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I did everything right.I started a company at 26 with nothing but a problem I needed solved: I wanted to print something in my neighborhood and couldn\u2019t find anywhere to do it. That simple frustration became PrintWithMe \u2014 now a nationwide network of thousands of public printers, more than 100 employees, and a business I\u2019m genuinely proud of. I moved from Chicago to Scottsdale during COVID, like millions of other millennials who finally did the math and realized our dollars could go further in the Sun Belt.We got more space, we enrolled our daughter into a good school. Things were really looking up.\u2019<\/p>\n
Then, two years ago, a growth started bleeding in my brain.My surgeon told me I had a narrow window \u2014 a few months \u2014 to get the procedure done or the consequences could be fatal. I had health insurance. Good health insurance, I thought. But my insurer refused to cover the specialist I\u2019d been referred to. For weeks, I fought them \u2014 appealing, documenting, re-appealing \u2014 while a clock ticked in my skull.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I eventually had to change my insurance.\u00a0I got the surgery. I\u2019m here to tell the story. But I spent a lot of time in that hospital bed thinking about how many people don\u2019t\u00a0survive\u00a0that fight.<\/p>\n
The math no longer adds up for the middle class<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a business nerd. I read the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0and\u00a0Barron\u2019s\u00a0every week, not to mention\u00a0Fortune. I understand how capital works, how markets function and how incentives shape behavior. And when I look at the economy we\u2019ve built for the American middle class right now, the math simply doesn\u2019t add up. My own story is evidence of that, but I know I\u2019ve been lucky. <\/p>\n
A friend of mine \u2014 a constituent in my district \u2014 pays $2,800 a month for daycare for her two young boys. That\u2019s more than her mortgage. She and her husband both work. They\u2019re doing everything right. And they\u2019re still getting squeezed from every direction: housing costs that have risen 50% in five years, student loan payments that never seem to\u00a0shrink,\u00a0healthcare premiums that climb every January whether you used your plan or not.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a failure of individual effort. This is a failure of policy.<\/p>\n
Research shows that for every dollar the government invests in universal pre-K, society gets $7 back \u2014 in economic productivity, tax revenue and long-term child outcomes. These programs don\u2019t cost us money. They make us money. And yet we can\u2019t find the political will to pass them, because too many people in Washington are more focused on protecting the industries profiting from the status quo than on the families drowning in it.<\/p>\n
Small businesses are the real economic engine \u2014 so why do we treat them that way?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s something every member of Congress should know, but apparently needs reminding: the new jobs created in this country every month come overwhelmingly from small businesses, not large corporations. Large corporations are currently doing the opposite \u2014 slashing headcount and automating away jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Entrepreneurs and small business owners are the ones hiring, building, and taking risks with their own money. And yet the entire system \u2014 access to capital, trade facilitation, regulatory compliance \u2014 is tilted toward large incumbents. <\/p>\n
Getting a small business off the ground in America still requires a network, luck, and a tolerance for chaos that not everyone has or should need. I was fortunate. I had enough of all three. But I think about the thousands of entrepreneurs who had the idea and the drive and never got the shot \u2014 because the system wasn\u2019t built for them. When\u00a0I get to Washington, I want a seat on the Small Business Committee. Not as a photo opportunity. As someone who has lived this.<\/p>\n
The dream is still possible \u2014 but only if we fight for it<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a Democrat (the only lifelong Democrat in my primary race, actually). But the issues I\u2019m running on \u2014 affordability, healthcare access, small business investment, universal childcare \u2014 aren\u2019t partisan. When I knock doors\u00a0in Scottsdale and North Phoenix, I hear from moderate Republicans and independents who are exhausted. They\u2019re not ideologues. They\u2019re parents trying to figure out how to cover daycare. They\u2019re small business owners worried about their employees\u2019 health plans. They\u2019re millennials who missed the housing window and don\u2019t know if they\u2019ll ever own a home.They want their government to work for them. That\u2019s not a radical ask.I started a company because I saw a problem and believed I could fix it. I\u2019m running for Congress for the same reason. The American Dream isn\u2019t dead \u2014 but it needs someone in Washington willing to actually defend it.<\/p>\n
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of\u00a0Fortune.<\/p>\n
#built #startup #scratch #died #broken #healthcare #system #running #Congress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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