Making life more affordable
Rent & home ownership
The American dream is being ripped out from under us as we struggle to have the same standard of living as our parents. Most of us are just one unlucky event, bad day, or high medical bill away from financial ruin (e.g. 37% of us cannot afford a surprise $400 bill). We need to combat rising housing costs at the federal level.
The average rent in Massachusetts is about $1000 higher than the national average. As your representative, I will work to ensure that everyone has the ability to afford housing. I will fight for additional and expanded subsidies for first-time homebuyers. I will fight for new rent-to-own loan programs to reduce the initial capital that’s required to purchase a home.
Childcare
Childcare is another exorbitant cost families (including my own) are facing. Many households cannot afford to have a family member out of the workforce to care for a child. I will fight to expand Boston’s successful universal pre-k initiative to programs nationwide.
I understand how prohibitively expensive childcare is and I don’t think anyone should be discouraged from having kids just because of the price tag of conception or daycare. A large reason I haven’t had a third child was financial. We should reduce the barriers for those that want to take on parenthood.
I will fight for universal childcare for all, regardless of financial standing. Many families do not qualify for financial aid because they appear financially sound on paper but the day-to-day is a different story. When you add up the costs of childcare, mortgage or rent, utilities, transportation, healthcare, food, and clothing most of us are barely getting by.
Combat Wealth Inequality
I will fight the growing concentration of wealth through a national expansion of Massachusetts’ millionaire tax: ensuring multi-millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.
We must ensure that all denizens are treated with respect and have access to food, clean water, and clean air. Access to food, alone, isn’t sufficient.
We need to ensure folks have access to a variety of healthy foods. We need to combat food deserts by promoting urban agriculture, fighting monopolization in the supply chain, and increasing access to locally sourced products.
Energy & Utility Bills
I will fight to reduce the cost of utilities. The cost of utilities has exploded over the last few years, and we need to slow them.
I will introduce legislation to cap the supply and delivery rate increases year over year. I will fight to ensure that the CEOs of public utilities aren’t earning fat paychecks and bonuses. I will fight for an energy consumption tax for tech giants’ data centers making them pay for the requisite infrastructure requirements for their environmental and energy grid drain and not us.