Photos
Vivek Bavda
Candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’ 10th Congressional District>
Campaign contact information
Email: vivekbavdaforcongress@gmail.com
Phone: 847-471-2144
6. Born July 18, 1977 – 34 years old
7. Family: single with no children
8. Education:
The John Marshall Law School Chicago, IL
Juris Doctor, January 2009
Recipient of Dean’s Scholarship for leadership, academic excellence, and public service
Emphasis on financial crises
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI
Masters in Public Affairs, May 2004
Recipient of Fellowship in Public Affairs for leadership, academic excellence and public service
Studied public management and policy analysis with focus on education policy
Northwestern University Evanston, IL
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics, June 1999
9. Occupation: Attorney
10. Political Party: Democratic Party
11. Previous Elected or Appointed Government Offices: None
12. Additional Experience:
As a member of Congress, I would be responsible for creating jobs and managing the economy. As a former Federal Reserve employee, I am firmly grounded in modern economics. As a public finance consultant for Munifinancial, I built a fiscal impact model, giving me a firm understanding of budget and tax policy. I also learned how elected officials build support for infrastructure projects like the ones I propose to create jobs
As a Teach for America teacher, I taught in some of the toughest public schools. I affirmed that all kids have potential. We just have to unlock it. I also learned what it takes to educate a child, what we need to do to make sure that our education system regains its status as a world leader, and how to make sure all kids have an excellent education. Moreover, when I received my MPA, I focused on education policy. This gives me both the big picture understanding of education policy and the practical hands on knowledge that no other candidate has nor do most members of Congress.
I helped lead the fight to keep stem cell research legal in Missouri. I learned how to build a grassroots coalition to support sensible policies. My battle against Republican extremists prepared me to defend a woman's right to choose, combat climate change, pass comprehensive immigration reform, and preserve Medicare and Social Security.
I also organized interfaith youth conferences to work on common public policy programs like teenage drug and alcohol abuse. This was a bipartisan process. While I know how to fight for Democratic values, I also will reach across the aisle.
13.
My three priorities: a. I am committed to creating jobs.
b. I am committed to making education a civil right.
c. I am committed to breaking apart too big to fail banks because they blew up our economy.
a. Further federal stimulus is required to create jobs. While the stimulus can be anything, ideally, we should invest the money in the best interests of the nation. This would be infrastructure projects like transportation projects, aid to state and local governments, and research and development to name a few things. However, the Republicans will filibuster any national stimulus plan like the ones my opponents support. Consequently, I propose a Chicagoland jobs plan that includes doubling the number of lanes on 90 and 94 from the Loop to the airport and Tower Rd, respectively. 94 is critical, connecting the 10th district to Chicago. Moreover, we should provide smart grid funding from the federal government rather than increase utility rates. Finally, we should provide aid to state and local governments. If we do all three, we can bring unemployment down to 2004-2005 levels in Chicagoland. This will all, of course, require money.
I am committed to trading votes for funding these three projects. As a public finance consultant with Munifinancial, I learned how politicians built support for infrastructure projects like these. While this may be sausage-making, it is also necessary to make sure our friends and neighbors have jobs until the economy recovers. All this requires the proper political packaging. Even the most ardent Republican believes in creating roads like 94/90, especially if they've lived in Chicago. Moreover, if the smart-grid is sold in the context of tax relief given the rate hike, it can be slid into an appropriations bill. Finally, the third would be addressed in the context of preventing future need for state and local aid. Aid now would be conditioned on accepting the following policy. We can require state governments in good economic times to deposit a certain percentage of state tax revenue with the federal government. The federal government would have these savings to provide back during recessions. This would be a rainy day fund that the states couldn't raid. The boom times GDP growth level would be negotiated by the states and the federal government. The Federal Reserve would report the state growth levels. By exchanging federal funds for this requirement, the law would pass constitutional muster.
While it is time honored for elected leaders to bring money into the district, this would be a good use of our tax dollars to lower commute times, reduce pollution and energy use, create countercyclical economic policy, and create jobs.
b. I am committed to making education a civil right.
This entails three things: changing No Child Left Behind, ensuring early childhood education, and funding.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was a startling display of bipartisan legislation enacted to bring every student in the country to proficiency by the year 2014. The crux of the act was to force states to set standards in math, science and language arts, test all students in these subjects, and force schools to meet increasing requirements of success or face remedial measures. The fundamental policy behind NCLB was that students achieve and meet the expectations that we require of them. Several problems emerged over the years. With this in mind, I have formulated my own alternative to reauthorize NCLB
First, we need to create national standards. Currently, states create their own. To avoid the remedial measures of NCLB, they set the bar low. Mississippi has one of the highest proficiency rates, but the standards are much lower than Illinois.
Second, NCLB only requires tests in math, science, and language arts. This creates an incentive to cut out other subject areas, leading to myopia in student knowledge. We need to test in all subject areas to make students proficient in all academic areas.
The third problem to emerge is teaching to the test. Schools and teachers learn the testing mechanism and make gains on the test through style and test-taking strategies, rather than increasing substantive student learning. To mitigate this natural instinct by schools, we need to teach to tests worth teaching to that measure critical thinking. Moreover, we should require that tests are self-auditing. Self-auditing tests use different mechanisms of assessment all within a singular test. They corroborate that a student has learned a particular concept using a different testing mechanism. By testing in multiple ways, we reduce the ability of teachers to teach to any conventional test. In addition, we should require a singular test that is both criterion-reference and norm-referenced. This allows parents, educators, legislators, and the public to gauge progress on an absolute and relative scale respectively.
The fourth problem that has emerged is the use of statistical confidence intervals at the school level to disguise failure to meet the increasing proficiency rates of the federal law and avoid the negative consequences of this failure. We should require the use of the actual test scores rather than any confidence interval to meet adequate yearly progress to prevent any future statistical tinkering.
The fifth problem that has emerged is the attempt to backload the proficiency progress. While states have much flexibility to apportion progress from enactment to 2014, we should require a linear model of progress for the new deadline after reauthorization. In other words, there must be equal improvements over the time period in question, rather than saving most of the progress for the end.
The sixth problem is the incentives the current adequate yearly progress calculation creates. The first incentive is to neglect higher achieving students because they will pass proficiency without any problem. There is no incentive to make them reach their God given potential. The second incentive is to focus resources on students who are close to passing. Students who are the farthest behind will be left behind because the Act treats the passage of the farthest student as equivalent to a marginal student. This means a student can be taught three years worth of material and still fail the proficiency test. This student’s gain is not reflected in the year’s adequate yearly progress. We should impose a growth model on schools. This growth model incentivizes learning by counting and crediting schools with each year of learning rather than setting one passage score that determines adequate yearly progress. Average students who start at 5.0 grade levels worth of knowledge in 5th grade and learn one year’s knowledge will be deemed as 1.0 students achieving proficiency for the adequate yearly progress calculation. If this student learns 1.5 years worth of knowledge, 1.5 students will be deemed to have passed for purposes of the adequate yearly progress calculation. In addition, this means students who are ahead have to be taught advanced material in order for them to be counted as passing in the next year’s calculation. Moreover, if the advanced students learn more than one year’s worth of material, the school is credited with an increase in adequate yearly progress. For example, let’s take a fifth grader who is somewhat advanced for his age with 5.2 grade levels worth of knowledge. For this student to pass for purposes of adequate yearly progress, this student must achieve a 6.2 grade levels worth of knowledge. If the student learns more and achieves a 6.7 grade level knowledge, 1.5 students will be deemed to be proficient for the purpose of the adequate yearly progress calculations.
Schools also will have an incentive to teach students who are currently being left behind. The low achieving student who is at 3.7 grade level in 5th grade will be counted as many times as he or she is behind. So this student will be counted as a minimum of 2.3 students because he is this far behind of where he needs to be by the end of the school year. If he achieves only a 5.0 grade level, 1.3 out of 2.3 students will be deemed as passing. If he achieves 6th grade level, then 2.3 students will be deemed proficient. If he achieves a 7th grade level, 3.3 students will be deemed to be proficient for purposes of the adequate yearly progress. The point is that teachers will be incentivized to increase learning. One downside to this system is that the adequate yearly progress calculation will become an index rather than a simple passage rate. Given this, we should require that adequate yearly progress calculations will be made public in both the old method as well as the new indexed growth model (with the new method counting toward the remedial measures of failing adequate yearly progress of NCLB).
The seventh potential problem of NCLB is the failure of the remedial measures to increase performance. We should seek to help schools that have failed and become restructured by giving these schools one more tool to impact student performance. We should allow principals to double the salary scale of teachers who agree to work on an at-will basis at the discretion of the principal. By doubling the salary scale, restructured schools could expect to recruit the best teachers for the most difficult teaching areas. Given the greatest single factor on student performance is an excellent teacher, this would be an effective way to make sure that no child is left behind. To ensure that only the best performers receive this incentive, principals need to have hire and fire flexibility. It should also be pointed out that any teacher could choose either to have an ordinary contract and union provisions or take the increased salary with all union provisions except an at-will employment contact.
These seven problems and changes to No Child Left Behind will help students and teachers increase learning.
Beyond No Child Left Behind, we have to extend public education to lower ages. Early childhood education is critical. There can be as much as a 1,000,000 words deficit between children in poor families and affluent families. This puts many kids at a different starting point, and it can be difficult to catch up.
We also have to find a way to increase funding for schools to bring all schools up to New Trier funding levels. The federal government should use the estate tax to supplement schools. Inheritances are the opposite of earned opportunity. They give the next generation a leg up, and if we use this money to even the playing field for poor kids who start behind the starting line, we move a step toward a more equitable society. And from a political standpoint, this is a winning counterpoint to Republican attacks.
c. I am committed to breaking apart too big to fail financial institutions due to their role in this recession.
As we are all aware, these institutions were and are so intertwined with the economy that any institution’s failure would collapse the economy. In 2008, the fall of Lehman Brother lead to a freezing of credit markets that haunts us to this day. Only bailouts saved us, but we still had a recession. There were many reasons for this recession including the Fed's easy money policy, the Shadow Banking system, Wall St. compensation structure, ratings agencies, a lack of skin in the game, opaque financial products, and finally too big to fail. There should be no one company or a small group of companies whose bad decisions should sink us all. Dodd-Frank addresses many of these concerns including bailouts for too big to fail financial institutions. However, the resolution authority that attempts to address the bailouts for too big to fail financial institutions is not nearly enough. Too big to fail institutions are too complicated to unwind quickly the way the FDIC currently does with regular banks. Beyond this, reductions in debt or haircuts are handed out during unwinding. If the haircuts are too small, you have a backdoor bailout. If the haircuts are too big, you have a cascading set of payment failures, leading to Lehman like situation. Given the pressure to prevent catastrophe in these type of situations, haircuts will be small, resulting in backdoor bailouts. This is unacceptable. Capitalism works on accountability. If you take bad risks, you lose your money and go out of business. If you keep these companies afloat, they will keep endangering us all. Too big to fail financial institutions are too big to exist. Like we do with monopolies, we must create a division in the Department of Justice to break apart too big to fail financial institutions.
14.
My life and candidacy is about making a difference to move America forward. I’m willing to take political chances, provide solutions, and don’t rely on a group of cynical political consultants. I talk about substance while my competitors talk about politics. More importantly, I have prescriptions beyond Democratic boilerplate that will create jobs, improve education, and prevent bailouts. I have more specific ideas than any other candidate. We’ve tried electing the same bland politicians, and Congress’s approval rating is horrendous. It is time for someone different like me.
Moreover, I’m the most prepared for Congress. I’ve worked for businesses, unions, non-profits, government, and campaigns, have three public policy related degrees, and grew up in our district. Together, this makes me the right person for the job. Visit www.bavdaforcongress.com and you’ll agree.
15. “Vivek Bavda for Congress” is the name of the campaign committee
16.
The Small Business Administration and I define a small business as one that is independently owned and operated, is organized for profit, and is not dominant in its field. Depending on the industry, size standard eligibility is based on the average number of employees for the preceding twelve months or on sales volume averaged over a three-year period. Examples:
Manufacturing: Maximum number of employees may range from 500 to 1500, depending on the type of product manufactured;
Wholesaling: Maximum number of employees may range from 100 to 500 depending on the particular product being provided;
Services: Annual receipts may not exceed $2.5 to $21.5 million, depending on the particular service being provided;
Retailing: Annual receipts may not exceed $5.0 to $21.0 million, depending on the particular product being provided;
General and Heavy Construction: General construction annual receipts may not exceed $13.5 to $17 million, depending on the type of construction;
Special Trade Construction: Annual receipts may not exceed $7 million; and
Agriculture: Annual receipts may not exceed $0.5 to $9.0 million, depending on the agricultural product.
What can be done?
Small businesses still don’t have access to credit that they once had because banks aren’t lending. I propose we create a Federal Reserve loan facility to work with the SBA to guarantee and make outright loans to small businesses.
In addition, The Chicagoland Jobs Program that I detailed in the earlier question on priorities will create demand. This will give small businesses more customers, meaning more small businesses will be profitable and meaning more jobs will be created.
17. 18. 19. Deficit, Taxes, Cuts
As we are in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, the immediate concern is to stimulate the economy to mitigate unemployment and the suffering it entails. While the debt is about 100% of GDP, it is important to remember that the government owes itself about 30% of the debt. This makes the immediate concern of lowering the deficit, balancing the budget, and decreasing the debt misplaced. At about 120% of Debt to GDP rather than 70% is when a sovereign debt crisis becomes likely. Furthermore, given the U.S. is the biggest economy in the world, the dollar is the reserve currency of the world, and U.S. debt is the safest investment in the world, the percentage is likely higher. Interest rates are low and will likely continue to stay low, alleviating the concern of crowding out private investment.
The debt and deficit matter, but they matter in the long run after this recession is over. At that point, we have to attack the deficit and debt. The main drivers of the deficit and debt are entitlements with health care spending the most critical. I don’t believe there is an a priori spending cuts vs.revenue ratio that makes sense. This is an arbitrary number. We have to find ways to grow the economy to increase revenue by creating a fairer and flatter tax code with less corporate loopholes and lower rates. We also need to gain more revenue from the estate tax as inheritances are the opposite of equality of opportunity. They give some Americans a leg up based on little effort of their own. We have to look at every part of government for savings including expanding on health care reform. The Affordable Care Act's ideas such as the independent payment advisory board, electronic records, preventative care, comparative effectiveness research, and new ways to pay for health care including bundling and accountable care organizations all will help bring health care spending down. We also need to let Medicare negotiate bulk drug prices.
We can also slow health care costs while dealing with lack of access to care. The lack of medical professionals in rural and inner-city areas for Medicare patients can be mitigated effectively through a reverse Dutch auction payment system and will save money. Currently, many health care professionals are highly concentrated in suburban and/or affluent areas. The shortage in rural and inner-city areas means that low-income people have to wait longer for services and travel further to get to services. Medicare is paying a higher rate than it should because it supports the fixed costs of the professionals in high concentration areas even though there are fewer patients than optimal. Using a reverse Dutch auction, Medicare would look at its population data and determine the optimal level of services in each geographical area. Using internet software, Medicare would list each geographical area, the number of each type of professional needed, and the bid (pay). As the bid increases for each area, more professionals would take the bid on each geographical area that they would like to live and work. Presumably, the popular geographical areas would be chosen first at a lower cost. Meanwhile, other professionals would wait for the current shortage area prices to be increased until the pay is worth practicing there and the need is met. A limited number of positions would create market discipline, ensuring that people don’t wait for obscene prices. Moreover, anti-trust laws could be used to prevent collusion. This concept could save money and remove a barrier to health care for low-income people. Once in effect, this form of competitive bidding can be used throughout health care.
Beyond health care, Social Security also needs to be addressed to tackle the deficit and debt. We have to remove the cap on the income subject to the payroll tax. Moreover, we need an accurate inflation index that is chain weighted for Social Security and the rest of government. Chain weighted simply means accounting for substitutions if one price goes up. We also need to encourage immigration to have a greater number of workers and taxpayers to support entitlements. These reforms will preserve Social Security in the long run. All of this together will address our long term deficit and debt concerns.
20.
I am committed to creating jobs. Further federal stimulus is required to create jobs. While the stimulus can be anything, ideally, we should invest the money in the best interests of the nation. This would be infrastructure projects like transportation projects, aid to state and local governments, and research and development to name a few things. However, the Republicans will filibuster any national stimulus plan like the ones my opponents support. Consequently, I propose a Chicagoland jobs plan that includes doubling the number of lanes on 90 and 94 from the Loop to the airport and Tower Rd, respectively. 94 is critical, connecting the 10th district to Chicago. Moreover, we should provide smart grid funding from the federal government rather than increase utility rates. Finally, we should provide aid to state and local governments. If we do all three, we can bring unemployment down to 2004-2005 levels in Chicagoland. This will all, of course, require money.
I am committed to trading votes for funding these three projects. As a public finance consultant with Munifinancial, I learned how politicians built support for infrastructure projects like these. While this may be sausage-making, it is also necessary to make sure our friends and neighbors have jobs until the economy recovers. All this requires the proper political packaging. Even the most ardent Republican believes in creating roads like 94/90, especially if they've lived in Chicago. Moreover, if the smart-grid is sold in the context of tax relief given the rate hike, it can be slid into an appropriations bill. Finally, the third would be addressed in the context of preventing future need for state and local aid. Aid now would be conditioned on accepting the following policy. We can require state governments in good economic times to deposit a certain percentage of state tax revenue with the federal government. The federal government would have these savings to provide back during recessions. This would be a rainy day fund that the states couldn't raid. The boom times GDP growth level would be negotiated by states and the federal government. The Federal Reserve would report the state growth levels. By exchanging federal funds for this requirement, the law would pass constitutional muster.
While it is time honored for elected leaders to bring money into the district, this would be a good use of our tax dollars to lower commute times, reduce pollution and energy use, create countercyclical economic policy, and create jobs.
21. There should be no repercussions for failing to read bills. If we are upset at an elected official failing to read a bill, we should vote for another candidate. The reality is that Congress deals with many bills that number thousands of pages because Congress is managing a 15 trillion dollar economy. Each industry within the economy is complicated often requiring technical knowledge of everything from biology to cars. For this reason, Congress has staff that they trust to help them make decisions. Moreover, while bills may be thousands of pages, they still are not specific enough. After passage of legislation, federal agencies draft many pages of rules and sub rules that expand upon paragraphs in these bills. At the end of the day, members of Congress are just people. When we buy a home, we retain an attorney. This transaction is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. We don’t prevent consumers from buying homes because we can’t be an expert in everything. Now imagine the detail and archaic language of your real estate contract, and multiply it by billions for the size and variety of the industries that Congress regulates. Perspective is key here.
22. No. All kids can learn. Outside of severe mental retardation, we as educators must find ways to teach our kids.
23.
There are four key elements of comprehensive immigration reform that are critical to our community and a bipartisan solution. First, there should be an Essential Worker Visa Program. This measure will allow immigrants with special skills or knowledge to fill jobs in this country necessary for the competitiveness of American small businesses, startups, and larger companies. This visa status will allow many new non-immigrants to come and work in this country to our country’s benefit. Immigrants will have to provide proof of employment at the American consulate. In addition, the visa applicant must pass a background and medical check while paying a fee of 500 dollars. The renewable visa would last for three years, and the recipient may travel outside of the U. S. The visa holders will have all protections of U. S. workers. After 4 years of work and residence in the U. S in addition to knowledge of English and American civics, these essential workers may also apply for a green card and become permanent residents in the U. S.
Second, there should be paths to legalization for immigrants who are undocumented. If one is employed and in the U. S. prior to the passage of this reform, then they can stay under these reforms. The immigrant’s children and spouse can also follow and join the immigrant with this status. To stay under this status, there should also be a path to a green card if an applicant pays a $2,000 fine, proves payment of taxes, pays back-taxes if applicable, pays an application fee, complies with other immigration laws, passes a medical examination; shows understanding of English and U.S. civics, successfully passes criminal and security background checks, and registers for the military if age appropriate. Any criminal conduct would disqualify the immigrant. This balances the reality that the undocumented are Americans even though broke the law to become Americans.
Third, greater security is necessary. By securing our borders, we lessen the chance that people who would harm the U.S. would enter our country in the same way that undocumented immigrants do. Moreover, visa applicants will be processed with better methods of tracking to prevent overstays on visas. In addition, we should require the creation of a database for employers to check the legal work status of all who apply for employment and punish employers who hire new undocumented immigrants.
Fourth, it is critical for the U. S. to attract the smartest minds and job creators to this country. We need to create the equivalent of the Rhodes Scholarship for 1000 student immigrants from around the world that we can call the Clinton-Bush Scholarship. These 1000 immigrants would come from countries in their proportion to world population. Each U. S. embassy would recruit the best and brightest foreign minds to come study, innovate, become citizens, work, live, and create jobs. With the requirement that they would become citizens and stay in the U. S., the government would finance their education and living costs until after they graduated.
24. Equality
I believe that every American should have access to the same rights, regardless of race, gender, religion, income, or sexual orientation. We are overdue in eliminating the remaining legal hurdles that are preventing full equality for all Americans. Specifically, I believe that every individual should have the right to marry whomever he or she chooses. Allowing same-sex marriage will grant gay and lesbian couples important legal rights related to healthcare benefits and tax structures.
Choice
I am firmly Pro-Choice and believe that every woman deserves to be in control of the decisions she makes related to her physical body. I support women of all backgrounds having access to comprehensive information on her options early in the pregnancy.
The role of government
Government should work to protect the powerless against the powerful. Minorities, women and LGBT folks have been historically discriminated against, suggesting a lack of power. This is why the government should safeguard rights like the first amendment, the right to choose, and the right to marry whomever. In contrast, conservatives want government to come into the wombs of women. They want to put the full power of government on the most personal of things. Yet, they want government to stay out of the way of the powerful including major corporations. In contrast to conservatives, I want government to protect you us from the powerful including corporations.
25.
While taxes exist to fund the government, we also use taxes to make sure the price consumers pay include all costs. For example, Pepsi sells sugary drinks that can lead to diabetes. Yet, Pepsi doesn’t pay for the cost of treating Diabetes. They are free riding upon insurance companies, the patient, or the government who deal with what economists term externalities. Externalities like these are market failures. When these type of market failures exist, we should tax in some cases or provide subsidies in other cases where the full benefit of the product isn’t in the cost.
26.
I believe the minimum wage should be increased to 10 dollars. From this point, the minimum wage should be tied to an inflation index. As the purchasing power of the dollar decreases each year, the minimum wage should increase to keep pace.
27.
There is no easy answer. We have to decide what we want from government. In addition, we have to value these services. Are the services more important than the loss of income in taxes is the question we have to ask. As someone who grew up in our district, I know what is important to the community and can represent these values in Congress.
28.
Partisan gridlock exists for many reasons. First, each side has mirror images of each other. Unfortunately, many see each other as demons whose beliefs are radically different from theirs. We have to humanize each other. Members are in echo chambers and don't take the time to know people from the other side. This wasn't always true. Members were each other's friends. They would come together on big issues to move the country forward because there was trust. We need to create retreats for Congress to help restore trust. We need to require some time for members to spend together to simply be people before congresspeople.
Another problem is the filibuster in the Senate. While the filibuster is a valuable tradition, it never was used the way it is now. Everything requires 60 votes, creating more sclerosis than there ever was before. So let's give each senator a certain limited number of filibusters. This way they are used judiciously allowing minority rights to be upheld without frustrating both sides. Another reason for partisan gridlock is the candidates that win tend to be more ideological. This is because only the most partisan folks vote in primaries, electing the most partisan people. If we create a holiday on election day, and mandate people enter the voting booth, there will be more moderate voters, and more moderate candidates will be elected. These reforms will end gridlock. On a personal level, I believe in collaboration and compromise. However, this requires both sides to give. I am committed to long term entitlement reform, but this is politically risky to say. Republicans simply can't say no to taxes. They have to be willing to take a risk too.
29.
I support the President and his Affordable Care Act. I will fight against its repeal.
We can also slow health care costs while dealing with lack of access to care. The lack of medical professionals in rural and inner-city areas for Medicare patients can be mitigated effectively through a reverse Dutch auction payment system and will save money. Currently, many health care professionals are highly concentrated in suburban and/or affluent areas. The shortage in rural and inner-city areas means that low-income people have to wait longer for services and travel further to get to services. Medicare is paying a higher rate than it should because it supports the fixed costs of the professionals in high concentration areas even though there are fewer patients than optimal. Using a reverse Dutch auction, Medicare would look at its population data and determine the optimal level of services in each geographical area. Using internet software, Medicare would list each geographical area, the number of each type of professional needed, and the bid (pay). As the bid increases for each area, more professionals would take the bid on each geographical area that they would like to live and work. Presumably, the popular geographical areas would be chosen first at a lower cost. Meanwhile, other professionals would wait for the current shortage area prices to be increased until the pay is worth practicing there and the need is met. A limited number of positions would create market discipline, ensuring that people don’t wait for obscene prices. Moreover, anti-trust laws could be used to prevent collusion. This concept could save money and remove a barrier to health care for low-income people. Once in effect, this form of competitive bidding can be used throughout health care.
30.
I am committed to breaking apart too big to fail financial institutions. As we are all aware, these institutions were and are so intertwined with the economy that any institution’sfailure would collapse the economy. In 2008, the fall of Lehman Brother lead to a freezing of credit markets that haunts us to this day. Only bailouts saved us, but we still had a recession. There were many reasons for this recession including the Fed's easy money policy, the Shadow Banking system, Wall St. compensation structure, ratings agencies, a lack of skin in the game, opaque financial products, and finally too big to fail. There should be no one company or a small group of companies whose bad decisions should sink us all. Dodd-Frank addresses many of these concerns including bailouts for too big to fail financial institutions. However, the resolution authority that attempts to address the bailouts for too big to fail financial institutions is not nearly enough. Too big to fail institutions are too complicated to unwind quickly the way the FDIC currently does with regular banks. Beyond this, reductions in debt or haircuts are handed out during unwinding. If the haircuts are too small, you have a backdoor bailout. If the haircuts are too big, you have a cascading set of payment failures, leading to Lehman like situation. Given the pressure to prevent catastrophe in these type of situations, haircuts will be small, resulting in backdoor bailouts. This is unacceptable. Capitalism works on accountability. If you take bad risks, you lose your money and go out of business. If you keep these companies afloat, they will keep endangering us all. Too big to fail financial institutions are too big to exist. Like we do with monopolies, we must create a division in the Department of Justice to break apart too big to fail financial institutions.
31.
The President is one of my heroes because his message, skill, and talent broke a barrier that too many thought wouldn’t be achieved in decades.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a hero because he believed in evidence based policy. He once said, “Every man is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.” The reality in Washington DC is that the parties use think tanks that have radically different statistics and assumptions that define the problem differently. You cannot agree to any policy before you decide what the problem is. In other words, agreement requires knowing the facts first. This is a problem like Moynihan that I would like to highlight.
32.
While I fully support destroying and dismantling terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, I don't believe this is a traditional war matter. Outside of explicit state-sponsored acts of terror, we should not invade a country to go after terrorists. As we saw with the killing of Bin Laden, we didn't need to invade a country to get to a target. Our special forces, drone abilities, the CIA, and the FBI have the capacity to address this issue outside and inside of the U.S. Fighting terrorists cannot be a war. First, you cannot fight a tactic. Second, this is a war that has no end. Terrorism has always existed and will continue to exist. Without an end to a war, there are legal ramifications for executive power including the ability to suspend the writ of habeas corpus as Lincoln did, put Japanese-Americans in internment camps as FDR did, and hold people for a decade of their life with no due process as the George W. Bush and Obama are doing. While I personally despise KSM and his hate, this is not who we are as a society. We are a nation of laws, not men. We judge ourselves on how we treat the worst, and our values extend to a realm beyond convenience. Moreover, we live in a free society. There are risks that come with a free society. The reality is that 9/11 wasn't the first terrorist act nor will it be the last. The measures our government has taken including greater airport security that violates privacy, warrant-less wiretapping, and waterboarding, all give the federal government more power, risking the slippery slope. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither." That is why we should legally end the war on terror while still enlisting the Special Forces, FBI, and CIA to fight terrorists.
33.
The U.S. should play the role of honest broker between the Palestinians and the Israelis. At the same time, the U.S. should maintain friendships with both sides by providing economic aid to the Palestinians and military aid to Israel.
34.
Iran should be stopped from attaining nuclear weapons for many reasons. First, a nuclear Iran represents an existential threat to Israel. Second, a nuclear Iran becomes the hegemon of the Middle East. Its expanded influence would be contrary to American interests such as democratization of the Middle East. Moreover, Iran's theocracy will become a more persuasive model for Arab governments. Furthermore, Iran's support for terrorists such as Hezbollah would become more prominent. Third, as many Middle East regimes are Sunni, Iran's bomb will start a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world.
The U.S. in concert with its allies must persuade Iran to halt its program. This can be done by progressively tightening the economic net through greater and greater sanctions. This is where we are currently, and the Obama administration policy is sound. However, the point where military air strike becomes necessary is the nuclear bomb's completion. And the military strike should be done by the U.S., rather than Israel to prevent blowback against Israel.
While I listed the reasons to stop Iran, the military approach has negatives. It would isolate us with Israel. Even Arab countries that privately would be happy would publicly condemn military action. It would be another military intervention in a Muslim country that would stoke anti-American sentiment in a part of the world that already doesn't trust us. This would fit the message that terrorist groups like Al Qaeda use to recruit. It might also cause a counter punch by terrorists who feel they need to respond in kind.
There is also the chance that the military air strike will fail. Not only could Iran have the bomb, it might decide to retaliate. While it is unlikely they would use nuclear weapons for anything other than an existential threat, Iran may react by through a conventional missile assault on Israel. They also could use their oil leverage to threaten the global supply chain. While this would be temporary given Iran's need to sell oil for survival, it would make life difficult for allies like Japan who rely on Iranian oil exports.
Having said that this is worth military action, sanctions are likely to work. The benefit of sanctions is that we would have the moral weight of the international community. While many Americans scoff at the persuasiveness of the international community, there is a consistent and proven record of countries coming into compliance with international norms. South Africa and Libya are the most well known. However, the most glaring examples of evidence contrary include the situations in the Indian subcontinent and North Korea. Unlike these countries, Iran doesn't have a neighbor it fears as an existential threat like North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea or India and Pakistan. This bomb will eventually be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with U.S. and the international community. They will ask for and need help with peaceful nuclear power generation. We will help with peaceful nuclear power generation in return for international inspections and an end to the nuclear weapons. This will also lead to a normalization of relations and a grand bargain.
The downside of sanctions alone, if there is no grand bargain, is that at some point it becomes accepted that a country is committed to the particular goal. At that point like with India, sanctions are lifted with an unfortunate acceptance of nuclear weapons. We cannot allow this.
35. I have never been convicted of a felony. I never have been sued. I never had a restraining order placed against me.
