Boris Kabel Velasquez

Civil Rights

I support a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to vote. It is a national disgrace that the United States Constitution does not explicitly guarantee this right. Every restriction, every purge, every gerrymandered map exists in the gap between what we say we believe and what we have actually written into law. It is time to close that gap permanently. I support making Election Day a federal holiday. If this country can shut down for the Fourth of July, it can shut down for the act that gives the Fourth of July its meaning. Learn more

Education

I support universal childcare, because no parent should have to choose between earning a living and raising their children, and no child's early development should depend on whether their family can afford care that costs more than college tuition in most states. The care economy makes all other work possible. It is time we funded it like we mean it. Learn more

Vocational schools and trade programs are schools just the same other colleges and universities, and deserve equal standing and equal funding. Electricians, welders, pipefitters, machinists, and healthcare workers who keep this country running deserve training pipelines that are fully funded, debt-free, and treated with the same respect as any other school. This distinction of schools of a vocational or trade school vs other schools is but another tool of the oligarchy to create a separation to keep us from uniting as one group. Learn more

I support universal higher education at public colleges, universities, and vocational schools. The GI Bill funded my education. It also built the American middle class. When this country decided that every returning veteran deserved a college education, it did not destroy the economy. It created the greatest expansion of prosperity in human history. The only question is whether we believe the children of working families deserve the same investment this country once made in its veterans. I believe they do. Learn more

Healthcare

I support universal healthcare moving toward single payer. The United States spends more per capita on healthcare than any nation on earth and delivers worse outcomes than dozens of countries that guarantee coverage to every citizen. This is not a mystery. It is the predictable result of a system designed to generate profit rather than health. Every other industrialized democracy has solved this. We are not incapable. We are not ignorant. We are captured. Learn more

Taxes / Budget

I support a progressive corporate tax reaching 80 percent on profits over one billion dollars. Before anyone calls this radical, let me be clear: the United States had a progressive corporate tax structure for 81 years, from 1936 to 2017. What was radical was abolishing it and handing the largest corporations in history a flat rate lower than what a family-owned machine shop pays in effective terms. Learn more

I support a 90 percent individual income tax rate on income over four million dollars per year. Learn more

I support taxing capital gains as ordinary income, because the preferential capital gains rate is the single largest mechanism by which the wealthiest Americans pay lower effective rates than the workers who earn wages. Learn more

Wages / Job Benefits

I support a four-day work week. Productivity does not require five days. Every serious study of reduced work weeks has shown the same result: output remains constant or increases, worker health improves, and turnover drops. The five-day work week was a victory won by organized labor a century ago. It is time for the next victory. Learn more

I support a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to organize. Not a statute that can be gutted by the next Congress or struck down by a captured court. A constitutional right, because the ability of working people to bargain collectively is as fundamental to a functioning republic as the right to speak, to assemble, or to vote. Learn more

I support mandatory collective bargaining rights for every defense contractor employee at or above the Cost Accounting Standards threshold. The workers who build the weapons that defend this nation should not be denied the right to bargain for fair wages and safe conditions by the very corporations that profit from their labor. National security begins with the people who do the work. Learn more

Support defending the independence of the NLRB as a national security imperative. Learn more