My Taxpayer Protection Pledge

Like most people around here, my folks and I have spent our lives working for a paycheck. My dad was a garbageman. My mom was a meter reader. My 10 siblings and I had a church community, strong public schools, and programs like SNAP and Medicaid to help fill gaps when we needed it. Now my wife and I are raising our four boys on the salary of a public school teacher and a paraprofessional.

We learned early that every dollar matters. And we remember it every day with how expensive life is.

That’s why it drives me crazy to watch politicians in Washington treat taxpayers like an ATM.

Because at the end of the day, the government doesn’t have its own money. It has our money. The money a nurse, farmer, teacher, truck driver, mechanic, or small business owner works hard to bring home every week.

When the government wastes money, that’s our money being wasted. When fraudsters steal from government programs, that’s our money being stolen. When politicians cut essential programs to hand out favors to special interests, run up trillions in debt, and start wars that never seem to end, it’s you and I who foot the bill.

Washington has forgotten a simple principle: taxpayer money comes from the taxpayers.

Neither party has done a good job living up to that principle recently. But in the election for Congress in southern Minnesota, the contrast couldn’t be clearer. Congressman Brad Finstad voted for a bill that gave massive tax breaks to the wealthy, cut healthcare and food assistance here in southern Minnesota, and added more than $4 trillion to the national debt.

It’s time that we make the math add up in Washington again.

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Get the Fraud Money Back

When someone steals taxpayer dollars, that isn’t just a crime against the government. It’s money that working people paid in taxes being stolen by criminals.

So the right recourse here isn’t just to recover the money back to the government. It should be to get the money back to the people it was stolen from in the first place. That means requiring a set of spending cuts and tax cuts so that our fellow Minnesotans get their money back, and so that the government is forced to pay up and learn a lesson so they have a strong incentive to stop it from happening again.

More broadly, we have to stop treating these crimes lightly. Anyone who breaks the law related to defrauding government programs should be required to serve mandatory prison time. And we need to bring back the independent watchdogs. That’s why I support restoring the Inspectors General who were fired last year. I would also use my power as a member of Congress to conduct strong oversight across the government, regardless of which party is running the executive branch.

Stop the Runaway National Debt

The national debt is over $39 trillion. Today, America spends nearly $1 trillion every year just paying interest on the national debt, which is more than we pay on our entire national defense. And all of this excess spending also makes things more expensive here in southern Minnesota, driving up the cost of everything from grocery bills to mortgage rates.

I’ve taught math for 20 years. If one of my students did math like our politicians do with the budget, they definitely wouldn’t pass my class.

We need leaders willing to make hard choices. That means reducing reckless spending, raising real revenue, and forcing politicians to confront the problem instead of kicking the can down the road. I don’t think balancing the budget will be easy, but I think it’s time that we force our elected leaders to get it done.

That’s why I will support a balanced budget amendment and I will vote against raising the debt ceiling when the budget isn’t balanced (with narrow exceptions for truly extraordinary circumstances like a congressionally-approved war or a deep recession). And I will work tirelessly to balance the budget without cutting the vital programs that help working families get ahead, because we should not balance the budget on the backs of our seniors, veterans, patients, or children.

We also need a serious review of how the federal government operates in general. DOGE was right to say that the government is inefficient, but putting Elon Musk in charge of that effort doomed it to failure, and DOGE Caucus members like Brad Finstad didn’t do enough to steer the effort in the right direction. That effort generated all sorts of chaos that caused a lot of harm and didn’t actually make a real dent in spending at all. What we need is an effort much more like the Hoover Commission, which was a serious and successful endeavor in its time to eliminate duplication, modernize government, and reduce waste and spending.

For example, we desperately need to modernize the federal government’s outdated technology. Too many agencies are still relying on old, inefficient systems that waste time and taxpayer money. Updating those systems would reduce costs, prevent fraud, and make government work better for the people it serves. That’s just one of the many things we could do to make the government more efficient if we were serious about making smart, long-term efforts.

Make the Tax Code Fair

If we’re going to balance the budget, everyone has to do their part. But right now, you and I are paying more so billionaires and big corporations can pay less. Big corporations like Tesla paid $0 in federal income taxes last year by exploiting loopholes. I think that’s ridiculous.

Brad Finstad voted for tax giveaways for billionaires and big corporations. I’ll work to undo those giveaways, close loopholes that reward American companies for outsourcing jobs and hiding their profits overseas, and end the carried interest loophole that lets billionaire hedge fund managers dodge paying the taxes the rest of us pay.

If a teacher, farmer, nurse, or mechanic has to pay their fair share, billionaires and big corporations should too.

Stop Politicians From Getting Rich on Our Dime

Too many politicians treat public office like a career instead of public service. And that means they are profiting based on the trust we put in them, rather than making decisions that truly serve the public interest.

Elected officials and their spouses shouldn’t be allowed to trade or own individual stocks while in office. And they shouldn’t be allowed to bet on elections or other political events through prediction markets. Public officials should be making decisions based on what’s right for the country, not what will make them money

If the government shuts down, members of Congress shouldn’t get paid. It’s absolutely unacceptable that politicians got paid but TSA workers didn’t during the long government shutdown last year.

Also while we’re at it, it’s time to ban politicians from using taxpayer dollars to fly first class. It’s crazy that it isn’t already prohibited.

Prevent Corporations From Buying Politicians

Too many politicians spend more time listening to donors than voters. That’s how we end up with special tax breaks, loopholes, and policies that help favored interests instead of taxpayers.

I don’t take corporate PAC money and I never will. I’m proud to have earned an A from the nonpartisan Political Integrity Index for how clean our campaign is, while my opponent received an F.

I support overturning Citizens United and reducing the influence of big money in politics, whether that’s through a constitutional amendment or through promising new efforts like the Montana Plan.

And politicians shouldn’t be allowed to profit off their public service by becoming lobbyists or foreign agents. They should serve the public and then return to working a real job, not selling their connections to the highest bidder. That’s why I support banning elected officials from ever becoming lobbyists or foreign agents.

Make Representatives Actually Represent Us

The best protection taxpayers have is elected officials who stay connected to the people they serve.

That’s one reason I support term limits. Brad Finstad does not.

I also believe that representatives should be required to hold at least one in-person town hall per term. But I’ve never been a bare minimum kind of guy. That’s why I’ve committed to holding an in-person town hall in every one of the 21 counties in southern Minnesota before the election, and then do it again every term if I’m elected. Meanwhile, Finstad has NEVER held an in-person town hall.

I don’t know how you can represent people if you’re not willing to meet with them, hear their concerns, and answer their questions. If you aren’t doing those things, it can only mean you aren’t actually representing people.

Good representation also means following the same campaign finance laws as everyone else. The FEC should be required to investigate violations promptly and impose penalties strong enough to actually deter politicians and special interests from breaking the law.

Stop Spending on Giveaways and Wars

Finally, taxpayer money should be spent on public priorities, not political priorities.

Federal grants and contracts should be awarded based on merit and performance, not politics or favoritism. Congress should reform contracting rules so projects cost less, move faster, and stop rewarding political allies.

A similar principle applies to foreign policy. American taxpayers also shouldn’t be forced to bail out foreign countries like Argentina while families here at home are struggling to pay their own bills. Our tax dollars should be used to address our priorities, not rescue foreign governments from the consequences of their own decisions. If our government has enough spare money to bail out other countries, that just means we’re giving the government too much money.

And one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money today is endless wars that don’t make us safer, that Congress never authorized, and that the American people don’t want.

It’s time to stop the Iran War, stop putting our service members in harm’s way, and bring gas and diesel costs down at home.

The Bottom Line

Every proposal in this pledge comes back to one simple idea: Taxpayer money belongs to taxpayers.

That means collecting it fairly, spending it responsibly, and protecting it from fraud and misuse. It means making sure politicians and special interests don’t profit from it, and that our elected officials stay connected to the people to know where investments actually need to be made.

The people I grew up around didn’t expect the government to be perfect. But they did expect the people in government to treat their hard-earned tax dollars with respect.

If you sit down at the kitchen table trying to make the bills add up, you expect the leaders you elect to show the same discipline.

That shouldn’t be a Republican idea or a Democratic idea.

It’s common sense. And it’s exactly how I’ll approach this job.

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