Here is my speech to the Palm Coast Democrats at their monthly meeting on January 9, 2020. This is my first public speech on the campaign trail. 🙂

See also on Instagram: Part 1, Part 2

Transcript with Minor Improvements

The 6th district has Michael Waltz as an incumbent. We know last time Nancy Soderberg ran but there’s really nobody running this time. I’m running. I just graduated from UCF. I’m a teacher educator. I just finished my Ph.D. in Education last month. Here’s my wife Kristy and my son Ricky. I’m not politically active in the past, but as I was working at UCF I studied what future teachers know about personal finance and it’s not a whole lot.

Right now, we’re having this Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. It’s the greatest robbery in the history of our country. The corporations are just robbing us blind. I’m probably the only candidate who is running with one of my items being to expand the IRS, because if you look, they have fewer and fewer people; they’ve got more and more to do. If they go after someone wealthy or a corporation, they can’t do anything. The wealthy corporations have armies of attorneys and advanced auditors, and the IRS just doesn’t have the manpower, so they end up spending their time going after low income people, minorities, who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit in a way that may or may not be appropriate. This is not where they should focus.

Also, to me the climate crisis is very important. I don’t know if you remember, but a few months ago we had a Category 5 hurricane [Hurricane Dorian] sitting right off the coast of Florida and we were very lucky, and I know the people of the Bahamas were very unfortunate. But, that’s going to happen again, and there will be people who think we can never get hit by a hurricane who are going to get hit. Look what happened in the panhandle [Hurricane Michael]. The building codes there weren’t even designed for that sort of disaster. And so it’s getting worse and worse and worse, and all you’re seeing from Republicans and the Labor Party in Australia: NOTHING. They’re in bed with the coal companies; they’re in bed with everyone who is profiting and not paying for the damage they’re causing. You wouldn’t have someone just come, let’s say, everyone just come to your yard and dump all the garbage they want for free. How’s that going to work for my son? How’s that going to work for disadvantaged people? It’s not.

So please come out and vote on August 18th or early voting, and November 3rd or early voting, and I’ll also be supporting whoever our nominee is for President of the United States. Florida is CRITICAL. Florida is it. You wouldn’t have Trump putting his campaign kick-off event here. He just had his “homecoming” party because he is now domiciled in Florida instead of New York. If he loses Florida, he loses the election. Thank you.