Dan McCready (North Carolina)

Lowering Healthcare and Prescription Drug Costs
Health care costs are soaring by double digits each year, crushing the budgets of North Carolina families. Prescription drug costs are skyrocketing while Big Pharma spends tens of millions of dollars a year on lobbying to bend the rules in their favor. 44,000 people right here in the 9th District are in danger of losing health insurance if career politicians succeed in removing coverage for pre-existing conditions. But instead of fixing our broken healthcare system, Washington politicians’ answer is to cave to special interests and play partisan games. This has to stop.

Dan has released a comprehensive Healthcare Plan to work across the aisle to lower healthcare costs and protect coverage. You can read his plan here. Dan’s plan has seven common-sense and non-partisan initiatives: protecting people with pre-existing conditions, standing up to Big Pharma to lower prescription drug prices, reaping the benefits of expanding Medicaid, saving rural healthcare, excluding primary care visits from deductibles, charging patients for quality of care instead of the number of procedures, and better caring for our veterans. Dan will also fight to protect the promise of Medicare against the proposed cuts.

To lower prescription drug prices, Dan released a 10-point Plan to Lower Prescription Drug Costs. You can read his plan here. Dan’s plan includes ten bipartisan reforms to take on the high prices of U.S. prescription drugs by taking on Big Pharma and the costly middlemen, stopping foreign countries from taking advantage of us, and promoting lower-cost generic drugs. Lowering prescription drug prices shouldn’t be a partisan issue; a number of these reforms build on the work being done by the current administration.

Strengthening our Public Schools
Dan is a product of North Carolina public schools, and he understands that education is the pathway to opportunity. He knows that teachers shape the lives of their students just as parents do. He believes that every child in America should be able to go to a great public school, no matter where they live. A child in rural North Carolina deserves the same great public education that Dan got in southeast Charlotte.

But politicians are undermining our public schools by paying teachers too little and under-investing in our schools. Teachers are having to work two jobs and pay for school supplies out of their own pockets, and they are leaving North Carolina for better opportunities. Dan will fight to pay teachers their worth, lower class sizes, and fund early childhood education and alternatives to four-year college degrees — alternatives like community college and job training programs that equip North Carolinians for the jobs of tomorrow without mountains of debt. We must restore North Carolina’s reputation as a leader in education and the leader of the New South.

Cutting Taxes for the Middle Class
Dan will fight to cut taxes for middle class families because he knows that families and small businesses need a break. Today, if you don’t have money or a lobbyist, the deck is stacked against you. Too many loopholes and tax breaks have gone to the ultra-wealthy and the biggest corporations. Our country is built on the promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead. Dan will fight for middle class tax cuts and policies to level the playing field for hardworking North Carolinians and our middle class.

Taking on Money in Politics and our Broken System
Too many politicians say they are fighting for the people, but really they are just fighting for themselves and selling out to special interests. Dan will fight to rid our politics of dark and corporate money, which is the worst part of our broken political system and something that’s silencing the voices of regular people. Dan isn’t taking a dime of corporate PAC money in this campaign, so the people will know he works for them. He’ll work to overturn the disastrous Supreme Court decision Citizens United.

Dan will work to end gerrymandering. Through gerrymandering, politicians are deciding who gets elected, not the voters. Both parties have done it, and both parties were wrong. Dan will fight for reforms like assigning independent redistricting commissions, not politicians, the responsibility to draw district lines.

Dan will fight for term limits in Congress. In the military, leaders follow an “up or out” system — if you aren’t moving up, if you aren’t leading, it’s time to go home. Dan believes Congressional leaders should be held to the same standard.

Standing up for Medicare
Dan knows how hard North Carolina seniors worked to save for their retirement over a lifetime of hard work and how important it is to protect Medicare and Social Security. Politicians in Washington are either too eager to cut these vital programs or spend so much that we won’t be able to keep our promises going forward. We need common sense to protect our current seniors and ensure that those retiring in the years to come will also have a safety net. Dan will oppose any efforts by corporate special interests to turn Medicare into a risky voucher program and any efforts to turn Social Security over to the stock market and gamble seniors’ retirement.

Creating Good Jobs from Cities to Small Towns
As a small business owner, Dan has helped put 700 North Carolinians to work building solar farms in North Carolina. He was a leader in making North Carolina second nationally for solar power. In Congress, he’ll use his business experience to work with both parties to lift wages and increase opportunity. That means working across the aisle to bring good-paying jobs in growing sectors like clean energy and smart infrastructure.

Dan will fight for North Carolina community colleges and job training programs and to receive our district’s fair share of federal funding. Too many workers in North Carolina need jobs, and too many companies can’t find the workers they need. Dan will work to open up new pathways to opportunity that go beyond four-year college, and he will help rethink education so people can learn the technical and trade skills for the good-paying jobs of tomorrow. Dan will personally recruit CEOs to move their companies to rural North Carolina.

Defending our Sacred Right to Vote
Dan believes there’s nothing more sacred in our country than our right to vote. It’s a freedom that countless men and women have given their lives for, overseas in uniform and here on the homefront in the battle for civil rights. That’s why, confronted with evidence of his opponent’s campaign stealing votes in the 2018 election, Dan stood up to fight. He helped shine a light on the fraud, leading the charge to bring to justice those bad actors who were silencing the voices of North Carolinians.

Dan knows we can stop at nothing to ensure that voting is easy, accessible, and secure for every American. We must prevent cheating from ever happening again in North Carolina’s elections. And we must stand up to evil efforts to suppress the vote of African Americans and Native Americans

Balancing the Budget
In his small business, Dan balanced the budget and made payroll. We should expect the same of Congress. But Republicans and Democrats won’t work together to do it. Washington is full of lawyers and lobbyists on both sides of the aisle who shut down the government because they won’t work together. They add to the national debt every year. That’s why Dan supports a “No Budget, No Pay” act. To balance the budget, he’ll work to cut out tax loopholes and to make government run like a responsible business.

Streamlining Regulations
Dan knows we must protect our air and water and protect Americans against crooks. But as a small business owner, he understands the burden of needless regulations on small businesses, contractors, and entrepreneurs. Dan will fight to streamline cumbersome regulations so North Carolinians can start and grow companies and hire more workers. And he’ll work to simplify the tax code. Dan believes that regulation must be more simple and clear to navigate, with fewer grey areas and less wasted time and money.

Leveling the Playing Field on Trade
The main streets of North Carolina’s towns used to be filled with cars, but now far too many parking spaces are empty. Trade deals signed by both parties have benefited the wealthy and powerful but devastated North Carolina business and families. Meanwhile, other countries have taken advantage of us and not lived up to their commitments. Dan will fight for better trade deals and to protect our rural communities from the adverse effects of trade. He will stand up to unfair trade, technology, and intellectual property practices of other countries.

Fighting for the Lumbee Tribe
After more than a century of injustice, the Lumbee Indian tribe still lacks full federal recognition. Yet instead of doing the hard work of finding a deal, Congress continues the same-old lip service, with bills still stuck in subcommittee. That’s wrong for the Lumbee Tribe, wrong for Robeson County, and a shame for all Americans. Dan knows how to work with both sides and negotiate — that’s how he helped build 36 solar farms across North Carolina. He will do everything in his power to fight for full federal recognition. The Lumbee will have no stronger champion than Dan.

Supporting our Veterans and Military Families
For Dan, veterans issues aren’t political, they’re personal. The veterans who have sacrificed for our country deserve the best care our country has to offer, but too many in North Carolina are being left behind without the care they need. The VA is struggling to handle healthcare for veterans, including veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dan experienced firsthand the broken transition that veterans experience moving from active duty to the VA, a transition fraught with poor care and lost paperwork. That’s unacceptable.

Dan is no stranger to advocating for veterans. After he went to business school on the GI Bill, he gave away a portion of his company’s sales each year to veterans. Veterans will have no stronger advocate than Dan on health care, mental health, education, jobs, and the transition to civilian life. Dan knows that we must reform the VA healthcare system. Congress must also reassert its constitutional responsibility over war and veterans’ care. We need more young veterans in Congress to get that done.

Securing our Border while Protecting our Values
Immigration is one of the best examples of where Washington is broken. For decades, Republicans and Democrats have failed to work together to fix our broken immigration system. We need a comprehensive immigration reform that secures our border, respects our laws, and protects our American values. To secure our border, we should reinforce physical barriers with the technology Dan used in the Marines, like infrared cameras and drones.

But we must uphold our values. When politicians try to break our government’s promise to Dreamers who were brought here as children or separate young children from their parents at the border, that’s un-American. Dan will fight to restore the DREAM Act and end family separations at the border. Abolishing agencies that serve vital functions like ICE will not fix our immigration system; instead Congress needs to fix our immigration laws and fund, improve, and support agencies to operate in a way that upholds human rights while completing their missions.

Keeping our Families Safe
Dan approaches gun violence prevention as a Marine who carried an M-16 in Iraq and as a supporter of the Second Amendment, but also as a father of four young kids. Too many parents today are left wondering whether their children are safe in their own schools and churches. That should never happen in America.

The problem in Washington right now is not that politicians are doing the wrong thing to prevent gun violence, it’s that they’re barely doing anything at all. That has to change. Dan will fight for common-sense and bipartisan gun violence prevention, comprehensive background checks, and closing the gun show and online loopholes that allow guns to fall into the hands of domestic terrorists, domestic abusers, and the mentally ill.

Defending Our Rights
Sadly, North Carolina has been ground zero for voter suppression, not just through tools like gerrymandering, but through the outright stealing of votes. Dan’s already shown he’ll stand up and fight back. When his opponent’s campaign targeted African American, Native American, and elderly voters with an absentee ballot scheme in last November’s election, Dan fought back. Our re-do special election on September 10 is the people’s chance to get justice.

When it comes to women’s rights, Dan gets it. He’s the husband of a children’s attorney and the father of two daughters. Dan knows that any man who uses his position of power to take advantage of women must be brought to justice. That’s why, when reports surfaced of sexual assault cover-ups on Capitol Hill, Dan called for a full investigation into congressional leadership in both parties to find out who knew what and when. Dan supports a woman’s right to choose because he does not believe it’s the government’s job to get between a woman and her doctor. And he will fight for women to receive equal pay for equal work.

Dan knows that everyone deserves equal opportunity no matter their gender, race, sexual orientation, or country of origin. And everyone, straight or gay, deserves equality under the law.

Protecting North Carolina’s Air and Water
As a solar energy entrepreneur, Dan knows that we can protect our environment while creating good jobs in North Carolina. Dan believes that God calls us all to be stewards of the Earth, for our children and grandchildren. But politicians in the pockets of polluters are taking a hatchet to the EPA. They are looking the other way while chemical company executives pollute eastern North Carolina’s drinking water with toxic chemicals like GenX. We need leaders with the courage to stand up to polluters and protect our state. Dan will fight for clean air and water and to preserve our state’s natural beauty, which he learned to love as an Eagle Scout.

Keeping Americans Safe
America hasn’t had a national security strategy for 15 years, not when Dan was in Iraq, not under any of the last three presidents. When we send our troops to war, we owe them and the taxpayers a clear mission. We should do so with overwhelming firepower, accomplish the mission, and get out. But politicians deploy our troops sporadically, with no strategy or end in sight, while our enemies outsmart and outlast us. The executive branch under Republican and Democratic administrations alike has had too much power and been too hasty to deploy our troops into Iraq and the “forever wars.” Congress must reassert its constitutional responsibility for deciding when and how to send our troops into harm’s way. Dan will add his firsthand experiences as an Iraq veteran to push a real national security strategy that’s anchored by strong military might, economic power, and smart diplomacy to keep Americans safe.^[2]

Cleaning up our Broken Politics
Dan will fight for term limits in Congress. In the military, leaders follow an “up or out” system — if you aren’t moving up, if you aren’t leading, it’s time to go home. Dan believes Congressional leaders should be held to the same standard.

Dan will work to overturn Citizens United. He will fight to rid our politics of dark and corporate money, which is the worst part of our broken political system. It’s poisoning our democracy and silencing the voices of regular people.

Dan will push back against gerrymandering. Through partisan redistricting, politicians are deciding who gets elected, not the voters. Both parties have done it, and both parties were wrong. It’s time that the voters get back the right to elect their representatives. Dan will fight for independent redistricting commissions, not politicians, to draw district lines.

Standing up for our Seniors
Dan knows how hard North Carolina seniors worked to save for their retirement. He knows the importance of preserving Social Security and Medicare for our middle class. Politicians in Washington are either too eager to cut these vital programs or spend so much that we won’t be able to keep our promises going forward. We need common sense to protect our current seniors and ensure that those retiring in the years to come will also have a safety net. Dan will oppose any efforts by corporate special interests to turn Medicare into a risky voucher program and any efforts to turn Social Security over to the stock market and gamble seniors’ retirement.

Creating Good Jobs from Cities to Small Towns
As a small business owner, Dan has helped put hundreds of North Carolinians to work building solar farms in rural North Carolina. He was a leader in making our state second in the US for solar power. In Congress, he’ll use his business experience to work with both parties to lift wages and increase opportunity. That means working across the aisle to bring good-paying jobs in growing sectors like clean energy and smart infrastructure.

Dan will fight for North Carolina community colleges and job training programs to receive our district’s fair share of federal funding. Too many workers in North Carolina need jobs, but too many companies can’t find the workers they need. Dan will work to open up new pathways to opportunity that go beyond four-year college and rethink education so people can learn the technical and trade skills for the good-paying middle-class jobs of today and tomorrow.

Dan will fight for rural jobs. The main streets of North Carolina’s towns used to be filled with cars, but now far too many parking spaces are empty. Trade deals have benefited the rich and powerful but devastated North Carolina families. Dan will fight to protect our local communities from the adverse effects of trade, and he will personally recruit CEOs to move their companies to rural North Carolina.

Achieving Affordable and Accessible Healthcare
Health care costs are soaring by double digits each year, crushing the budgets of North Carolina families. But instead of fixing the problem with common-sense reforms, Washington politicians’ answer is to cave to special interests and play partisan games, putting your healthcare at risk. Today, too many in North Carolina are forced to choose between affording healthcare and putting food on the table. That has to stop.

Dan knows we have to fix our broken and unaffordable healthcare system once and for all with common-sense solutions that lower out-of-control costs while maintaining quality coverage. That means standing up to big drug companies to lower prescription costs, strengthening Medicare, and fighting to stop insurance companies from raising premiums year after year and kicking people off their coverage.

Fixing the Budget, Taxes, and Regulation
Dan believes that Republicans and Democrats should work together to solve our country’s hard problems. In his small business, Dan balanced the budget and made payroll. We should expect the same of Congress. But Washington is full of lawyers and lobbyists on both sides of the aisle who shut down the government because they won’t work together. They add to the national debt every year. That’s why Dan supports a “No Budget, No Pay” act.

Dan will fight to simplify the tax code and cut taxes more for middle-class families, not just the ultra-wealthy. Today, if you don’t have money or a lobbyist, the deck is stacked against you. But that’s not what America is about. Our country is built on the promise that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can get ahead. Dan will fight for middle-class tax cuts and policies to level the playing field for hardworking North Carolinians.

As a small business owner, Dan understands the burden of needless regulations on small businesses, contractors, and entrepreneurs. He will fight to streamline cumbersome regulations so North Carolinians can start and grow companies and hire more workers.

Investing in Teachers and Education
Dan is a product of North Carolina public schools, and he understands that education is the pathway to opportunity. Dan knows that teachers shape the lives of their students just as parents do. He believes that every child in America should be able to go to a great public school, no matter where they live. A child in rural North Carolina deserves the same great public education that Dan got in southeast Charlotte.

North Carolina built a reputation over decades as a leader in education and the leader of the New South, but now the politicians are undermining education. Teachers are having to work two jobs and pay for school supplies out of their own pockets. Dan will fight for teacher pay, early childhood education, and alternatives to four-year degrees like community college and job training programs that equip North Carolinians for the jobs of tomorrow without mountains of debt.

Protecting our Veterans
For Dan, veterans issues aren’t political, they’re personal. The veterans who have sacrificed for our country deserve the best care our country has to offer, but too many in North Carolina are being left behind without the care they need. Dan experienced firsthand the broken transition that veterans experience moving from active duty to the VA, a transition fraught with poor care and lost paperwork. That’s unacceptable.

Dan is no stranger to advocating for veterans. After he went to business school on the GI Bill, he gave away a portion of his company’s sales each year to veterans. Veterans will have no stronger advocate than Dan on health care, mental health, education, jobs, and the transition to civilian life.

Fighting for the Lumbee Tribe
After more than a century of injustice, the Lumbee Indian tribe still lacks full federal recognition. Yet instead of doing the hard work of finding a deal, Congress continues the same-old lip service, with bills still stuck in subcommittee. That’s wrong for the Lumbee Tribe, wrong for Robeson County, and a shame for all Americans. Dan knows how to work with both sides and negotiate — that’s how he helped build 36 solar farms across North Carolina. He will do everything in his power to fight for full federal recognition. The Lumbee will have no stronger champion than Dan.

Protecting North Carolina’s Air and Water
As a solar energy entrepreneur, Dan knows that we can protect our environment while creating good jobs for North Carolina. Dan believes that God calls us to be stewards of the Earth, for our children and grandchildren. But politicians in the pockets of polluters are taking a hatchet to the EPA. They are looking the other way while chemical company executives pollute eastern North Carolina’s drinking water with toxic chemicals like GenX. We need leaders with the courage to stand up to polluters and protect our state. Dan will fight for clean air and water and to preserve our state’s natural beauty, which he learned to love as an Eagle Scout.

Keeping our Families Safe
Dan approaches gun violence prevention as a Marine who carried an M-16 in Iraq and as a supporter of the Second Amendment, but also as a father of four young kids. Too many parents today are left wondering whether their children are safe in their own schools and churches. That should never happen in America.

The problem in Washington right now is not that politicians are doing the wrong thing to prevent gun violence, it’s that they’re barely doing anything at all. That has to change. Dan will fight for common-sense and bipartisan gun violence prevention, comprehensive background checks, and closing the gun show and online loopholes that allow guns to fall into the hands of domestic terrorists, domestic abusers, and the mentally ill.

Keeping Americans Safe
America hasn’t had a national security strategy for 15 years, not when Dan was in Iraq, not under any of the last three presidents. When we send our troops to war, we owe them and the taxpayers a clear mission. We should do so with overwhelming firepower, accomplish the mission, and get out. But politicians deploy our troops sporadically, with no strategy or end in sight, while our enemies like Iran, North Korea, Russia, and the terrorists outsmart and outlast us. Dan will add his firsthand experiences as an Iraq veteran to push a real national security strategy that’s anchored by strong military might, economic power, and smart diplomacy to keep Americans safe. Here at home, we should always look for ways to improve the function of government, but abolishing ICE is wrong and would make us less safe. ICE serves a vital function, and Dan will work to fund, improve, and support ICE in Congress.

Defending Women’s Rights
Dan is the husband of a children’s attorney and the father of two daughters. He believes that any man who uses his position of power to take advantage of women must be brought to justice. That’s why, when reports surfaced of sexual assault cover-ups on Capitol Hill, Dan called for a full investigation into congressional leadership in both parties to find out who knew what and when. Dan supports a woman’s right to choose because he does not believe it’s the government’s job to get between a woman and her doctor. And he will fight for women to receive equal pay for equal work.

Protecting the Rights of All Americans
Politicians attack our rights and divide us to advance their own power. They try to disenfranchise African Americans and roll back voting rights. They draw political district lines to pack black people into clusters, silencing their voices. White supremacists and Neo-Nazis march through our southern streets carrying torches and chains, yet politicians don’t call them out for it. It’s wrong, it’s un-American, and Dan won’t stand for it.

When politicians try to kick Dreamers out of the country who were brought here as children, or separate four-year-old children from their parents at the border, that’s un-American. Dan knows we need a comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform that respects our laws and secures our border, but also upholds our values.

Dan knows that everyone, straight or gay, deserves equality under the law. Everyone deserves equal opportunity no matter their race, gender, sexual orientation, or country of origin. ^[2]