Government Reform

A government that works for working people.

Our government has been ravaged by decades of privatization, revolving doors, and the transfer of public functions into private hands. That has produced a state that works well for the wealthy and poorly for everyone else. To fix our government, we need to rebuild public capacity, protect the people who blow the whistle on wrongdoing, hold officials personally accountable for abuse, and enforce a tax system that requires the rich to pay their fair share.

Protecting Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers should never face retaliation in any form for exposing malice and corruption in the government. Whistleblower protections have been too weak for a long time. Now, the Trump administration has launched a vicious assault on whistleblower protections by firing IGs, gutting oversight offices, and signaling to federal workers that speaking up about wrongdoing will cost them their careers or worse.

In Congress, I will fight for:

• The creation of an independent, nonpartisan commission with authority outside the control of the executive branch. This agency would have real investigative power, the ability to levy fines, penalties, and sanctions, and concrete planning to ensure the safety of whistleblowers. 

• A national whistleblower fund that ensures anyone who risks their job and livelihood is able to live in peace with their basic needs met. People who expose wrongdoing should not have their lives destroyed for doing the right thing. 

• Personal liability for officials who engage in wrongdoing, backed by required insurance that is not funded by taxpayers. If you hold power and abuse it, the cost should land on you, not on the public.

Banning Congressional Stock Trading

Members of Congress should not be trading stocks in companies whose fortunes they directly influence through their votes. It’s a clear-cut conflict of interest that is wildly unpopular among all voters. The current administration has done nothing to stop it, and in fact seems to welcome it with open corruption among the cabinet. I’ll push for a ban on individual stock trading by members of Congress, their immediate family members, and senior staff, with real penalties for violations.

Ending Means Testing and Making Government Programs Actually Work

Means testing is portrayed as a way to target assistance more efficiently. In practice, means testing disproportionately excludes people who are qualified to receive necessary services. I will work to enact universal programs that do away with means testing wherever possible. Universal programs are cheaper to administer and far more effective at actually reaching the people they are supposed to serve.

All government services should be easily accessible for everyone. To make that possible, I’ll advocate for policies that:

• Increase staffing and work hours at government offices so working people with various disparate shifts and days off can actually get in the door. 

• Simplify technology systems and expand language support so that access does not depend on English fluency or a fast internet connection. 

• Provide cultural awareness and humility training for service providers so that the people delivering public services can actually serve the communities in which they work.

The Trump administration's attacks on federal workers and public services have made all of this dramatically worse. Rebuilding public-sector capacity is not glamorous work that will generate a lot of buzz, but it’s necessary to make sure that every person who qualifies for a benefit, a service, or a protection can actually access it.

Ensuring Public Resources Stay Public

I oppose the privatization of public or natural resources in most circumstances. Privatization is almost always pitched as efficiency, but it’s almost always designed to pilfer resources and increase corporate wealth. Public goods created and sustained with public money are handed over to private owners who raise prices and cut services. Private operation should only be considered with overwhelming community support and clear evidence that it will actually improve outcomes for the people affected, not just for shareholders.

I am also generally opposed to public-private partnerships. Injecting a third-party profit motive into public services funnels wealth and resources out of local communities creates perverse incentives for public officials now beholden to private interests. I theoretically could support public-private arrangements were they to meet strict conditions: the private partner must be a locally owned business that primarily serves the local community, the arrangement must be limited in duration and scope, it must include penalties for misuse of public funds, and it should exist only in cases where the public sector genuinely lacks the resources, skills, or capacity to provide the service.

As a member of Congress, I will push to maintain public services and create even more of them. For example, I will support public banking at the state and federal level. Public banks can finance public infrastructure, support affordable housing, and provide people with basic financial services without exploiting them for profit. 

Imposing Strict Limits on Corporate Subsidies

Public money and tax incentives should only be used to subsidize private businesses when those businesses are:

• Locally owned and primarily serving the local community

• Providing an important cultural service or basic need

• Generating more funding for local services through taxes

• Strategically necessary as part of a larger economic development plan

Subsidies should never be offered to companies requiring funding because of their own mismanagement. Nor should they be offered to companies whose goods or services are unethical or in tension with the public good. The current system often rewards bad behaviors: large corporations shake down local governments for tax breaks and then relocate or lay off workers the moment a better deal appears somewhere else. When public money does flow to a private company and that company engages in mismanagement, fraud, or mass layoffs, executive compensation at those companies should be subject to clawback. Executives who walk away with millions after their firm takes a public bailout have been stealing from taxpayers; they should face real, serious penalties for the damages they cause. 

Requiring Community-Oriented Land Use

I will push for federal frameworks that use a combination of incentives and disincentives to promote community-oriented land utilization. These frameworks should impose vacancy taxes on empty commercial and residential properties, provide development credits that reward genuinely beneficial projects, and include clawback provisions for companies that don’t fulfill their commitments to things like affordable housing requirements. Land use guidelines should be created in collaboration with tribal groups, advocacy organizations, and consistent public input. Congress must stipulate these guidelines in any legislation that includes funding for land usage. 

Making a Tax System That Works for Working People

The tax system should be set up to make life easier for average Americans. We need a simplified and streamlined system so everyday people are not paying private companies to file their taxes and not guessing what they owe in the first place. Most developed countries have return-free filing for most taxpayers. We only don’t have that because the tax-preparation industry has spent decades and millions of dollars lobbying against it.

As we provide tax relief for average Americans, we also need to substantially increase taxes on the wealthy. Billionaires should not exist, let alone pay lower effective tax rates than working people. I’ll advocate for a number of concrete changes in Congress:

• Fully fund and staff the IRS to go after the Epstein class of ultra-wealthy tax cheats and ensure they pay what they owe. The Trump administration's gutting of IRS enforcement has been a massive favor for the rich. Equal taxation is impossible without a robust IRS.

• End offshoring tax havens and shelters and tax US-based companies on their actual profits regardless of what incorporation games they play. 

• Close tax loopholes that allow the ultra-wealthy to live tax-free on paper, including the use of collateral loans taken out against unrealized capital gains, a structure that lets billionaires fund lavish lifestyles without being taxed. 

• Restore and expand taxes on corporate profits, capital gains, and large estates, so that the people who have looted our country have to contribute proportionally to the public systems that made their plundering possible. 

• Enact a wealth tax on the ultra-rich. Income taxes alone cannot address a system where the wealthiest Americans accumulate billions in assets that are never meaningfully taxed. A serious wealth tax on fortunes above a high threshold is one of the most direct tools for reversing decades of increasing inequality.

Rebuilding Public Trust

None of these reforms matter if the public does not trust the government to carry them out. Rebuilding that trust requires showing people that the government is on their side: that when you call a Social Security office, someone answers; that when you need healthcare, you get it; that when someone in power breaks the law, they face real consequences. A government that actually works for working people is the most powerful antidote to the cynicism and authoritarian politics we face today.