Affordability
We know the problems and the solutions, it is time to bring them together.
Affordability is not just a buzz word, it's our lives. Americans want a chance to thrive but currently millions of Americans cannot even afford the basics of nutritious food, clean water/ air, or stable housing. We can save Americans money every year without falling for the trick of movements like abundance that call on us to ignore common sense regulations and protections to speed up the wealth transfer to the oligarchs.
Forward is Affordable.
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We need to do a lot on Housing reform, to start we should:
Rent cannot increase more than 2% a year (this applies to the unit, not just the tenant.)
Rent cannot increase more than $50 more than the previous tenant paid.
Set rent maximums.
Landlords must give a minimum of 120 written days notice to move when they do not wish to rent any longer. At the end of the lease if no notice is given and the tenant wishes to remain in the unit, the original terms of the lease will renew for another year automatically.
Creation of Rental Security accounts. Special high yield savings accounts that renters can use to hold security deposits, Accounts can be used to satisfy security deposit requirements when moving into a new unit. Landlords would not have access to the accounts, and must make proactive declarations of intent to recoup damages in order to be paid. And would have 48 hours after the tenant moved out to contest the condition of the unit. Any complaints after this time must be made in court. Minimum of $500.00 must be kept in the account for the first year.
Tenants shall have the right to garden and grow food. Any permanent alterations will need to be cleared by the owner prior to the change. Landlords cannot restrict tenants from growing their own food.
Residents and their guests cannot be towed from their property without their written or recorded permission; unless there is an emergency or the locality has issued a removal order.
Home ownership Association reform. Like all non-governmental bodies, HOA’s seem to have power that comes from nowhere. They have too much control over our lives even if we are not home owners. Reform is necessary to reduce their role in unnecessarily increasing rent, reducing options and limiting housing stock.
Repeal the Faircloth amendment to the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998(QHWRA) which limits the number of affordable housing units to an arbitrary number decided in 1999. This drastically reduces the number of public housing units available.
Get rid of application fees
Ban fines, fees, or additional costs related to parking.
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Perhaps Donald Trump's one great idea, though as always he is vague on the details. I believe a permanent ceiling of 10% for interest rates would drastically reduce individual debt.
All interests should be forgiven after one year of the original principal being satisfied.
Public student loans should have their interest rates reduced to 0%, private student loans should be capped at 5%
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Contracts should reasonably do what all parties believe they are agreeing on. Music deals should have artist writing songs in exchange for money. Movie stars should reasonably expect to be paid when a movie makes millions of dollars. Car insurance should kick in if your car is damaged. Yet, that is not the reality we live in. We need contract reform in order to protect all parties and reduce the backlog in court cases.
Non disclosure agreements must expire after a year, unless a court order is sought to extend the time or it is a reasonable responsibility of the job. No one is owed your silence in perpetuity.
Non compete clauses should expire six months after leaving an employer.
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Increase the benefit amount for SNAP
End midyear reviews for SNAP, and add a three month grace period for changes to income before kicking enrollees off of benefits.
Universal free lunch/ breakfast in public schools.
End subsidies for sugar, corn, etc. And subsidize local fruits and veggies instead.
Changing the federal definition of poverty from the official poverty line to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to better account for real poverty numbers and increase those who are eligible for programs like SNAP.
Adjust USDA’s Thrifty Food plan to bring it into the 21st century and aim to nourish people not merely bring them from the brink of starvation as it was designed to do during the Great Depression. (Liberal Food plans are a better reflection of what people should eat to thrive).
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Banks cannot discriminate based on jobs. We should protect both the cannabis shop owner and the Only Fans creator from having a bank freeze their assets or refuse to hold their cash.
Increase penalties for race, and gender based discrimination.
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We are all tired of corporations stealing our data and making billions off of it, shouldn't we get a cut?
Our data should be our data, and we should benefit financially from it. Whenever a corporation sells off our data we should get a portion of the proceeds. We should also limit how much of our data corporations have access to.
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The Trump Administration has made it a priority to destroy the education department. We need to do everything we can to restore it as quickly as possible. After we do that we should focus on the following:
Universal Pre-K
Increasing the base pay of teachers, and setting a minimum wage of $45,000 for K-12 Public school teachers.
Wiping out student loan debt.
Making community colleges and public universities tuition free.
Subsidizing student housing to drastically reduces the price.
Reduce barriers for students to receive federal aid programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, and Childcare.
Regulate and limit fees college assess on students.
Set maximum limits for the cost of textbooks and required materials.
Debt free graduate programs for under-filled positions (Doctors, Public Defenders, Judges, engineers, Professors, Ecologists, etc.)
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Increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Get rid of the tipped minimum wage.
Require incarcerated people be paid the normal minimum wage.
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Remove the requirement that people pay in cash to collect their towed vehicles.
Limit the maximum amount a person can be charged to $75 per 24 hours.
Limit situations and places cars can be towed from without their owners permission.
Require loading and unloading process to be videotaped.
Ban tow truck drivers from going into the vehicle without the owners recorded permission.
Lower the threshold for proving damages, place burden of proof for proving that the vehicle was handled correctly on the towing company.
Require tow truck company to pay for damages to vehicles damaged in transit. while loading or unloading, or while in the lot.
Give access to the video recordings to owner of vehicle.
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Double Social Security Benefits
Reduce the full retirement age to 65
No taxes on your first $200,000 for the year you turn 64.
Increase asset limit for SSDI.
Get rid of the marriage penalty for SSI.
Decrease decision time.
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$500.00 Payments per child per month from birth until the child's seventeenth birthday for all households that earn less than $250,000 a year. Parents receive payments as long as they have held custody for at least 45% of the previous year.
Parents would have the option to accept the payments or have them deposited into long-term savings accounts if they earn more than $250,000 a year accessible by the children at seventeen.
Set up Universal Childcare programs to give parents free or subsidized options
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I support a universal healthcare plan with no payment at the point of service or fighting with insurers for hours about made up charges. Namely, I support Medicare for all.
All preventative services free at point of service.
Therapy, and Psychiatric services should not only be covered but prioritized.
Free Vision and Hearing screenings; with free glasses and hearing aids.
Dental services.
Speech therapy and language services, including teaching sign language and braille.
Gender affirming care covered.
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Make Covid tests, STI testing and treatment free to patients. Increase funding towards pandemic prevention and response.
We should make contraception easy to acquire, free, and keep researching to find the most pleasurable and effective options to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and STI’s.
Reducing the spread of viral and bacterial infections is both a cost saving and a life saving effort that would have positive mental health effects in addition to physical and societal benefits.
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Babies are expensive, preventing them is cheap. We should make contraception easy to access and free. This is both a public health benefit that would reduce the spread of STI’s and pregnancy, but would also reduce stress. I believe Vasectomies and Tubal’s should be free in addition to birth control pills, condoms, and spermicide among other options.
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Fine companies for posting fake jobs online or taking longer than six months to fill a role they posted.
Fine companies per day for not having a set amount for the salary, a range cannot exceed $5,000.
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Automatically apply workers for unemployment benefits upon dismissal, no opt outs for organizations larger than five staff.
The unemployment insurance system nearly collapsed during the 2020 Covid outbreak as thousands lost their job due to factors beyond our control. Congress eventually did the right thing and approved extra funding and expedited the process to bring relief to the masses. Yet we have allowed the system to return to the same slow backlog ridden outdated process we used before 2020. It’s time to modernize the process and end so called “right to work laws”
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We should move to quickly codify in law what former FTC Commissioner Lina Khan pushed in the Biden administration. Including a ban on bank overdraft fees, anti-monopoly protections, easy ways to cancel subscriptions, etc.
We should also include funding and new enforcement mechanisms to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to enforce these rules and advocate for new ways to save consumers money.
We should adopt policies that have lowered costs in cities such as NYC and support their efforts financially.

