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Policies and Plans
Ingenuity. Tenacity. Bravery.
Ranked Choice Voting
Key Policy
Our current two party dominated system too often requires us to vote for candidates that don’t fully represent our vision for the country. The United States is home to one of the most diverse populations in the world and yet that diversity is rarely reflected in our general election ballots. Ranked Choice Voting is a solution to this issue that has already been adopted for Congressional elections in Maine and has been implemented in dozens of other state and local elections.
RCV is an election voting system in which voters use a ranked (or preferential) ballot to rank choices in a sequence on the ordinal scale: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. When the votes are tallied, if no candidate reaches 50%, the candidate with the lowest amount of votes is eliminated and those votes are then redistributed to the remaining candidates based on who is ranked next on each ballot. If this does not result in any candidate receiving a majority, further rounds of redistribution occur.
Not only does this system of voting result in an elected official that the majority approves of, it also saves the state millions of dollars in tax money spent on costly runoff and special elections.
There is majority support in this country for expanded access to healthcare, immigration reform, and common-sense gun control yet our Congress is stalled on any meaningful progress due to partisanship and increasing polarization. I firmly believe that Ranked Choice Voting is the path to a Congress better reflects the will and needs of our people. That is why I have chosen RCV as the bedrock of my policy platform.
As your representative for District 6, I pledge to co-sponsor the Ranked Choice Voting Act (H.R. 4464) which would require states to adopt Ranked Choice Voting for all Congressional elections starting in the year 2022.
The Greener Pastures Initiative
Hope is just over the horizon.
NASA is an essential part of the modern American spirit. We are a country of pioneers, ever westbound towards the great unknown. Nearly sixty years since JFK and space is still the new frontier.
“Uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.”
All still lay in wait for mankind.
With a renewed focus on this infinite frontier, and a renewed investment in the future of the human race, together we can again reach the stars.
This plan focuses on refunding NASA with the goal of renewed space exploration and colonization along with further advancements in renewable energy. These actions can provide worlds of opportunity for our grandchildren, great grandchildren, and beyond. It will also better the odds in our survival against the existential threats of time and space. Renewable energy, such as solar panels, would not only be essential to the colonization of a foreign world, but it would also help make our home world more hospitable to all.
A carbon tax will be used to provide for this renewed eye to the heavens. This would help raise NASA to 2% of the federal budget. The current NASA budget is 0.5% of the federal budget, at its peak in the 1960s NASA received 4% of the federal budget. And investing in NASA in the past has paid dividends. Estimates of the return on investment in the space program range from $7 for every $1 spent on the Apollo Program to $40 for every $1 spent on space development today.
The Carbon Tax ensures that those contributing the most to the problem, are financially contributing the most to the solution.
Healthcare
Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit of Happiness.
Universal healthcare is the ultimate moral and fiscal goal. The vast majority of studies show that it would be both more effective and cheaper overall. But we have to do it within the framework of the ACA (Obamacare). We fought too hard to pass the ACA and John McCain cast his dying vote to keep it. We can not dishonor those hardships in the pursuit of an even steeper mountain. I fear throwing away the ACA to build a completely new healthcare structure could open Pandora’s box and lead to the failed Republican policy of the last decade of Repeal and Replace.
The logical stepping stone between where we are now and Universal Healthcare is a public option and we can build that upon the bedrock of the ACA.
A public option also benefits the free market. If people like myself are correct and Universal Healthcare is not only cheaper but also more effective, then people will naturally gravitate from the private sector to the public. This forces the private sector to lower their prices to compete. Either way, the American people win.
Universal healthcare also gives people more freedom. It gives you the freedom to leave your job and finally start your own small business without having to worry about health insurance when you’re getting the business off the ground. It also provides a much needed infectious disease safety net. Covid-19 has highlighted the flaws in our employer based healthcare system during a time of upheaval; and shown that it is time for a base level of insurance provided by the State.
Biography
Kaynen Pellegrino was born on August 28th, 1995 in Dunedin, Florida to 18-year-old Kimberly Sybert. He is the oldest of 5 boys from his mother. Throughout his childhood, he was blessed enough to have a roof over his head and a full stomach, but little did he know his mother struggled and worried often.
Pellegrino’s stepfather joined the army in 2009 and the family was stationed in Vilseck, Germany for a year and a half, and were then transferred to Fort Knox, Kentucky in 2011 for his Junior and Senior year where he graduated from Fort Knox High School. Currently, Pellegrino studies Artificial Intelligence.
From a young age Kaynen was an intellectual and a dreamer. He dreamt of changing the world and helping people overcome their own struggle. Finally, after years of struggling himself, he decided it was time to stop relying on political figures interested in personal profit and run to make the changes that the country needs. Kaynen believes in American optimism. He knows that when we set our minds to something, there is no endeavor we can not overcome.
Get Involved
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”- Robert F. Kennedy
Contact
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