United States SenateCandidate for Senator

Putting the American Worker First

In America, it used to be that it was not about where you came from, but where you were headed.  And whether you were 20, 30 or 50, you could achieve the dream you had for you and your family.  

For too many Americans, that is no longer the case.  In California alone, 49% of us live close to or below the poverty line. 

Americans feel the system is rigged.  Wall Street banks who made bad loans are bailed out while a single mother who takes out a loan to get an education can’t get such relief.  Multinationals sometimes pay next to nothing in taxes while many small businesses pay 35%.  Poor border enforcement and trade agreements that encourage the exportation of jobs contribute to more people competing for fewer jobs.  

There are four things we can do to dramatically improve the economic lives of the working men and women of this country.

Water.  The best way to improve the lives of working people is to identify those issues which, if addressed, would have a positive impact throughout the economy.  In California, the number one issue is water.  People cannot build homes or grow crops because of a lack of water.  With water we could build more homes in lower density areas which would create high paying construction jobs.  More water also would enable us to grow more crops, which would create jobs in our most depressed areas.  The benefits would not only be on the jobs side - a greater supply of homes would bring housing prices down and more food would lower its cost.

Consequently, I would stop all federal High Speed Rail dollars and use those funds to help solve our water crisis.

Resurrect Small Business.  It is disgusting the fastest growing path to the middle class today is a government job.  We can change that.  The number one creator of private sector jobs is small business.  We have a three point plan to make American small business the envy of the world and the engine of job growth:   

* Resurrect the community bank system to provide small business with access to capital.

* Get rid of the tax breaks and gimmicks that have nothing to do with improving the economy - and everything to do with taking care of the well-connected.  Then lower the marginal tax rates for individuals and businesses. 

The value of the reduction in the marginal tax rates to individuals is obvious.

In terms of businesses, it will enable small businesses that are not able to take advantage of such gimmicks to compete on a more equal footing.  It also will enable the trillions of dollars that are being parked overseas to come home to develop our economy instead of the economies of other nations.

* Dramatically reduce government regulations and put limitations on the scope of discretion bureaucrats have.

Control Our Borders.   I strongly support legal immigration.  However, to protect our workers we need to take control of our borders to prevent people from entering the country illegally.  There is a role for 5th Century B.C. technology (a wall) to help us achieve this goal.  However, we should have a triad approach:  

* A wall where cost effective

* Sensors, drones, big data in less populated areas

* Border officials with the manpower and tools they need to do the job.

Better Trade Deals.  Historically trade deals have focused on opening up markets to American goods and reducing the cost of goods imported into our country.  However, the American worker has not been well represented in this process.  Our trade deals need to do a much better job of taking the needs of the American worker into effect.  When I am in the U.S. Senate, I will ensure this is the case.

The bottom line:  When I cast my vote on economic issues, I will be focused on one issue:  “How does this law impact the American worker?”  If it either helps raise their pay or lower their costs, I will support it.  If it does not, I will oppose it.

How to Keep America Safe

The number one priority of our federal government is to keep America safe.  That requires bold, balanced, and smart leadership. With geopolitical threats from Russia, North Korea, and Iran and terrorist threats from radical Islam, it is essential our nation has both a strong defense and maintain a robust offensive capacity.  

As a U.S. Senator, I will work to empower the four core pillars of an effective national security policy: 1) Accurate Intelligence, 2) Thoughtful Diplomacy, 3) Innovative Technology , and 4) a Strong Military.

Intelligence is one of the most important national security components.  If we don’t know where our enemies lie and what their plans are, it is impossible to prevent, deter, and combat them.  Accurate intelligence can prevent wars and if you are in a war, accurate intelligence is the difference between winning and losing.

Current law makes intelligence gathering cumbersome and despite efforts to better coordinate intelligence across agencies, there is much more to be done.  We need to empower our intelligence agencies, not politicize them.  We need to better coordinate our intelligence with our allies across the world, especially in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. And we must aggressively prosecute anyone who undermines our intelligence gathering and networks.

Diplomacy is essential to an effective foreign policy.  From the Truman Doctrine to the fall of the Soviet Union, leaders such as George Marshall and George Shultz helped the United States build long-lasting relationships abroad that played an invaluable role in keeping us safe.  

We need to stop thinking of the State Department as a separate foreign policy entity from our intelligence agencies and our military and better integrate its diplomatic efforts into a grand national security agenda. 

In Europe, NATO should be transformed to also focus on the threat ISIS poses to its members. In the Middle East, we ought to be building a coalition to combat a nuclear Iran and ISIS. In Asia, we should work with the Japanese, and the South Koreans and pressure the Chinese to prevent North Korea from attempting anything reckless.

Moreover, we ought to be using the economic might of the United States as a diplomatic carrot and the military as the stick.  As Theodore Roosevelt was apt to say, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Technology can be the difference between success or failure in national security.  From muskets to sailing ships to computers, the entity that has mastered the latest technology usually has been the masters of their fate.  As the home of Silicon Valley, America should have a huge technological advantage, yet state actors like the Chinese and North Koreans have consistently hacked our government and terrorist organizations like ISIS have mastered the use of social media to recruit and propagandize.  

First, we need leaders who understand technology.  Second, we need to streamline the ability of our national security network to utilize the most innovative technology.  And third, technology must be thought of as a defensive and offensive priority.  As much as we should try to plug every hole in our technology network, we will never be able to do so.  People who try to undermine our network need to understand the price they will pay if they try.

Our military is the envy of the world thanks to the courageous men and women who serve in uniform. It is our most valuable national security treasure. But it is only effective in both preventing conflict and winning conflicts when it is undeniably the strongest military in the world.   

First, we must make investment in modernizing our military a key priority.  Second, we should prepare for the wars that haven’t been fought, not the ones we have.  Third, we should incorporate our military into our diplomatic missions.  These men and women are on the front lines and can be our most visible and effective diplomats. Fourth, we should leverage our military with strong alliances worldwide so that America isn’t alone fighting other people’s wars.  Fifth, we should never take military action off the table; it may not be the first option, but it must remain one.  Sixth, when we decide to engage our military, we must be prepared to do what it takes to win.  Leaving a combat zone with the mission unfulfilled creates new and more dangerous problems. And finally, we must work to ensure our veterans are cared for.  The current situation is shameful.

Protecting the American people is not only the most important priority; it also is one of the most difficult.  It takes persistence and clarity of vision.  In the Senate, I will have no higher responsibility than to do everything I can to keep the American people safe.

Imagining a New Age of Reason

We are on the cusp of the Second Age of Reason, one of the most exciting times in the history of man.

Before the first Age of Reason: the word was flat, and Kings and Queens ruled the world.  Then came the First Age of Reason, ushered in by the Gutenberg Bible.  We learned the world was round.  There was an explosion of philosophical thought.  And the American Revolution taught us that we did not need the Kings and Queens, that we could govern ourselves.

We are now on the cusp of the Second Age of Reason.  Technology has totally transformed what we know.  It has also transformed our ability to communicate what we now know with our 7 billion fellow human beings.  It has had a profound impact on the way we live, work, learn and play.  

It has had almost no impact on government.  

In fact, as the world is moving faster and faster, it is more and more difficult for government to keep up.  This is one of the main frustrations people feel not only at the national level, but at the local level, where it can often take longer to get a building permit than it took us to beat the Germans!

Because of (1) the dispersement of knowledge, (2) our ability to communicate quickly and (3) our ability to track performance and hence keep others accountable, there is no longer the need to centralize nearly as much power in Washington as before.

Hence, my goal is to make Washington as relevant in the everyday life of the American people as Prince Charles is to the people of England. 

As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed out, the American Revolution was one of the few successful revolutions in the history of civilization.  Hence, since revolutions seldom succeed, I support an orderly transition to a decentralized system as opposed to a revolution.  However, as is evidenced by the mood of the people and the inflammatory rhetoric of some candidates, this transformation must begin immediately.  We should encourage the states to take on more responsibility and using big data, learn from those experiments what works and what does not and make the necessary and continuous adjustments.

The second major concept in this area follows the first:  since there is so much knowledge and communication among up to 7 billion data points, it is no longer possible for one individual or group to have more knowledge than the people as a whole.  Hence, to truly represent the people of California, we are looking at ways to “crowd source” our campaign.  I will also attempt to do so as a member of the U.S. Senate.  And wherever feasible I will look to find ways to transfer power from elected officials and bureaucrats to the people through crowd sourcing and concepts yet to be developed.