Hurley for Nevada - Fight for the Future

One of my core issues of focus is infrastructure revitalization and reinvestment. We have a national bulk power system saddled with century-plus old hardware, coupled with no transition strategy to renewable energy sources like the 600+ megawatt solar facility announced in Southern Nevada by our forward-thinking President. Incidentally, this facility will be at its completion, the world’s largest. We have an aging highway and interstate network that was rapidly built by President Eisenhower and didn’t envision a nation as large and great as the US has become, nor regional or local transportation capacity to address the needs of our urban populations as they continue to grow at breakneck pace. We have no truly distributed energy supply for electrical generation capacity, and are strongly disincentivized to improve it because of burdensome regulation at the state and federal levels. We have developed new technologies in hyperloop transportation that could reduce our carbon footprint, all the while we face a brittle and inflexible transmission network requisite to support it. Our fiber optic networks have dramatically expanded bringing our Internet backbone and telecommunication networks into the 21st century capably, but the introduction of 5G systems to enable smart homes, autonomous vehicles, intelligent manufacturing plants, and modern telemedicine and advanced first responder capabilities is capital intensive all the more so because of the COVID-19 pandemic driven economic downturn making traditional lending and equity market facilities harder to leverage. This calls for not a new set of taxes that take advantage of the temporarily low market prices of fuel stocks, but a new federally backed capital facility equal to the monumental task facing the nation.

This is why I advocate for the formation of a US Infrastructure Bank to enable private entities to build out the infrastructure we urgently need now and in the future. Using the strength of the dollar and our US Treasury’s unmatched AAA credit rating, we are in the sole position in the world to use our currency’s reserve status to fund our national growth, thereby arbitraging the global economy for American benefit. This will combat the currency inflation caused by China’s misbehavior and unfair trade practices while at the same time securing America’s rightful position as the globally preeminent economic and infrastructural superpower. This approach to using the banking and lending facility role strongly limits tax exposure for American businesses, thereby further fueling economic growth at a unprecedented and extraordinary velocity by putting capital in the hands of job creators and technological innovators. In so doing, no other nation state presently in existence would be able to catch up to our rise in the economic singularity curve.

In sum, we must use all the authority of the federal government to balance the economic playing field, treating valued trading partners as true partners while protecting our economy from the internationally illegal economic warfare waged by China. In so doing, within a decade, we can be on a solid foundation for an advanced next generation infrastructure backed by American innovation, and we will be on a path forward to rectifying the critical supply chain shortcomings made painfully evident during our present crisis.

It is becoming increasingly obvious to even the naysayers that economic hard times face us in ways that have challenged our community, our families, and our Faith. In Nevada alone we face an unemployment pool of more than 350,000 laborers and it is all too painful to realize what that translates to for our families and friends. It means that each and every one of us must put aside our differences politically and culturally and we must do so now. The lack of clarity from the Governor’s office on the real trajectory of reopened businesses puts the uncertainty of the loss of a job or the shuttering of a hard built business squarely at the feet of the state government including both the executive and legislative branches. It is the duty of any Congressman to act as the bridge between the Federal government and the state, county, and local governments to ensure that all efforts to blunt the obvious impact on the economy and the peace of mind of the populace are undertaken with all appropriate haste and in concert at all levels. This does not mean email missives launched weekly or minute radio spots as if the situation were business as usual, but it becomes squarely the responsibility and obligation of a Congressman to ensure that civil liberties guaranteed by the Federal constitution are not trampled in the name of a manufactured local crisis. The shutdown was maintained for too long, at too high a cost. Granted we may face a second wave come late fall, but we must not be forced into a dire position until that wave shows emergence as a real possibility. So what can be done now given the injuries sustained?

First, the supremacy of the Federal government in dealing with a national crisis needs to be acknowledged, particularly when national security, stability, civil rights, and the national economy is concerned. Next, it is the duty of a Congressman to use his voice in the House on our behalf as our duly elected representative to oppose any legislative initiative that brings partisan politics to the floor of the House and vociferously oppose political opportunism by the party in the majority seeking to push ahead an agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with dealing with the crisis by uniting with fellow sanely minded leaders to pass a clean bill. Anything more than that is callous and operates at our expense as a people, and in opposition to our liberties. Last but not least, the creation of a strategic supply chain that guarantees our national autonomy should be the closing focus of dealing with the abated crisis. It has been done before in the form of civil defense and can be professionally done again. Only then will strategic stockpiles remain uninterrupted nor hindered.

In closing, our efforts to shore up small business via the paycheck protection program, the pandemic unemployment assistance program, and the supplements to unemployment insurance will suffice and mitigate the damages that profligate disbursement from the Treasury would hope to achieve. If nearer the terminus of the program we remain in a position requiring a revision to the course, at that time, we can engage at the Federal level with a clearer view of what lies ahead.

In observing the miles-long comments on my recent Facebook posts, I have noticed a profoundly troubling trend. People on both sides of the seesaw liberal and conservative, seem to have forgotten how to engage in a proper and polite way. Surely the temptation to openly call an individual expressing an opposite view an idiot, or a troglodyte, or a bit vacant in the cognitive thinking department is overwhelming at times. Immediately, aspersions are cast on a person’s sanity, intellect, masculinity, even humanity in a heated exchange of ad hominem frontal verbal barrages that undermine the credibility of the accuser and signify weakness on those favoring a view possibly at odds with the social troll. I challenge everyone who comments on anything I post to now put their words through a civility filter before they click send. I do not wish to entertain debate that is lesser than all of us, and given the power of the mouse button, I may start toning things from a fever pitch going forward to a flavor I find more in line with those views espoused by our better angels. Capisce?

Thank you for visiting my site. Here I will be posting policy positions, latest information on the COVID-19 pandemic, interview videos, podcasts, blog entries, and outbound links to make contributions. I hope this site can provide a place for solid, actionable information of all issues that face the constituents of Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District. Despite the challenges presented by these tempestuous times, if we work together toward real solutions relying on our American values, our families and our communities, we will overcome any challenge presented to us. Fight for the Future Nevada!