Affordability
Affordability
Inflation has far outstripped salaries over just the past few years, not to mention the past several decades. Jobs that used to allow a family to live comfortably now can’t even keep a single person living above the poverty level.
One in five children live at or below the poverty level in Texas.
Donald Trump called “affordability” a “hoax” and a “con job.” Despite what he may believe, Americans are not stupid. I may not be a math wizard, but I can do basic arithmetic like comparing prices from year to year, and I can see that our paychecks don’t cover basic necessities like housing, food, doctor’s appointments, and childcare.
According to Texas 2036, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research organization, “since 2019, median home prices have risen 40%, far outstripping income growth… [and] Texas needs an estimated 320,000 additional units to meet current demand.”
We don’t have to just sit and take this. As your representative, I will do the following:
Housing: restore funding to federal housing programs and get rid of the tariffs on construction materials, thereby making new housing more affordable
Food: reverse Trump’s funding cuts to programs like SNAP and expand access to more people; reduce tariffs on food and agricultural equipment (while still maintaining preference for food grown by American farmers); and restore funding to local programs designed to assist community members with food access, including providing enough funds for free lunch for schoolchildren
Childcare: Fully fund federal programs like the Child Care and Development Fund and Head Start/Early Head Start
Taxpayer money should be spent on things that make life better for us, not on things like ICE goon squads that kidnap people off the street or manufactured wars in Venezuela and Central America.