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Platform — District 18
Common Sense Values That Unify People.
My position on the leading issues impacting District 18, North Carolina, and the nation.
Safer streets
Safer neighborhoods require well-compensated officers, leadership, and accountability.
People must feel safe at home, at school, and in our local business corridors.
I support
- Improving officer morale and retention, building on recent budget's pay increase
- Tax relief for police and first responders
- Swift accountability for proven abuse of law enforcement authority and privileges
- Swift, substantive, and enforceable protections for victims and witnesses
- Stiffer consequences for repeat violent offenders
- Local cooperation with federal partners to remove violent offenders
- Transforming the middle and high school experience to redirect and prevent youth crime
- Addressing homelessness comprehensively
- Demanding measurable results from prevention programs
Lower costs and affordability
Real affordability is being able to afford the lifestyle you want without needing government help.
There's a difference between affordability and the unsustainable "affordable for all" policies progressives promise voters. Our biggest wealth-building tool is our income. Taxes and payroll withholdings reduce take-home pay and disposable income. Read More.
My vision for North Carolinians is real affordability, not generational government dependence. My solutions below are grounded in common sense and classical economic principles that address what I see as a leading cause of the affordability crisis, locally and nationally: government-sponsored poverty.
Legislative approach
Tax relief and accountability
Initiate or support legislation that protect taxpayers from fiscal waste and mismanagement and, significantly, reduces or eliminates excessive taxes, leaving more money in people's pockets to invest and afford the housing and lifestyle they want. I support accountability via public dashboards and regular audits.
Economic growth
Initiate or support legislation that uses classical economic principles to keep the economy, ethically, stimulated to attract top businesses, support their growth, and broaden the tax base to further reduce taxpayer burden. All which can, organically, trigger lower food and other rising costs of living.
Disrupt poverty cycle
In low-income areas, fund programs that transform middle and high school learning into real skill-building workforce pipelines offering summer apprenticeships in trades, STEM, and entrepreneurship to surface hidden talent and build disciplined work habits to prevent poverty cycles. Replace school-to-prison with school-to-work.
Redesign recreational environment
Support funding to revive and redesign low-income recreational spaces to reject destructive street "YN" culture, redirecting negative narratives and energy into skill development: trades, STEM, financial literacy, music, arts, online content creation, entrepreneurship, and sports.
Adult literacy and workforce development
Support funding to update existing adult literacy and workforce development programs and, aggressively, promote them as a pathway for anyone experiencing poverty and desire to exit.
Targeted social safety net
Support social safety net programs for American citizens who are: children in poverty, elderly, or disabled — and temporarily for any able-bodied American or family experiencing a documented season of financial difficulty.
Better schools
Every child deserves a safe classroom where strong academics and literacy are the agenda.
School choice isn't the enemy of public schools; they can coexist. Complacency, political activism, and fiscal mismanagement are the enemies of public schools.
I Support
- Increasing funding for early literacy
- Transforming the middle and high school experience to include apprenticeships
- Restore master's pay and fix mid-career salary plateau for veteran teachers
- Tax relief for teachers
- Transparency via public dashboards for tracking fiscal accountability and academic outcomes
- Address the Snapshot/ADM system to eliminate the funding gaps it creates due to arrears funding
- Address the restricted calendar law problems
Healthcare
People should not go bankrupt from an illness or hospitialization
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a government subsidy healthcare model that, currently, benefits those at or below the poverty level, the most. People earning at or below $40K per year see the greatest subsidy. The ACA is the unsustainalbe progressive healthcare "for all" plan to expand Medicaid to all working Americans. The problem they fail to tell voters is this plan traps people (with income below multi-millionaire status) into this sub-optimal system. Where after the honey moon phase, the best doctors opt out, care and access are rationed, insurance monopolies and BIG Pharma call the shots, and patient ROI suffers due to poor care, lack of transparency, and fiscal mismanagement. Eventually under this system, only the rich will have access to the best life saving care. The very problem progressives set out to solve by introducing the ACA in 2009. For there is no such thing as free anything "for all." My common sense alternatives are listed below.
Solutions
Redesign health insurance plans
Decouple health insurance from employers and allow health insurance plans to become portable. Purchase health insurance like you purchase auto insurance. You keep your coverage if you lose your job. Purchase a customized package based on season of life, lifestyle, or condition. Purchase options to cover only major events (ER, urgent care, hospital admissions, specialists, cancer care). Group purchase options for Churches, HOAs, gig workers, waiter- waitresses, etc., allowing pools for better rates.
Women's Health
Advocate for routine breast cancer screening to include bilateral breast ultrasounds with mammography to establish a better baseline and optimize early detection--especially for women with dense breast and on hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Make insurance coverage mandatory for HRT therapies and education for menopausal women in low-income communities who suffer symptoms unaware of HRT treatment. Address high abortion and maternal mortality rates among Black women.
Why this works
More competition lead to lower costs and better quality options for patients. It expands coverage access to middle-income workers in the gig or service industry who are priced out of the ACA. Encourages innovation while empowering people with real choice and control over their healthcare. These solutions offer affordable, flexible, patient-centered healthcare vs. insurance-centered. It's movement away from one-size-fits-all plans and makes quality care accessible to all.
Bottom Line
Initiate or support legislation that redsigns and replaces the current healthcare system with a free-market model that put patients (at all income levels) and doctors in control and make insurance companies compete for customers, again. For the vulnerable and low-income households, reduce the Medicaid bureacracy to incentivize providers to participate in the program to make quality primary and innovative preventative care services available.
Birthright citizenship and immigration reform
Birthright citizenship is an American value and one of the rewards of Black American suffering.
Granting 14th Amendment benefits of Black ancestral sweat equity to illegal (or legal) recent arrivals isn't generosity, it's a disrespecful insult.
I Support
- Swift deportation of migrant workers who enter, illegally
- Stiffer penalities for employers hiring illegal migrants
- Illegal or legal guests who infiltrate our government or institutions as agents of hostile actors (foreign or domestic) should be relieved of duties, face American justice, and be, immediately,deported
- On a case by case basis, if migrant workers take accountability for their immigration crime and self-deport, they may be eligible to apply to reenter the country, legally.
Want to learn more? Click here for a deeper dive to explore my complete platform, including my positions on Wilmington’s PFAS water quality issues, data centers, local taxes, reparations and a “Black agenda,” and why I believe immigration reform can also lead to prison reform.
The cure for bad ideas are better ideas.
Public Safety over Lawlessness Lower Taxes over Higher Taxes School-to-work over School-to-prison Common Sense over Nonsense Empowering People over Government Organic Capitalism over Crony Capitalism Results over Rhetoric“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”