Let's Unite the States

We Can Restore National Unity by Making Politics Local Again

Politics has gotten very contentious, polarized, and national. It's hard for our elected officials to find consensus on Capitol Hill to tackle our nation's most pressing issues. For this reason, I am proposing we investigate ways to pass bills that returns politics to the state and local level instead of being subjected to the whims of the toxic national partisan political environment.

One strategy that I have in mind would be to use interstate compacts (Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution) to create legally binding agreements among like-minded states to break through national partisan gridlock. With enough political will, these compacts can allow the states to collaborate on pressing issues, even when Congress is paralyzed on the national level.

Let's Heal the Divide

From Philadelphia to Appalachia, We Can Revitalize our Crumbling Health System

The pandemic put our public health system under enormous strain. Even today, private hospitals all around the country are struggling to stay afloat. The doctors, nurses, and health workers fought the virus on the frontlines for us during the pandemic, so it's time for us to return the favor by getting on the frontlines to heal the divide.

Crozer Chester Medical Center (CCMC) was a for-profit hospital in Chester, Pennsylvania that recently shut down because it is more profitable to dismantle an entire health system than it is to serve the poor. For impoverished urban areas like Chester, as well as under-served rural areas around the country where it might take an hour to get to the nearest hospital, let's advocate for public funding to revitalize our hospital system. We can fight to build new public hospitals and restore disproportionate share funding for existing private hospitals. (What's disproportionate share funding? Think Obamacare subsidies, but for hospitals, not health insurance companies). And who will foot the bill? The very people who profit by undermining our public health, not the doctors who save lives. This time, we're leaving no one behind — not the people in the inner city, and not the folks in countryside either. Americans don't leave Americans behind. Let's Heal the Divide!

This one is personal for me, since Crozer Chester Medical Center was the hospital that saved my life when my appendix was trying to kill me, and it is also where I received my first dose of the mRNA COVID vaccine. Crozer Psychiatry saved my life when I went through a terrible mental health crisis during the worst of the pandemic in late 2020. To me, it is unconscionable for our society to let this hospital that has dutifully served the community for years, go out of business, especially one that helped us survive the pandemic. And it is unacceptable for rural Americans to have no nearby hospitals in the case their son or daughter overdoses on drugs. Together, we can bridge the urban-rural divide and fight for a government that works for us, not the politicans or their corporate cronies.

The Robin Hood Interstate Compact

We Can Organize on the Grassroots to Tax the Rich, not the High Earners

The idea would be to coordinate among the 26 or so states that allow for citizen-initiated ballot initiatives to form and join an interstate compact, wherein member states are expected to implement a statewide split-rate tax and lower the state income tax rate to negative 1%. (Georgism is based!)

Additionally, there would be a 14th Amendment fiscal sanity provision that advises each member state to implement an emergency split-rate tax in the event to bail out the federal government if it defaults on the national debt or refuses to disburse Social Security or other benefits.

For states like Pennsylvania, where us grug-brained simpletons cannot initiate a ballot referendum… Well, maybe we just need a cooperative State House, State Senate, and Governor that would allow us to join the compact.

The Public Option Interstate Compact

Let's establish a compact among states to agree to implement a public option for health insurance. This would be very similar to what Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz proposed in his State Public Option Act, except it would be in the form of authorizing the creation of an interstate compact, with no initial member states. States would join the compact either through citizen-initiated ballot measure or directly by state governments.

The Consumer Protection Interstate Compact

Let's establish an interstate compact designed to guide state-level governance to protect American consumers from corporate exploitation. Together, we can cap credit card interchange fees and interest rates, protect the right to repair, eliminate the proliferation of microplastics and carcinogens, reduce landfill waste, and punish corporations for outsourcing jobs.

Even if not all states participate, a coalition of populous blue states (I'm thinking California, plus others) can force the corporations to play by the rules if they want to be competitive in American markets. Let's ban corporations from harming our society for profit.

The 21st Amendment Interstate Compact

Let's create an interstate compact to guide state-level governance to align with the spirit of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed the prohibition of alcohol.

Yes, this is me trying to find a way to force my state government to modernize the Pennsylvania state liquor control board. I'm a young man, and I want my liquor!

Pennsylvania-Delaware Tax Reciprocity Agreement

A Constitutional Argument

As a Philadelphian who used to work across the border in Delaware, not only do I have to travel longer distances to get to work, which means I pay more in gas and time, but also I pay more in taxes, too, because I get taxed at the Delaware state income tax rates, with the highest marginal rate at 6.6%, instead of Pennsylvania's flat 3.07% rate. And furthermore, none of those taxes go to Pennsylvania. It all goes to Delaware. And the Delaware state government knows this full well, and this is the reason why we have not had a reciprocity agreement between our states. It's because Delaware likes the free money off the backs of working Philadelphians. It is beyond unfair for Philadelphians to pay more in taxes just because we work across the border. Why should we pay more in taxes than someone working a similar job in Harrisburg?

It's even unconstitutional, in violation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause in Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution, which guarantees that citizens of one state cannot be unfairly burdened by another.

On behalf of Philadelphians who work across the border in Delaware, I am calling on Governor Shapiro and Governor Meyer to work out a reciprocity agreement. In the meantime, Philadelphians can fight back by maxing out tax-deferred contributions to a Traditional 401(k) and/or HSA.