Aaron Rowden

Healthcare I am a proponent of safe, clean, and naturally derived food as a gold standard for the American diet. I support efforts to remove unnecessary chemicals and additives from the commercial food supply and the ensure that people know what they are putting into their body. However, this process is not accomplished through headline grabbing announcements and flipping the food pyramid upside down. We must exercise care in how we approach food safety as a component of public health and, most importantly, we must ensure that people have access to the safest, highest quality foods at prices every person can afford. Healthcare We must work quickly to restore access to life saving vaccinations and restore trust in the tried and true system that has all but eliminated many deadly diseases. While patient choice and autonomy must be respected, a patient only has true autonomy when they can make their choice based on the best available information and know that they will have access to care. Doctors should be free to give full throated support, backed by high quality public health research and policy, to recommend vaccines that are beneficial to their patients. Taxes / Budget I would end corporate tax loopholes that allow companies to shelter unspent earnings or benefit shareholders at the expense of the broader economy. Corporate spending on wages, research and development, and investment in products and infrastructure are positive influences on the economy. Hoarding money, shuffling it around in the form of paper debts that all pay out to the same small group of billionaires, and manipulating markets to fund these charades is not. A tax policy that incentivizes real growth in wages and beneficial investment is necessary to putting an end to the wealthy treating the economy as a private casino where workers ended up covering all the bets. Taxes / Budget We must re-establish an inheritance tax that interrupts the accumulation of unearned wealth from generation to generation. While fewer and fewer American workers can even afford to leave a home to their children, an increasing amount of our total economic output is passing from generation to generation a small handful of wealthy families. The United States will always reward hard work and success, but being born into a wealthy family is neither of those things and allowing generational wealth to accumulate risks creating an aristocracy, something the United States should never have. Taxes / Budget would forcefully advocate for an end to the broad authority of the executive branch to impose tariffs without specific congressional approval. These tariffs amount to a hidden sales tax on the American people. Our nation was born out of the slogan “no taxation without representation” and our Constitution entrusts the House of Representatives, the house closest to the people, with initiating tax policy. Giving that power to the executive branch was a mistake and it is one Congress must fix. Civil Rights I will also work to protect our right to citizenship under the 14th Amendment. While the administration seeks to undermine the plain meaning of the Constitution and buy time to stack the federal judiciary with judges who will permit this backdoor amendment process, Congress continues to do nothing. As your member of Congress, I would ardently withhold support from any bill that sought to implement this absurd interpretation of the Constitution, and I would advance legislation to enshrine the clear constitutional meaning of birthright citizenship into statute. Furthermore, if the federal judiciary abandoned its commitment to interpreting the Constitution consistent with its plain meaning and precedent, I would withhold support from any budget that continued to fund the enforcement of such rulings. Immigration I will also continue to stand with our migrant community and activists, attend rallies in support of those affected by ICE action, and accompany those who fear persecution to court. These are things I am doing now, and will continue to do if elected. Immigration As your congressperson, I will go to immigration detention facilities and I will demand full, eyes-on, accountability for what is being done in the name of the American people. Healthcare First and foremost, we must complete the work of ensuring that every worker in America has healthcare that is not job dependent and is completely portable within the United States. I support universal, single payer, healthcare for all Americans. A universal healthcare system will ensure that employers cannot exert undue influence over workers through control of their access to healthcare, and will allow those with entrepreneurial ambitions to explore them more freely, thus expanding the dynamic potential of the economy. Social Services Welfare and public assistance should be streamlined and made more robust through a Universal Basic Income (UBI) program. This would help eliminate duplicative programs and overhead, provide direct and flexible assistance to all Americans without onerous paperwork, and would eliminate most avenues for fraud and abuse. Such a system would be paid for by an appropriate tax on profits derived from displacing workers through automation, and would serve as a technology dividend to ensure that all people are benefiting from the emerging technology economy.