U.S. House of RepresentativesCandidate for District 30

The beauty of the Green New Deal is that it's not just an aspirational wishlist to deal with the imminent threat of climate change, but that it’s also a legislative framework to how best to reframe the way we think about how to fund the infrastructure of the future and build it in a way that centers how people engage with their communities.

A successfully passed Green New Deal would mean that the United States annual budget would have to take into consideration more public transportation options to ease the wear-and-tear of new roads, building a new energy grid of renewable and natural energy sources, and cut down on airplane emissions by making air travel compete with alternate ways of getting around. This is the long term goal.

In the short term, Brian understands the need for funding a national infrastructure program, one that can be drafted with Green New Deal guidelines even without it being fully implemented.

Like education and healthcare, infrastructure is an investment for the future. The more money and organization we put into it now, the more money we’ll save down the road.

Healthcare takes up one-sixth of our economy but what do we have to show for it? For every example of someone successful in getting their insurance companies to pay for lifesaving treatment, there’s another of someone dying because they couldn’t afford to live after being denied coverage. Or because they’ve been priced out of their medication. 

For years, Brian was one of the millions of people uninsured, and knows first-hand the kinds of sacrifices one has to make, compromising one’s own health, to avoid the price of the alternative. The fact of the matter is, the only thing that got Brian through those uninsured years is luck. The same luck in which millions of people have currently staked their well-being. But luck is not a healthcare plan, and it’s one that no one should be forced to rely on.

Healthcare is too serious of an issue to be handled by such a chaotic system. Expecting people to beg before a faceless process that seemingly makes decisions arbitrarily is beneath the values that we collectively hold. To borrow from our Constitution, it’s certainly no way to “provide for the general welfare.”

With premiums rising and protections continuously being undermined, we are heading for a tipping point. If it comes to a choice between pricing out the insurance gatekeepers or pricing out the people of the San Fernando Valley, Brian will always stand on the side of the people.

The benefits of public goods tend to ripple out. By separating health insurance from employment, people can no longer feel locked out of the American dream by being trapped in a job for fear of losing their healthcare. Likewise, small businesses will no longer be burdened by worrying if they’re providing adequate healthcare for their employees.

The ACA/Obamacare got us part of the way there, but we can never mistake a first step for the end goal. Even supporting a robust plan such as Medicare-for-All only gets us so far. For women, people of color, and/or members of the LGBTQ community, the stakes are even higher, adding in the dangers that come with institutional bias and systematic undermining of basic civil rights. This is why in addition to making sure that a system like Medicare-for-All is implemented, Brian will fight for legislation that protects medical access for the most vulnerable and marginalized. This includes the fight for reproductive justice by strengthening the protections of Roe V. Wade.

At a time when some are hellbent on rewriting the words on the Statue of Liberty, we have a responsibility to honoring the San Fernando Valley’s history of welcoming and fighting for the rights of immigrants. 

It says a lot about the troubling times we live in when we need to point this out: Brian is categorically opposed to locking up people, including children, in concentration camps at our borders and anywhere else. Cruelty cannot be the de facto shortcut for dealing with difficult problems. We cannot expect people to go through the legal pathways when the systems that our ancestors went through no longer exist. Broken systems can not be the dividing line between generations of immigrants that want better for themselves.

The DACA program and the Dream Act are starting points. We need to look compassionately on what it means to be a citizen. Birthright citizenship was one of the best ideas to come out of the 19th century and it’s one-sentence right is something that needs to be fiercely defended and expanded upon. Simply put, those who are born within the United States are American citizens. The ideas that came out of this era, along with the abolishment of slavery and expanding the right to vote, are considered by many to be “America’s Second Founding.”

If we were to embark on a third founding for our country, we need to do away with this gatekeeping mentality of who’s an American and who’s not. Anyone who wants to come into this country and contribute to its prosperity should have the opportunity to do so. After all, the United States is made up of indigenous populations, immigrants, and those who were brought here against their will – it’s hypocritical and counterproductive to decide now that we need to rein in our national identity. The best thing we can do is allow our diversity to be our strength and stand up to the injustice that routinely plagues our immigration policy.