Integrity

Corruption

We all suffer when there is corruption.

Every action taken by our government must be solely for the betterment of our nation. For good reason, the Constitution lists bribery alongside treason as grounds for impeachment. Any hint that an action is impacted by potential individual gain must be opposed and reformed so that it is directed to the common good.

Everyone benefits when those with power act within the limits sensibly imposed on them and when their actions are unfailingly intended for our mutual benefit and not their own gain.

For that reason, I oppose and will work to reform the current role of money in politics. Citizen’s United was poorly decided and has unleashed some of the most toxic politics in a century, but that decision also invited Congress to act. It has failed to do so. I will join with others in Congress to restore sensible money limits to political campaigns.

I oppose and will work to reform partisanship in the US Department of Justice. The Department has lost many of its best people when they rebelled at being a tool of politics. Americans universally oppose using the power of the DOJ with prejudice toward those out of favor whose only crime (for example) is opposing the current administration while favoring the well-connected, whether they conspired with Jeffrey Epstein or conspired with other businesses to fix prices or to invade our privacy.

Restoring Our Place in the World

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine must end. We have as great an obligation to the well-being and security of Gaza residents as we do to Israel. We are stronger and safer when we are admired as a nation, when we support the aspirations of all peoples for democracy and liberty, and when we justify the faith and trust of our many allies throughout the world, especially in NATO. It isn’t being virtuous, it’s being smart. We double, triple, and quadruple our strength by bonding it to the efforts of other nations.

We must collaborate with our allies to restore the essential programs we stupidly cut off without warning when Elon Musk de-funded USAID. That misdeed is predicted (in a recent peer-reviewed study in the medical journal Lancet) to result in 9.4 million deaths by the end of the decade, a tragedy we helped create and which none of us want to see.

Political Division

Enough! I, like many Americans, am exhausted. There are only two standards most of us think appropriate: did we treat others as we would want to be treated and did our actions hurt anyone in a way that could or should have been avoided. Diversity is simply a bi product of doing the right thing. That’s why America is the most diverse country in the world – and the best.

Democracy

Tariffs

There are smart tariffs and dumb ones. Smart tariffs require study, analysis, and a consistent, measured, targeted application followed by careful assessment to see if they need modification. What we have now is mostly dumb tariffs that hurt the people of CD2, in particular the farmers and ranchers and anyone who buys groceries, appliances, or any other product impacted by these dumb tariffs. It’s a tax and a particularly dumb one. It rarely punishes other countries directly but directly and egregiously punishes all Americans, particular the people of Southern and Eastern Oregon.

We need to restore the proper role and proper method of debating and deciding on tariffs, just as we do with any form of taxation. Only Congress and the people’s representatives who face the voters every day have the power to take our money from us and give money to us. We must restore that sensible, tried-and-true system, starting with ending the dumb tariffs.

Crime and Public Safety

Public safety is a civil right. I support evidence-based policing, accountability for misconduct, and adequate staffing to protect communities from violent crime.

We also have to address homelessness and the related mental health crisis that is impacting so many of our veterans and those in their teens and twenties. Mental health teams can coordinate with police so that those who need services and not prison are respectfully treated and the entire community is protected from harm. Innovative solutions that can help accomplish these goals are happening in Eugene Oregon and elsewhere, such as supported clusters of tiny homes for the homeless. When solutions work, they need to be adopted and adapted wherever they’re needed.

Education

Our school system was designed for the industrial revolution. Factories need workers who show up on time and follow procedures, so school starts at 8 am sharp, we sit in rows, and bells tell us when to move to the next workstation.

We need schools judged by how effectively our young people are prepared for the tasks of today and tomorrow. George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind made a start on this – schools getting report cards on how they’re educating. Teams that focus on how each student meets standards, holding them to that standard, and intervening when they appear headed for failure. Oregon’s own Nick Kristof has written several articles about what the innovations of school systems in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana can show us about shedding the “soft prejudice of low expectations” and holding students to hard and fast standards without which they will be unable to prosper and thrive in the economy of the future.

AI

As Sam Altman said in 2015, shortly before helping found OpenAI, “I think that A.I. will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world.”

Congress has done nothing to address the looming changes from widespread application of Artificial Intelligence. Jobs in customer service and tens of thousands of entry-level jobs will become obsolete, white-collar jobs will start to dry up, and even creative endeavors such as graphic design or songwriting will become increasingly done by AI. We can’t stop the future from coming but we can be smart and proactive so that it benefits us all. 

There are innovative ideas such as John Maynard Keynes prediction of 40-hour workweeks being shared by two or three 20-hour or 15-hour-a-week workers. Income has to be the same or better despite fewer hours. 

One possible way to achieve that is UBC (Universal Basic Capital) whereby every qualified citizen owns part of the AI economy through national investment accounts or public wealth funds that hold shares in AI companies, platforms, and infrastructure. Prototypes are already being tried in Germany and Australia, but we in America are the cutting edge of AI. Our current administration took a 10% stake in Intel, but why should the government have that stake instead of We the People.

Funding the Arts

An essential part of our transition to an AI-based is making the Arts a more stable and worthwhile career for our young people.

At a minimum, AI must be banned from creative endeavors – which are fueled by wholesale thievery of the past creations of innumerable people who are not asked or compensated for their contributions. That ends now. Our current Congress seems clueless in the face of this looming challenge. Oregon won’t stand still for it.

Oregon has always led America into the future. We were the first to have bottle deposits, curbside recycling, and legalized marijuana. We are the inheritors of those who braved the Oregon Trail. That legacy will face and overcome today’s challenges and lead the rest of the world in finding a better way.

Evidence-Based Solutions

Affordability

We, the people, can restore affordability.

We lack power as individuals to make it happen, but united and working through our elected representatives, we can end impediments to building more affordable housing and tackle affordability at its source. We can end profiteering in necessities such as food, medicine, insurance, and housing. We can improve the supply chain and lower energy prices, creating abundance in foods and other products so that prices naturally come down. 

But first, out an end to the dumb tariffs that put a tax on the fruits and vegetables our neighbors to the south grow for us, a tax on lumber, petroleum, medicines, wine and cheese, and thousands of other products made for us in Canada, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The Economy

The free market has an unmatched ability to create, innovate, and spread well-being in ever-widening circles. I don’t want it shackled by government and I don’t want it shackled by those who want it to work only for the few. Corruption means making something impure, and impurities injected by the government or by a few insiders who want the economy to only work for those few has the impact of denying the rest of us the wonders that we, as workers, farmers, and ranchers, spend most of our lives helping to create.

We can end impediments to creating abundance, wherever they originate, and extend the benefits of our incredible free market system to everyone who has helped it come to be.

Immigration

Let’s get emotion out of this discussion. 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 conservative think tank Cato Institute Feb 2026 study 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 your 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. 

There may be better ideas than I can propose to accomplish this. I suggest an independent Board of Immigration modeled on the Federal Reserve that can assess the impacts in each of 12 regions so that all of society can benefit from an appropriate level of immigration. Preference should 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.

American Know-How

Rare Earth Mining

A “rare earth rush” far more vital than the gold rush is at hand. The largest deposits of lithium are thought to be in Malheur County in the Second Congressional District of Oregon. Gallium of a higher grade than anywhere else in the world has been found in southern Jackson and Josephine County. Alluvial Deposits east of the Cascades from K Falls to Bend are promising locations for exploration for a wide range of rare earth deposits.

We need to be on top of it, to make sure it’s done right, to make sure it means employment and wealth for the surrounding region, including giving locals a fair chance at an ownership stake even for those who are typically excluded. 

Innovation

We can’t solve our problems if we limit ourselves to the solutions that’ve already been tried. Any regulation or barriers to innovation not needed to protect health and safety should be eliminated.

Problems that seem intractable, such as water rights, can be made less severe or even surmounted through radical innovation.

Water Rights

Water rights are a life and death issue in much of CD2. Water scarcity threatens the livelihood and blunts the profitability of farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers and limits the home building that can make housing more affordable.

Truth to tell: there IS no water shortage. There’s roughly the same amount of water on the planet as there’s ever been. The problem is it’s not all usable and it’s unevenly distributed. Some places have too much; others too little. What we need is water reclamation and improved distribution but that requires effort, organization, and (most of all) electricity to power those solutions.

Instead of continuing the fights predicated on scarcity, we need to engineer abundance. Congress in collaboration with the private sector can create and fund expanded power generation from ocean waves off the Oregon Coast, lighter and more efficient and affordable solar panels, and expanded wind generation technology that can power water reclamation and distribution. Americans and Oregonians are problem-solvers. The solutions are well within our reach. I will work for you to make that happen.

Service

What I Offer to CD2

A champion for public and private investment in Eastern & Southern Oregon. We’ve been overlooked for too long.

When we flip CD2, the national parties will flip out. It will give our district the bargaining position it’s lacked for decades. I don’t blame Bentz for not bringing funding to our district, for not making us a nexus of national efforts at innovation, growth, and diversification. He doesn’t have the cards. When we flip CD2, we’ll have a megaphone. Our water needs, infrastructure needs, and development needs will be heard – your voices will be heard.

If studying econ. has taught me anything, it’s that bargaining position is everything. Our economy takes shape in a million daily negotiations for pay, products, benefits, and time.

Rather than government moving in to give money to those in a weaker bargaining position such as workers, farmers, ranchers, and average folks, what we can do is reverse the actions that have put average folks in a weaker position. Insurance of all kinds has soared in price and costs for housing, food, and everything else is forcing us to put up with whatever we’re offered. AI will just make it worse. Congress has the power to change your bargaining position so that you can say ‘no’ until your needs and demands are met and know that we have your back.

Fiscal Responsibility

Our current fiscal course is unsustainable and, if left uncorrected, will lead to long-term erosion in our standard of living. Interest payments on the federal debt will soon be the largest single item in the federal budget, squeezing vital services and public investments.

Before anything else, we must secure the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, whose trust funds are projected to be exhausted by 2032. We can make sensible changes to the tax code and modernize collection and verification to enhance the funds available to bring down the debt while still meeting our obligations. We need to end an irrational, hyper-expensive campaign against immigrants. Over-spending on priorities that don’t make our lives safer or better can be curtailed. Making the transition to a more AI-based economy can be smoothed for all of us.

Oregonians want a no-nonsense approach to rein in our dysfunctional federal budget, secure our future, and handle the issues that make life better for all of us.

Healing and Faith

Tikkun Olam

The North Star that guides me is Tikkun Olam, often translated as “Heal the World”. None of us can heal the entire world, but we can make better what’s within our reach and that, if all of us do that, we WILL heal the world.