Justin Strickland has lived the American Dream
Now he wants to save it Here are his plans to do it
Expand Access to Healthcare
The lack of a public healthcare option in the United States is the leading reason why healthcare costs are so high. That is why we will fight to create a public healthcare option, available to all Americans. Under a public healthcare option, premiums and copays would not double from year to year; annual check-ups, necessary screenings, and consultations, would be covered for all Americans; restrictions would be placed on prescription costs; and health insurance and healthcare costs will not make up a significant portion of your income, nor will they put you in debt.
WIth the federal healthcare mandate under the Affordable Care Act eliminated in 2019, many states, including New Jersey, have imposed healthcare mandates. This means living without health insurance comes with a punishment in the form of a tax. This has enabled insurance providers to raise rates without end, while quality and coverage have declined.
A public healthcare option is the first step in the right direction. It means the government sets the bar through controlled pricing. This would compel private insurance companies to lower rates to compete. All Americans would benefit, even those choosing to keep their private health insurance.
We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Our idea has been tested in the form of the VA benefits provided to our veterans which already supports 9,000,000 people. An expansion of this system would be the first step in our fight to ensure affordable healthcare coverage for all Americans.
Lowering the Cost of College
We will introduce legislation to (1) institute a $5,000 cap on annual tuition for four-year public colleges and universities and (2) cap interest rates on private tuition loans at 7%. Our plan will protect students from starting life with enormous debt that prevents them from fulfilling their life goals.
Higher education should be accessible to all Americans. In New Jersey, roughly 1.2 million borrowers are burdened by an average of roughly $37,000 in federal student loan debt. We need to provide Americans with better, more affordable options for pursuing their education goals. We cannot allow public colleges and universities — taxpayer-funded institutions — to trap citizens in vicious cycles of debt.
By supplementing existing funding for public colleges and universities, the federal government can do more to ensure that America’s youth avoid the burden of massive student loan debt. We will work to ensure that public colleges and universities carry out the public service they are funded to provide.
We will also work to expand gainful employment provisions that tie federal funding to the success of graduates, to ensure that colleges and universities — public and private — use taxpayer dollars in a responsible and effective manner. Requiring institutions to share average student borrowing, average loan debt, and average income one, five, and ten years down the line would allow students to make informed decisions about their education.
Making Housing Affordable
Solving America’s housing crisis needs real and innovative solutions that benefit citizens rather than developers and corporations. We need solutions that help those most in need and prioritize justice and fairness for all.
We will eliminate the need for a 20% down payment and the private mortgage insurance (PMI) requirement for bank-qualified, first-time homebuyers. This will remove a major barrier blocking Americans and families from purchasing homes. We will create a federally backed home loan program that eliminates the added cost of PMI payments.
We will introduce a vacancy tax on homeowners and investors holding unoccupied properties for prolonged periods of time. Owning a vacant home is holding it hostage.
Today an alarming 1/17 homes in New Jersey are institutionally owned. We will implement a tax on corporate or institutional ownership of single family homes. Institutional ownership of single-family homes allows corporations to raise home prices and often leads to higher rents
and elevated eviction rates.
Homes are a basic need; they should not be an investment scheme and we cannot allow them to be treated as such.
We will work to break financial barriers blocking access to housing, increase the supply of homes, and support community-led efforts to improve housing across the nation.
Supporting Working Parents
Childcare is expensive in America, often costing more than one parent may take home.
To help working parents, we will create a federally-funded program to provide childcare coupons, payable to private pre-schools and daycares, covering costs up to $25,000 per year. This will enable parents to remain in the workforce and allow kids to receive quality education in schools with trained professionals. Parents will gain more economic freedom and children will receive the socialization and education they need in their formative years.
For some families it does not make sense for both parents to work when the cost of childcare may be as much or more than one parent’s income. Parents should not need to leave the workforce at unprecedented rates. There is an insurmountable gap between the end of parental leave and the beginning of public kindergarten, a gap we hope to help close.
New Jersey has made progress in expanding public preschool options for children over age 3. Yet, only half of the state’s public school districts offer public preschool. In our district that number is even lower at only ¼ of municipalities.
The federal government can do more to support America’s young families.
Ending Predatory Financial Practices
We will introduce legislation to (1) eliminate unnecessary fees for checking and savings accounts and (2) cap credit card interest rates at 15%. These policies will protect Americans from paying banks a tax to simply hold our money (from which they already profit), make it easier and faster for everyday-people to pay back debt, and foster the economic liberty and justice needed to achieve the American Dream.
For too long, our leaders have ignored the difficulties faced by many Americans who cannot afford excessive interest rates and fees imposed by financial institutions. Congress needs leaders willing to listen and advocate for solutions to these real issues.
Protecting Senior Citizens
We will fight to expand social security benefits to enable widows and widowers to receive their deceased spouse’s benefits for up to two years following their death. Social security is the backbone of this country. Our policy will protect seniors and preserve their dignity during their most vulnerable time.
We cannot turn our backs on the roughly 70 million Americans who worked hard throughout their lives and now rely on social security. Our seniors deserve our support in their moment of grief when all stability disappears.
Going from two social security benefits to one overnight while experiencing the painful loss of a partner has a devastating impact on our seniors. Without having to deal with the financial stress of losing a loved one, seniors can grieve, they can plan, they can rebuild their lives to adjust to a new financial reality.
Making Taxes Fair
We propose three solutions to fix our federal tax system: (1) repealing the tax cuts on the wealthy implemented by the Trump administration, (2) changing the way we tax capital gains to treat them more like traditional income, and (3) rewriting the tax code to create more brackets to justly collect revenue.
America operates on the basis of a beautifully complex social contract, where we all have a voice and a role to play. As citizens, one of our obligations is to contribute taxes to support the needs of our society: to fund the federal government, schools, infrastructure, basic services, our states, and so much more. Yet, our tax system is far from perfect: it’s built to give millionaires the economic and political power that should belong to everybody.