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The costs we pay for health care – out of our own pockets and through government programs – are already too high and growing fast.

• Health insurance premiums for 2026 are up across all types of plans, driven by an increased cost per service (hospital, physician, and drugs) multiplied by increased use of services per person.

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) projects that the share of gross domestic product (GDP) going to health care will increase more than 15 percent between 2023 and 2033.

There are powerful influences behind these increases, and taming them requires determined, focused, and long term Congressional action.

Here’s where we start:

• Restore competition in hospital and physician services through establishing site neutral payments, strengthening and enforcing anti-trust and anti-monopoly measures to oppose and reverse vertical integration, banning anti-competitive contracting clauses between hospitals and insurers, and expanding statutory authority over physician payment rates based on objective measures.

• Support transparency initiatives, including comparative effectiveness research, highlighting low-value physician services, and hospital, insurer and pharmacy benefit manager pricing and cost transparency.

• Reduce costs for prescription drugs by funding basic research, reforming patent protection laws that block generics from the market, expanding the list of drugs for price negotiations, finding ways to spread cost for new brand name drugs across a much broader population base, and establishing a surtax on excess pharmaceutical profits.

• Use the pharmaceutical surtax to restore as much of the expiring subsidies as possible and to reduce or eliminate the subsidy cliff in the healthcare marketplace.

See the details here.

Experts disagree on how much national debt is too much, but wherever that line is, we’ve crossed it. Not only do we pay over a trillion dollars in interest on the debt each year now, but effects of the debt have crept into our lives in the form of higher borrowing costs.

As debt grows relative to the size of the economy, investors demand higher interest rates to compensate for greater fiscal risk—an effect underscored by recent downgrades of U.S. sovereign credit by major rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings, and Moody’s Investors Service. Higher Treasury rates feed directly into higher borrowing costs for households and businesses, pushing up mortgage rates, auto loans, student debt, and business financing. Those higher financing costs, in turn, raise the price of goods and services that rely heavily on capital, contributing to higher insurance premiums, healthcare costs, housing costs, and other essential expenses. Excessive national debt is not an abstract bookkeeping issue; it is a concrete driver of affordability pressures felt by families and employers alike.

Tariffs are taxes. They hurt affordability for everyone, but impact smaller farms and businesses more heavily than large ones.

• The Budget Lab at Yale University recently estimated the average annual cost of the tariffs in place as of November 17 to be $1,700 per household.

• Because small businesses are less able than large businesses to shift supply chains, negotiate with suppliers, obtain credit, and absorb costs internally, they are hit hardest.

• Tariffs increase the cost of fertilizer and other basic necessities for farms, and spark retaliation from countries that purchase U.S. agricultural products. The federal government has tried to correct this harm with subsidies, but subsidy coverage is broad for large, base-acre grain and oilseed operations, and much thinner for small, specialty, and non-program farms.

Restrictions on temporary workers hurt innovation and economic productivity, and don’t protect American workers, businesses, or consumers.

• Studies of past attempts to limit low-skilled seasonal workers generally find little sustained increase in U.S. employment or wages, while documenting clear drops in output and firm survival, especially in agriculture and hospitality.

• The recently announced $100,000 supplemental payment required for many new H-1B petitions involving workers outside the United States will raise costs for employers—especially smaller firms—and those higher costs are likely to show up in the prices that consumers pay for technology products and services.

The proposals below are intended to slow the growth of the national debt so that with the addition of spending reforms, we can grow the economy around it and reduce the debt to a manageable level over time.

• Raise the corporate tax rate. The Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed impacts of raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 22 and to 28 percent. I favor increasing it to the 28 percent, with further analysis of impacts of 30 and 35 percent.

• Raise the top two individual income tax rates, from 35 percent to 36 percent for incomes over $250,000 (single filers) and $500,000 (married filing jointly) and from 37 percent to 40 percent for the top bracket (above $626,000 for single filers and $751,000 married filing jointly). (The income levels I use are the approximate levels in 2025; I intend for the tax policy to apply to the top two levels as they are currently determined.)

• Restore estate and gift taxes to the levels that would have applied upon expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had the One Big Beautiful Bill Act not replaced them.

• Reverse tax cuts for special interest groups (tax on tips, tax on social security benefits). Assess tax on income level, not source.

• Increase tax on capital gains for higher earning households.

• Fully staff the IRS and set them on finding tax evasion.

• Restore and enforce the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax.

• Hunt down and close tax loopholes used by high income people and corporations to avoid taxes.

• I oppose wealth taxes (other than estate and gift taxes) and taxes on unrealized gains.

• Tariffs are taxes too, and I oppose tariffs except when carefully focused toward realizable goals.

I reject Republican orthodoxy on taxation. See why here.

The executive branch has a certain degree of discretion on how they spend funds appropriated by Congress for specific purposes. They are still responsible to the taxpayers to spend our money wisely. Here is a growing list of serious violations of that fiduciary trust.

• Refurbishing a ‘gifted’ Qatari jet so it can serve as an Air Force One presidential aircraft until 2029 is projected by the Air Force to cost under $400 million, while critics warn the true cost could climb toward or above $1 billion once full security and communications upgrades are included.

• Unofficially renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War could cost taxpayers up to an estimated $2 billion, according to congressional staffers.

• Transporting deportees to destinations across the world, including a number of flights on military aircraft.

• Paying foreign governments millions of dollars to hold deportees in prison indefinitely. Also, because many detainees were denied due process and at least one deported against court orders, we can expect that the administration is also building a debt in the form of future lawsuits.

• Deployment of National Guard to cities around the U.S. for unnecessary and politically motivated missions.

• I must add the promised $1,776 ‘Warrior Dividend’, valued at over $2.5 billion, to this list. I appreciate the attention that Congress gives to service member pay and benefits, including the pay raise I, other retirees, and currently-serving military personnel will receive in 2026 from the National Defense Authorization Act, but any bonuses or salary increases must be appropriated by Congress with due concern to the nation’s expenses.

We have a long history of adding laws and regulations to address the problems of the day, but little history of going back later to eliminate or change what doesn’t work well. Administering laws and regulations drives bigger government, and incurs a cost to people, businesses, and organizations as they navigate through them. We need to change or repeal laws that drive excessive cost, well beyond the value they bring.

Here is a starter list of laws to review for reform:

• The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA). We can modernize rulemaking to lower the cost for compliance for regulated entities, reduce unpredictable judicial burdens, and streamline comment processes while maintaining the protections the law was crafted to preserve..

• The Congressional Budget Act of 1974. In the last 50 years, Congress has met the goal of passing all twelve appropriations bills before the beginning of the fiscal year only four times. A broken budget cycle forces agencies into repeated shutdown planning, multiple contingency budgets, and redundant reporting; reforms could shrink the bureaucracy required to manage such dysfunction.

• The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Act of 1990. The financial statement audits required by the CFO Act provide a historical view of agency financial activity better suited to business rather than government organizational needs. Many experts judge that government needs are better served by performance audits, which promote financial transparency and discipline by examining how public resources are used, whether programs achieve intended outcomes, and whether agencies manage funds in a manner that is economical, efficient, and effective. Unlike financial statement audits, which focus on historical accuracy and compliance with accounting standards, performance audits follow the flow of resources through operations and assess whether expenditures are justified by results.

• The Internal Revenue Code (Tax Code). The tax code has grown very complex, driving administrative burden to the IRS workforce and information systems, and to tax payers.

• The National Environmental Policy Act & Federal permitting. Streamlined timelines and coordinated reviews could cut out years of delay, reduce duplicative environmental analysis, and reduce administrative burden without weakening environmental standards.

• The Federal Criminal Code. Refocus the federal criminal code on uniquely federal offenses and return primary responsibility for other crimes to the states.

Here’s a specific proposal for how to approach this task:

Early in 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) took over the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), which had been established in the mid-2010s to help federal agencies modernize their information systems. The organization should be reformed under the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and re-tasked with the mission of identifying barriers to productivity in federal government and enabling improvement by recommending changes to law, policy, institutional structure, and technological support. The remarkable productivity gains that industry has experienced over the last century stem primarily from advances in technology, but it is futile to lay such advances over inefficient or ineffective processes. Extending the capabilities in GAO and the USDS, this reformed organization would help Congress and the Executive ensure that federal efforts are directed toward worthwhile goals using modern, streamlined processes and capabilities. The organization would be largely autonomous within the GAO, and would sunset after 10 years unless explicitly continued by Congress. Major findings and reform recommendations would be transmitted through a fast-track referral process to the relevant congressional committees or subcommittees, or to executive agency leadership when statutory authority, appropriations, and personnel flexibilities already permit the process, technology, and organizational improvements to be implemented immediately.

• Social Security

  • Social security is facing a crisis. Without reform, the trust fund that pays a portion of the Old Age and Survivor Insurance (OASI) benefits will be depleted in 2033. From that point on, the Trustees estimate that payroll contributions from current workers will cover only 77% of earned benefits.

  • Congress has so far failed to unite around a plan, or even an approach, to fixing social security. Earlier this year, the Brookings Institute proposed a “blue print” for reform that meets the need without the poison pills that have defeated other attempts at reform.

  • My proposal below adopts most of the Brookings blue print, with a few changes:

    • Increase revenue from payroll taxes by increasing the maximum taxable ceiling to cover 90% of earnings and changing the rules for pass-through payroll tax.

    • Reduce benefits by increasing the number of working years in benefit calculations from 35 to 40, taxing all social security benefits of high earners, ending the dependent spouse benefit, eliminating child retiree benefits, restoring a reformed Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset, and implementing one of the Congressional Budget Office options to slow growth of benefits by changing one or more bend points used in calculating them.

    • Increase social security coverage by increasing caps on legal immigration, including new employees in the roughly 6% of jobs that are not currently covered by social security, and repealing the Retirement Eligibility Test.

    • Change some of the current money policies affecting the OASI and Disability Insurance (DI) trust funds; specifically,

      • Devote all proceeds from taxes on social security benefits to those trust funds, and

      • Invest half of the OASDI Trust Fund in a total stock market index fund.

  • The challenge to social security is basically one of demographics: Americans are living longer now and having fewer babies. But with these changes, we can preserve social security for the long haul.

  • See details here.

• Medicare and Medicaid policies to follow, but see health care details above.

A strong workforce is essential to both economic growth and national resilience. That means investing in education, skills, health, and supportive policies so that more Americans can fully participate in the economy.

Specific proposals will follow.

Basic research and modern infrastructure underpin long-term prosperity and national security. We should prioritize investments that:

• Catalyze private-sector innovation,

• Improve productivity and resilience, and

• Support economic development in both rural and urban communities.

Specific proposals will follow.

Idaho’s public lands are central to our way of life—supporting recreation, local economies, wildlife, and a deep sense of place. I support House Resolution 718, Public Lands in Public Hands, to prevent the privatization of lands that belong to all of us.

But preservation requires more than stopping outright land sales. New pressures are emerging as energy-intensive industries such as artificial intelligence infrastructure and crypto-mining drive demand for massive data centers and power generation. We must ensure that economic competition does not come at the expense of our lands, clean air and water, dark night skies, and the quiet, open spaces that define life in Idaho.

The purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to protect the security and prosperity of the American people. History shows that this is best achieved through sustained engagement grounded in enlightened self-interest: strengthening alliances, preventing threats before they reach our shores, supporting global stability, expanding access to markets and resources, and reducing the humanitarian crises that fuel conflict, displacement, and insecurity. The United States succeeds not by retreating from the world, but by shaping it over the long term. This approach aligns with the U.S. foreign policy framework articulated in National Security Strategies under both parties since the end of the Cold War.

The list of foreign policy priorities below reflects the top issues facing us today, but there are many other global issues that impact our security and prosperity. As an Independent, I commit to working with both parties to pursue durable solutions that will stand the test of time, projecting our strength into the future.

• Secure our border so that people and goods are deliberately allowed or excluded according to our laws and policies.

• Use diplomatic engagement, information, and economic tools to support free societies and open markets, and oppose violations of international sovereignty and borders that threaten regional and global stability.

• Honor U.S. commitments and manage change responsibly. The credibility of the United States is a strategic asset. When the United States makes commitments—to allies, partners, and vulnerable populations—those commitments shape global stability, alliance trust, and our ability to lead. As priorities evolve, the United States may adjust or withdraw from programs and agreements, but such changes must be executed lawfully, deliberately, and with careful attention to second-order consequences. Abrupt disengagements that disregard contractual obligations, partner reliance, or humanitarian impact undermine U.S. security interests, damage alliance confidence, and impose long-term strategic costs that far exceed short-term savings.

• Secure a just and lasting solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict through a 2-state solution.

• Deter and defeat Russian aggression by strengthening Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. The United States has a clear interest in preventing the spread of territorial aggression in Europe. Supporting Ukraine’s self-defense raises the costs of further Russian expansion, reinforces international norms against conquest, and reduces the risk of a broader and more costly conflict. U.S. assistance should focus on enabling Ukraine to protect its population, defend its sovereignty, and compel Russia to conclude that continued aggression is unsustainable.

• Deter coercion by the People’s Republic of China by upholding freedom of navigation, supporting regional allies and partners, and making clear that unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the South China Sea or across the Taiwan Strait would carry significant consequences.

• Put the conflict in and around Venezuela on a legitimate footing or cease operations. That conflict is in violation of the law, specifically, the War Powers Act of 1973, which means all of the service members involved are participating in an illegal war. They deserve better.

• Refrain from interfering in other countries’ elections, whether covertly or overtly. The United States should not attempt to influence the outcome of foreign elections by covert action, public pressure, or explicit promises or threats of economic or political treatment conditioned on who voters choose. Such actions undermine democratic legitimacy, fuel instability, and weaken international norms that protect sovereignty. U.S. engagement should focus on transparent, lawful support for democratic institutions, the rule of law, and free and fair electoral processes—without favoring or penalizing particular candidates or parties.

Use of our economic strength and managing information, disinformation, and cyber threats are also important foreign policy issues, but are addressed under other areas of this platform.

With AI deep fakes, media manipulation, cyber attacks on our information infrastructure, and spread of quack science, we no longer trust what we see, hear, or read. We question the motivations of people in positions of power. We question the risks and effectiveness of medicines and vaccines. We question the validity and security of elections. These are valid questions, and we need ways to answer them.

To start:

• Develop technical standards to assess authenticity and validity of information, and hold people accountable for the harm they cause.

• Protect the objectivity and professionalism of our government workforce.

• Enforce transparency and accountability in government and business.

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) is outpacing attempts to understand, or control, its impacts. We are already seeing its effects on jobs and entire industries. While AI can be an important, even a necessary, adjunct to our security and prosperity, we need to manage it with wisdom and foresight.