- In Congress, I will support policies to move toward achieving health care coverage that is both affordable and accessible. In the long-term, this might mean moving toward a single-payer health care model. However, we can take several more immediate steps that utilize our existing healthcare infrastructure in the short-term in order to ensure improved health care access and affordability. First, Congress needs to reinstate the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and cost-sharing reduction subsidies, both of which have been unwisely discontinued under the current administration. Repealing the individual mandate has encouraged some younger and healthier individuals to stop paying for health insurance. Removing these individuals from our health care insurance risk pools has led to higher premiums for those who are still insured. Furthermore, the current administration’s elimination of the cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which had been used in order to decrease out-of-pocket costs such as copayments and deductibles, has unnecessarily raised health care costs for working men and women across the country. Finally, Congress should add a Medicare buy-in option to all ACA health care exchanges. Private health insurance administrative costs typically account for 15 to 20% of premiums, while Medicare’s administrative costs are in the neighborhood of only 3%. It is time we allow individuals under the age of 65 to purchase Medicare through the ACA’s health care exchanges so that these savings can be passed along to millions of hardworking Americans in the form of lower premiums. In short, we need a Congress that will work to strengthen the ACA, not to sabotage it. 

2. What is your position on immigration reform and securing our borders? Do you support a path to citizenship for Dreamers? What about the other 10 million immigrants?   

- Today, immigrants add an estimated $2 trillion dollars to the economy each year, and 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. During my time in the Army and in ministry, I have witnessed first-hand that immigrants represent an added value to our country and our local communities. In recognition of our history as a nation of immigrants, we must pursue comprehensive immigration reform.

First, we need to immediately address the status of DACA-eligible individuals. These Dreamers were brought to the United States as children, through no fault of their own. They have grown up as our neighbors. They have served in our military and graduated from our schools. They are teachers, nurses, and entrepreneurs. They have earned legal status and a pathway to citizenship. Furthermore, we must expand avenues for legal immigration, and we must do this in a manner that ensures immigrants’ skills are well-matched to the jobs that our economy currently demands. Finally, we should consider new border security measures in a responsible fashion. Senators John McCain and Chris Coons have introduced bipartisan legislation that would authorize the Department of Homeland Security to study border security and submit an improvement plan to Congress. Their bill does not simply throw $25 billion of taxpayer money toward constructing an expensive and ineffective border wall.

3. How will you address economic inequality? Include in your answer your position on raising the federal minimum wage and the impact of the recent tax legislation passed by Congress.  

- The current level of economic inequality in the United States threatens our nation’s overall macroeconomic well-being, as well as our long-held American ideal that hard work should result in fair compensation. Middle- and working-class individuals are the drivers of our country’s economy. For this reason, I will stand with workers across the country in their efforts to secure a $15.00 per hour living wage. Increasing the minimum wage is a national responsibility. I believe that this increase must be implemented in a phased manner that does not jeopardize small businesses, which would be the employers most greatly impacted by the change. Working people have pride in what they do, and therefore they should be paid a wage that gives them a sense of self-worth and provides them with the ability to pay their bills each month and save towards their future as well.

While Congress’ recent tax reform legislation provided some minor, temporary tax relief for working families, congressional Republicans wrote this aspect of the law to expire in several years. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the law’s tax breaks are narrowly targeted toward benefiting profitable corporate entities, as well as the top one percent of income earners, and those breaks are not written to expire. Our laws are moral documents, and this law is immoral. It dramatically increases the national debt, thereby robbing future generations of a reasonable standard of living, while simultaneously enriching the wealthiest among us at the expense of everyone else. In summary, rather than squandering our resources by giving a huge tax break to the upper one percent of our country, we instead can and must support national legislation that would grant individuals a living wage.

- During my 20 years of service as an active duty U.S. Army officer, I had the honor of serving alongside people from a wide variety of racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. In Congress, it would be my honor to represent ALL the people of Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District. While we can seek legislative solutions in the area of confronting racism and advancing racial justice, as a pastor, I believe that we need more than just legislative solutions. We cannot simply change laws: we must change hearts, and we must change minds.  

My faith teaches me that all people are created equal and are worthy of love and respect. I will work to heal the divide in our district and in our nation by leveraging the networks that already exist among faith-based organizations, many of which, such as those in my personal network, are already at work building bridges across racial divides. Finally, I will encourage all of us to step back from condemnation and listen to each other, and to encourage a greater dialogue within and among communities, focusing on what unites rather than what divides us.

5. What is your vision for gender justice? Please address women’s issues and LGBTQ rights.  

- I believe that all citizens, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, deserve equal protection in our nation and in our communities. Those protections should extend to the workplace, housing, the right to marry, the right to adopt a child, and the right to access government programs and services. I am firmly committed to women's rights, such as ensuring equal pay for equal work, eliminating sexual harassment and sexual assault, and providing women with access to preventative health care and family planning services. I support a woman’s right to safe, legal abortion, yet believe that we should also recognize the sanctity of life and provide the resources and opportunities to women that will give them the opportunity to choose life. Regarding LGBTQ rights, I believe that inclusiveness makes our country stronger, and I stand with the LGBTQ community in their mission to achieve full legal and social equality.

- Climate change must be acknowledged as fact. In Congress, I will work for the people of Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District and not jeopardize their interests in order to serve fossil fuel industry. As a member of Congress, I will support policies that empower communities to create environmental safeguards and strengthen the EPA, while also developing incentives to shift our economy toward renewable energy resources. For example, placing a carbon fee on fossil fuels early in the supply chain, and then paying the money that is collected back out to taxpayers as a dividend, would combat climate change, improve public health, and ultimately grow the economy. Professional calculations estimate that, after ten years, this policy would decrease carbon emissions by 33%, reduce pollution-related deaths by 13,000 persons annually, and lead to a net increase of 2.1 million jobs.

- According to the U.S. Department of Education, the federal government provides only 8% of the total funding for education and school-related services at the elementary and secondary levels. Given that this figure includes federal funding for initiatives such as Head Start and the National School Lunch Program, the amount of money that the federal government currently appropriates for basic education programming and infrastructure is clearly inadequate. Public spending on education is an investment in our children, our communities, our economy, and our democracy. I will oppose any legislation that funnels money away from our public schools, and I will seek out opportunities to address critical investments in our infrastructure, which I define to include public schools. Concerning higher education, we must do more to address existing student loan debt and increase baseline affordability for the next generation of students. For example, under current law, a student must be pursuing a four-year college degree in order to be eligible for a Pell Grant. This stipulation too often results in federal aid being denied to the very students who need it the most. Our economy is changing, and the way we award Pell Grants and other forms of federal financial aid needs to change, too.

- During my 20-year military career, I witnessed first-hand the devastation that guns and other weapons are capable of inflicting. Gun violence is a plague that has infected our society. It is a public safety issue that can no longer be kicked down the road. We must address it now, and we must do that in four distinct ways: 

- I am running to restore integrity to our political process, including our elections and the campaign finance laws that govern them. Through its disastrous ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court has declared that our elections are for sale to the highest bidder. When one-half of one percent of our citizens provide over two-thirds of the funding for our political campaigns, it is impossible to pretend that everyone has an equal voice. In Congress, I will work tirelessly for campaign finance reform that returns our electoral process to ordinary people and reduces the undue influence of the elite few who currently fund political campaigns.

- From a legislative perspective, several immediate steps stand out on the issue of criminal justice reform. 

- Our primary foreign policy challenge is our nation's loss of its leadership position in the world. In the last fifteen months we have withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Climate Accords, and UNESCO. We have also threatened to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and NAFTA, alienated moderate Arab allies, and suggested that we may not support our NATO allies if they invoke the collective defense provisions of Article 5. These actions have given our allies every reason to question our leadership in the world, our trustworthiness as a negotiating partner, and have made the US and the world less safe.

Our next greatest challenge is the increase in tensions on the Korean peninsula. The threat posed by an unstable North Korean regime, armed with nuclear weapons cannot be overstated. Having served in South Korea, I know firsthand that there is no such thing as a “winnable” war on the Korean peninsula. While the US would undoubtedly prevail fairly quickly in any armed conflict, the cost would be nearly unimaginable. Nuclear weapons aside, North Korea possesses the conventional weaponry to reduce Seoul to rubble, inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties, mostly civilians, in the process. In addition to engaging North Korea directly, we must also bring pressure on Russia, China, Germany, Brazil, Egypt, India, and other nations that continue to conduct business with North Korea in violation of international sanctions.