Other Issues
Economy
Brief version: Tax investment gains more than wages. Stop non-sensical tariffs. Support small business.
Our middle class is shrinking. Yes, one reason it is shrinking is that some people are
moving out of the middle class into the upper class; but the folks who are getting left
behind are finding life increasingly difficult. When inequality in our country becomes too
extreme, it hurts our economy and makes our society unstable. Despite our US workers
making and providing twice as many goods and services as we did 25 years ago, a lot
of people are barely getting by. If people don’t have money to spend, the economy
slows down. On the other hand, there are a small number of people who have so much
money, they can’t possibly spend it all. A big chunk of their money is not going back
into the economy. (Another chunk of it is getting invested in things like AI, with its own
set of risks – see below.)
Nobody likes taxes. I don’t like taxes. But we need to change our tax system so the
wealthiest members of society are contributing a bigger proportion out of their excess, if
we want to continue to have a functioning country and not have our children and
grandchildren saddled by debt. Some people have proposed a wealth tax, whether for
people with a net worth over $50 million or on billionaires. This has problems I won’t
detail here, but many European countries that tried it have revoked their wealth taxes
because they ended up losing revenue rather than gaining. Instead, I think we have to
balance how we tax wages versus how we tax investment gains in a way that workers
have more of a chance to get ahead. There will still be plenty of investment going on.
Billionaire Warren Buffett once said that he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary. Our
tax system needs to change so that kind of thing doesn’t happen.
We also have to be smart about how we tax businesses. Small businesses are a huge
engine of employment in our economy, and our bigger corporations need to thrive as
well. Non-sensical tariffs need to stop. They are wrecking sectors of our economy. We
need a stable, logical tax policy. Tariffs are a kind of tax, and changing the tariff rates
frequently is horrible for businesses of all sizes. Businesses –- whether they are farmers
or manufacturers, retail shops or restaurants -- cannot plan in advance if they don’t
know what their costs are. I want a tax policy that is logical and consistent.
Energy and the Environment
Brief version: Support renewable energy development by tax incentives. Balance
competing interests.
It is a fact that human beings have pumped enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere, to levels not seen since dinosaurs were roaming the planet. Global
warming and climate change are happening, and this is not disputed practically
anywhere in the world except America. It should NOT be a political issue.
The changing climate will affect our lives in many ways besides the environmental
problems. Our economy needs to change to adapt to our new reality. We will need lots
of energy in the future, so we need to add more wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric
and nuclear energy to our energy grid. Other countries know they must move to
renewable and clean energy, which is why the Chinese have invested billions in this. We
are falling behind them and the rest of the world. Our large fossil fuel companies
already receive tax breaks. The alternative energy market needs them as well.
Moving forward in our energy production will involve some trade-offs. Solar power is
developing rapidly and is becoming a mainstay for electricity generation in many areas,
but power transmission lines have to be built. Nobody likes seeing those go through
farmlands, forests or neighborhoods. Communities should have a say where those lines
run. Nuclear power plants will also be a way to boost our energy production without
worsening the global warming crisis, and we will have to find ways to dispose of the
spent fuel safely. But we will have to make those compromises to ensure the overall
health of our planet. And we will need to make the transition in a way that our people
who are struggling the most are not bearing the brunt of the burden.
Immigration
Brief version: Keep the border secure, deport criminals, make a process for
longstanding non-criminal immigrants to pay a fine and begin obtaining legal residency,
return ICE to normal size and restore professionalism in their officer training.
Securing our border is a very important measure for our national security. I am in
complete agreement with this. But most immigrants are not criminals. As even Mr.
Trump said, “And some of them are good people.” In fact, many immigrants to our
country are hard workers we need for our economy. Many are friends and neighbors to
us now. Immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes should be deported
promptly in a legal manner. Deporting otherwise law-abiding immigrants, especially
long-term residents, will lead to labor shortages and increased prices for everyone, as
well as tear apart many families.
People say that the immigrants who came here undocumented should “get to the back
of the line.” The problem is, for most of these immigrants, there is no line. Even for
people who have family here who apply for their citizenship, it can take 20 years or
longer for them to be accepted. Why would we want to bring in people when they are
old instead of when they are young and can work and contribute to our country? It
makes no sense. And it also makes no sense not to grant residency to the young
people on DACA. They have been here since they were kids and grew up going to
American schools and being American. Many of them have trained to have valuable
skills like nursing, or served in our armed forces.
The drastic increase in the ICE budget means money that could be spent on getting a
health aid for grandma is being spent on deporting the lady who brings chips to your
table at the local Mexican restaurant. We can use that money for better things. In
addition to cutting the ICE force back to normal size, we need to restore appropriate
training for them, so they can act like and be treated like professionals.
Let people who are good, hard-working immigrants pay a fine, and then make a line for
them to “get to the back of.” Give them a chance to live in the US legally and continue to
support our economy. Reform the process so it doesn’t take decades. Let families be
united. Deport criminals. And secure the border.
Foreign policy and Defense
Brief version: Repair relationships with our allies, support Ukraine, support Israel’s
defense IF they let a peacekeeping force take over administration of Gaza and stop
Israeli settler aggression in the West Bank, use our military for defense and not for
getting into new wars (taking back powers to Congress from the president, ANY
president), focus more on the development of Latin America.
I am not sure why Mr. Trump thought he would improve our standing in the world by
bullying our allies with threats of pulling out of treaties, imposing tariffs, and talking
about “taking Greenland,” but this has not made America stronger in the world. In fact,
now nobody trusts us anymore, our allies are making plans to get along without us, and
we have stuff happening like Canada making trade deals with China instead of us. You
can’t bully your way into strength. We had allies because we were respected. We have
to rebuild those relationships. I think that any treaty that requires ratification by the
Senate to enter should also require a Senate vote to leave.
Vladimir Putin was trained by the KGB and is a dictator who has dreams of an
expanded Russian empire. I would love for us to be able to turn our swords into
plowshares, but we cannot do this as long as Putin is in power and Russia continues its
physical, cyber and propaganda wars against the West. The US needs to stand strong
with our allies, including Ukraine, and face the clear threat to world security from Putin.
It is right that our NATO allies are shouldering more of the defense burden, but the way
that Trump has forced this has alienated almost all of them. And Ukraine is not just a
charity case: They are holding their own against a much larger Russia that invaded
them, and they are now leaders in drone warfare. When the Soviet Union broke up, they
surrendered their nuclear arms in exchange for guaranteed territorial integrity in a deal
we brokered. There was no justification for the Russian invasion. The Ukrainians have
not asked us for troops, just help procuring weapons. And if Putin can be stopped in
Ukraine, that will deter other bullies in the world from thinking that we are weak and that
they can take advantage of us.
The war in Iran has had the opposite effect. It has shown our adversaries where we are
weak. Ironically, the Trump administration initially put the Iranian regime in a weakened
position last summer with the limited strikes that they made on the nuclear facilities. But
then the administration overreached and have basically achieved none of their
objectives.
The situation in Israel and Gaza is also a disaster. I expected the Israelis to strike back
after the Hamas massacre. However, at this point there are so many dead and
suffering Palestinian civilians that the situation has become a moral and humanitarian
catastrophe. I think we should make it clear to other countries that if they attack Israel,
we will help defend Israel. But I think we should also withhold any further military aid to
Israel until they cease fire in Gaza, allow an international peacekeeping force to take
over in Gaza, and stop Israeli settler aggression and expansion in the West Bank.
Overall, we need to change the Department of War back to the Department of Defense,
in more ways than just the name change. Congress needs to take back powers
regarding warfare that it turned over to presidents decades ago. Yes, we need to
maintain our military superiority, but our military budget is already huge, and the idea of
increasing it by 50% is crazy. We already spend more on our military than the next
several countries in the world combined, and it takes away money that we could be
spending on our own people here at home (including our veterans). Warfare is
changing, and we should be encouraging our many defense contractors in the 5 th district
to be developing the new, smarter weapons we need this century, not just pumping lots
of money into old expensive systems that can be brought down by a drone.
We need to encourage the economic and social development of our neighbors in
Central and South America. That is the key to slowing migration to the United States
and will help secure our border. Many of them need expansions of their banking
systems. Stopping the flow of guns and ammo from the U.S. through our southern
border is another important objective in helping these countries stabilize and not be
taken over by narco cartels.
The US has long had good relationships with Canada and Mexico. Because of previous
trade agreements, many goods such as cars are made with parts in all three countries.
While we need to make sure we do not enter trade agreements that hurt our workers,
we need to recognize the cooperation and supply chains that already exist, creating
jobs and products for all three countries.
Guns
Brief version: Strengthen gun safety measures regarding mentally ill and dangerous
people via background checks and red flag laws. Parents need to keep their guns out of
the hands of unsupervised children and teens. No, I’m not trying to take away
everyone’s guns.
I live on a small farm. My .22 Henry is a handy piece of equipment, the gun I use most
often. I don’t like killing anything, but when something starts attacking my animals,
action must be taken. And I have hunters on my property all seasons. I am not trying to
take anyone’s guns away.
I, like most Americans, favor a reasonable interpretation of the second amendment. If
“guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” then we should be doing background checks
on the people buying guns. There is no reason someone who has been involuntarily
committed to a mental institution multiple times should be able to buy numerous
weapons, as happened recently in Nevada and the guy drove to New York and killed
innocent people.
I support “red flag” laws, such as the Virginia ERSO law. The law permits law
enforcement to ask a judge to remove weapons temporarily from some high-risk
individuals. This means a judge can remove a gun from a man who threatens to kill his
wife, or a patient who has been released from a mental health facility whose family is
worried he might kill himself. The guns will be returned after 180 days unless the threat
continues. This is a common sense way to prevent tragedies like the Sandy Hook
massacre, or many suicides.
I also favor laws regulating the storage of firearms. Parents have an obligation to keep
their guns out of the hands of unsupervised children and teens. Mass shootings are
horrible events that are all over the media, but a large number of shootings happen
when teenagers get their hands on guns they shouldn’t have in the first place
Our service members, sheriffs and police have a huge responsibility in protecting us.
They put their lives on the line every day to do this. Their opinions and
recommendations should be heard and respected when developing common-sense gun
safety.
Abortion
Brief version: This is going to remain a state issue and not a federal issue for the time
being. I do not think banning first trimester abortions would be an enforceable law.
There is more than one way to be pro-life, and more than one way to support women.
I think this issue will remain at the state and not federal level for the foreseeable future.
If any party in control of Congress makes a law either forbidding it or allowing it
nationwide, the other party will just do the opposite when it comes back into power. And
the country is too divided to pass a Constitutional amendment either way.
This is such a difficult issue, and it is made worse when people hurl accusations against
those on the other side. Some people on the pro-choice side say the pro-life people
“want to control women” rather than acknowledging that pro-life people really do believe
that a fetus is a human being with rights equivalent to anyone else and needs
protection. On the other hand, some people on the pro-life side use language like
“murderers” and “evil” to describe pro-choice people who are genuinely concerned
about the welfare of women. A fetus is completely physically dependent on and will
take a physical toll on the woman carrying it, and sometimes pregnancy is very difficult.
Because this is such a special case, pro-choice people feel the woman herself is the
only one who can decide if she will take the risk of trying to carry a pregnancy. In
addition, identifying the point when a human embryo becomes a “person” or “ensouled”
is not something that can be answered by science. It is subject to all kinds of
disagreement across different times, cultures and religions.
I am going to be painfully honest here: I am a family doctor, and although I do not
perform abortions, I have practiced obstetrics for 30 years. And at the beginning, I tried
very hard with two patients in particular to encourage them to keep their babies.
Instead of terminating their pregnancies at 6 or 8 weeks, both of those women ended up
terminating their pregnancies anyhow around 18 weeks. So, I made those situations
worse. And now, the vast majority of abortions are done by just taking a few pills. I
have seen many, many miscarriages, and it is not possible to tell an early miscarriage
from an early induced abortion. Even if we could tell them apart by some kind of test,
would we want to force all women who are miscarrying to have a pelvic exam and a
blood draw? Would we want the government to open and inspect all packages to make
sure there are no abortion pills inside? We do not live in a dictatorship, so I do not think
so. Thus, although I believe a human embryo is precious, I do not feel that stopping
first trimester abortions is really possible. And I do not believe in making unenforceable
laws.
The second trimester gets even more complicated. In the past several decades, the
only women I cared for from the beginning of their pregnancies who got abortions in the
second trimester had babies with severe birth defects which were obviously not
survivable, like not having a brain or their belly organs being attached directly to the
placenta. These women were devastated to find out that the babies they loved would
not survive. In some cases, carrying those pregnancies to term would have threatened
the life of the mother. It is a tragedy to learn that your baby will die on his birthday. It is
a worse tragedy to have a mother die as well. So although I do favor regulations after
14 weeks, liberal allowances need to be made when the mother is in danger (such as
preterm rupture of membranes) and if the baby has severe abnormalities. Doctors and
women should not be prosecuted for making these difficult decisions. Once again, I do
not see any of this happening at the federal level at this time.
Regardless of where the lines get drawn in the second trimester, there should not be
any abortions after the baby has a chance to survive on its own, 23-24 weeks. That’s
called “delivery”, even if a labor has to be induced very prematurely for something like
severe preeclampsia. Sometimes, if the baby has severe medical issues and cannot
survive, we make the baby as comfortable as possible until it passes. But otherwise we
try to support the baby and the woman.
In recent years, the pregnant women we have had at our clinic who found out their
babies had Down syndrome (usually a survivable problem) all chose to carry those
pregnancies. Other babies had serious heart problems and would need open heart
surgery at UVA immediately after birth. We helped these women learn about their child’s
medical diagnoses and how to prepare for their births. Those babies are now great kids.
These families deserve support without having to jump through a million hoops.
This leads me to where I am today: I feel the best way to be pro-life is to encourage and
support women so they feel that life is the best choice. Prior to overturning Roe v Wade,
abortion rates were declining substantially, including under President Obama, and
especially with access to good contraception. Now those abortion rates are actually
rising again. I feel the pro-life movement has done a disservice to itself by hitching itself
nearly exclusively to the Republican party, which has unfortunately become known for
cutting benefits for the poor, abolishing aid abroad, and generally not supporting family-
friendly policies. If people are overwhelmed with housing costs, healthcare costs, food
costs and having to work two or more jobs to make ends meet, there will be more
abortions, whether legal or illegal. We need to be making life better for folks in America.
Agriculture
Brief version: Scientific research and programs that support farmers in times of natural
disasters help keep food prices reasonable for all of us. No tariffs that screw up
markets. Support family farms.
Pastures of grazing cattle, vineyards and forests are what many of us think of when we
think of our home landscape here in the 5 th district. Agriculture and forestry are a huge
industry in Virginia, generating more than $80 billion a year. Our farmers get some
support from the Virginia Cooperative Extension, but the federal government plays a
huge role in whether our agriculture can be profitable or not. Farmers, like other
business people, need to be able to estimate their costs and likely revenue in order to
survive. They already must deal with the fact that Mother Nature doesn’t always
cooperate with their plans. When the Federal Government starts trade wars that disrupt
markets with other countries, prices that farmers get for their products can crash, and
they can lose customers that they might not get back. Under DOGE, the Federal
Government reneged on grants and contracts it had already made to farmers, causing
some to go bankrupt if they had already begun moving forward on projects and
suddenly had no means to pay. And things like studying bees and fungus are actually
very important for our agriculture and forestry. Currently, the federal government is
shutting down the Department of Agriculture section that studies and diagnoses bee
disease. It is the only lab like this in the United States. If we didn’t have sterile flies
being released in the southern U.S. and Central America right now, screwworm would
already be infecting even more of our cattle. So wholesale cuts in programs like this are
a mistake.
The screwworm threat, the tariff war with countries like Brazil, and the fact that cattle numbers in the U.S. are at their lowest since 1951 have caused the price of beef to skyrocket. This should be good for farmers, and it certainly helps them. But many farmers are reluctant to expand their herds. Right now in our district we are in a drought, and our farmers aren’t getting enough hay off their fields. This means they will have trouble feeding their herds over the winter and may need to reduce their herds further. There are federal programs like the LFP that can help with that, but it’s generally not enough. That will cause beef prices to go even higher for everybody.
The cattle market is just one example of how complicated this can get. Soybeans are another. Farming is hard enough without the government screwing up markets for farmers. We need Federal agricultural policies to be steady. And when droughts and disasters do happen, more of our support needs to go to local family farms, not just Big Ag companies that can withstand the shocks.
AI
Brief summary: Congress needs to be involved in the regulation of AI.
As a family doctor, I have to spend as much time completing mostly useless paperwork as I do seeing patients. This needs to change, but right now, that’s the way it is. And fortunately, just recently my hospital system got me an AI program to help me get my notes done faster. This is great! But I still have to know how to use the program correctly and proofread the result, correcting where necessary because these programs make mistakes.
Where AI can benefit us by making us more efficient and helping us to do our jobs better, it is a fantastic advancement. I think where AI is put to use in concrete job applications, that is the best use for it. But AI also has the potential to be misused and even dangerous. And the last thing I want is a bunch of guys in Silicon Valley getting to decide what AI can be used for. They are emphasizing developing AGI rather than specific AI applications, which I think is heading the wrong direction. We need laws and regulations governing the implementation of AI, made by people who represent YOU.
Mr. Trump previously said that AI and cryptocurrency needed to be regulated. But unfortunately he changed when some people showed him a way to make lots of money on crypto for himself and his family. According to their own report, Trump and his family have made billions from cryptocurrency and other sources since January 2025. And since then Mr. Trump seems inclined to let the AI/crypto people have free reign. A bill was even introduced in Congress FORBIDDING state or local governments from making regulations regarding AI for the next 10 years. Thank goodness senators from both parties voted against it.
Why is it important for states and the government in general to have a say over AI? Aside from the fact that it could be used to kill us, consider this: right now, AI data centers are using ONE QUARTER OF ALL THE ELECTRICITY IN VIRGINIA. And they are building more of these things. What is that doing to our electric bills? How are the companies shouldering the burden of expanding the grid? Are there efficiency standards in place for their water use? Should we be paying in this way to subsidize these centers? If so, will their benefits go to everyone, or just make a gazillion dollars for a small number of people? And what is this doing to the environment? These are all important questions, and we will need to agree on rules governing the development of this potentially transformative technology. And additionally, it should be illegal for any public servant to enter into non-disclosure agreements with any company when they are performing official government duties, at any level of government.
Education
Brief version: Maintain our research institutions as well as support community colleges and trade schools. Keep Head Start strong (probably expand it). Restructure student loans so that people can actually pay them off.
Education is one of the most important gifts we give to our children, and essential in our modern world. Most education decisions are under the control of the states and local school boards. But the federal government does have a role in supporting the states. Our universities in the United States are second to none in the world, and we need to keep them that way. So many advances and breakthroughs have come through research sponsored by the US government at our institutions. The federal government can also support things like Head Start that have been proven to help kids do better.
I agree that we need to develop trade and vocational schools more, so that our young people who do not want to go to college have more options, and so that we have enough skilled trades people! And for students who do want to go to college, our community colleges need to be supported and our student loan system needs to be fixed. People didn’t think it was fair that Biden wanted to just forgive student loans for people under a certain income, but the way some student loans are structured, it makes them very difficult to pay off. Trump’s company declared bankruptcy over his Atlantic City casinos four times while continuing to pay him a $2 million a year salary, but a guy with $20k in student loans can’t be relieved of them if he declares bankruptcy. That’s not fair either. We should make student loans be one of the easiest kinds of loans to pay off, not the hardest.
Housing
Update coming soon!
Veterans
Update coming soon!