The United States of America ascended from thirteen colonies to become the most powerful country in the world thanks to the countless sacrifices of workers and the ingenuity of small business operators. Sadly, over the last century, as multinational corporations weaponized their wealth to commandeer our government and bribe policymakers, they reversed the fortunes of employees and entrepreneurs alike as they bankrupted mom and pop shops and indentured labor in the process.
If we are to restore fairness in our country and ensure equality of opportunity for all Americans, we must do so by reclaiming our sovereignty from the mega-corporations and rebuilding our communities by empowering small businesses that provide goods and services in the regions where they actually live. That means no more preferential treatment to Wall Street and giveaways to the “publicly owned corporations” CEO class, we must instead give a break to the Main Street and the vast majority of Americans who are struggling to keep up with their rents or mortgages.
While we are at it, let us put to rest the idea that multinational corporations are a boon to America. The opposite is true; huge conglomerations like Amazon, Walmart and Monsanto are job killers and community destroyers. Like the Grim Reaper, the minute they touch foot in a town or a city, they engage malicious forms of price-fixing with the intention of driving out their competition. Once countless small businesses and mom-and-pop stores shutter their doors, they then turn around and jack up their prices while concurrently driving down wages for their workers.
This is why the wealth gap has widened into a chasm and why all sorts of social ills like skyrocketing depression, alarming levels of suicides and mounting crime rates are turning the American dream into an unattainable goal for more and more people. The only way out of this death spiral that we are in as a country is to roll back our dependency on “publicly-traded” corporations and instead reinvest in our communities. We can ensure this outcome by preventing politicians and policymakers from being the enforcers of Wall Street and getting money out of government so that oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg no longer have the ability to bribe our elected leaders.
If we want to restore America’s blessings, it is time to stop sacrificing workers and small businesses at the altar of the global oligarchy. #Fikre4VA
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More importantly, we can encourage entrepreneurship and guarantee workers a livable wage with the decisions that we make as consumers. Our choice is simple: we can either shop locally or we can be indentured globally. Our unhealthy addiction to convenience and saving a few cents comes with a tremendous cost, every dollar that we spend at corporations is dollar that is taken out of our community. We are better off driving a mile or two and paying a few more bucks to patronize small business owners who live in our neighborhoods because doing the opposite is turning communities across America into economic ghost towns and victims of globalization.
It is with this aim of reviving small businesses, removing barriers to entry and reestablishing the rights of workers that I am running for Congress. Over the past two weeks, I have had the honor of meeting small business owners and employees like Mr. Rice from All American Barbers, Amanda from Ridgetop Café, Deriba from Ghion Financial, Julio a street vendor, Ramsey from Three Whistles Cafe and Thanh Tran from Team DM, though their backgrounds are as diverse as they come, they have two things in common: the unbelievable to succeed and the determination to give back to their community.
Over the coming days and weeks, I will be announcing new proposals that are aimed at empowering small business owners and unburdening Americans. Shortly, I will be unveiling a central plank of my campaign that is focused on this front. Titled PayCan, it’s an innovative way of rebalancing the tax codes so that billionaires pay their fair share while giving the vast majority of Americans who have been levied excessively for far too long to finally catch a break.
That announcement will be made Thursday, in the meantime, if you agree with my proposals and believe in the message of inclusive justice that transcends our differences I’m running on, I challenge you to be a part our campaign by subscribing to our mailing list and joining an authentically grassroots movement. If you are a small business owner or an aspiring entrepreneur, we would love to feature you on our We Built U.S. page, either email us at [email protected] or post your picture on Instagram or Twitter using #Fikre4Congress #Fikre4VA or both. It’s our moment, let us Heal America Together.