David Jhoon Kim is the former CEO and co-founder of C2 Education Centers which he founded in his college dorm room along with Jim Narangajavana. Currently, he is the publisher of Teen Ink.
In addition to reducing widespread poverty, a Universal Basic Income of $1000 per month to every American adult will cost less to implement than our current inefficient means-tested relief programs. The federal government would provide UBI payments directly into the hands of the American people through free public banking.
Numerous basic income experiments have shown:
Congress must pass a Green New Deal in order to transform our energy system to 100% renewable energy and create 20 million thriving wage, union jobs to transition the U.S. economy from dirty energy and boost our economy. The Green New Deal must prioritize communities disproportionately affected by climate change, including under-resourced groups, communities of color, indigenous, people with disabilities, children and the elderly.
Because cars are one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts should heavily invest in infrastructure such as weatherization, high-speed rail, electrified public transit, and active transportation like E-bikes to help people get out of cars. The Green New Deal should also provide full, permanent and entitlement funding for water and sanitation infrastructure across the country, including Tribal lands and reservations.
We must champion for Medicare for All: a single-payer national health insurance program that will provide comprehensive healthcare for every American. Coverage will be free at the point of care and guarantee:
Medicare for All is the best way to provide universal healthcare to cover the costs of essential treatments to all Americans, regardless of status or employment.
Housing is a human right, but it’s too often treated as a for-profit business. And every choice must be made keeping this in mind. In Los Angeles County, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), over 66,000 people in Los Angeles County are houseless - the second highest rate in the nation. In some parts of our district, the median income for a family of four is approximately $37,000 while the average monthly rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is well over $1800. When you do the math, you wonder how a family of four could live with this kind of income.
Our district is incredibly diverse. Approximately, 65% of our community identifies as Hispanic/Latine, 20% as AAPI, 5% as Black, and 33% as some other race. Approximately 10% of our residents are disabled and 2% are Veterans. We are a patchwork — a model of what America should look like at its best — people from all walks of life living in harmony. Or at least, that’s what we should be.
For too long, our community’s unique needs have been ignored by the representatives who are supposed to serve us. Achieving financial security is a challenge for everyone, but communities of color have been hit hard, especially by the spread of high-end housing development. Undocumented persons are at greater risk of seeing their hard-earned wages stolen from them by their employers, often forced to work in horrible conditions, and subjected to verbal, mental, and emotional abuse, because they are considered “replaceable.” In addition, almost 40% of deaths in the United States are attributable to preventable health behaviors. One of our most urgent needs is to address nutrition inequities in low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods with “food deserts.” Americans currently lack widespread access to mental health and substance abuse harm reduction programs, which would help prevent countless comorbidities, save billions of dollars in reactive treatment costs in the process, and allow our society to fulfill its potential. Some estimate that community-based social interventions could save $5 for every $1 invested, simultaneously optimizing our tax dollars while ensuring healthy outcomes.
As an immigration attorney representing and defending undocumented individuals and families in immigration court, I know all too well the injustices and failures of our immigration system that our leaders fail to passionately fight against and correct. Almost 45% of our district’s residents are immigrants, but the American immigration system is a dream foreclosed. We build private prisons to cage immigrant children. We subject millions of people to living in fear every day, not knowing whether they can continue to live in our country, to make a livelihood, and to have the legal means and access to resources and jobs to even live here.
Almost 40% of deaths in the United States are attributable to preventable health behaviors¹ and we owe it to ourselves to prevent them by improving social determinants of health: income, housing security, education, and food security, among others². Some estimate that community-based social interventions could save $5 for every $1 invested. Community-based health solutions will optimize our tax dollars while ensuring healthy outcomes for Americans.
One of our most urgent needs is addressing nutrition inequities in low income neighborhoods and neighborhoods with food deserts. Over 23.5 million Americans live in low income areas that are more than a mile from a supermarket, and thus end up resorting to fast food restaurants or higher-priced convenience stores³. With nutritious food becoming more expensive and unhealthy food becoming cheaper4, what starts as a financial decision by low income Americans becomes a critical long term health crisis for our families and communities.
Additionally, proximity to violence severely impacts the health and wellbeing of our communities. Over a million Americans have been shot in the last decade. One in four women and one in ten men have experienced domestic violence5. Survivors of childhood trauma, such as exposure to violence in the home, are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile6 - continuing the cycle of harm. We need to address these problems not from a punitive perspective, but from a preventative one, starting with stricter gun control legislation (which a majority of Americans support7).
And lastly, we currently lack widespread access to family and mental health programs for all, which would help prevent countless comorbidities, save billions of dollars in reactive treatment costs in the process, and allow our society to fulfill its potential. Currently, insurance only provides access to half our nation’s psychiatrists. We need to find ways to increase accessibility
Our government is in crisis. We know all too well that the voices of the people are drowned out by big money — corporate PACs, super PACs, dark money, lobbyists, and politicians lining their own pockets at our expense. Currently, big donors (those who donate more than $200) account for 71% of campaign contributions, despite being only 1% of the population. Studies have shown that political donations actively affect senators’ voting records. Weapons makers, fossil fuel, and healthcare companies are buying lawmakers’ votes against essential bills like Medicare For All, Build Back Better, and decreasing military spending.
Our government needs to reflect the will of the people. Our elections must abide by the principle of “one person, one vote.” A voter in Wyoming should not have three times more impact than a voter in California. We need a true democracy in which every citizen, not corporations or billionaires, has equal say in government.
I’m running for Congress because too many of our leaders have been corrupted by big money and special interests for too long. My campaign is a 100% people-powered, corporate-free, grassroots campaign so that I can remain accountable to the people of 34th Congressional District. It’s high time for a democracy that’s truly for the people and powered by the people
A citizen-powered democracy will allow the voices of the people to be properly represented in the Capitol and ensure that politicians answer to their constituents instead of large donors. When landmark legislation to usher our country into a sustainable and prosperous future is blocked by politicians who protect their personal investments, we must demand a government that works for us. When a presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes doesn’t win an election, it’s a clear signal our system needs fixing.
Help us create a citizen-powered democracy and join the movement
Our current punitive systems of public safety are failing us — this is the unified message that millions across the country and globe took to the streets to convey in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd. Our heavy reliance on police departments and the carceral system to keep us safe has failed to make our communities any safer, and only created the world’s largest prison population. Americans make up 5 percent of the world’s population, but the U.S. has one-quarter of the world’s prisoners. Our current criminal justice system puts an ever-growing burden on taxpayers and exacts a tremendous social cost on our communities, particularly BIPOC and lower-income communities.
Law enforcement has historically targeted Black and Latine people disproportionately and continues to do so today. We see examples of this from the LAPD using improper force at peaceful protests, shooting people in mental distress, and LA sheriff’s deputies profiling Black and Latine bicyclists, drivers, and pedestrians. All too often, police escalate violence instead of de-escalating situations they enter. The 2020 Police Violence Report showed that most killings by police occurred after officers responded to nonviolent offenses or cases where no crime was reported. Over 900 people have been shot by police in 2021.
Los Angeles shamefully has the largest jail system in the United States. Those trapped in our criminal justice system face a cycle of over-policing, dehumanizing incarceration, fines, asset forfeiture, lack of rehabilitation services, housing and employment discrimination, and disenfranchisement. It’s no wonder that 62% of California’s inmates released in 2018 were assessed as being at-risk for recidivism.
In order to create the safe and healthy communities we want, we must effectively address the root causes of crime — poverty, untreated mental illness, substance abuse, homelessness, a failing education system, and a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots – by investing in our communities, implementing crisis response systems that are proven to be effective, and reforming criminal laws that disproportionately impact marginalized communities. Through the establishment of systems of care that address the fundamental needs of our communities, we can begin to heal and transform our communities
What’s clear is that our current approach to public safety is failing us. By shifting to proven community-led safety strategies, police demilitarization, robust mental health and rehabilitative services and more, we can establish a comprehensive system of human-centered care that addresses root causes of crime. We can then begin to heal our communities, families, and people from the harm of a system that tears loved ones and families apart in the name of justice and order. I’m running for Congress because it’s clear that the status quo isn’t working. Our punitive systems of public safety are failing to keep us all safe and far too often disproportionately punish those who need community support and wrap-around social services. It’s time we make our neighbors and families truly safe by putting us first, together
Diplomacy, Not War:
Stand for Human Rights, Here and Abroad:
Promote Global Economic Justice and Sustainability:
Afghanistan
Armenia
Central America
China
Iran
Iraq
Israel
Mexico
North & South Korea
Yemen and Saudi Arabia
Syria
There is no better place to invest in our country’s future than education; yet, somehow we consistently fail to target education with our substantial resources.
During the pandemic, that failure to properly invest in our education system is leading to major detrimental effects: shortages of teachers, children missing out on key development opportunities, college students struggling to have basic needs met, and more. Our current officials are obviously not prioritizing key pillars to empower our communities – this includes education. We must prioritize our schools, as the compounding benefits they provide from promoting public health to combating inequality will exceed our wildest dreams.
The quality of education ties directly to the quality of the teachers, and the quality of teachers ties directly to their quality of life. If we want our teachers to perform well, we need to create a system that allows it. Teachers have one of the most stressful professions, on par with nurses and doctors. A fifth of our nation’s teachers works second jobs to make a living, while they correct homework and build lesson plans for over twenty students per class. The average teacher’s salary has decreased since 1999, and over 70% of our teachers are women, addressing our teachers’ pay goes beyond serving their well-being and enhancing education – it is a crucial element of eliminating the gender wage gap.
While providing our teachers with the backing they deserve, we need to make sure as many people have access to education as possible, starting in early childhood. This is not a pipe dream, nor does it come from an unreasonable place: the economic benefit of Universal Pre-K is approximated at $83 billion. Universal Pre-K both increases parental labor force participation, and creates an offsetting decrease in the use of public assistance. Each $1 invested in Universal Pre-K is estimated to create $2.60 more.
Our K-12 and Post-secondary education systems also need massive reconstructions. Schools are held back by restrictive standardized testing requirements that constrain both students and teachers; the only guarantee we get from college is debt, yet many jobs require that applicants have degrees even when the job doesn’t truly need it. By reshaping for free public college education – much like the G.I. Bill did for over 7 million veterans after World War II – we can foster an inclusive middle class and create socioeconomic benefits that far outweigh the cost.
Finally, our students deserve the highest levels of safety, tolerance, and well-being, regardless of where they live. This means re-shifting school discipline to a restorative justice method, which has led to sizable reductions in violent disorderly conduct (up to 65%), and teaching “soft” skills such as empathy and conflict resolution so students are equipped with multiple forms of intelligence upon graduation. Similar approaches have been successful internationally, and are worth integrating here, even if in a pilot approach.
Restore Respect for Teachers and Staff:
Universal Public Education:
Solve the Student Loan Crisis:
Safer, More Inclusive Schools:
Encouraging Human-Centered Schooling:
Year after year, small businesses consistently make up over 99% of all businesses in America. In 2016, small businesses employed approximately 48% of the total workforce and created 1.8 million new jobs – 1.2 million of which were jobs in businesses with fewer than 20 employees. Although large and wealthy corporations dominate the news and control our current politicians, in reality, small businesses are the core of communities like CA-34.
Small businesses empower immigrants and people of color to realize the American dream just as David and his parents and family members were able to, be it through being employed by a small business or owning one. Thus, as an employee and a previous small business owner, David is all too familiar with the setbacks encountered when running a small business and the lack of direct helpful support for small businesses all around.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offers various funding and advisory programs for small businesses, but they are often difficult to access and require a complicated application process. The federal government does not do enough to help individuals launch small businesses and instead has prioritized cutting taxes for the rich and giving bailouts to irresponsible banks and large corporations. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that Congress can provide better, direct assistance to small businesses, such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and related disaster assistance funding. These federal programs should not only be available during times of crisis but be available to help small businesses across the nation prosper at all times.
Increase SBA Funding and Expand Programs:
Create Small Business Financing and Loan Programs Under a Public Bank:
Encourage Investment in Local Communities:
From the start, our nation’s history with indigenous groups has been filled with bloodshed and cruel acts of injustice – from European colonists wiping out communities to the American government forcing men, women, and children out of their ancestral homes. Although the federal government has signed numerous treaties with Native tribes to promote peace and acknowledge their sovereignties, it broke many of these treaties in the name of land exploitation and expansion.
Because of these past transgressions and broken promises, indigenous communities today face multiple hardships, from high poverty rates and inadequate healthcare services to substandard housing, and more. With the recent voter suppression attempts after the 2018 midterms in North Dakota and the Tongva people’s struggle to access federal rescue funds due to lack of federal recognition, the list of challenges is, unfortunately, escalating.
Although it’s no easy task, our federal government must step up to atone and make amends for the cumulative offenses of U.S. policies. We need to right past wrongs and find remedies for the issues caused by these previous misdeeds.
After all, according to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, “The federal government should provide adequate funding for the essentials of life, not as a gift or as charity, but as the fulfillment of commitments made at the founding and throughout the expansion of this nation.”
Things didn’t have to be this way. If the European colonists and the U.S. government had not treated indigenous communities inhumanely, the current situation could have been dramatically different. Especially as we increase our historical understanding and gradual cultural awakening, I will work tirelessly to put our communities first and mend old wounds, to write a new chapter of our American story.
Help us honor those who were here before us, and join the movement.
More than 21,000 children are removed from their families in Los Angeles County by DCFS each year. The vast majority of cases do not involve allegations of actual child abuse but instead are a result of “neglect,” a vague term that often is a direct result of poverty. Children are routinely removed from their families for parents being a survivor of domestic violence, being unable to afford childcare, and being unable to afford mental health treatment. After being removed from the families they have known their entire lives, children are then placed in foster care with a stranger and often have no idea if, or when, they will return home to their parents.
It is time for the United States to change the child welfare system to prioritize keeping families together instead of ripping families apart and putting children in the abusive foster care system. Though states have the primary role in making child welfare policy, Congress can and should provide crucial support and resources to fix the system.
The current child welfare system is racist. The statistics are clear: Black, Latine, and Native American children are removed from their families at much higher rates than white and Asian children. In Los Angeles County, only 7% of children in Los Angeles County are Black, yet 24% of children removed from their families by DCFS were Black. Further, two-thirds of all children removed from their homes in Los Angeles in 2020 were Latino. Even worse, state and local child protection agencies have immense power and often operate under the cover of confidentiality. States and local governments lack the resources to have sufficient oversight of these agencies and to hold them accountable for their failure to protect children without violating Constitutional rights.
Keep Families Together:
Prioritize Community-Based Services:
Equity in the Child Welfare System:
Our government has a responsibility to ensure that our nation’s children grow up in an environment free from abuse and neglect. Most children do not want to go into the foster care system. Yet, child protection agencies routinely force them into foster homes while trampling on parents’ constitutional rights. Instead of treating families in poverty facing difficult personal issues as criminals, we need to support them by providing a floor to stand on.
It’s no secret that our leaders are failing in protecting and providing adequate resources for children and young people to live and thrive. How can we tell? For starters, the number of children living in poverty throughout the United States is around 12 million while the number of children dying from gun violence is rising annually. The current criminal justice system disproportionately discriminates against young people from BIPOC communities. On school campuses, school police officers heavily target students of color and students with disabilities – contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline. While all of this is happening, our planet is becoming uninhabitable for our current and future generations. In places like CA-34th District, we have one of the highest rates of children living in crowded households due to a lack of affordable and permanent housing.
Despite listing just a few of these multiple crises happening simultaneously, many politicians lack the urgency and bold commitment to solving these intersectional challenges. Instead of focusing on short-term and incremental fixes, we need to focus on creating long-term and bold solutions that tackle these monumental issues. We also need to refocus our budget priorities to lift children and young people up. If we truly care about their current situations and their future outlooks, why are we investing more in big weapon companies than in our public education? Why are we investing in inhumane juvenile incarceration instead of robust safety net programs to help lift families and children out of poverty?
Youths in the United States are the future and will inherit our planet and our systems, yet the current status quo clearly does not prioritize them. We have a duty to create bold and thoughtful policy solutions that will set our younger generations up for success, not for failure. In doing so, we must listen to youth voices and elevate them so that they have a say in their own futures. To secure a just and equitable future for our children and young people, we should begin by putting us and our communities first.
Overhaul Environmental Policy to Ensure our Planet Survives for Future Generations
Properly Fund our Schools and Protect our Students on Campus
Nationwide Criminal Justice Reform
Make our Law Enforcement and Immigration Systems Fair
Income Security
Housing Security
Our government has a responsibility to ensure its children and young people are set up for success. Yet, our politicians and leaders are doing a terrible job in upholding their responsibilities to youths in the United States. If we want to truly create a better world and a just future where they can thrive, we need to co-govern and include them at the decision-making table on pressing issues that affect them. This is how we can start putting our youth and our communities first.
Many of our proudest moments in America’s history came from brave activists and organizers who fought to promote equality and inclusion for women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and people of color. Because of their tireless dedication to putting our communities first, we’ve benefited from their efforts such as The Woman Suffrage Procession, Stonewall, Obergefell v. Hodges, Selma, Roe v. Wade, and the Civil Rights Act – just to name a few.
However, we are now facing a reality where hard-fought victories such as women’s reproductive rights have been overturned and human rights for people from LGBTQIA+ groups are in danger, which will disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and LGBTQIA+ communities throughout the country. If past and current events have taught us anything, we only have each other to lift one another up and we came too far to go back to an unequal America.
Now, more than ever, we must put our communities first.
We are stronger when we stand together. For a long time, the fight for equality and inclusion has fallen to women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and people of color. Their intersectional needs have led to powerful allegiances working together to move mountains and enact real change that benefits everyone, especially in underserved populations. Despite progress made, we still have a long way to go to truly create a society that works for all of us.
For instance, women’s needs are still vastly overlooked on issues from employment to healthcare. Women in the US do an average of 242 minutes of unpaid work every day, compared to 148 minutes for men, and only earn 84% compared to men in similar jobs. And that doesn’t account for racial wage gaps.
In healthcare, the needs of women, especially women of color, are often dismissed. In particular, our country is in a maternal mortality crisis that exists squarely at the intersection of race and gender: black and indigenous mothers are three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. This is a problem at the core of our healthcare system and is one that cannot wait to be addressed.
As for the LGBTQIA+ community, here are some recent statistics:
Inequality affects more than quality of life – it affects life itself. This must change. Biological sex or assigned gender should never be a barrier to anything.
Civil Rights and Protections:
Families and Children:
Healthcare:
While many residents and working families continue to face economic hardships, from struggling to pay rent and groceries with minimum wages that haven’t kept up with inflation and productivity in decades, to small businesses in communities of color disproportionately receiving less PPP loans than in white-majority areas, we’re also currently undergoing a tumultuous time of corporate price-gouging and massive technological transformation.
Since the 1980s, the government has prioritized corporate and special interests and the short-term maximization of profits, in the hope that doing so would create a “trickle down economy” where workers benefit at the bottom. But this trickle down economy has never worked; instead, corporations use massive profits to re-elect career politicians who then give kickbacks, subsidies, and tax breaks to those corporations. Moreover, corporations have lost any sense of duty of loyalty to their employees and the communities they’re in, as their main motive is maximizing profit for their shareholders in everything they do, even at the expense of their workers. We must understand that the American economy is built and sustained by individual workers, not by monolithic corporations and CEOs.
For instance, large corporations like Amazon are using union-busting tactics to break up unions; automation is threatening jobs that count on physical labor, which is happening in areas like the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach; surveillance capitalism is stealing our data with no in-kind payment; employers are using technology to surveil their employees; abuse of contractor status is robbing would-be employees of their legal rights to healthcare and other benefits. With the current dystopian economic landscape that values the stock market and GDP over people, we need to ensure that our economy is one that prioritizes human life and social responsibility. We must start NOW on the path of creating an economy that works for all and not lose our future before it begins.
Promote a Wellbeing Focused Economy
Redefine Socially Responsible Corporations
Protect Workers
Strengthen Labor Unions
Small Business Growth
Fight for Responsible Data Use
We can’t move upwards if we can’t move at all. Although nearly a third of our district’s workers and families rely on public transit, its inefficiencies force many to take more expensive alternatives they cannot afford. Transportation costs have ballooned so much that the average American spends 14% of their household income on transportation–which, when added to already excessive housing costs–creates a precarious living situation. Lower-income families, in particular, spend a larger proportion of their monthly income on transportation, which in turn increases economic inequality. Further, transportation policy has far too often perpetuated racism and has benefitted contractors and developers rather than the individuals who need it the most. Our government should require every investment in public transportation infrastructure to be forward-looking and to promote equity for all.
We have all experienced Los Angeles traffic at its worst, and this is a result of decades of shortsighted transportation policy and a lack of investment in public transit options. Many of the problems we face on the local level are a result of poor transportation policy at the federal level. The federal government must shift our nation’s priorities away from cars and highways toward expanded public and active transportation options that will get people where they need to go more efficiently and cheaply.
While the increased availability of electric vehicles has helped reduce carbon emissions, that is not enough. Expanding public and active transportation and making it more accessible to all persons will provide the additional benefit of reducing the hazardous environmental effects of our current car-centric society. Adding one more highway lane, another rideshare app, making all existing gasoline-powered cars electric, or slightly faster suburban internet isn’t going to solve the physical and economic mobility problems that come from running our country’s infrastructure well beyond its replacement date.
Increase Mobility Efficiency and Equity
Incentivize Alternatives to Cars
Prioritize Cyber-safe Infrastructure
Align Transportation Policy with Climate Goals