Solutions to the issues that matter most - Derek's vision for change
The Local Issues
I want to start by talking about some of the issues directly effecting all the people here in MA and specifically the 5th district. When I started talking with voters about my policy positions, I often heard the question, what about local issues? I look at the "national issues" and "local issues" as one in the same. Some of the top issues effecting us locally include the rising cost of living, unemployment, healthcare affordability, transportation and elder care. Check out my housing and cost of living page or my plans to finally move American healthcare into the 21st century. In my tax reform proposal I address ways to improve employment and pay. In both my immigration proposal and also in my plans for healthcare reform there are ways to help small businesses. I believe any paid use of public transportation should be tax deductable; I also think drivers with zero accidents and zero traffic violations should get to deduct the cost of auto insurance for their primary daily vehicle. I address the shortage of eldercare workers in my immigration proposal. I also ask that you check out my page about the small but impactful things we can get passed quickly. All of these things have a daily effect on our lives here in Massachusetts but also across our great nation and we want to make sure we don't overlook their potential impact.
Structural reforms
First and foremost, my campaign is centered around governmental reforms to change how we operate and increase transparency, trust and accountability in government. Three things we don't have much of right now. These things are the basic foundation of a functioning government. Given the political landscape right now and the fact that this administration has at least two more years in power I truly believe our best use of time over the next two years is to focus on the things that have the most bi-partisan support nationwide. Some of those things include banning stock trading by elected officials, ending gerrymandering, getting big and dark money out of our elections and adding term limits for congress and federal judges.
Personal Tax Reform
Washington has turned "tax reform" into nothing more than a buzz word to pull out during election years. Its another example of the failure of our career politicians. I believe DC is too far removed from our daily lives to dictate an income tax bill that's one size fits all for Americans. I'm proposing we move all "individual" tax collection to the state level and let the changing federal administrations just tell the states what percentage they owe. Fair and even for all states but each state gets to decided how they get to that number. i.e. You owe us 14% of taxable W-2 income from your resident's total wages. The state should decide whether they get there with a progressive income tax, a flat tax, a wealth tax, a sales tax, a property tax or tourism tax. I want this big decision to be made closer to home so we can put more power in the hands of the people.
Corporate Tax reform
Washington politicians have long enjoyed writing massive "reform" bills that include personal taxes for poor, middle class and wealthy individuals and corporate taxes for small, middle size companies and massive publicly traded companies all in one bill. America is not and never will be one size fits all and our representatives need to stop treating it that way. We need to rebuild our corporate tax code and break it up into three totally separate codes. Code 1 is for small and mid size businesses with under 50 employees and under 10 million in revenue. Code 2 is for large privately owned businesses that are focused on growth and innovation. Code 3 is for publicly traded companies, if you're going to receive the benefits that come with being on our public markets you're going to pay for that privilege.
Immigration
Stop settling for the same old "border crisis" rhetoric that cycles through Washington every two years without a single lasting result. My 21st-century vision for the border isn't just about security, it’s about turning a national challenge into a strategic economic engine through my innovative "Train Now, Pay Later" program. From self-funding apprenticeship schools to utilizing advanced drug-detection technology, this is a pragmatic, common-sense approach that benefits American workers and small businesses nation wide while finally creating a legal immigration system that actually works. Click the link below to read the full details of how we can choose people over politics and build a stronger, more secure America.
Heathcare
Healthcare has been a "kitchen table" issue for as long as I can remember. Well, the rates have only gone up, and the coverage has been watered down. Washington has failed to provide lasting bipartisan solutions to our nation's healthcare problems and its past time for real reform. The loudest voices on the left want mandated single payer government healthcare. The loudest voices on the right want "free markets" to decide the appropriate cost. The problem here is that not enough people support true single payer with no other choice, and we all know by now that for profit companies cannot be trusted to provide affordable high-quality care with no surprise bills in a "free market". I'm here to say there is another way.
Veterans Care / Homelessness
Veterans care is a bi-partisan topic that most can agree on in principle. The disagreements tend to come because of media spin and a difference of opinion on spending requirements to get to the end goal. Well, I don't think we need more government spending to solve this issue, I just think we need to ask the largest companies and richest among us to do something legendary and end homelessness for our veterans and fellow Americans. Not a requirement or a new tax, I mean seriously just prompt them to look in their hearts, look at their bank accounts and make the right decision to spend just a small fraction of their profits to end homelessness in their local community. Imagine instead of people seeing a sign for Raytheon and thinking about war and death they thought "wow, that's the company that ended homelessness in my town." Sounds pretty good doesn't it Raytheon?
Housing and Cost of Living
Wall street shouldn't be allowed to manipulate housing prices in our district the way they do. They often use something called "comp manipulation". Comp manipulation is when a large company purchases a few hundred homes in a given district or area, then sells a handful of them to a subsidiary company they also own for hundreds of thousands of dollars more than they just paid. This can artificially increase the price of the other homes they own in that area because they now have sale comps that show an increase in "value". This is a manipulative tactic hedge funds use to increase the value of homes on the books and thus drive their overall value up. It's wrong and it should be illegal. This type of manipulation drives up costs for everyone and makes regions of our country simply unaffordable for most families.
Small but impactful
There are so many little things our government could be doing to better out quality of life that get pushed aside for the typical partisan fights. That get forgotten about because our lawmakers just want to put on a show for their constituents. Congress has become a theater where the show never ends, and the intermission is really just a rinse and repeat button. They hide their lack of progress towards lasting solutions behind finger pointing, fear mongering and buzz words like "reform". The typical politician says they are going to "fight for you" and then tells you they can't win that fight without your financial support. There are so many things that most Americans agree on that never get brought up in congress because they aren't powerful enough or sexy enough to get views and clicks. I think since congress can't seem to get the big things done, they should at least get some of the small things accomplished. I'm starting with a few things I think almost everyone can agree on. 1. Ending the annoying wastefulness of junk mail. 2. Stopping the scam calls from local area codes. 3. Banning manipulative marketing practices.
Reproductive Health
How did we get to the point where reproductive health is a controversial topic in America. No matter who you talk to and where they stand politically people seem to agree that women deserve the right to make healthcare decisions about their own bodies. People know that the government shouldn't be allowed in the doctor's office with anyone. Where the lines seem to get crossed has everything to do with political manipulation and media influence. It's time we set the record straight with the voters in the GOP. There is no such thing as a "post birth abortion" like Trump has repeated over and over again. That's called murder and it simply isn't happening, not in blue states or anywhere else in this country. I believe in a women's right to make whatever decision she wants to about her own health and body and I think more people in America believe that as well.
Education and Innovation
Are you as sick as I am of seeing America move down the global education rankings year after year? Shouldn't we actually do something to change that? Our government has been too slow to innovate, too slow to change and too slow to lead on education for too many decades now. There is a technological revolution upon us and if we don't elect leaders that recognize the moment, we will fall even farther behind. With AI, Robotics, Quantum computing and Blockchain technologies all emerging at once we need an education system in our country that is ready to meet this challenge head on to teach and train the leaders of tomorrow, today!
Gun Safety / Reform
Gun safety has been a left vs right issue for a few decades now with no real meaningful progress. The left will keep fighting and the right will pitch that fight as a path towards total and complete confiscation of all guns. They will say that the democrats want to take the second amendment out of the constitution! I'm here to call out the BS and to help the democrats do something they haven't been able to accomplish. In my first term I plan on getting republicans and democrats to co-sponsor my bill for Universal background checks for all gun sales across our beautifully diverse country. Click the link below to read about how I will make this happen.
The Gig economy
Healthcare and a stable home life have been barriers to entry for want to be business owners for far too long. With my tax reform and health care policy proposals we can remove those barriers and let people pursue their dreams without fear of overworking and still not being able to provide everything their family needs to thrive. If we want to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in this country, we need to provide our citizens with the support systems they need to take that leap. Right now 1/3 US citizens work a "side hustle" and nearly 1/2 of all small business owners work one too, including me. Let's help make all full-time jobs good enough to support a family.
Social Security Reform
Social Security is failing American seniors, and it’s not as simple as just lifting the cap. This is our money, and we deserve to have true ownership of it, choose who manages it, to be able to watch it grow and even pass some of it on to our children or grand children. I’ve developed a plan that is a huge step up from the current system and a way to make the transition easy and beneficial for everyone, from our lowest-income families to ultra-high-net-worth households. The math works and I can't wait for you to read more about it. Click the link below to see the full details of the Personal Ownership Model and how we can finally secure a retirement that actually belongs to you.
Transparency & Trust
Trust in government is at an all time low right now and a recent Gallup poll shows only 10% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing right now. Increasing the trust people have in our government is critical to healing America and moving us forward towards a prosperous future. We can only do this in one way, by making the government much more transparent through some of the structural reforms I speak about. The primary ones being; moving taxation power down to State and Local governments and eliminating the use of "omnibus bills", which is legislation with tons of things all packed into one bill that is thousands of pages long. The people cannot keep up with that and the government knows that. These tactics need to become a thing of the past and single or dual issue bills need to be the law of the land. Let us see behind the curtain without having to devote days of our lives reading these massive spending bills. Break the tax code us so we really know what you're voting for and politicians on both sides need to stop talking around every question and start giving us straight answers. Check out my pages on Tax reform, healthcare reform and climate change to learn more about ways we can be more transparent and increase trust in government.
LGBTQIA+
On Gay marriage: This topic here might be the easiest for me to explain my position on of any. Love whoever you want as long as you're both of age and consenting. That's it, why the hell should the government have any say whatsoever in who we choose to love or marry. It's 2026, grow up republicans!
Trans rights: Trans rights are human rights, every human deserves to be comfortable and safe in their own body and when adults make personal decisions to change the outward appearance of that body to match who they are on the inside then no-one, especially not the government, has the right to judge them for that or treat them any differently.
Childcare & Pre-K
Child care is one of the most pressing but also difficult issues on the minds of voters these days and I've done a ton of research into it. Right now, most of the proposals on the left include increasing subsidies for childcare providers but only the ones that meet certain requirements, complete all the necessary forms and conform to all the necessary changes. This will bury many individual owners and in home providers in paperwork and cause compliance headaches for small business owners across the nation. My solution is simple, don't give the subsidy to the business, give it directly to the citizen. $1000 a month per child under kindergarten age. We already have that information on their tax return and if the taxes are filed and they got checks they didn't deserve we take that money back out of the tax return. Make it a simple election made with your employer's payroll company. Only families making less then 200% of the median household income in their state will be eligible and both parents must be working to receive the credit unless there is a disability preventing them from being the childcare provider themselves. The licensed care provider will submit one simple document with their tax return for verification, and it should match the return of the family on this expense. This keeps Pre K schools competing on price and keeps all of the options for the families. It's a win-win and the most simple and straight forward way to do this.
The hording of greenbacks
The left always talks about a wealth tax because of "greed", to me it isn't that simple. When a small group controls so much money it becomes about much more than that. It removes money from our economy; it doesn't circulate and compound its effect like money being spent does. This hurts our economy, lowers our GDP and slows the growth of this great nation. This is called the velocity of money, and when we have a high velocity of money our economy works best. It is an economic imperative that we get this money back into the hands of people that will spend it and speed up our economy. We shouldn't just be talking about a wealth tax because of the greed, the hording of money in America is directly hurting our country and that should and will be the talking point that can get us to a wealth tax. Read about my plans for Social security reform to learn about ways everyone can benefit from the velocity of money.
Food in America
Many of you have recognized that our food system in America is broken. From factory farming to massive food subsidies and the poison we spray on our crops. The hormones in our animals and the terrible conditions in which they're living in so many cases. I'm sure that regardless of if you are an "organic only" eater or a vegan for animal welfare reasons or just an average joe that eats whatever looks good, you can recognize the need for wholesale changes to the way our food supply chain works. I'm still working on my full plan to help address these issues but I want you all to know that I believe there is a better way. I believe much of the world has found a better way and I know we can do here what has been done elseware and still have profitable industries and
affordable food. I also believe nutrition classes should be a regular part of our education system starting from a young age so we can teach our young people what good and healthy eating habits look like, where their food comes from and help encourage a new generation of healthy eaters.
The American Prison System
America is known around the world for its massive prison system and that should make us all a little embarrassed. Everyone around the world knows for sure at least one thing that America leads the globe in and that is number of incarcerated people. Estimates say at any given time in the US nearly 2 million people are locked up for one reason or another, costing the American tax payer over $180 billion annually. I know the data suggests that a large portion of crime in America is related to two major things, Drug use and Socioeconomic disadvantage. I've also run the math and can see that $180 billion could darn near end poverty in America. If we invest in ending drug addiction and invest in disadvantaged communities, we should be able to vastly lower crime in America. I will never claim to have all the answers and I don't have them all on this issue or many others, but I believe in America, I believe in Americans and I know in my heart if we work together and support our neighbors things can get better for a whole lot of people in this great nation.
Thoughts on ICE
As you may have noticed, I didn't include much on ICE in my immigration plan. I want to clarify my stance here. I am not the progressive that is calling to abolish ICE, I think a heavy reduction in the budget is more than warranted and a complete overhaul of the processes on how, when, where and why we would detain individuals is necessary. We need to make sure we are treating all people with dignity and respect. We should never normalize what is happening under the Trump regime in regards to apprehensions of suspected undocumented immigrants. There is however a role that an immigration and customs department should be playing in America. Encouraging legal immigration and I believe this funding should be spent in large part on immigration judges so we can speed up our legal immigration process. This money could be spent on technology and staffing to make sure asylum seekers within the US are able to understand and abide by the immigration laws such as check ins and making sure they have the ability to get to any court hearings they are required to attend. If we can encourage and expedite legal immigration there will naturally be less demand for illegal immigration.
Religion in America
Although I am not personally religious I have a great respect for people of all faiths. Religious freedoms in America are one of the things that make us a great nation and I want to make sure we continue to have those freedoms even though I don't personally subscribe to any religion. I know in my heart that religion plays a very important role for so many of you, so I will always support your freedom of religion. Treat people fairly, treat people kindly, show respect to all of our neighbors and let people practice whatever religion they want without judgement or resent.
Running as an Independent
I've been unenrolled from party politics my whole life and I simply don't believe in our two-party system having the best interests and intentions for Americans. 63% of Massachusetts voters are unenrolled and I think that points to many people knowing deep down what I know. It isn't about the color of the candidate's tie, it's about the character, morals and will of the candidate themselves that should determine our vote. Me being an independent doesn't mean I'm more likely to side with Trump, or less likely to fight for lower cost of housing, it doesn't mean I care less about gun violence or any of those things. It simply means I am beholden to no party and that the people come first. It means I get to spend "party fundraising hours" calling you instead, I won't have an $18,000 a day fundraising goal from my party which both parties currently have. It means I get to spend all of my time talking to voters whether or not they donated to my campaign, finding ways to help. It's time to get back to the words of Abraham Lincoln, help me create a government OF the people, BY the people and FOR the people.
My opponent
More than most likely I will end up as the only candidate opposite Katherine Clark on the ballot in November, as she is expected to win the primary.
Here are a few of the main reasons I want to take her down this November.
1. She is the queen of dark money - she takes more than her fair share of PAC and corporate money for her campaign. She also has two PACs of her own to help move that dark money around the democratic party.
2. She has 19 stock act violations and has traded $5.35 Million in stocks during her tenure in office.
3. She has been in office longer than my term limits plan would allow.
4. She refuses to get tough on Israel, refuses to directly call what they are doing in Gaza what it really is, A GENOCIDE.
5. In 13 years, she has yet to hold a town hall event in every town in MA-05, I would do it in my first year because the people of this district deserve access to their representative.
6. During her tenure things simply haven't gotten better, since she took office the avg new mortgage payment in Ma-05 is up 102%, the avg rent is up 98%, health care premiums are up 121%, childcare costs are up 79%, groceries are up 44%, home energy bills are up 74% and nearly 500,000 Americans have lost their lives to gun violence and she has failed to pass a bill to stop the bloodshed.
The Genocide in Gaza
You read that correctly, what is happening in Gaza over the last couple of years is quite obviously an attempt to erase the Palestinian people, making it a genocide. We need to call evil out when we see it and we've seen it. We've seen the ruthless killing of women, children and aid-workers by the IDF. We've seen the leveling of churches, mosques, hospitals and schools. We've seen the water shut off, the aid routes blocked and it hasn't been called out by our officials nearly enough. I believe we need to cut off all military aid to Israel and charge members of their government with crimes against humanity. I also know the incumbent in this race will refuse to agree with me on this statement and I challenge her to make a public statement as powerful and unwavering as this.
Two state solution
There is a common question from Israeli news and right-wing news here in America. Does Israel have a right to exist? Well, the fact is they do exist and what I can say is yes, they should have the right to continue existing. But that right is no more absolute than the right of Palestine to exist. The history of that region is clear, and we all know that much of that land was taken from the Palestinian people decades ago. My thought is at this point in time the only way forward to a two-state solution. I don't know enough about the lines to make the determination on where the boarder should be, but I know enough to say the free state of Palestine should exist, and the US government should support that stance.
The War in Iran
This war in Iran was destined to happen the day Trump pulled us out of the JCPOA during his first term. We had a great deal with Iran and by all measures they were holding up their end of the bargain. Israel has been trying for decades to find a president they could convince to bomb Iran and they final found one in Trump 2.0. This is Israel's war and it was a reckless act of aggression. I'm 37 years old now and we've (the USA) been bombing someone my entire life. Through democrat and republican administrations alike we always seem to be bombing people with no end in sight. Well, if I am fortunate enough to win this race one of my top priorities will be making sure that ends once and for all.
The Epstein Files
Release the files already! This is absolutely crazy to me that these files have not all been released in accordance with the law passed last fall with a bi-partisan effort. To my friends on the right, Yes, the Biden administration should have fought to unseal the documents and released these files years ago. That is not an excuse for the files to not have been released at this point in time. These victims deserve to see the sick and twisted men and, in some cases, women involved with Jeffery Epstein investigated and prosecuted for their crimes. We must not stop fighting for justice for these women and we must keep this story in the public eye until every last file is released and the DOJ does their job on the prosecutorial side of things.
More to come
Have a topic you want me to explain, email me. I'm happy to give you my thoughts on just about anything.
More to come
Have a topic you want me to explain, email me. I'm happy to give you my thoughts on just about anything.