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The Framework

The Extraction Economy — Why Everything Costs So Much and Where Your Money Went

America's economy isn't broken. It's been rewired.
It used to circulate money through workers, families, and communities. Now it pulls money up and out — and calls it growth.
For fifty years, the rules of this economy got rewritten — not by accident, but page by page, by people with good lawyers. The result has a name: the Extraction Economy.
And here is the part that should matter to anyone, left, right, or in between: an economy built on extraction doesn't just hurt the people at the bottom. It grows slower for everyone. We had 4–4.5% GDP growth when the rules made money circulate. We have had about 2% growth since the rules changed to let it pool at the top instead.
Fairness and growth aren't in tension here. They're the same fix.
Dr wilneidaabout
Why I'm Running
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Labor advocate. AI expert. Author. Mom. Spent twenty years fighting for workers, families, and communities. Running for Congress to keep doing it.

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Wilneida NY-12 Committee 105 W. 86th Street, #312 New York, NY 10024
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Privacy Policy
Terms & Condtitions
The NY-12 Affordability Agenda
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Lower Costs & Make Daily Life More Affordable

The Household Security Plan

Too many people are doing everything right and still can't get ahead. Rent is high. Child care is crushing. Elder care is expensive. Health costs and hidden fees keep piling up. The economy's data looks fine on paper — GDP up, inflation technically low — but 70% of Americans say the cost of living in their area is unaffordable. That gap between the numbers and lived reality isn't a misunderstanding. It's the result of a system that has been optimized for extraction rather than circulation: consolidation, weak enforcement, and the financialization of basic needs. This plan attacks the structural causes, not just the symptoms.
Housing & Care
LOWER THE COST OF THE BASICS
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Expand federal support for affordable housing preservation and convert underused commercial space into mixedincome workforce and senior housing
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Strengthen rental assistance for seniors, families, and middle-class residents being priced out — tied to real cost-ofliving data, not fixed income thresholds
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Establish a Family Care Credit that offsets the cost of licensed child care or in-home elder care for working families — because in too many places, child care costs more than rent
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Strengthen federal support for elder care and aging-in-place services, including expanded Medicare funding for home-based care and telehealth
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Crack down on junk fees and deceptive pricing across housing, health insurance, banking, and platform services — price transparency as a baseline right
Tax & Fiscal Policy
FIX THE SYSTEM THAT'S RIGGED AGAINST WORKING PEOPLE
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Close the $696 billion annual tax gap — the money already owed but not collected — by funding IRS enforcement targeted at complex corporate and high-income returns, not audits of working families
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End carried interest treatment, tighten S-corp loopholes, and require sunset reviews of major business tax breaks so corporate welfare earns its keep or expires
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Push for tax policy that rewards work, caregiving, and ordinary families — expand the EITC and Child Tax Credit with stronger refundability so benefits reach the people who need them most
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Crack down on "perks-as-business-expenses" abuse — tighter rules on jets, luxury travel, and executive compensation routed through corporate structures while workers' wages stagnate
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Require a cost-of-living test for major economic legislation so Congress must measure how bills affect rent, care costs, health premiums, and daily expenses — not just GDP and stock performance
Healthcare Costs
ATTACK PRICES, NOT JUST COVERAGE
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The U.S. affordability problem in health care isn't primarily a coverage problem — it's a price problem. Pursue allpayer rate setting and payment reform that forces hospitals and drug companies to compete on cost
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Expand Medicare drug price negotiation, accelerate generics and biosimilars, and ban pay-for-delay pharmaceutical tactics that keep cheaper alternatives off the market
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Extend ACA enhanced subsidies — 78% of Americans support this, including 59% of Republicans — and cap out-ofpocket costs so no family is bankrupted by illness
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Build toward universal coverage through automatic enrollment in a public baseline plan, with the ability to keep employer coverage — portable, predictable, and not tied to a single job
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Simplify billing and reduce administrative waste, which consumes hundreds of billions annually without improving a single patient outcome
Workers & Small Business
MAKE THE ECONOMY WORK FOR THE PEOPLE DOING THE WORK
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Create a unified R&D and Worker Training Tax Credit for small and mid-size firms — 15–20% of qualifying spending, refundable up to a cap so pre-profit firms actually benefit, with a standard-cost menu so you don't need tax lawyers to claim it
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Tie workforce training dollars to jobs that pay living wages in local industries — healthcare, green construction, digital services — because upskilling without wage floors just creates better-trained low-wage workers
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Crack down on abusive lease terms, payment processor junk fees, and platform lock-in that quietly eat small business margins — give Main Street a fair shot against consolidated chains
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Establish portable benefits for gig, care, and domestic workers so people don't lose everything when a client moves or a job ends — decouple the safety net from the employer
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Condition business tax credits and public subsidies on demonstrable commitments to fair wages, local hiring, and cost-of-living adjustments — reward builders, not extractors
Accountability
MEASURE WHAT MATTERS TO EVERYDAY PEOPLE
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Require transparency on corporate subsidies, tax credits, and special carveouts — publish who benefits and what public value was delivered, or the break expires
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Oppose antitrust rollups that concentrate market power in housing, health care, food, and retail — consolidation is a hidden tax on everyone who can't negotiate on equal terms
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Protect and invest in the care economy — the nannies, home health aides, and elder care workers who make the rest of the economy function, often without contracts, benefits, or fair pay
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Public Health & Safety Agenda
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Safe Communities Through Prevention, Care, and Accountability

The Security & Well-Being Plan

Safety is not just the absence of crime — it is the presence of stability, health, and trust. Neighborhoods become safer when people have jobs that pay, housing they can afford, mental health support they can access, and public institutions they can believe in. This plan rejects the false choice between security and civil rights. It invests in the conditions that prevent harm, modernizes how we respond when harm happens, and holds both individuals and institutions accountable — including the institutions of public safety themselves.
Prevention & Root Causes
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Defend Housing First as the federal standard — it works and the evidence is clear
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Fund mental health first-response programs that dispatch trained clinicians alongside or instead of police for mental health crises, reducing harm and freeing officers for situations that require law enforcement
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Expand community violence intervention programs — evidence-based, neighborhood-rooted, and run by people with lived experience — which consistently outperform punitive approaches in reducing gun violence
Public Health Infrastructure
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Defend ACA coverage and NY's Essential Plan against federal rollbacks
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Increase funding for community health centers and the healthcare workforce
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Defend CDC HIV prevention funding, stand with PrEP4All's Save HIV Funding campaign, and fight for a National PrEP Program so no one is priced out of a drug that costs $6 to make.
Immigration Enforcement & Community Trust
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Impose independent oversight so communities can trust enforcement is lawful and targeted
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Protect access to hospitals and emergency services regardless of immigration status
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Narrow ICE to genuine serious-threat cases; move routine civil cases to supervised legal processing instead of mass detention
Modern Emergency Response
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Push for national standards linking EMS, 911, and telehealth for faster triage and better follow-up — including in the hospital corridors and dense neighborhoods of districts like NY-12
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Fund non-police first responders for behavioral health emergencies
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Close the psychiatric bed gap through federal Medicaid investment
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Invest in transit safety and quality-of-life improvements on subways and buses — reliability, lighting, and visible presence that makes riders feel secure without over-policing
Accountability & Oversight
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Require independent oversight boards with real authority for any federal safety technology funded or deployed in communities — no surveillance tools without community input, bias audits, and transparency
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Ban or sharply limit always-on worker monitoring, biometric surveillance, and algorithmic discipline in workplaces — safety cuts both ways, and workers deserve it too
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Condition federal public safety funding on data transparency, use-of-force reporting, and demonstrated commitment to reducing racial disparities in enforcement outcomes
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Protect immigration-safe reporting channels so workers, tenants, and crime victims can report abuse, wage theft, or violence without fear of deportation — safety is for everyone, not just citizens
Tech & AI in Public Safety
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Any AI or surveillance technology purchased with federal funds must pass a community review process, bias audit, and privacy impact assessment before deployment
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Require plain-language public disclosure of what safety technologies are in use, how decisions are made, and how people can challenge automated determinations that affect them
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Use technology to expand access to safety — faster emergency response, better data on crime patterns, smarter resource deployment — not to expand surveillance of communities that already distrust institutions
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EDUCATION AGENDA
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Strong Public Schools and Future-Ready Pathways

The Education & Opportunity Plan

A rapidly changing economy demands we treat public schools, vocational programs, and community colleges as workforce infrastructure — not a side system — with the same urgency we once brought to building highways and rural electrification.
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Protect and strengthen funding for high-poverty schools: Title I must be treated as baseline infrastructure — stable, weighted toward concentrated poverty, and insulated from annual budget brinkmanship.
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Elevate CTE and trades to first-class status: Career and Technical Education must be expanded, destigmatized, and updated for AI-era skills — because skilled trades and technical roles offer strong wages and are among the hardest jobs to automate.
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Make community colleges the national retraining engine: Tuition-free access for displaced workers, short-cycle stackable credentials, and direct employer partnerships turn community colleges into the fastest on-ramp back to economic stability.
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Build AI literacy into K–12 as a civic right: Every student — not just future coders — needs to understand how AI tools work, where they fail, and how to use them critically, or the digital divide becomes the next generation's class divide.
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Treat educator recruitment and pay as a workforce crisis: None of this works without teachers — and closing the documented wage penalty vs. private-sector alternatives, especially in high-poverty and STEM roles, is a prerequisite for everything else.
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TECH AGENDA
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PUT PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF AI, DATA, AND TECHNOLOGY

The Public Interest Technology Plan

Technology is reshaping work, education, health care, and government. Right now, too many of the rules are being written by corporations and insiders instead of the people who have to live with the consequences.
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Require transparency and accountability when AI is used in hiring, housing, health care, education, policing, and government services
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Ban abusive workplace surveillance and harmful algorithmic management
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Protect children and families from irresponsible AI and data practices
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Require human review and appeal rights when automated systems affect someone’s job, benefits, housing, or education
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Advance a Children and AI Bill of Rights for schools that receive federal funds
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Make sure federal dollars are not used to buy unsafe or rights-eroding technology
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Introduce a Federal Algorithmic Accountability and Procurement Act so high-risk AI systems must be tested, audited, and publicly accountable before government buys them
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REFORM AGENDA
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CLEAN GOVERNMENT AND REAL ACCOUNTABILITY

The Public Trust Plan

People are right to feel frustrated by a political system shaped by insiders, lobbyists, and wealthy donors. This is one of the clearest areas where Congress can act. Make it easier for the public to see who is profiting from government decisions
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Create a House Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Accountability package includes targeted investigations into the clearest abuses of the Trump administration, protects inspectors general and whistleblowers, and uses subpoena power plus appropriations restrictions to impose real consequences for corruption, unlawful spending, and executive defiance of the law
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Ban stock trading by members of Congress
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Strengthen transparency around money in federal elections
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Crack down on corruption, self-dealing, and backroom influence
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Tighten oversight of federal contracts, especially in high-risk technology
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Make it easier for the public to see who is profiting from government decisions
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Establish a public interest procurement standard so major federal contractors have to disclose lobbying ties, subcontractors, safety problems, and civil rights risk
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Work and Economic Opportunity Agenda.
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A PRO-WORKER ECONOMY FOR THE NEXT ERA

The Dignity of Work Plan

Working people create the value in this country. But too many workers are facing rising costs, unstable jobs, stagnant wages, and new forms of digital control on the job. Protect workers from exploitation, retaliation, and abusive surveillance
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Protect workers from exploitation, retaliation, and abusive surveillance
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Support fair wages and labor standards that reflect how people actually work today
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Make sure new technologies do not weaken worker voice or bargaining power
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Expand workforce development and AI literacy so workers are not left behind
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Modernize protections for freelancers, caregivers, and other workers often excluded from basic standards
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Advance a Worker Technology Rights framework so workers have the right to know, question, and challenge software used to monitor, rank, schedule, discipline, or fire them
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IMMIGRATION AGENDA
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IMMIGRATION THAT IS ORDERLY, HUMANE, AND GROUNDED IN REALITY

The Fair Pathways Plan

New York is a city of immigrants. We should be helping lead the country toward an immigration system that is lawful, humane, and functional. Expand legal pathways and reduce the backlogs that keep families and employers stuck in limbo
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Expand legal pathways and reduce the backlogs that keep families and employers stuck in limbo
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Increase immigration court capacity and legal support so cases move faster and more fairly
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Reform immigration enforcement so it focuses on real public safety threats, protects due process, reduces reliance on detention, and does not force cities, schools, hospitals, or local services to act as arms of federal immigration enforcement
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Protect due process and access to counsel
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Make it easier for eligible people to work lawfully and support themselves sooner
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Defend sanctuary city principles so schools, hospitals, and city services are not turned into arms of immigration enforcement
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Launch a Work, Case, and Welcome initiative to shorten work delays, reduce court backlogs, and give cities real support for integration
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Care & Aging Agenda
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Healthcare & Senior Dignity

The Senior Dignity Plan

Aging in New York should mean safety, connection, and dignity. But too many seniors in NY-12 are aging alone, in older buildings, while navigating rising costs, fragmented healthcare, scams, emergency-response gaps, and an overstretched care system.
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Expand Medicare support for home-based elder care, telehealth check-ins, and care coordination so more seniors can age safely at home
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Create a federal Aging in Place Fund to help older buildings add elevators, ramps, safety upgrades, and accessibility improvements
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Strengthen home-care and nursing-home standards, including safe staffing, better training, and fair wages for care workers
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Modernize emergency response by linking 911, EMS, hospitals, and telehealth systems so seniors get faster triage, better follow-up, and fewer avoidable hospitalizations
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Fund senior companionship and community-care grants to reduce isolation, support mental health, and help local organizations reach seniors living alone
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Lower prescription drug costs by simplifying co-pay assistance, expanding Medicare negotiation, and capping out-of-pocket costs for common senior medications
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Protect seniors from fraud, scams, and harmful uses of AI in healthcare through stronger transparency, privacy, and patient-safety rules
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Support flexible, part-time work options for older adults who want to keep contributing without losing retirement or healthcare security
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