My Policies, Ideas, and Stuff

Stopping Grocery Price Inflation

For the past few years, grocery prices have just kept on climbing. Increases in food prices have caused a lot of financial pressure for people, especially families with children. But we still need to eat. It’s not like we can just cut back on the amount of groceries we buy. That’s why we have to find ways to help people save money. My plan to fight Grocery Price inflation would include:

Banning these crazy tariffs. State Legislatures and other government figures should be using their platforms to relentlessly pressure Congress to ban the president from putting tariffs onto food and other agricultural products such as fertilizers. Food at the grocery store would be cheaper right now, if not for these stupid, half-baked tariffs that we’ve been dealing with for over a year now.
Banning corporations from doing “Surveillance Pricing”. That’s an emerging new practice where stores will track and profile you, then use your data to charge each customer different prices for the same product. This is relatively simple to do with online stores, but with technology like surveillance cameras and digital price tags, it can be done in physical stores as well. The states (especially Michigan) must nip this unfair practice in the bud. It is unacceptable.
Making more necessities Sales-Tax-Exempt. We charge sales tax on too many essential goods. Let’s remove the sales tax on things like Paper Towels, Hand Soap, Cookware, Dishes, Laundry Detergent, Shampoo, Toothpaste, Deodorant, Toilet Paper, Diapers, and possibly other necessary items. This brings me neatly into my broader tax proposal.

My Tax Plan

I want to create multiple new sales tax holidays to help ease the financial burden of everyday life. During these annual tax holiday periods, Michigan’s 6% sales tax would be waived for virtually every item. These tax holidays would include:

Back-to-School Weekend: The weekend before most K-12 schools start to reduce the financial impact of buying new clothes and school supplies.
Christmas Shopping Weekend: One weekend in December to give people the opportunity to save more when buying Christmas presents and other items.
Patriot Week: A full week during the 4th of July to give Michiganders a break as we celebrate our country’s founding.

Additionally, I would like our state to give out birthday present tax vouchers to parents (a total of 2 vouchers per child per year), which can be used at any point during the year to waive the sales tax on the purchase of a birthday present for their child turning ages 1-18.

Besides tax holidays, there are other sales tax reforms that should also be implemented. Some products should be exempt from sales tax at all points during the year, including:

Fire Safety Products- There’s always this big debate about what counts as a “Human Right”. “Is this a human right? Is that a human right? Is healthcare a human right? Is oxygen a human right?” I think we can all agree on one thing. Not dying in a house fire IS a human right. Therefore, it’s ridiculous that you have to pay a sales tax on items like smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, tools used to keep people from suffering terrible deaths. I like my bacon extra crispy, but my friends don’t need to be. So let’s remove the sales tax from things that protect people from fires and other home hazards: Smoke Detectors, Fire Extinguishers, Carbon Monoxide Detectors, etc.

Deodorant and Toothpaste- Some people don’t seem to know these items exist. I’m hoping this tax exemption will encourage those people to start using these products more regularly.

Coffee- I want to remove the sales tax from coffee beverages purchased before 9AM on weekdays. We all know people who can’t survive without that daily dose of caffeine. I naturally have a lot of energy in the morning, and I don’t want to have to work with sleepy people who didn’t get to drink coffee because it was a bit too expensive, and I know they feel the same way about having to work with an energetic person like me.

But how do we pay for that?

When I talk about cutting the sales tax, some people get a little nervous. They fear that decreased sales tax revenue will mean the state has to cut important services. But there are ways we can reduce the tax burden AND keep our services. The answer is efficiency (I mean REAL efficiency, I’m not talking about that idiotic Elon Musk-style “burn-it-all-down” approach) But it’s important to ensure that the state of Michigan is using its residents tax dollars as efficiently as possible. That’s why I support the creation of a bipartisan committee made up of competent people that will find ways to eliminate fiscal waste and make Michigan’s state spending more efficient. Once we have started saving money, the extra cash must either be used for important state programs, or given back to the people in the form of tax system changes.

Fixing Our Schools

The amount of technology in our nations schools has gotten out of hand in recent years. Smartphones, social media, and AI chatbots have become distractions that inhibit learning. Before High School, the only time that phones should be out during school hours is in emergency situations. (There may also be other rare exceptions for health monitoring or disability accommodations)

We need stringent, mandatory rules to heavily restrict the use of smartphones and AI in schools, and strong enforcement of those rules. This will help create an environment that is much more conducive for students learning than it is currently.

The bills that Governor Whitmer recently signed to address this issue are too weak to actually solve the problem. They allow for exceptions to for “academic use” of smartphones. I went to a school that allowed us to use phones for academic purposes. Did we, the student body, solely use our phones for learning? Or did we abuse the privilege? Well, I was one of the “well-behaved” students, and I was on Instagram or other non-educational apps quite often while at school. These academic carve outs are well intentioned, but I believe they will end up defanging these new laws, and leaving the “better future” looking quite a lot like the “sad mediocre present”.

Another aspect of fixing the schools is making sure that teachers have the resources they need to successfully teach students the things they need to know. For far too long, school teachers have been using their hard earned income to buy necessary supplies for their classrooms. Our teachers are already underpaid, and they work hard every day to educate our state’s children. Let’s start showing more support for our teachers. We should give them a classroom stipend of up to $1000, so they don’t have to pay for supplies out of their own pockets, and can keep more of what they earn.

Free School Breakfast and Lunch

I am 100% supportive of Michigan’s Free School Breakfast and Lunch Program! Children cannot learn or grow properly if they are hungry. This is pretty simple. I don’t understand why this would be controversial, but I guess it is to some people.

Healthcare

First off, I strongly support the new Rx Kids program.
Rx Kids is a program that provides financial support to parents during pregnancy and the first few months of the babies life. Its purpose is to help make new families less poor, and to lead to better health outcomes for both the mom and the baby. But right now it’s not available in our area, which is very sad. It’s a $4500-7500 benefit that parents in our area are not receiving yet. I want to help bring Rx Kids to Ottawa and Allegan counties.

Secondly, we need to find ways to make healthcare cheaper and more accessible for people in Michigan. We MUST protect our rural hospitals! We cannot allow them to close. There are so many people who rely on them for care. If they close, many more people will die from not being able to get the care they need during an emergency.

Additionally, Governor Whitmer has recently started to erase medical debt for a whole lot of people. On some things, I’ve been disappointed with Whitmer recently, but I must admit that this is wonderful. Whoever is elected governor in 2027 should continue doing this.

Energy Costs- Fighting Against AI Data Centers

Al data centers require an enormous amount of energy, this huge increase in demand causes electricity prices to spike. These multi-billion dollar companies can afford these prices. You, however, cannot afford them. Nevertheless, you end up paying higher electric bills.

If I’m elected to the state senate, I will fight against the effort to bring data centers to Michigan. We don’t need them here.

Some politicians think it would be best to take a largely hands off approach to regulating Al companies. Others believe we can mitigate the downsides through regulation. Maybe that latter group is right, but I don’t think we should take that risk.

I don’t trust that these big Al companies will be especially concerned about the impacts on our health and wallets. They have billions of dollars and world class legal resources at their fingertips. I fear they will illegally harm our communities and get away with it. I will fight against these Al companies and their attempts to put data centers in Michigan, especially in West Michigan communities.

I will work to pass the SLOP act in the senate.

SLOP stands for

S- Stop

L- Letting Al Companies

O- Obliterate Our Financial

P- Prosperity

The SLOP Act will ban new data centers in Michigan until the economic and environmental consequences have been COMPLETELY 100% eliminated.

Fighting Crime

It seems like every time I turn on the news, there’s been more crime happening in West Michigan. People are being robbed, assaulted, shot, stabbed, etc. Crime was even worse a few years ago, but even today, there is still so much of it. It’s crazy!

Enough is enough! We need to be strong on public safety issues in order to combat crime.

Municipalities need to be given enough funding to hire more police officers, so that communities have the resources they need to deal with crime.

It is also essential that the police have a good relationship with the communities they work in. Officers and community members should know each other by name. That kind of thing is so important for minimizing the number of cases where: A) Officers use excessive force against community members, or B) People commit acts of violence against police officers. Communities should be incentivized to create programs that foster better relationships between police officers and individuals in the community.

My Values

A good and competent political system can’t solve every problem, but it can do a lot to help. Here are some things that I want, that I hope I can make a difference on, if I become part of the government.

I want groceries to be affordable.

I want gas to be affordable.

I want home energy to be affordable.

I want medicine to be affordable.

I want young families to be able to put down roots and buy a home before arthritis kicks in.

I don’t want people to worry about being shot or stabbed in the street.

I don’t want parents to worry that their children will be hurt, kidnapped, or trafficked by criminals.

I don’t want people to be injured or killed by drunk or distracted drivers.

I want kids to go to school and learn. To get a break from the anxious, high stress world of Social Media.

I want kids to have teachers that are passionate about education, and really care about their students.

When kids are done with high school, they should know how to read critically, write persuasively, solve complex math problems, have a depth of knowledge about U.S. and World History, and remember that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.