Your Budget Isn't Broken. Washington's Choices Are.
Open your mailbox this fall, and you'll find the same story. The health insurance notice says the premium is going up again. The fire insurance renewal, if it comes at all, costs far more than last year. The gas receipt shows the highest prices in the nation. Grocery totals keep climbing while paychecks don’t.
Families all over this district are sitting at kitchen tables asking what they did wrong. The answer is nothing. Many of those numbers trace back to decisions made in Washington.
I grew up in Amador County. As an engineer, not a career politician, I trace failures to their source. Affordability is several distinct problems sharing one name, and each has a clear cause.
Start with health insurance. For five years, enhanced premium tax credits helped about 1.7 million Californians afford coverage, many of whom were self-employed or worked for small businesses. Congress let those credits expire at the end of 2025. Covered California reports that more than 130,000 people who renewed this year switched to bronze plans, which carry the highest deductibles. Congress made that choice. In January, the House voted to restore the credits for three years, with help from 17 Republicans, including David Valadao of the Central Valley. Tom McClintock voted no.
Fuel is a different failure. State taxes and refinery closures explain part of California's high prices. But conflict in Iran pushed oil past $100 a barrel, triggering massive energy shocks at our local pumps.
Housing is the hardest one, and I won't pretend Washington caused it all. Most of what makes a house expensive here is decided in Sacramento and at the county level. But Washington's trade policies are artificially driving up prices, slapping heavy tariffs on Canadian lumber and steel used in everyday home appliances. Meanwhile, federal budget proposals threaten to eliminate the very USDA rural home loans and workforce housing that let teachers, nurses, and deputies live in the towns they serve.
Then there's fire insurance. Enrollment in the FAIR Plan, the state's insurer of last resort, grew 44 percent in just over a year, and FAIR Plan rates will rise another 29 percent on average this October. When private insurers walk away from a region, the underlying problem is fire risk. Every fuel break we build, and every acre we treat, lowers what an insurer charges you.
McClintock sees these same numbers. This spring he called the tariffs "a big mistake," then said that as long as the President is using them as leverage, "I'm not going to get in his way." The Tax Foundation, a free-market think tank, estimates that the latest round of tariffs will cost the average household $820 this year and calls the previous round the largest tax increase since 1993. He backed legislative plans to cut Medi-Cal and SNAP, pulling dollars from the rural hospitals and grocery stores our towns depend on. He says affordability problems are largely government-generated, and he points at Sacramento. He's half right. The other half is his voting record.
During a debate with McClintock in Sonora, he accused me of just wanting to spend your money. Nothing I'm proposing raises taxes on working families. Fixing our healthcare system shouldn't crush your budget. Reinstating the premium tax credits is a tax cut for the people who lost them. Medicare drug negotiation saves taxpayers money, and even the current administration's Medicare chief says it "delivers real savings." Fire prevention costs less than fire recovery.
And the money doesn't have to come from you. For example, the IRS estimates that $696 billion in taxes went unpaid in 2022 alone, the last year with available data. Research shows every dollar spent auditing the top 0.1% of earners brings back over six dollars. In 2023, McClintock voted to cancel $71 billion in IRS funding meant largely for that kind of enforcement. The Congressional Budget Office warned that his proposed cut would have lost $186 billion in revenue, adding over $114 billion to the deficit. W-2 families pay through every paycheck, while weaker enforcement lets others hide their income. Deciding who gets a pass is a choice.
McClintock told the Turlock Journal that affordability comes down to policy choices within our power to change. On that, we agree.
Nobody in this district asks how their neighbor voted before helping them clear a firebreak or stack sandbags. Neighbors help neighbors. Washington should try it.
Your budget isn't broken. The choices are. And choices can be changed.
