Well, we survived the local elections. We may not all be happy with the results, but hopefully, disappointment will spur the need for change and a desire to make a difference in upcoming state elections.

Now it’s announcement season. Candidates are beginning to announce their bids for office, and the race for the 26th district seat in Congress has begun. Will Fisher has announced his candidacy for the seat and is proving to be someone to contend with.

A graduate of Brigham Young University, Fisher went on to get his law degree from the Law School of the University of Oregon, Fisher is a practicing business lawyer whose passion and desire to run was sparked by the need to be a warrior for change after the results of the November elections.

“I think that North Texas and the district really deserve a congressman who does fight for them, and not for big money interest," says Fisher. "At the end of the day, we have a congressman who is a doctor and fights to take away people’s insurance for the purpose of trying to save people money. He is not saving anyone money but the big businesses. We need someone who is going to push for single parent health care and really go out there and fight for them."

The current congressman for the district, Michael Burgess, is a supporter of the GOP health care bill. The bill would make 24 million people uninsured by 2026.

“We’ve played around with people’s health care for so long that we just need to stop the conversation of whether it’s a privilege or a right altogether," states Fisher. "And whether it's a privilege or right, we live in the richest nation in the world. In our country, our nation, it should not even be a conversation if we are going to provide healthcare for everyone. So we should have universal healthcare, and I’m in favor of a single-payer system.”

(What the heck is a "single-payer" system? It is a system where all residents pay the state a tax percentage that is determined by the state. It then covers the core health care costs for residents of the state without any discrimination against a resident for income, occupation, or their health. Currently, health care is paid for by premiums paid by residents for health care services and then through benefits paid for by employers.)

“I would like to see that burden taken off the backs of employers," says Fisher. "Businesses shell out a lot of money to offer health care to their employees and the cost of the commitment can prevent them from being able to offer more jobs to run more efficiently. [We need to] step back and say we want businesses in America to do two things: we want them competing to offer really good, amazing products and services, and we want them employing people. Personally, I don’t think the goal of the business is to provide a social safety net; that is what government is for. I want government providing a social safety net and businesses providing jobs. I want to take the cost of insuring Americans off the backs of businesses and have it paid for through our taxes. Over 95% of Americans would save money on a single-payer system.”

A focus for Fisher is also finding a solution to help college graduates handle the burden of student loan debt. I remember when I graduated with my bachelor's, the goal or validation for your debt was that you should be able to find a job that pays the same amount as the loans taken out to get that coveted piece of paper. It took two years of job hunting, four years working my way up from an entry-level position in a field I didn’t even receive my diploma in, but I finally got there. I had to scrape by every day and work multiple jobs to offset the interest that had accumulated on my student loans.

“I pay higher interest on my student loans than banks pay to borrow money. Why are we setting up our system to where banks can borrow money at a lower rate than students borrowing money for college? Burgess has not been beneficial for college students. In his district are two great universities, and we should be doing what we can to make sure when students graduate, they are able to pay their student loans. I am in favor of no-interest refinancing for students when they graduate. We want to make sure students are supported.”

I watched my employer lay off the tenured staff in the department when they hired in a younger crop. At the end of the day, they were removing complacent individuals who weren’t turning out the appropriate work for spunky college grads at a lower salary, who had a desire to show their worth even if the pay didn’t seem to compare to what they had invested in the journey to arrive in that cubicle seat.

The third piece of Fisher’s platform is infrastructure. Fisher said, “I think infrastructure spending is going to be a great way to really raise the lower class, and I would like to see infrastructure programs in place that put lower class folks to work."

What kind of programs? "We need rural broadband. People shouldn’t have to park in a Starbucks parking lot to send their health records to their doctors. We need rural broadband, we need high-speed rails, we need bridges. This is labor, this is work, but it can pay really well. We can create more blue-collar jobs by creating infrastructure jobs.”

All three of Fisher's platforms affect the bulk of the American people. Health care, student loan debt, and the need for more jobs is prevalent every day on the news programs we watch and podcasts we listen to. It affects multiple classes of individuals, from blue-collar workers to college graduates entering a competitive workforce to the immigrants we want to welcome into this melting pot of a nation.

“America is built on families, and family means different things to different people. The people that you choose to connect with and create familial relations with, that’s the basis of society. Study show that strong families lead to greater mental, physical, and emotional health. We need to be doing everything we can as a government to make sure family structures are stable. What makes family structures unstable: no healthcare, no jobs, and paying student loans. I really want to tackle this issue and help strengthen the family structure, because at the end of the day, that’s what makes America stronger as a country.”

These pillars are the focus of Fisher's platform, important issues fueled by his passion for creating opportunities for any individual in our society to succeed in all aspects of their lives. The government may move slowly, but it should be there as a support system for the people of this country, not a machine that works to hold them back.

Story image courtesy of Willfisherforcongress.com

Header image by Christopher Rodgers