While everyone in Washington has been talking about high prices, we’ve only seen them go in one direction: up. President Trump promised us lower costs and more jobs.  Meanwhile, Michigan families are paying $2,000 a year more for basic goods, the price of a new car is projected to go up $6,000, and 11,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in July. 

In Washington, Eric will work to:

• Roll back the Trump tariffs on our allies
• Reduce taxes on working families by fully restoring the child tax credit
• Raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation
• Ensure tax credits for companies that are creating jobs right here in the United States
• Crack down on companies that price gouge consumers

We’ve all seen firsthand how fragile our supply chains were during COVID, including how the chips shortage derailed the auto industry, and that is why Eric was proud as the son of a Macomb County autoworker to work at the Commerce Department on the CHIPS and Science Act to help bring cutting-edge computer chip manufacturing back to the United States. Not only will this legislation create more than a hundred thousand American jobs, including thousands in Michigan, but it will also make our domestic auto industry and countless others more resilient and less reliant on chips from China.  Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has paused significant CHIPS funding and played with fire with a reckless approach to tariffs, creating immense uncertainty that has pushed businesses to move investments away from Michigan. In Washington, Eric will work to make sure we have targeted economic policies with the right combination of carrots and sticks to attract investment back home. 

A trade war with...Canada?

Tariffs can be useful tools.  When China simply ignores global trade rules and dumps billions of dollars of goods, frequently using stolen intellectual property, the United States must respond.  On the other hand, when we have an existing trade deal with an ally, we don’t simply ignore it.  Yet that is exactly what President Trump is doing.  Instead of uniting the world against China, he is uniting the world against the United States when it comes to trade.

We cannot use all tariffs all the time.  Sometimes we have to introduce economic carrots that can incentivize the return of industry.

When Eric spoke to the floor manager at an auto plant in the district, he told Eric that they only had six months’ worth of steel left. They don’t know what they’re going to do on month seven: tariffs are too high to purchase more steel and it takes years for new domestic steel plants to get running. Because of Trump’s chaotic tariff policy, factories and job sites all over Michigan and the country are being forced to make tough decisions about whether they can afford the basic supplies that keep them running. Mega-corporations might be able to wait it out, but tariff chaos has many small businesses in for a reckoning.

Early Education

We know that every dollar invested in early education is returned nine times over the course of that student’s life. That is why Eric supports universal Pre-K for all Americans.  These investments ensure that all children have a chance to thrive and compete.

K-12 Education

Eric is a proud public school graduate and licensed teacher who will always stand up for Michigan children. While the federal government’s role in K-12 education is secondary to state and local government, Eric will work to ensure that we fully fund Title I and ensure that no child is denied their future because of the zip code they grew up in. Eric will also work to ensure the federal government fulfills its responsibility to fund special education and restores federal funding for student mental health care.

Post-Secondary Education

Eric's family has lived the American Dream.  But for far too many now, that dream is out of reach.  One critical way we need to make the American Dream more accessible to Michiganders is understanding that college may not be the right path for everyone’s career, and providing the technical training and tools to help those who don’t go to college make a good living.  We need to expand access to technical schools, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs because college shouldn't be the only option to get a good-paying job and provide for your family. 

In Washington, Eric will work to:

• Establish Universal Pre-K
• Fully fund Title I to ensure all children get the education they deserve
• Make two years of community college free so everyone can afford to attend and build the skills they need for good-paying jobs
• Expand Pell Grants

Michigan is blessed with the largest sources of fresh surface water anywhere on Earth, and we all know how much the Great Lakes have given to our state’s beauty, leisure, environment, and economy. 

As a state, we’re also all too familiar with the human cost that the mismanagement of our clean air and clean water can bring in our state, whether that’s toxic pollution pouring out of the tops of factories into our communities or lead-poisoned water in the pipes of our homes. 

Eric believes that the most important part of protecting our environment is protecting our people. As an attorney, Eric fought for clean air and clean water, and brought cases for children sickened by lead-contaminated water. In Congress, Eric will work to prevent mega-corporations from polluting forever chemicals, toxic waste, and other dangerous materials and then leaving it behind without any cleanup, and ensure instead that future generations of Michiganders can grow up healthy and experience the beauty of our state. 

In Washington, Eric will work to:

• Ensure that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the resources to fight for clean air and clean water
• Hold “forever chemical”/per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) polluters accountable
• Fix our tax policy to stop giving preferences to oil and gas companies

Before President Trump was sworn in, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ensured that no one can be denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, that insurance companies couldn’t simply stop paying for medical care once they deemed it too expensive, and that millions of people would be able to afford care.  We should build on the ACA to expand affordable coverage.

Instead, President Trump is working hard to undo that progress, kicking more than 10 million Americans off their coverage and raising prices for millions more.

In Washington, Eric will work to: 

• Undo the damage from Trump’s Medicare and Medicaid cuts
• Restore the tax cuts that help folks afford health insurance on the marketplace
• Expand prescription drug negotiations to cover more drugs and ensure all Americans with health insurance benefit
• Fight back against tariffs that raise medical costs for Americans
• Ensure there is a robust public option to lower healthcare costs by creating competition

Eric's parents fled persecution in communist Vietnam and came to the United States for the reason that millions of other Americans have made the same journey: for the chance at liberty, justice, and the American Dream.  Eric's parents found exactly that here, enabling Eric to live a life and be educated in a way that would not have otherwise been possible.

Eric wants to make sure that every American can still have access to that dream.  Yet for more than 20 years, Washington has failed to achieve comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border and creates a pathway to citizenship to bring millions of otherwise law-abiding people out of the shadows.

In Washington, Eric will work to:

• Finally enact comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border and creates a path to citizenship for otherwise law-abiding people
• Ensure a working E-Verify system, so that employers can have confidence in hiring
• Focus immigration enforcement resources on violent criminals, not otherwise law-abiding citizens

Social Security and Medicare are promises to hard-working Americans who pay into the programs over the course of their lifetimes. In Congress, Eric will work to keep those promises to our workers and seniors.  Unfortunately, tax cuts for the ultra wealthy and other reckless spending in Washington mean that in less than a decade, both programs will no longer be able to pay out full benefits.

In Washington, Eric will work to:

• Protect seniors’ earned benefits from Washington spending
• Ensure that billionaires pay the same payroll tax rate as working families, protecting Social Security for the next generation
• Allow Medicare to negotiate the cost of more drugs to save seniors and taxpayers billions

Our veterans risked their lives for us.  It is our obligation to ensure they are treated fairly.  Yet too often Washington is big on talk and poor on follow-through for our veterans.  Even worse, DOGE cuts to the Veterans’ Administration (VA) threaten our ability to deliver care.

In Washington, Eric will work to:

• Fully fund the VA
• Ensure no veteran ever has to wait to receive care
• Provide protections for our veterans so that for-profit universities and finance companies cannot take advantage of our troops and veterans

It is simply unacceptable that millions of women do not have the right to make their own health decisions in this country.  The 2022 Dobbs decision rolled the clock back 50 years, and women are dying as a result.  In Congress, Eric will work to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade to ensure that politicians stay out of the doctor’s office.

New technologies present real opportunities for the future but must be regulated to ensure fairness, prevent discrimination, and make sure Americans are not being ripped off.  In Washington, Eric will work to bring common sense regulation to emerging technologies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI has the potential to dramatically change our economy, but currently there is almost no federal oversight. At its best, AI can improve safety and allow us to focus on the tasks that matter. Winning the AI race is also essential to maximizing U.S. global competitiveness and maintaining our technological edge over global competitors like China. But AI can also cause devastating job loss and be used to discriminate and deny healthcare benefits illegally. Eric will work with labor and the technology sector to help create rules of the road.

Blockchain Technology

America should lead the world in financial innovation, and blockchain technology is key to that leadership. One in five Americans already use digital assets, and we should make sure the jobs, investment, and breakthroughs they generate happen here at home, not overseas. Eric will push for clear, smart rules that give entrepreneurs the certainty they need to build in the United States, protect consumers including seniors and other vulnerable Americans from fraud and predatory schemes without crushing innovation, and keep America ahead of global competitors. With the right safeguards in place, blockchain technology can expand economic opportunity, strengthen our technological edge, and ensure that the next wave of financial innovation is made in the United States.