ANGELICA DUEÑAS, MOTHER, WIFE, ACTIVIST AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZER. BORN AND RAISED IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY. RAISING FIVE CHILDREN WHO ATTEND LAUSD SCHOOLS. BA, IN POLITICAL SCIENCE. MA, IN ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP. ACCEPTS ZERO CORPORATE MONEY SO SHE IS BEHOLDEN TO THE PEOPLE AND NOT SPECIAL INTERESTS.
At a time when our civil rights are under attack by a conservative government and the Supreme Court, we must ALL stand united ready to resist and to fight back against any form of oppression, bigotry, xenophobia, sexism, or racism. We must realize that our strengths and what makes America great is our diversity, our culture, and our differences. To be able to be the most diverse country on Earth is why we are the wealthiest and most industrialized nation on earth. We must treat each other with respect, compassion, and with dignity regardless of the color of one's skin, their gender identity, who they love, or what faith someone practices. We cannot go back towards the days of segregation and a life based on fear, we must only move forward.
As millions of people are thrown off their health insurance due to massive employment losses nationwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the case for Medicare-for-All better than any politician ever could. We must use this unprecedented moment to rally together to, once and for all, institute a single payer system; a move that enjoys major support across the political base of the country. We are the only major country in the world to not provide healthcare as a right, yet spend around $9,400 per capita- the most expensive in the world! That’s an average of 2.5 times more than other major industrialized nations who provide universal healthcare for ALL of its citizens. On top of high administrative costs, costly deductibles, and payments for procedures, most uninsured people are low-income and disproportionately people of color.
We believe that housing is a human RIGHT. No one should ever be priced out of their homes or not be able to afford to have a roof over their head.
The growing disparity between the rich and the poor only proves once again, that those who have money can move into places like the San Fernando Valley, rent or live in new homes or luxury apartment complexes, drive up prices, and displace those who have been living here their entire lives. Gentrification is one of the major issues among constituents here in CA District 29.
Most of these major developments are being approved by our Democratic elected officials without regard to the community in which they're being developed. In addition, these Democratic elected officials are receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from these large developers. It is time to make Housing a Human RIGHT, stopping Gentrification, and enacting Universal Rent Control.
It is important that we take care of those who have served our country. It is essential that we not only give them and their families the help they need but also show them that the government is there for them 100% no matter what. The horrifying and shocking realities surrounding the veteran population needs to be addressed: 20 veterans a day commit suicide, 50,000 live on the streets, 495,000 veterans are unemployed, and PTSD afflicts almost 31 percent of Vietnam veterans, 10 percent of Gulf War (Desert Storm) veterans, 11 percent of veterans of the war in Afghanistan, and 20 percent of Iraqi war veterans. In addition, the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) needs increased funding and resources to ensure sufficient staff and enough medical equipment, resources and adequate facilities to help solve the aforementioned issues.
In the international arena, we must work multilaterally to advance U.S. interests, not force them upon other nations through regime change.
In Congress, we will always seek peaceful approaches, while advocating for the use of diplomacy, and not wage preemptive wars without being attacked or facing an immediate, unavoidable attack. It is time to put the breaks on the war machine.
In the same manner, we will work with countries that do not violate human rights, including women's rights and labor rights. We prioritize foreign aid to governments whose actions are consistent with our values and principles. We propose the establishment on thorough military spending audits to find any wasteful spending or fraudulent charges from sub-contractors.
We will create partnerships with other countries to grow small and medium businesses to bring jobs to the US. Reducing our military budget by 50%. Currently we use 50% of our discretionary budget on military spending.
We believe that it is time to transform our educational system all the way from early child care through college and beyond. The time for Quality Public Education as a RIGHT is LONG OVERDUE.
From mass incarceration to police shootings and killings, and all the way to our court system of convicting officers' wrong doing, there is must needed room for criminal justice reform. Public trust on our police departments have deteriorated over the years, especially with the use of cell phone videos and body cameras. We know that police have always used excessive and deadly force disproportionately against Black and Brown citizens and our unhoused community members. We know that while Black and Latinx Americans comprise just 28% of our population, they are 56% of our incarcerated. Here in the state of California, we also subject our incarcerated to prison labor by having them on the frontlines of climate change fighting deadly wildfires at only $1 in pay per day. This public distrust is valid because many people, including the Native American, African American, Latinx, LGTBQIA+ and the Disabled community, have been unjustly targeted and sometimes end up dead for minor issues like traffic stops, disproportionately to Whites. We are outraged that when officers do get charged with murder or manslaughter, most often than not, they never get convicted.
We are a nation of Natives as well as immigrants, and some of our most valued possessions came from the minds of immigrants. As Americans, we must be welcoming to those just like our parents, those that come from a past we will never fully understand, and those that just want to provide the best for themselves and their children.
For those that want to come in this country with documentation, we commend you for working hard in your current country, saving up money in order to live the U.S. with Documented status. For the 11 million undocumented immigrants (3% of the U.S. population) who are here currently, we must allow them to come out of the shadows without fear of deportation and hefty financial penalties. Many have escaped from a country where war, crime, and poverty has overcome their homes, which we can take a part of responsibility through U.S. Imperialism, bad trade deals, and wars. We should be uniting families not separating them.
WE are running on a visionary platform. Angelica, with the help of the people of CA29, will work in Congress to push for a 21st Century Economy where we lift people out of poverty, grow the middle class, make the ultra-wealthy billionaire class pay their fair share, all while protecting our environment. It's an economic policy that puts the quality of life for workers and their families first.
In the 21st Century each and every one of us should have a job that pays a living wage, where you can work 30 hours a week, not flounder in poverty, and spend more quality time with friends and family. These will be jobs that preserve our environment, invest in the expansion of public transportation, and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.
OUR VISIONARY ECONOMY
WE are running on a visionary platform. Angelica, with the help of the people of CA29, will work in Congress to push for a 21st Century Economy where we lift those out of poverty, grow the middle class, make the wealthy billionaire class pay their fair share, protect our environment, and keep in mind the quality of life for workers and their families when it comes to economic policy.
A 21st Century Economy where each and every one of us has a job that pays a living wage and where you can work 30 hours a week and not live in poverty while being able to spend more quality time with yourself and your family. A 21st Century Economy where there are tens of millions of well-paying jobs that: preserve our environment, invest in the expansion of public transportation, and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. A 21st Century Economy where idea creation and community building are financially rewarded and encouraged, and where the top 1% pay their fair share and corporations cannot avoid paying their taxes by incorporating or stashing their money overseas. And most importantly, a 21st Century Economy that focuses on the preservation of our environment through the transition from our reliance on fossil fuels and natural gas to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030. As the wealthiest nation on Earth, if other countries can implement the change that we need, so can we.
WE have seen the middle class disappear over the last 40 years while 40 million Americans live in poverty including 15 million children with almost half of those living in poverty are African American or Latinx. We have seen 90% of all new income go to the top 1% while it never trickles down to the middle or lower classes. The top 1/10th of 1% continues own as much as wealth as the bottom 90%. It’s time for a bold new vision, the question is, are we going to fight for it as the wealthiest nation on Earth
WE believe that our Government should have a Job Guarantee Program to achieve the goals of increasing GDP and full employment. The national unemployment rate is around 5%, while the unemployment rate for California’s 29th Congressional District is around 6.5%. Our Government should offer anyone who is out of work and looking for a job a secure job at a livable minimum wage rate as a transitional measure to give them an adequate source of income and job readiness for employment in the private sector once a position becomes available. These jobs should also include normal work benefits such as paid time off, sick leave, superannuation, and holiday pay. This provides a pool of work-ready employees that enable the economy to function at its full potential. Job Guaranteed Jobs should not compete with the private sector but instead fill in positions that are lacking such as rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, reinvesting in clean renewable energy, or care-giving for the elderly or those that are disabled. In addition, a Job Guarantee program should not only be viewed from an economic perspective but from a social perspective. Unemployment causes increases in poverty, crime, social isolation, depression, despair, relationship and family breakdown, social and political instability, and the possibility of become unemployable.
As wealth and income inequality continues to rise, jobs become harder to find, transitions away to clean renewable energy, work and life balance becoming harder and harder, and as technology and automation begins to advance, replacing human labor, it only makes sense to provide universal guaranteed income to cover any living costs a person may need. Universal basic income is actually being tested out in Finland and Scotland at the moment.
WE will work to move towards 100% clean renewable energy by 2030. It is time to end our reliance on fossil fuels and natural gas and protect mother earth. Climate change is a real threat to the entire world and the scientific community has agreed that it is human-caused. The Green New Deal would create 20 million new well-paying jobs and it will also protect the environment and the health of the people around the world. In addition, the Green New Deal would repair and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure building better roads, bridges, public transit systems, and water ways that are environmental friendly. We will work to provide tax credits and research grants to Green businesses investing in energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal. We will work to provide scholarships to students who do research and innovate on renewable energy and conservation to use in the workforce. We will also work to give them business grants for them to start their own research facilities in their communities to help better their environment. When we invest in science, we advance as a civilization and create more jobs. We will give incentives for companies that are willing to implement technologies and innovations produced from research centers.
WE will help provide small business incentives such as subsidies and tax credits to small local businesses making less than $500,000 a year in revenue and less than 10 full-time employees. Many small business owners need help especially the mom and pop businesses that are part of the community whether it be a family owned restaurant, convenience store, or grocery store. Small businesses make up 99.9% of all firms with 50% of all new businesses closing within the first year. We will also work with the scientific community, especially those who specialize in clean energy or any type of environmental conservation, and medical research such as cancer research, to work with local communities to educate and empower the community to learn more on how they can make their communities more efficient and productive.
WE will fight for $15/hr federal indexed minimum wage, which is currently $7.25/hr. Just like the "Raise the Wage Act" (which has not passed), the minimum wage will be indexed against the annual percentage increase in the median hourly wage of all employees as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
If the minimum wage had continued to move with average productivity after 1968, it would have reached $21.72 per hour in 2012! For the past 40 years, wages for the middle class have increased a merely 6%, while wages for the top 1% have increased 140%, total productivity has increased over 140%, and the costs of living have increased over 200%.
If the minimum wage goes up, everyone’s wage goes up, and the economic floor is raised. It’s just not about those working at McDonald’s, there are many who have gotten a bachelor's degree but still can’t find a job or get paid a living wage. These people are our family members, friends, and our neighbors. The argument is that almost all new income has shifted to the top 1%, never to be trickled down to the middle and lower classes. Many of these Top CEOs who pay their employees slave wages like Walmart and McDonald’s make more than 300 times the average worker. In addition, if you raise the minimum wage, it takes away from the 1%, and gives people more purchasing power and grows the economy.
For small businesses, especially those in the community, we believe the Government should provide assistance in the form of tax breaks and subsidies and less regulations to help them cover the costs the increased Federal Minimum Wage.
WE will fight to give workers the right to unionize by introducing legislation like the Employee Free Choice Act which would give employees more power and freedom to form a union if they had a majority vote to unionize. We would also work to increase penalties on employers who try to intimidate workers who try to unionize by sending in union busters. We would also work to provide overtime for those making a salary of $47,000 or less.
WE will fight to repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act. Getting rid of the Taft-Hartley Act would allow for more people being allowed to join unions, all of which would benefit ALL working people. The repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act would be one important step in restoring workers right to organize into unions and achieve a living wage Nationwide.
WE will fight for union rights, including guaranteeing safe working conditions, ensuring that all workers’ rights are being protected, guaranteeing the ability to negotiate for better wages, allowing workers to have a voice in the workplace, and having their pensions protected. WE will also fight for unions for fast food workers and temp workers. If you have a strong union, you can get all your basic human needs covered such as a living wage, reasonable work hours, and access to healthcare.
WE will also fight for workers to have 12 weeks paid family and medical leave. This is a reality in many European countries who allow their employees the time needed to focus on their personal and family lives knowing that if they take care of their workers, workers will take care of the companies they work in with a much more pleasant and productive attitude
WE will push for the opportunity to have 30-hour work weeks (6 hours a day). What we’ve seen in America is that employees are working 40+ hours just to make ends meet, missing quality family time and doing more personal related activities. Especially in Los Angeles, the amount of time it takes to get to work (even just a few miles) can take 30 minutes to even more than an hour in traffic going to and from work. We are seeing workers spend a majority of their days doing work related activities from 7am to 7pm including getting ready for work, travelling to work, working, and travelling home from work, only to get home in the evening leaving very little time for family and personal life.
We are seeing a few U.S. Companies and even countries like Sweden exploring the 6-hour work week showing that many employees are becoming more productive and efficient at handling their workload in a shorter amount of time while focusing on their well-being outside of work. Most importantly, employees get to spend more time with their family members and enjoy more of their personal life.
Democracy isn't just about voting every other year. When Exxon hides its own scientists' warnings about climate change for over forty years while funding groups that spread misinformation to protect its profits instead, we can see that even the survival of our species may depend on establishing democracy at work.
WE will support community worker cooperatives where business enterprises are owned and controlled by the people (community) who work in it. According to the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA), in the United States, there are over 40,000 worker co-operatives that have created more than 2 million jobs, $74 billion in annual wages with revenue of nearly $650 billion. In addition, every $1 that is spent at a local food co-op has generated $1.60 in the local economy.
Co-ops value the principles of voluntary and open membership, democratic member control, members’ economic participation, autonomy and independence, education, training, and information, cooperation among cooperatives, and concern for community. Worker cooperatives thrive in many industries from agriculture to electricity to credit unions to insurance to grocery stores, and even to healthcare all over the world.
Worker co-ops have had the ability to provide workers with higher wages and be able to provide to their community's access to healthy food, insurance, and even better ethically conscious banking options like credit unions. As a Government, we should encourage businesses that value their employees as an integral part of the work that they do. Therefore, we should work to provide tax credit, subsidies, and grants to help worker co-operatives have access to the resources they need, especially in communities where we have seen monopolies like large chains of fast food restaurants and retail hypermarkets like Walmart that have taken the place of many local small businesses
WE will work to oppose any free trade agreements, including any sort of fast track that doesn’t give time or scrutiny on trade deals that do not give a fair deal to both counterparts to the United States and the country it is trading with. Our fair trade policies have failed the American worker shipping job overseas and competing against foreign workers who are working pennies on the dollar. We will also work to renegotiate disastrous trade deals like NAFTA and will continue the fight to make sure the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) does not pass which would give foreign entities the power to sue a government for missed profit due to regulations imposed by a country. In addition, we will fight to make sure no trade deal is made in private where no one, not even from Congress, has a say on the type of trade deals to be agreed upon.
WE will work to create job programs for the youth, especially in underserved communities, and reward them for excellence in school and serving their communities. The idea is that youth unemployment is currently at around 12% where youth of color lead the youth unemployment figure. If we can financially reward the youth with working responsibilities that can actually help build and improve their communities whether it be picking up trash to taking care of the elderly to creating and finding solutions, then we should be taking that opportunity to empower them with jobs.
WE will work to decrease our military spending where currently 54% of our discretionary budget goes towards. For example, the F-35 fighter jet program, is costing taxpayers over a trillion dollars. Instead we should put these funds into social programs such as Medicare for All, guaranteed income, tuition free public college and university, housing, and financial assistance to small businesses to boost our local and national economy. We will also work to audit inefficient and wasteful spending in government programs as well. For example, the US Army made trillions of dollars of accounting mistakes and often did not have the receipts or invoices needed to support figures in its budget.
WE will work to incorporate a Financial Transaction Tax to ensure that no low-middle income wage earners pay more as a percentage of their income to taxes than higher income wage earners do.
0.5% on Stocks
0.1% on Bonds
0.005% on Derivatives
0.001% on all other Financial Securities
For example, in the LAST SEVEN business days of December, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) had $213,954,582,805 worth of Stock Trades. If there were a financial transaction tax of 0.5% on those stocks, that would equate to $1,069,772,914 worth of revenue generated to go towards education.
That could cover 66,092 undergraduate students going to Cal State University of Los Angeles (CSULA), and only 27,000 are enrolled per year! That could also cover 47,791 undergraduate students going to UCLA for a year.
AND that's only SEVEN DAYS worth of trading from ONE stock exchange.
These Wall Street firms, hedge funds, investment firms, etc. are MORE than capable of picking up this small progressive tax, it just depends on who's going to push for it?
Wall Street & the big banks received $16 trillion in federal assistance from the Fed with close to zero percent interest to bailout the greed and recklessness of Wall Street that contributed to the Great Recession where 8.8 million people lost their jobs, 6 million homes were lost, and millions of hardworking Americans saw their retirement savings disappear ($3.4 trillion). The big banks have recovered, but the American people HAVEN'T
WE will work to reinstate Glass-Steagall which will separate commercial banking activity with investment banking activity. We will also work with Congress to break up the big banks because the banks have too much power that if they were to go underwater again by engaging in risky or fraudulent betting, millions of people will suffer just as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis where subprime mortgages were being lent out to borrowers who were being preyed upon as they weren't aware of the risks and fine print of the subprime mortgages they were taking on. 6 U.S. financial institutions currently own assets worth 57% of the entire U.S. GDP, that's a lot of power and leeway for them to make decisions on the people's behalf. In addition, we would also work to amend/create legislation to jail bankers who commit fraud and take advantage of the American people just to boost their bottom-line.
WE will protect the right of seniors to retire with Social Security. WE oppose cutting benefits or raising the retirement age. WE will work to lift the cap on taxable income that goes towards social security for our elders. Currently, someone who makes $118,500 a year pays the same amount into social security as a billionaire. We will remove the cap so that the wealthy pay the same share of their income. This will also expand the life and solvency of the Social Security fund for more than 60 years.
WE will work to tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income. Many billionaire investors pay less of a percentage of their taxes on capital gains than people do on their ordinary income due to the fact that the capital gains tax is lower than ordinary income tax. This will apply only to those individuals making more than $250,000 a year in taxable income.
Like Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders, WE will work to increase higher income tax rates on the richest 2% of households in America. Individuals making less than $200,000 or married couples making less than $250,000 will not have their income taxes increase. We will push for these progressive tax increases on the top three income tax brackets (33%, 35%, 39.6%).
37% on income between $250,000 and $500,000.
40% on income between $500,000 and $2 million.
45% on income over $2 million and $10 million. (In 2013, only 113,000 households, just 0.08 percent of all taxpayers, had income between $2 million and $10 million.)
49% on income of $10 million and above. (In 2013, only 113,000 households, just 0.01 percent of taxpayers, had income exceeding $10 million
WE will work to make sure that U.S. corporations are paying their fair share of corporate taxes by working to ensure that money being stashed overseas by Wall Street and large corporations are not deferred or delayed in paying taxes due to it being stashed overseas. We will work to close this tax loophole and ensure that income is taxed as they are earner no matter where the money is.
Many large companies incorporate their businesses in the Cayman Islands or other tax haven countries to delay or defer their tax liability. In addition, many large corporations are also having their manufacturing plants in countries with very low to no corporate tax rates. These are the tax incentives that we will be trying to close so that no matter where they are located, they still get taxed their fair share.
The revenue generated can used for public services such as rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, preserving our environment, or towards social services that should be considered a right such education and healthcare.
WE will work to end corporate subsidies given to corporations who are more than capable of taking care of themselves. Every year over a trillion dollars in corporate welfare are being take advantage of by companies and their CEOs. From billions of dollars on tax breaks on CEO bonuses, to Wall Street and fossil fuel subsidies, to taxing capital gains lower than ordinary income, and to federal contracts for the biggest companies, it is clear the wealth and large companies are clearly capable of taking care of themselves.
Between the years of 2007 and 2012, the largest 200 corporations spent $5.8 billion on lobbying Congress. In return, those large corporations received a combined $4.4 trillion in federal contracts during those same years.
Government should give $4.4 trillion in contracts to communities who want to improve and rebuild their communities with millions of good paying jobs for improved infrastructure, education, youth programs, parks, community gardens, affordable housing, senior centers, homeless shelters, rehabilitation centers, hospitals, etc.
The working class and the poor don't have lobbyists or elected officials that represent their needs in Washington.
WE will work to end corporate subsidies for large multinational corporations and executives who are profitable and clearly capable of running their business without tax dollars.
WE will sponsor legislation to ensure that there is equal pay regardless of gender, race, or age. If people are working the same position with the same amount of skill and job experience, then they should be paid the same as their counterparts.
FOREIGN POLICY BASED ON PROSPERITY & PEACE
For the past century the United States of America has been the world’s most popular sanctum for immigrants. We are a proud nation that values freedom and democracy, but we have not kept our government faithful to this promise. It is time that we, as a country, sort out our domestic affairs. It is no secret that when the world sees innocent men, women, and children being slaughtered on our streets; when they see police officers dressed in military gear assaulting our fellow citizens; when they hear stories of a child dying of a curable disease because of financial limitations; when parents working several jobs are not able to make ends meet - they will unavoidably question America, and the ‘American Dream’. In order to restore the world’s faith in us, we must work intelligently and multilaterally; not simply point a gun, depose a leader, and expect a nation to follow suit. This is what the conquistadors used to do. We are no conquistadors. We are Americans.
We are fortunate to live in California, a state that represents the values that shape our country. This is ever more true and important today, when we have a President who plans to disbar thousands of Americans, who seeks to constrict our liberties.
We understand that what happens thousands of miles away will certainly have an impact on our everyday life. We understand that the interplay of foreign affairs on domestic, and domestic on foreign affairs. This is not the time to shut ourselves off. If elected, we will work tirelessly to defend and promote our values at home and abroad. We will make sure that we work multilaterally, to advance our interests, which do not automatically exclude others’ interests, as many of today’s problems are transnational in nature. We will work hard towards a foreign policy that works for all stratus of society; it is time we do away with free trade in favor of sustainable trade, one that works for our small and medium size businesses, and not just the few multinationals. A foreign policy that does not base itself on scapegoating society’s minorities due to fear and misunderstanding. A foreign policy that helps like minded countries, and that uphold basic human rights and decency. A foreign policy that augments our domestic policy by attracting foreign aid for the high purposes of research and development, and that empowers our youth.
California is a prime example of how we can do this. This is a state who has relied heavily on it's ability to win over hearts and minds without coercion. It has been capable of attracting some of the most brilliant minds in the world, and to integrate different nations into one. The 29th Congressional district is emblematic of this, where different cultures have been living side-by-side, peacefully. We strive to solve our mutual problems via dialogue. The world we live in is increasingly interconnected, and suffers from major problems that one country alone cannot solve; whether this may be terrorism or global inequality.