This past weekend, I attended the Wayne Morse Gala benefit for the Democratic Party of Oregon. There were recitations by current officeholders of the threats to vital programs and freedoms they were fighting, all important, but the final keynote speech by California Congresswoman Sara Jacobs echoed a recent op-ed in the Times [Can Democrats Reinvent Themselves as Washington Disrupters?] that resistance and restoration weren’t enough. The party needed big new ideas and then to “deliver”.
The only problem was she didn’t enunciate new ideas.
As a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Oregon’s only Republican held district (a 28% GOP win in 2024), I am obliged to present the big ideas that can draw in constituents from all parties as well as independents. They are:
- Slash Military Spending: Military spending increased under both Democrats and Republicans. We need massive reductions so that the next President who wants to go to war has to come to Congress for the funding.
Even before the Iran War, U.S. defense spending was $850 billion, about 12% of all federal spending. Britain, in contrast, spends $80 billion. If we reduced our spending to the same as Britain’s per capita (4½ times as much), you get $360 billion. Let’s increase THAT by 50% and you get $540 billion.
Obamacare subsidies and SNAP benefits cost about $100 billion each so the $310 billion cut from military spending could fund both with $110 billion left to build affordable housing, address homelessness and mental illness, improve public safety, and fund social security and Medicare – and that’s not even counting money now earmarked for the ACA and SNAP.
Would that endanger us? Just the opposite. A leaner military budget would force us to abandon antiquated missiles and smart bombs and shift to modern tactics such as drones operated by humans who can abort missions before hitting a girls’ school.
Republicans justify (ex post facto) the Iran War on the grounds that they’d attack us eventually, so let’s deal with it now. The question is – why? Iran doesn’t threaten Japan or Brazil probably because unlike the US they don’t have military action in their vicinity. Our military is there to prop up regimes not entirely unlike Iran – to ensure the flow of oil. If we spent as much on alternative energy as on the Iran War, we could dispense with that oil.
While we’re at it, troops in Europe and East Asia were considered a “trip wire” that would guarantee a U.S. response if they were attacked. That rationale was fading and has been demolished by the current, unreliable administration. As much as I abhor “America First” due to antisemitic origins, it’s time we expose their claim to it as humbug, reclaim it, and enunciate our own more grounded version such as “BRING IT HOME.”
- Retire Federal Debt in Ten Years: For the first time since World War II, federal debt (about $40 trillion) is greater than annual GDP. Interest on the debt is over $1 trillion, the largest federal expenditure besides healthcare (soon to be surpassed by military spending if the current administration’s proposal for $1.5 trillion goes through).
This drowns out spending on vital services as well as putting pressure on the credit market, which keeps our interest rates high.
I propose an Asset Growth Surtax – not a wealth tax that taxes assets directly but a surtax on the annual presumed earnings on assets. As described in a recent Times op-ed, the mega-wealthy don’t rely on income, which is taxed, but on earnings on assets which are not taxed as long as they are turned into yet more assets.
The top 10% of Americans own 2/3 of the total wealth of our country, or about $114 trillion. If we just place a 25% surtax on the presumed annual gains in assets, that would bring in $3.4 trillion a year [12% return on $114 trillion = close to $14 trillion; a 25% surtax = $3.4 trillion]. Since only the annual gains would be taxed (unlike the wealth tax) they’d keep their wealth and probably continue to get richer. By presuming gains, we avoid under-reporting or chicanery.
We can pay the $1 trillion in interest and use $2.4 trillion against the $40 trillion debt. The interest payments would get lower each year and the amount raised by the surtax would increase, allowing us to retire the debt entirely within 10 years (9 if things go our way). This would free us to provide free college, universal basic income, or whatever else we felt would improve our lives. Remember, we’d have a $1 trillion interest payment paid and $310 billion from cuts to military spending in the first year, alone.
- Immigration Board of Governors: The US population is aging. Social Security, Medicare, and the effective functioning of our economy need an injection of younger people.
Until recently, that came from immigration. A February 2026 study by the conservative Cato Institute calculated $14.5 trillion paid into Social Security, Medicare, and the general fund by immigrants (both legal and undocumented) from 1994-2023 above what that group received in benefits, which kept Social Security and Medicare solvent and trimmed about 1/3 off our national debt.
The recent $75 billion crackdown devotes precious resources in an inhumane way, but the net effect is to make our average population older. This jeopardizes our future Social Security and Medicare. It makes no sense to spend so much of our national treasure on approaches that worsen our lives.
It’s also true that not all immigration is beneficial. We need to find the “sweet spot” where it creates benefits and not burdens.
An independent Board of Immigration modeled on the Federal Reserve can assess the impacts in each of 12 regions so that all of society benefits from an appropriate level of immigration. Preference will be given to the millions of long-settled, law-abiding undocumented immigrants who can be provided a conditional path to legal status, while employers who exploit unauthorized labor and gain an unfair competitive advantage over ethical employers are prevented from continuing to do so and required to make amends for the wrongs they’ve perpetrated.
- Race to Green Energy Dominance: This is typically addressed by all Democratic candidates as a moral obligation to the next generation. Let’s get morality out of the discussion – it essentially calls opponents immoral and turns them off.
Instead, let’s emphasize that we’re losing the race to China, that it saves money, can power data centers, can power water reclamation and desalinization, and create jobs, jobs, jobs.
The Iran War shows what happens when we rely on gas and diesel. Let them close the Hormuz Strait; I plug in my car and get electricity from the sun.
Appeal to American pride in our own ingenuity. Why are we still making clunky, heavy, inefficient solar panels – or more often buying them from China? We can create next-generation panels, lighter and more efficient, and win the race to green power as well as win the world market back from China. Any benign effect on global climate change is a byproduct of American enterprise.
If you want to make anything sustainable, make it profitable.
- Corral Artificial Intelligence: AI brings enormous productivity gains along with radical innovations, such as cures for cancer. It can either benefit or displace us. As the saying goes, we need AI to work for us and not the other way around. The choice – the decision – is ours.
No community can negotiate on an even plane with a huge company bringing in a data center. Only a national program can rein them in.
- We need to mandate that data centers be self-sufficient in water and power and provide excess capacity to the community for free.
- We need consequences when AI causes harm.
- We need any profits from AI productivity gains to stay with workers who lose hours or go to those in the community who need training or assistance.
Congress has so far done less than nothing. An all-encompassing, vigorous, and nimble channeling of AI is overdue.
The alarm bells are ringing. You can hear them, whether you are left, right, or center politically and unity is our only chance of avoiding what one creator of AI called a “20% probability of an extinction-level event.”
These are examples. Other top-of-mind issues such as corruption, affordability, healthcare, tariffs, and democracy matter. Many of these issues (especially corruption) draw support from across the political spectrum especially if we tie them to tangible benefits. Corruption leads to inept governance and decisions made to profit officeholders instead of to serve us.
Morality is great for the base but feels to others like a judgment on them. For example, Democrats have taken to calling healthcare a human right. I know it feels good when you say it, but it also labels anyone opposed as immoral. It pushes them away. If it’s a human right, should doctors who charge for it be accused of human rights violations?
It’s an economic issue, not a moral one. We have enough money as a nation to make health care accessible and affordable for everyone if we choose to do so. It’s a choice. Do we spend our money on forever wars or on keeping our neighbors healthy and productive? If you know a person with a health problem, only a psychopath would say we’re better off if they get no treatment. Extrapolate from that person to every person and then decide; we can afford it? Should we?
Let’s bring it home.