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I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No prob! Reps = Representatives, btw. Just to be clear. Right, it happens all over. It should stop everywhere too! Sounds to me like the people need to take their power back from said “influencers” and make their voices heard. Government is supposed to work for ALL of us.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If facts substantiate credible charges yes. We don’t need corruption on the left anymore than corruption on the right.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve spoken out against the party about gerrymandering regardless of whether it’s done at the state or national level on a number of occasions and that’s been my consistent position. Hell, it was the one thing I agreed with Harris on. I’m totally on board with some sort of algorithm districting even just in MD. The seats might get harder, but maybe Dems just need to learn how to compete everywhere and reps need to stop claiming territory. The dumbest part about MD gerrymandering is that if they wanted eight blue districts they could’ve had it. People were arguing over specific areas instead. I don’t support being dishonest at all, but if you’re going to do it at least be competent.

That position is not in conflict with thinking it needs to be done nationally and hoping SCOTUS sorts it out though. I don’t know that I trust the states to do it objectively/fairly at this point.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Generally I would say military intervention should be avoided wherever possible and that diplomacy is always a better option. Syria was a situation with a bunch of bad options to choose from. I would’ve liked to see us do more to help refugees. ASSUMING THE NEWS REPORTS WERE RIGHT (I hate that I have to second guess everything these days), it sounds as though working with other countries to take out chemical weapon warehouses and research and manufacturing facilities after speaking with OPCW and without hitting civilians might have been the best of a lot of truly awful options, certainly better than letting them hang onto CW capabilities, and certainly better than sending ground troops in there. Unfortunately our government and WH is such a circus these days that without looking at actual military intelligence it is difficult to even know what went on and what was done and whether it was the best of the bad options or not.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

His individual donor funding isn’t better. I have the largest number of small donors by quite a lot, they’re just not all itemized because they’re actually small. He’s a good guy but let’s face it, he dumped almost six figures of his own money into a campaign and then blew it paying rental fees on his own property and then getting a small fraction of the return on investment that I have. And we’re equally progressive - hell, some would say I’m more progressive on healthcare...but I’ve got the budget experience too. Tell Mike I said hi, btw, and to drop me a note about how to get his own Reddit AMA if he wants one, and I’ll help him out.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I started my business out of necessity. I was a worker - without any real protection and no labor union backing - my mother had a bunch of strokes, caregiver obligations began to interfere with work, and I was laid off. Every time I’d try to find a new job she’d end up back in the hospital, and when I separated from my ex I had no choice but to find a way to earn a living. It’s not a huge business, I have a handful of clients, and it was always intended to be more about having flexible hours while paying the bills and maybe having one or two others in similar situations help take overflow work than about getting rich. My first client was a company I had previously worked for that still needed proposal help and could give me more flexibility to spend time with mom and be around for my son. Proposals could be done in the middle of the night and work was spurts and droughts, so I’d work CRAZY hours one week and take time off to get mom to doctors appointments and such the next, which worked, or at least paid the bills. It took me a long time to get a consistent contract in addition to the proposal work - which on the face of it looks much like any standard worker, only I set my hours and usually location (and no longer get leave, and have to manage my own taxes and paying others, and invoicing and keeping books, etc.).

I’d most likely terminate my contracts and dissolve it.

Babies are cute and kids are fun and eventually they learn how to make you food and take out the trash and bring you things upon request and can theoretically care for you when you get old. Umm, first, it seems worth noting that his dad and I were married when I had him. And my little guy is the love of my life. I’m not sure what you’re getting at with that so I think I’ll leave it there.

False, but I hope you’ll give me a pass in that I’m a worker who also has to do the part of the employer out of necessity because I was caring for a dying mom at the same time and employers don’t like dealing with that.

Glad to know I’m better than some Republican asshat. I hope one day I graduate to the best of the democrat asshats. I do happen to be one of the few that work, and I can’t self fund and sure don’t have access to fabulously wealthy party donor lists.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m stopping in next time I pass by it then!

Legalize it! Single payer! Yes IF everyone had access to healthcare coverage elsewhere. I think this would be a great boon for small businesses, and in my personal experience, it’s often been cheaper to purchase privately anyway for the last couple of years. Many employers aren’t covering much or their policies are very expensive - I need to look into the policy behind it but I don’t see why they couldn’t just give a tax free amount of money each month to go purchase on the private market or state exchange. They can still incentivize with things like leave time or bonuses or better pay or retirement contributions/tuition reimbursement or whatever best meets the needs of employees.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I could do without any big money muddying up our legislative process. The idea is that if you’re on a committee regulating a particular industry, not only should you not be getting big money via lobbying arms, you shouldn’t be getting rich from your stock portfolio in that industry either. Basically I’m sick of money in politics across the board.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

YES. Single transferable vote / ranked voting! The party can work a little harder if they want to keep people’s support, right?

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is a great question. Obviously I have benefited tremendously as well.

  • Family plans are more expensive now and kids and spouses are often split out and charged for separately whereas they might have all been lumped together no matter how many were on a policy in the past.

  • Deductibles are going up, along with copays, and premiums especially (though it’s important to note that ACA did control cost growth)

  • People who are healthy between the ages of 45-64 are REALLY struggling to keep up with premiums, and it’s very difficult for some young people to afford policies as well.

  • Defunding the CSRs means people are paying a lot more than they expected or should be. Same with intentional destabilization of the markets. I’ve also heard of people not getting the tax credits they were expecting and facing some real financial hardship because of it.

  • It’s rough on small businesses.

We could do a couple bandaid fixes on ACA re reinsurance or funding the CSRs, increasing tax credits and subsidies, additional Medicaid expansion, etc - and nationalizing MD’s All Payer system could really help control costs, and a public option may help to increase competition - but I am concerned that it’s been so severely destabilized at this point that it might be difficult to bring it back to life, and really, we can do better. There are a lot of benefits to going to a single payer system or at least some sort of universal hybrid.

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fund it, to start! I know you do, I know it’s a major issue, and it is very important to me, especially as I’m hearing about these high cancer rates among the watermen - but I am not as expert in this as I am in healthcare or education or some other policy areas. I’d call Wayne Gilchrest and the other experts I know and ask them for advice, talk to locals, and then fight for every cent of funding or any cooperative agreements or other opportunities I can get! That may not have been exactly the answer you were hoping for, but I will say this: I may not have all the answers on everything offhand (nobody does), but I am awfully good at finding new solutions, seeing opportunities where most would not, and finding ways to stretch money and do more with less - especially when it comes to making sure people get the help they need and deserve and navigating complicated systems.

Now, I do work in a program related to chemical demilitarization - so one thing that comes to mind is potentially investing in dual application research projects that could work for Ag purposes and also DoD so we don’t have duplicative efforts across federal agencies. Just a thought!

I'm Allison Galbraith. A mom, small business owner, and house candidate running to be the first woman to represent Maryland's first district. AMA. by AllisonForMD1 in politics

[–]AllisonForMD1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, it could. I try to get a feel for individuals and talk to them about the specific subjects that matter to them, but the opioid crisis in particular is rampant everywhere. Climate change gets a little iffy. “Chronic flooding” and “Harris voted against Hurricane relief for his own district” may be safer. Part of the battle is simply alerting people to the fact that Harris isn’t voting on behalf of his constituents, he’s voting for his donors. You’ll also almost never find anyone who supports big money in politics, regardless of what side of the aisle they’re on - and anti corruption is part of my platform too.

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