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...pardon the fact that the attached on-line book is also part of a political campaign, but the content is substantive and relevant to several national issues (e.g. Homelessness, Safety, Cost of Living, Environment). When Sam Liccardo ran for Mayor of San Jose, he also wrote a book about the city's issues...his views on alternative solutions...and his choices...then he followed through with his decisions after being elected...and re-elected by an overwhelming margin (75.8% of the votes). As a successful Mayor for a large city, he deserves to be listened to...even if there's no way you'd be able to vote for him.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction...
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An Important Note About Balancing Budgets and Bipartisanship

Every election season, politicians in both parties happily parade proposals for government programs that sound great but lack any clear means to pay for them. The result: our current $1.7 trillion deficit.1 In addition to burdening future generations with more than $34 trillion in debt,2 deficit spending crowds out private borrowing, resulting in higher interest costs for everyone.3

Mayors, in contrast, have to balance budgets. If we have a new, brilliant idea, we have to find a way to pay for it—including cutting somebody else’s good idea. In my final year in office, in 2022, I worked with our city team to leave my successor with a $30 million surplus,4 while San Jose reduced street homelessness by 11%5 and San Jose recorded the lowest homicide rate of any major US city.6 That’s what people expect from mayors. We should expect the same from Congress.

Admittedly, some of my proposed measures will require relatively modest federal budgetary offsets, such as expanding vouchers to address homelessness. For that reason, I’ve focused many other proposals on ideas that provide savings to the federal government, such as cutting agricultural subsidies and reducing Medicare costs for pharmaceuticals.

The common theme is that we need to find bold solutions that both Democrats and Republicans can agree upon and support, within our budget. We have a divided Congress, and that reality will likely persist. As the mayor of a city of one million residents, I routinely reached out to people who disagreed with me to find common ground. From my first day in the Mayor’s Office, I had to resolve pension reform and budgetary battles that had left San Jose City Hall—already the most thinly staffed city hall of any major city—with 1,000 fewer employees. We spent the next year negotiating with eleven city unions on a pension reform measure, and voters approved the settlement in 2016 with Measure F. As a result, we’re now saving taxpayers $3 billion over the next two decades—while restoring city staff and services.

As with pension reform negotiations, I usually found that there was at least one goal that every key stakeholder could agree upon: the need to solve a problem.

What problems? We face many, but I focus my writing here on three big ones: 1) homelessness, 2) crime, and 3) the high cost of living. Let’s discuss each in turn.
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IMO, there are quality candidates in this country...here's hoping this one gets seated...


Link: https://samliccardo.com/plan/