Taxation
Our current system of taxation is broken. We need to cut unnecessary spending and shift away from property taxes towards a more sensible form of revenue. I’ll work hard to build consensus within the community and with my fellow legislators to:
1. Cut county property taxes in half.
2. Replace those county property taxes with a flat county income tax.
3. Distribute those funds based on the number of students in each district.
Healthcare
The most significant healthcare concern is not the level of care but the greed of insurance companies that have successfully rigged our system to benefit them instead of taxpayers. The concept of Obamacare, which requires the purchase of private insurance and uses billions in public money to subsidize insurance companies, is just plain wrong. My campaign supports the effort for Pennsylvanians to form a single pool in order to negotiate with insurance companies from a strong position.
Education
Recent education reports demonstrate that rock star teachers, heroic principals and fancy academic models unfortunately can’t do much to shake very low income students out of their low academic orbit to a point where their scholastic achievement significantly exceeds expected levels. Heroism is just not enough to save our current school system. The turnaround of the city school system will take bold systems and courageous policies implemented district-wide.
Jobs
We cannot simply throw money at corporations in order to lure some other state’s jobs to Pennsylvania. A real economy is built from the ground up. We need to invest in local economic development for small businesses. Currently, 85 percent of all jobs are created in companies with less than 50 employees.