Republicans have always been the party of affordability. We are focused on tax relieve by cutting spending; reducing energy costs by recommissioning IPEC, "Drill, baby, drill!", and cutting administrative costs and eliminating unnecessary regulation to encourage market forces to build housing and an improved health care system.

But we aspire to more than "affordability". Never forget, we are the party of prosperity. We are the party of American Exceptionalism and the American Dream.

Our ideas and our lives stand in stark contrast to the progressive, socialist, and communist ideologies of deprivation, division, and despair. We stand fast at the threshold between poverty and prosperity; between politics and leadership. Our choices and our actions are all that remain between a generation surrendering personal excellence and community values to DEI demands for their conformity to government quotas.

This cauldron has been brewing for generations. In March 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy told us that being proud to be an American is more than materialism and limiting our efforts and focus to just affordability.

Warning against materialism, RFK's words ring true as affordability also "does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our families, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials." All things that we Republicans have long championed.

"It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country." How true.

"It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. It tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

- RFK, 1968, Remarks to the University of Kansas

Rates must ultimately be determined by the market: the natural supply of savings and demand for credit.

The Federal Reserve's attempt to micro-manage the economy is fundamentally flawed. As Friedrich Hayek famously argued, no centralized committee can ever possess the vast, decentralized knowledge of millions of individual participants in a free market.

Centralized manipulation of the money supply disrupts natural economic signals, leading to inflation and artificial boom-and-bust cycles. The Fed's discretionary fine-tuning almost always backfires due to unpredictable economic lags.

Furthermore, the concept of a "non-political" and "independent" Federal Reserve is a dangerous myth that shields unelected bureaucrats from public accountability. History proves that monetary policy is inherently political and deeply impacts every American taxpayer.

To restore accountability, the Fed should be stripped of its unilateral decision-making power and relegated to an advisory role, submitting its economic reports and recommendations directly to the Secretary of the Treasury.

Ultimate policy decisions must rest with an accountable, Senate-confirmed Cabinet official, forcing transparency and ending the shadow governance of central bankers.

We must replace erratic bureaucratic choices with a strict, predictable rule-based system modeled after Milton Friedman's advocacy for steady, automated guidelines to ensure long-term price stability.

We'd all be better off if markets not bureaucrats set interest rates.

Not surprisingly then, the root cause of America's economic pain is not the deficit, it's not inflation, and it's not unemployment. These are merely symptoms of a bloated beyond belief federal budget and mind-boggling spending, waste, fraud, abuse.

As Milton Friedman famously argued, the true economic burden on taxpayers is the absolute level of government spending, which misallocates resources and stifles private sector growth.

The solution is as simple as it appears unattainable - an across-the-board 10% reduction in federal spending, forcing bureaucratic agencies to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse, and redundancy to shrink their unconstitutional overreach.

We do not need outside advisory panels or entities like the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to tell federal departments where to cut their budgets. Every single agency and department is directly responsible for cutting their budgets by 10%.

And so much of the government spending is wasted. Current budget figures show that only about 30 cents of every tax dollar goes to helping those whom it is intended to help. We lose 70% of our tax dollars! This is in no way sustainable or desirable. It becomes an even greater problem with each additional dollar taxed and spent by the federal government.

By the time Washington taxes productive citizens, funnels that money through massive federal bureaucracies, and redistributes it, a significant portion of that capital is lost to administrative waste, systemic fraud, and economic distortions.

Every dollar spent by an unaccountable bureaucrat in Washington is a dollar stolen from the families and small businesses of Westchester and the Bronx. One simple campaign promise: go to Washington to cut the budget by 10%. Hold me to it.

Relying on out-of-state power and unstable grids has sent energy bills soaring for families in Westchester and the Bronx. Recommissioning Indian Point with safe, next-generation nuclear technology will deliver clean, sustainable, and truly affordable baseload power directly to our community while creating thousands of high-paying local union jobs.

SMRs are the future of nuclear energy, featuring advanced, passive safety systems, require a fraction of the footprint, and can be constructed efficiently to scale with our grid's demands.

The second part of the Republican policy is "Drill, baby, drill!" Tapping into the massive Marcellus Shale formation would exponentially increase NY's domestic energy supply, dramatically lowering delivery fees and slashing home heating and electric bills.

New York currently imports a vast majority of its natural gas from states like Pennsylvania. Drilling locally would make the state entirely energy sufficient and shield consumers from external supply shocks.

This ambitious energy transition will serve as a massive economic engine for our state. Constructing, operating, and maintaining an SMR facility generates thousands of stable, high-paying union jobs, keeping local labor at the forefront of the clean energy economy and investing directly into our workforce.

Likewise, reopening NY to natural gas extraction would inject billions of dollars into upstate economies with thousands of high-paying jobs.

NY-16 sits at the epicenter of this energy crisis. We bear the dual burden of skyrocketing electricity bills and a strained electrical grid. By recommissioning Indian Point and backing Bruce Blakeman's pledge to "Drill, baby, drill!", we will lower the cost of living, clean our air, and secure robust, long-term employment opportunities for union families right here in Westchester and the Bronx.

The federal government has no business taxing workers who are fighting to achieve basic financial security. We will extend the federal income tax withholding exemption to cover all income up to the federal poverty line. This immediate, targeted tax relief ensures that low-wage earners keep more of their hard-earned paychecks to combat the rising cost of living, bypassing Washington's inefficient and bloated "leaky bucket" of bureaucracy.

For decades, high school students have been fed the false narrative that an expensive, four-year university degree is the only path to success. The reality is a trillion-dollar student debt crisis and degrees that do not translate to jobs. We will aggressively promote joining a trade union as a superior, highly lucrative alternative to college.

Entering an apprenticeship allows young Americans to earn while they learn, entering the workforce debt-free in critical, high-demand industries.

I will advocate for local economic development like recommissioning the Indian Point Energy Center and support our Republican candidate for Governor Bruce Blakeman call to "Drill, baby, drill!". These massive projects will put thousands of local union members to work in Westchester and the Bronx, securing long-term, high-paying jobs that anchor families in our community.

The working-class families of Westchester and the Bronx are tired of watching their paychecks eroded by federal spending, high taxes, and soaring Con Ed bills. By eliminating income taxes for those at or below the poverty line, clearing a debt-free path into the union trades, and bringing massive energy jobs back to our district, this platform delivers real, tangible prosperity. We are giving NY-16 workers the freedom to build a secure future based on their own hard work, free from the heavy hand of Washington taxes.

I am here to champion the underdog, as I have in my entire legal career, and get back to my roots, so to speak. I can advocate on behalf of labor to get its fair share in an extremely competitive and cutthroat environment, with the odds stacked very much against us.

I have policies that incentivize work, lowers taxes (especially on the low-end of the wage scale), as well as for developing education, training (and re-training) programs to help union members adapt when their skills become obsolete due to automation or new technology. My policies make joining a union a better opportunity with more options for graduating students than going to a college that increasingly fails to meet expectations across the board and that costs far, far too much.

I support large infrastructure projects like recommissioning Indian Point to build small modular nuclear reactors and committing to the Republican call to, "Drill, baby, drill!", projects that will bring billions of dollars in high-paying union jobs.

Unions and the American workforce must see technology as a friend, as an opportunity to develop members with the skills and habits that are indispensable to employers, entrepreneurs, and to governments at all levels, local, state, and federal.

The Unions' mission is to grow and develop its membership into something America cannot do without. That is the pride in knowing that the "Union Label" is still the gold standard for the American Worker and, indeed, the world.

For the last ten years, while the Washington establishment played checkers, Trump was setting a sophisticated chess board for a long-term success. The media told you a conflict with Iran would lead to endless chaos. But the reality is that this conflict was strategically won a decade ago when Donald Trump laid the groundwork. He didn't just look at the next news cycle. He looked at the next decade, and dare I say, the next generation.

In 2016 Trump went to work repairing and maximizing our relationships with vital Middle Eastern allies like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Egypt. The Biden administration degraded and fractured those crucial relationships, leaving our posture weakened.

But upon returning to office in 2024, Trump immediately repaired the damage, locked in a unified regional front that isolated our adversaries. Our military executed strikes that destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities in the summer of 2025, a decisive action didn't create a wider war - it prevented one. It stripped a hostile dictatorship of its ultimate leverage, to nuke America and Isreal.

Trump's foreign policy strategy included neutralizing the hostile, socialist regimes in our backyard - Venezuela, Cuba, and the drug cartels - paving the way for a historic Western Hemisphere peace agreement in 2025.

At a time when global rival Russia is strategically checked and engaged in Ukraine and China is bogged down with internal political and economic struggles, Trump is dictating the terms of global security from a position of strength.

Real leadership doesn't entangle us in endless, un-winnable nation-building, the quagmire Democrats seem to be rooting for right now. Rather, Trump's far-sighted leadership is eliminating threats before they ever reach our shores.

Take a step back in comfort and safety, and with deep gratitude, to admire the work of a master geopolitical strategist.

This profound insight completely rejects modern identity politics, which falsely claims that individuals are inherently guilty, racist, or incapable of empathy based on the color of their skin, religion, or country of origin. National unity and racial harmony are not achieved by reducing individuals to immutable categories or by weaponizing identity for political, economic, or social advantage.

The organically diverse communities of Westchester and the Bronx are constantly bombarded by malignant political forces keeping us divided. It is the race-baiters and hate-mongers that profit from perpetuating the myth that America, our America, is inherently racist.

Take a step back and observe who loses if racism were to magically disappear tomorrow. Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Cory Booker, Maximillian Robspierre Mamdani, and of course the man who wrote the "how to" book on the means and methods of racial extortion, none other than the Reverand Al Sharpton (remember Tawanna Brawley and the hoax rape case, "no one ma-nips-a-nates me"). They would all be out of business and out of politics if racism ended tomorrow.

Instead, racist hate-mongers profit from violent ideas peddled as "academic research" or "news". It is revolting. This aggression must not be allowed to stand.

Defending against divisive narratives requires a proactive commitment to listening and learning from one another. Du Bois's vision of mutual understanding, emphasizes that our problems like affordability, failing schools, and dangerous streets are community problems that require unified, colorblind solutions if we are to truly honor American's cultural melting-pot.

The Souls of Black Folk should be our national gospel. It is mine.

We must reject violent, divisive, and racist rhetoric to focus on solutions for every American and every New Yorker.

Randolph declared that the gathering was not a mob, but the advanced guard of a massive moral revolution. Today, we must preserve that profound moral revolution against the race-baiters and hate-mongers who seek to dismantle it for political and financial profit.

Modern identity politics and progressive left ideologies falsely claim that Americans are inherently guilty, racist, or incapable of empathy based on their skin color. Figures like Nikole Hannah-Jones, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Cory Booker, Max Tax Mamdani, and Al Sharpton all profit by perpetuating the myth that America is fundamentally broken, evil, racist, and oppressive to minorities.

Dr. King's moral leadership stands diametrically opposed to these figures, whose path of racial division is entirely out of step with America's true founding principles.

Fortunately, prominent national intellectuals and leaders continue to fiercely defend Dr. King's Dream today. Thought leaders associated with the Woodson Center and the Hoover Institution, including figures like Thomas Sowell, the late Robert Woodson, Shelby Steele, and NY-16th's own, Ian Rowe, champion principles of family, faith, education, and entrepreneurship over group-based identity.

They stand as powerful, contemporary proof that the solution to historical injustice is equal opportunity not the Orwellian fabricated mandate of "equity", which is nothing more than the government ordering its own preferred outcomes.

The organically diverse communities of Westchester and the Bronx are constantly bombarded by malignant political forces that seek to keep us divided for their own gain.

If we are to overcome the toxic ideologies of the left, then we must follow Dr. King's words as our moral leader and demand that we judge each other not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.

Amen.