Policy Platform

Every policy on this page connects to a single truth: over the past five decades, nearly $80 trillion has been redistributed from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. That figure comes from the nonpartisan RAND Corporation — and when their first study was published in 2020, the number was $50 trillion. It has grown by $30 trillion in just five years. That acceleration is not an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy choices that have concentrated wealth, eroded public institutions, and left working Americans behind. Every proposal below is designed to reverse that trajectory — funded by restoring the kind of fair, progressive tax structure that built the American middle class under FDR and sustained it for three decades. The money exists. It was taken. And we can get it back.

I. Defending Democracy — Fulfilling the Oath

The Policy

I will introduce the Oath Fulfilled Act — a comprehensive military compensation package that raises base pay for every active-duty service member by 35%, extends tax-free status to all active-duty salary, provides Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) to every E-5 and above, and extends GI Bill education benefits from 36 to 60 months.

Why This Matters

This is not just a military pay bill. This is an anti-authoritarianism bill.

Our servicemembers swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They fulfill that oath with extraordinary loyalty — not because of what they're paid, but because they trust that the nation they serve is worthy of their sacrifice. But trust is not infinite. When politicians blur into the same caricature of empty promises, when veterans come home to underfunded VA systems, and when the men and women who defend democracy can barely afford to house their families, we erode the very foundation of that oath.

Marine General Smedley Butler — the most decorated Marine of his era — stopped a fascist coup in 1933 and then spent the rest of his life warning Americans about how concentrated power exploits those who serve. Nearly a century later, his warning remains urgent. If we want the people who carry rifles in defense of our Constitution to remain invested in that Constitution, we have to invest in them first.

I would die for any of my Marine kin, because I know they have my backs — they have proven it countless times. As a nation, we haven't been as kind to them as they deserve.

Ripple Effects

A 35% pay raise and tax-free salary would immediately lift tens of thousands of military families out of financial precarity. Extended GI Bill benefits would allow veterans to pursue advanced degrees and professional certifications without the financial cliff that currently forces many to choose between education and employment. BAH for E-5 and above would reduce the shameful reality of servicemembers on food stamps. And all of it sends a signal: this democracy keeps its promises.

How This Moves Through Congress

This would be introduced as a standalone bill to the House Armed Services Committee, where military compensation legislation originates. By framing it as both a readiness issue and a retention issue, it can attract bipartisan support — defense hawks care about retention, progressives care about working-class wages, and veteran caucus members on both sides have firsthand understanding of the problem. The pay increase and tax provisions would need scoring by the Congressional Budget Office. The GI Bill extension would be coordinated with the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. I would push for it to be included in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is one of the few bills that passes Congress reliably every year, making it a practical legislative vehicle rather than a symbolic gesture.

II. Tech Regulation and AI Policy — Building What Protects, Not What Exploits

The Policy

I will introduce legislation across four pillars:

Data Sovereignty. American citizens own their data. No company may harvest, collect, store, or monetize personal data without the explicit, informed, and revocable consent of the individual. When a citizen grants permission, the company must compensate them. Your data is your labor — and like all labor, it deserves to be paid.

Data Center Accountability. Any new data center built in the United States must meet strict environmental standards: no construction on ecologically sensitive land, no pollution above baseline thresholds, and a mandatory electricity premium that funds renewable energy development and offsets any rise in utility costs to local residents. Communities should not subsidize the energy appetite of trillion-dollar tech companies. If a data center moves in next door, your electric bill should not go up by a single cent.

Anti-Addiction Design Standards. Applications and platforms must not be engineered to be intentionally addictive. Exploitative design patterns — infinite scroll, manipulative notification systems, engagement-maximizing algorithms that prioritize outrage over information — must be disclosed and regulated. Our children's attention is not a commodity to be harvested.

AI Content Integrity. AI-generated content — sometimes called "AI slop" — is flooding the internet with synthetic text, images, and media that degrades the quality of information available to the public. I will push for mandatory disclosure and labeling of AI-generated content, algorithmic transparency requirements for platforms that distribute it, and liability standards for companies that allow AI-generated misinformation to spread unchecked. At the same time, I will fight to ensure that the United States maintains its global leadership in AI and machine learning research and development. Regulation and innovation are not opposites — responsible regulation is what allows innovation to earn and maintain public trust.

Why This Matters

I'm not just talking about AI — I build it. I have spent my career developing machine learning tools, and I have personally refused to allow AI capabilities I built to be weaponized against Americans. I know what these tools can do. I know how they can be misused. And I know that without regulation, the companies that build them will always prioritize profit over people — because that is what unregulated markets do.

The tech industry has operated for decades under the assumption that it is too fast, too complex, and too important to be regulated. That era is over. The same companies that harvest your data without compensation are the ones spending billions to lobby against the privacy protections you deserve. Data sovereignty is not a radical idea — it is the recognition that in a digital economy, your personal information is a form of labor, and you deserve to be paid for it.

Ripple Effects

Data sovereignty creates a new income stream for every American and forces companies to justify their data practices. Data center accountability protects rural and suburban communities from bearing the environmental cost of tech industry growth while accelerating the renewable energy transition. Anti-addiction standards protect children and improve public mental health. AI content integrity preserves the information ecosystem that democracy depends on.

How This Moves Through Congress

Data sovereignty and anti-addiction legislation would be introduced through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over technology and consumer protection. Data center environmental standards would go through both Energy and Commerce and the Natural Resources Committee. AI content integrity could be paired with existing bipartisan efforts on AI transparency and introduced as an amendment or companion to bills already in circulation. The key strategic move is packaging these as consumer protection and national competitiveness bills rather than anti-tech bills — because the goal is not to slow innovation, but to ensure its benefits are shared and its harms are prevented.

III. Healthcare — A Right, Not a Profit Center

The Policy

Healthcare is a human right. It is absurd that the wealthiest nation on Earth allows insurance companies to override medical care recommended by doctors. I support a transition to universal healthcare coverage that eliminates the ability of insurance corporations to deny, delay, or overrule the medical judgment of physicians.

I will also target the growing vertical integration crisis in healthcare: insurance companies are buying clinics, pharmacies, and provider networks, creating a closed loop where the same corporation that decides whether your care is "necessary" also profits from prescribing their own medications and controlling where you receive treatment. This is a conflict of interest so fundamental that it should be illegal.

I will fight to address healthcare inequalities — including the well-documented pattern of women's pain being dismissed, their symptoms minimized, and their conditions misdiagnosed at rates far higher than men. This is not anecdotal. It is systemic, and it requires systemic reform.

Why This Matters

No one in Maryland's 8th District — or anywhere in this country — should go bankrupt because they got sick. The current system is not a healthcare system. It is a profit extraction system with a healthcare byproduct. Middlemen companies — pharmacy benefit managers, insurance intermediaries, and corporate hospital chains — have inserted themselves between patients and doctors, driving up costs while adding no medical value.

When an insurance company can overrule your doctor, we have stopped practicing medicine and started practicing finance. When women are told their pain is imaginary because the system was never designed to take them seriously, we are failing half the population. These are not edge cases. These are structural failures.

Ripple Effects

Universal coverage reduces emergency room overcrowding, improves preventive care, and reduces the total cost of healthcare by eliminating administrative waste and insurance overhead. Banning vertical integration breaks up conflicts of interest that currently allow corporations to profit from both denying and providing care. Addressing gender disparities in diagnosis saves lives and reduces the long-term cost of untreated conditions that worsen because they weren't caught early.

How This Moves Through Congress

Universal healthcare legislation would go through the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, which handles healthcare financing. The vertical integration issue could be addressed through antitrust legislation coordinated with the Judiciary Committee, or through a standalone bill targeting healthcare industry conflicts of interest. Gender equity in healthcare can be advanced through the appropriations process by directing funding to the NIH and HHS for research into diagnostic disparities, as well as through amendments to the Affordable Care Act. Realistically, comprehensive healthcare reform requires sustained coalition-building — and that is exactly the kind of work I know how to do.

IV. Labor Rights — Ending the Contractor Scam and Restoring the Right to Strike

The Policy

Direct Federal Hiring. I will introduce legislation to reform the federal contracting system that currently allows consulting corporations to charge the government roughly $400,000 per engineer while paying that engineer roughly $100,000. Under my proposal, the federal government would directly hire skilled workers at approximately $300,000 — giving the worker a massive raise while saving taxpayers roughly $100,000 per position. The current system doesn't just waste money. It creates a perverse incentive for contracting firms to put bodies in chairs regardless of need, because they profit per head.

The Right to Strike. Federal employees currently cannot legally strike. I will introduce legislation to restore that right. The people who keep this government running — from engineers to park rangers to food inspectors — deserve the same leverage that every other worker in America has.

Universal Union Access. I will push for legislation that eliminates majority-vote requirements to form a union. No worker should need permission from a majority of their coworkers to organize. If you want a union, you should be able to form one.

Why This Matters

The federal contracting system is one of the largest wealth transfers from taxpayers to corporate shareholders in American history. Companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, SAIC, and Leidos have built billion-dollar businesses on the simple model of hiring workers, marking up their labor by 300%, and billing the government. The worker gets a fraction of what they're worth. The taxpayer pays a premium for no added value. And the contracting firm pockets the difference. This is not efficient government. This is rent-seeking with a security clearance.

Restoring the right to strike and eliminating barriers to unionization are about restoring balance. For decades, policy has systematically tilted in favor of employers and corporations. The $80 trillion wealth transfer documented by RAND didn't happen by accident — it happened because working people lost the tools to fight back. I intend to give those tools back.

Ripple Effects

Direct federal hiring at higher wages attracts better talent to government service, reduces turnover, and saves taxpayer money simultaneously. Restoring the right to strike gives federal workers genuine negotiating power for the first time in decades. Universal union access lowers the barrier to organizing across every industry — not just federal work — which research consistently shows raises wages, improves working conditions, and reduces inequality.

How This Moves Through Congress

Federal contracting reform would go through the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The right to strike would require amending Title 5 of the U.S. Code through the Education and Workforce Committee. Universal union access would build on existing legislative frameworks like the PRO Act. The political strategy here is clear: frame direct hiring as a fiscal responsibility issue (it saves taxpayer money) and frame labor rights as an anti-corruption issue (they reduce corporate influence over government). Both framings attract support beyond the traditional progressive coalition.

V. Housing and Cost of Living — Converting the Economy of Commutes into an Economy of Communities

The Policy

Federal Work-From-Home Standards. I will introduce legislation requiring federal agencies — and incentivizing private employers — to implement remote work as the default for any position that does not require physical presence. This is not just a workplace policy. It is a housing policy.

Office-to-Residential Conversion. With reduced demand for commercial office space, I will push for federal incentives — tax credits, zoning flexibility grants, and public-private partnerships — to convert vacant office buildings into residential housing. The buildings already exist. The infrastructure already exists. What's missing is the political will to reimagine their use.

Climate Resilience Payment. Every American household will receive a one-time $20,000 climate change preparation payment to invest in home resilience — weatherproofing, renewable energy installation, emergency preparedness, flood mitigation, or relocation assistance for families in increasingly dangerous climate zones.

Why This Matters

The housing crisis is not just a supply problem. It is a design problem. We built an economy around the assumption that millions of people would commute to centralized office buildings every day. That assumption was already crumbling before the pandemic proved it obsolete. Yet we continue to subsidize the commercial real estate industry rather than converting its surplus into housing people actually need.

Work-from-home isn't a perk — it's infrastructure. When you eliminate the commute, you eliminate the geographic pressure that drives housing costs up near employment centers. You redistribute economic activity from downtown corridors to residential neighborhoods. And you give working families back hours of their day that were previously burned sitting in traffic.

Ripple Effects

Remote work reduces traffic, emissions, and transportation costs for workers. Office conversions increase housing supply without new construction — faster and cheaper than building from scratch. Residential density in formerly commercial areas brings stable, year-round foot traffic to local restaurants and shops that previously depended on the boom-and-bust cycle of office workers. The climate resilience payment both protects families and stimulates the green economy by creating demand for weatherproofing, solar installation, and resilience services.

How This Moves Through Congress

Federal work-from-home standards for government agencies can be implemented through the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Private-sector incentives would go through Ways and Means (tax credits) and Financial Services (housing programs). Office conversion incentives would involve the Housing and Urban Development authorization process. The climate resilience payment would be structured as a one-time appropriation, likely through the Appropriations Committee with support from the Climate Crisis caucus. The work-from-home component can be advanced immediately through executive branch policy even before legislation passes, since the federal government is the nation's largest employer.

VI. The 5-5-10 Agreement — A National Framework for What Matters

The Policy

I propose a binding fiscal framework I call the 5-5-10 Agreement: 5% of GDP allocated to national defense, 5% of GDP invested in space exploration and development, and 10% of GDP directed toward education. These are not aspirational targets. They are structural commitments that tell the American people — and the world — what this nation actually values.

5% to Defense — A Cap, Not a Cut. U.S. defense spending currently hovers around 3.4% of GDP, but there is no structural ceiling. Without a hard cap, defense contractors have no incentive to compete on price or efficiency — they know the budget will always grow. A 5% GDP cap is generous by any global standard, but it forces the Department of Defense and its contractors to prioritize. When companies know there is a ceiling, they stop inflating costs because the gravy train has a destination. Efficiency becomes a requirement, not a suggestion.

5% to Space — Children of the Stars. My ancestors, the Maya, were astronomers. They mapped the heavens, tracked the movements of Venus and Mars, and built civilizations oriented toward the cosmos. That impulse — to look up, to reach beyond, to understand our place in the universe — is not ancient history. It is human nature. And it is good economics.

The return on investment in space exploration is extraordinary. Estimates range from $7 to $8 returned for every $1 spent on the Apollo Program, and the most recent NASA economic impact report found that the agency's $25.4 billion FY2023 budget generated $75.6 billion in total economic output across all 50 states — supporting over 300,000 jobs. Every dollar invested in space comes back multiplied in technology, jobs, scientific breakthroughs, and national capability.

But beyond economics, a nation needs direction. We are a country in search of a unifying mission — something that transcends partisanship, that inspires the next generation, and that produces the exact science we will need to survive the challenges ahead. Space-faring is not an escape from Earth's problems. It is the engine that produces the solutions — from materials science to energy technology to atmospheric research. The technologies we develop reaching for the stars are the same technologies that will save us here at home.

10% to Education — The Backbone of the Nation. From the janitor to the teacher, the people who run our schools are raising the next generation. They deserve to be esteemed accordingly.

Teachers currently spend an average of $500 to $900 of their own money every year on classroom supplies — a figure that has increased nearly 50% in the last decade alone. The current federal tax deduction for classroom expenses is a mere $300. This is not a system that values educators. It is a system that exploits their generosity.

I will introduce legislation to provide every public school teacher with a one-time reimbursement of $1,000 for every year they have taught — a direct acknowledgment that we have been asking them to subsidize public education out of their own pockets, and that debt is owed. Going forward, the annual tax deduction for classroom expenses will be increased to $15,000.

The 10% GDP commitment to education means fully funded schools, competitive salaries, modern facilities, and resources so abundant that no teacher ever has to choose between buying pencils for their students and buying groceries for their family. It also means accountability: I will push for a comprehensive review of every public school in this country to verify that it is still being run as a school — not as a business, not as a sports program, but as an institution dedicated first and foremost to educating children.

Why This Matters

Right now, America has no binding framework for how we allocate our national resources. Defense spending grows without limit. Education is chronically underfunded. And space — the one investment with a proven, extraordinary return — gets less than half a percent of the federal budget. The 5-5-10 Agreement changes that. It tells the American people exactly where their money is going, and it tells the industries that depend on government spending that the era of limitless budgets and zero accountability is over.

Ripple Effects

A defense cap forces contractors to compete on value, saving taxpayers billions. A space investment unlocks technologies with applications across energy, medicine, agriculture, and climate science while creating hundreds of thousands of high-skill jobs. An education investment at 10% of GDP would transform every aspect of public schooling — from teacher pay to infrastructure to curriculum — and produce a generation better equipped to lead, innovate, and sustain American competitiveness.

How This Moves Through Congress

The 5-5-10 framework would be introduced as a resolution establishing fiscal targets, similar to how budget resolutions currently set spending guidelines. Binding enforcement would require amending the Congressional Budget Act, which would go through the Budget Committee and Rules Committee. The defense cap would be coordinated with the Armed Services Committee and framed as a fiscal discipline measure. The space investment would go through the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. The education provisions — teacher reimbursement, tax deduction increases, and school accountability reviews — would be split between the Education and Workforce Committee and Ways and Means. This is an ambitious structural reform, and it will require sustained public pressure and coalition-building to pass. But the 5-5-10 framework gives voters something simple and memorable to rally behind — and that is how structural change happens.

VII. Student Debt — Cancel It

The Policy

I support the full cancellation of federal student loan debt.

Why This Matters

We told an entire generation that college was the path to the American Dream, then handed them a bill that many will spend decades paying off. Student debt suppresses homeownership, delays family formation, discourages entrepreneurship, and traps millions of Americans in jobs they can't afford to leave. The economic drag of $1.7 trillion in student debt is not just a personal burden — it is a structural drag on the entire economy.

My own educational path — from Northern Virginia Community College to George Mason University to Johns Hopkins — showed me that the road upward exists. But it should not be paved with debt. The son of immigrants who cleaned office buildings and rebuilt a life from homelessness should not have to mortgage his future to get an education. Neither should anyone else.

Ripple Effects

Cancellation immediately frees up consumer spending, increases homeownership rates, and allows graduates to pursue careers based on passion and aptitude rather than debt repayment pressure. It also restores trust in the social contract that says education is an investment, not a trap.

How This Moves Through Congress

Broad student debt cancellation has been introduced in previous sessions through both executive action and legislative routes. The legislative path runs through the Education and Workforce Committee and requires coordination with the Budget Committee for scoring. Executive action through the Department of Education remains a parallel path. The political challenge is real, but the coalition — young voters, educators, parents, and economists who understand the macroeconomic drag of student debt — is large and growing.

VIII. Climate — Capture, Nationalize, Rebuild

The Policy

I will push for the complete decarbonization and nationalization of carbon capture by 2075 — a 50-year national mission to remove carbon from the atmosphere, convert it into usable materials, and build an entirely new industry around it.

Carbon capture will be treated as a national strategic asset. The captured carbon will be repurposed into building materials, industrial inputs, and other products through a federally coordinated restructuring program. The sale of carbon-derived materials will be nationalized, with revenues reinvested into further capture and renewable energy development.

Why This Matters

Batteries cannot power everything. They cannot fly commercial aircraft across oceans. They cannot replace every industrial process that currently depends on carbon-based fuels. If our only climate strategy is electrification, we will hit a wall — and the planet will pay the price.

Carbon capture is not just an environmental necessity. It is an economic opportunity. If we can remove carbon from the atmosphere at scale and convert it into materials that replace concrete, steel inputs, and industrial compounds, we create an entirely new sector of the American economy — one that literally gets paid to clean the air.

The 2075 timeline is ambitious but realistic. It provides a generational mission — the kind of long-horizon national project that the 5% GDP space investment is designed to support, since atmospheric science, materials research, and carbon engineering are precisely the technologies that space exploration accelerates.

Ripple Effects

A nationalized carbon capture industry creates jobs across the country — in engineering, manufacturing, construction, and research. Carbon-derived building materials reduce dependence on carbon-intensive traditional materials. Revenue from nationalized carbon sales funds further investment in renewables and resilience. And the 2075 target gives industry, education, and government a shared timeline to plan and invest against — the kind of long-term certainty that markets actually need.

How This Moves Through Congress

Climate legislation goes through the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Natural Resources Committee. Nationalization of carbon capture would require a new federal authority, likely modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority or similar public enterprises, established through authorizing legislation. Carbon materials standards would involve the Commerce Committee. The 2075 timeline would be codified as a national target through a resolution or framework bill, with binding milestones written into reauthorization cycles. This is a generational project — and like the space program, its full returns will be measured in decades, not election cycles.

The Thread That Connects Everything

Every policy on this page comes back to the same fight.

The RAND Corporation documented that $50 trillion was transferred from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1% between 1975 and 2018. By 2023, that figure had grown to nearly $80 trillion — $3.9 trillion in a single year. That is $3.9 trillion taken from working Americans in one year alone. That is not a market outcome. That is a policy outcome — the result of decades of tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of industries that exploit workers, and the systematic destruction of the tools that working people once had to fight back.

Every proposal on this page is designed to reverse that trajectory. Fair taxation — modeled on the progressive tax structures of the FDR era that built the American middle class — is how we fund these investments. We are not proposing to create new wealth out of thin air. We are proposing to reclaim wealth that was taken from working Americans through policy, and to reinvest it in the things that actually make a nation strong: its people, its education system, its infrastructure, its defense, and its future.

The oligarchy did not build this country. Working people did — including my mother, who cleaned office buildings, and my father, who rebuilt his life from nothing. They and millions like them are owed a government that fights as hard for them as they have fought for themselves.

That is what I intend to fight for.

Boris Velasquez — Democrat for Maryland's 8th Congressional District The Oath Doesn't Expire.

P.S. Stay tuned as I update this section. I intend to fight for more.