something wrong with men that needs some kind of fix.  For example, I reject the proposal to redshirt all boys and hold them back one year in school compared to women.  The individual variation in education ability is far greater than the difference between boys and girls at school; holding all boys back a year only stigmatizes them as inferior, and that would be more harmful than beneficial.  </p><h3>What men need is pathways to success</h3><p>The solutions that men need are relief for the headwinds affecting them.  In the realm of education, both boys and girls need help when they academically struggle.  If boys perform better with competition and status rewards, we should have more competition and status rewards in school or force the students to participate more, as we already force them to take P.E. in the assumption that exercise is helpful.  If boys do better with more exercise, increase the amount of PE too.  We have lots of research on what boys respond to in school, so we should just be implementing more school structures that work well for them, not holding them back until school is easy enough that it doesn't matter what school structure they have.</p><p>In the economic area, what men need is solutions for industries that men traditionally have worked in, like construction or natural resource extraction.   There is <a href="https://www.globalxetfs.com/articles/america-s-infrastructure-report-card-in-2025-still-behind-still-underfunded" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$9 trillion of infrastructure work</a> the US needs done over the next decade, but at our current rate we'd only spend around $6 trillion in that time period.  We do not need to exclude women from that work at all, we just need to fully fund the work. Men make up 2/3 of the workforce in the green energy industry, and the Republicans just <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/20/meet-republicans-who-killed-solar-subsidies-after-using-them-00631344" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">took a chainsaw</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/14/climate/trump-solar-project-nevada-electricity" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">to that sector</a> instead of continuing to fund the build-out.  Same situation for the agriculture industry.  Better economic management will go a long way to helping men.</p><p>Social connection is the hard one.  There is some work on how <a href="https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-third-places-contribute-thriving-communities" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">city planning can contribute to third spaces</a>, places that help increase social connection.  However, social connection is not something anyone can mandate. We can nudge it but we can't engineer it with social policy.  That's the area that I'm still thinking through, and if anyone reading this has suggestions go ahead and send them to me because I'm still looking.</p>

<p>Men are clearly struggling to succeed today in ways that we have not seen in recent history.  However, I oppose a raft of recent proposals that appear based on men being inherently flawed.  I believe the majority of these problems are about social headwinds, and the right solutions are to create paths for navigating those novel social forces, not "fixing" men.</p>

Men's Issues

<h3>The headline is there is not room for nuance</h3><p>Everyone in congress at this point realizes the exceptionally fast growing cost of housing is driving inflation across the country. <a href="https://eyeonhousing.org/2024/11/housing-costs-continue-to-drive-inflation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">65%</a>-<a href="https://www.marketplace.org/story/2023/03/14/housing-costs-are-a-main-reason-inflation-is-still-high" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">70% of inflation</a> is due to housing costs, maybe a little more or less depending on how you measure it. However, because its risen to being one of the biggest problems in the current economy, there are literally dozens of acts in congress right now to change housing policies in different ways. A large number of them were all combined into the <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/road_to_housing_act_of_2025_section_by_section.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ROAD to Housing Act</a>, and then that act was put inside the National Defense Authorization Act in the senate during the October shutdown. So now a small number of house members in joint conference will decide whether these housing actions will be included or not, and the house will take a straight up or down vote on the National Defense budget.</p><p><strong>A single house member will have almost no say on US housing policy</strong>. At most, we can express an opinion about whether or not to include the ROAD to Housing Act in the reconciled NDAA or not. Which I absolutely support including; Americans under 40 are being economically sabotaged by the high cost of housing and that reverberates into weakening the economy as a whole. We need massive action on housing, even if it ends up paired to some corporate giveaways that we don't particularly like. However, the Republican House may still opposed this vital measure.</p><p>The ROAD to Housing Act contains a number of provisions expanding or further funding the Housing and Urban Development Agency; something Republicans have <a href="https://nlihc.org/resource/trump-administration-releases-additional-details-fy26-budget-request-slashing-hud-rental" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sought steep cuts</a> to in their budget. The conservative <a href="https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-road-to-housing-act-is-a-dead-end-for-republicans/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">American Enterprise Institute opposes</a> the ROAD to Housing Act. It remains to be seen if House Republicans will pass it out of reconciliation or not, but the point should be clear: Democrats are more willing to engage in aggressive action on building housing than Republicans.</p><h3>Incentives vs Mandates</h3><p>The overwhelming majority of housing policies are about incentivizing private buying and selling decisions without forcing anything through eminent domain.  Typically we allow the use of eminent domain for things like gas pipes or powerlines, but not fully private uses like replacing a house lot with an apartment building.  This was a campaign issue back in 2016, where republicans opposed expanding eminent domain uses but democrats were more supportive of it because it was needed for things like solar and wind farms. It's time to bring that issue back.</p><p>The reality is that minor incentives have failed to revive the housing market.  To give an idea, the U.S. now needs <a href="https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2025/09/03/states-take-crucial-steps-to-expand-supply-of-lower-cost-single-family-homes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">up to 7 million</a> new homes.  To offer just a modest subsidy of $10,000 per unit, that would be $70 billion.  On top of that, US housing subsidies <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/housing-subsidies-boost-costs" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">have generally caused cost inflation</a> that wiped out the benefits.  The federal government imposes rigorous compliance measures on subsidized projects that make it actually more expensive to build housing with federal subsidies than for the private sector to go it alone.  </p>

<p>The republican house has not taken action on the Road to Housing Act, the main package of housing policies being considered this year. They offer no alternative plan for how to relieve the housing crisis either.  The housing crisis is an emergency that will take years to solve, and Republicans haven't even let us out of the gate to start.</p>

Housing

<h3>We need technology solutions, not economic solutions</h3><p>For a long time, the debate among environmentalists has not been if climate change needs to be countered, but how. Technological solutions like nuclear power plants or improving carbon capture from the atmosphere were controversial and downplayed in favor of political and economic solutions like cap and trade or carbon taxes. These policies demand a financial sacrifice on the altar of climate. Environmentalists argued that improved technology solutions would only give permission to pollute more; that if we could take more green house gases out of the atmosphere, fossil fuel companies would have permission to put more green house gases into the atmosphere. They thought political action could solve the problem as the Montreal Protocol had helped fix the hole in the ozone layer.</p><p>These economic policies were always doomed to fail. By definition, an economic policy would fix climate change by basically making dirty energy too expensive for the poor to use. In countries that tried cap and trade, it resulted in large market distortions and companies being created to pollute just to trade in the credits for stopping their pollution. The largest <a href="https://static.rusi.org/scoping-corruption-in-voluntary-carbon-markets-july-2025.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">carbon credit resellers</a> turned out to be engaged in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed-forest-carbon-offsets-biggest-provider-worthless-verra-aoe" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wide-scale fraud</a>. In other countries where climate taxes were tried, there was self-defeating societal backlash and rightly so. There is no such thing as a good political movement that requires people to accept a lower quality of life. Stricter Climate Tax policies were <a href="/IER%20The%20Case%20Against%20A%20Carbon%20Tax%20%20Submission%20Ways%20and%20Means.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">estimated to do more economic harm than climate change itself</a>. The lack of that political insight has been the millstone around the neck of many environmentalists’ plans to deal with the climate.</p><p>The single issue in politics I have been the most wrong about in the last 5 years was Joe Manchin’s influence on the IRA. I did not expect the left to agree to drop the economic penalties to fossil fuels that Manchin opposed, and they did. Democrats dropping those penalties and instead heavily subsidizing clean energy like solar, wind, and nuclear energy as well as carbon capture and battery tech was my preferred policy, and the IRA was estimated to reduce our carbon emissions <a href="https://www.iea.org/policies/16156-inflation-reduction-act-of-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">by 40%</a>. These lower pollution while benefiting the economy instead, so the <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/30/trump-war-on-renewable-energy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">republicans gutting of these incentives</a> is actually what hurts Americans’ wallets. These programs had created hundreds of thousands of jobs and were preventing rises in electricity prices <a href="https://www.ecoflow.com/us/blog/how-much-are-electricity-prices-expected-to-increase-in-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">by as much as 18% next year</a>.</p><h3>The chilling effect on the private market means the state must do it</h3><p>A private subsidy program is no longer going to be enough on its own because Republicans have just signaled to the market that they will sabotage the industry when in power. State or local governments might even try to sabotage green industries in their jurisdictions as well to curry favor. The chilling effect of this action on the private sector means that to get the amount of green energy needed to solve climate change will now require very direct state action. That means funding a state project in researching <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/winning-the-battery-race-how-the-united-states-can-leapfrog-china-to-dominate-next-generation-battery-technologies?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new generation of battery technology</a>. We should also restore and dramatically increase investment in the Department of Energy's <a href="https://www.iea.org/policies/16832-carbon-negative-shot" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Carbon Negative Shot</a> to research more cost-effective carbon capture.</p><p>However, just inventing the tech is not enough. It will be a massive industrial project on the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/32psKqFBMAGo6IaEYlGsqC?si=11bb960f51ef4ecb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">same scale as rural electrification</a> to build this infrastructure. The IRA was held up by the slow speed of upgrading transmission lines and expanding the electricity grid by private companies. They will be in no hurry to build up more under the chilling effect of republican interference with the green transition. The government must step in and increase the speed substantially.  That means avoiding the overly burdensome processes that bog down policies like environmental studies of if green energy is good for the environment.  </p><p>The most controversial element would be totally government owned projects to just build up solar and wind power.  The public-private partnership and contracting model would slow things down with bidding and compliance requirements, and private partners will demand very favorable terms to offset the risk of republican sabotage later.  Instead, the government should just build up solar, wind, powerlines, battery stations, and other assets until they can be privatized collectively as new power companies that are already proven and financially self-sustaining.  Spinning them off ironically protects them from future Republican meddling on behalf of their overlords from the oil industry. So the government should just build up a huge portfolio of assets and then sell them off as new firms, and those IPOs will recover the cost of the program.</p><p>Now while it will be controversial, nothing I've suggested here would be outside the norm, let alone unprecedented.  The first airline was operated by the US post office to establish the business model before building the infrastructure and selling contracts to private entrepreneurs.  The internet was preceded by the government ARPANET in a similar manner.  The government has even done this exact kind of work expanding the grid and power sources with the Tennessee Valley Authority.  Not to mention that other countries like China have already demonstrated the ability to maintain a subsidized expansion of green energy. So there's no reason to doubt the government's ability to carry out such a project: the only risk of failure would be a failure of political will.</p>

<p>What we need now is technological solutions instead of the economic solutions of the past.  A focus on economic solutions was harmful to the working class and as a result counterproductive. After the 2024 election, we are too far behind to solve climate change without major advancements in technology and government action.</p>

<p>Climate Change</p>

Campaign website for Danny Province, running for house of representatives in Missouri's 4th district

A new generation of politics is possible, with your help.

Teacher & Entrepreneur

Our priorities

Modernizing the Economy

Lower Housing Costs

Medicare For All

Education Reform

Next Gen Infrastructure

news & press

Latest Campaign Developments

The Website is up!

We’re grateful for your donations!

sign up to

Get Involved