Supporting Our Veterans Fighting For Those Who Fought For Us
Every politician pays lip service to honoring the sacrifices of our nation’s veterans, but too many of them then return to Washington and cut veterans’ benefits and services. The truth is, we fed our veterans years of empty promises and left them to navigate increasingly difficult and backlogged systems on their own.  

We need to invest in the long-term wellbeing of our veterans by:

Investing in flexibility of the VA, bringing its services into the places where veterans live through a network of community health partnerships rather than forcing them to travel long distances for care. 
Restoring funds for Medicaid and Medicare that were slashed during the Trump administration.  While the VA covers many veterans in full or in part, 1.7 million veterans rely on Medicaid and 9.3 million use Medicare for coverage, and Trump-era budget cuts eliminated access to life-saving care for many veterans. 
Reworking VA policies around coverage for members of the reserve component, who frequently lose access to their military benefits when their unit is demobilized.
Dedicating targeted resources through the VA for female veterans, who are more likely to experience sexual assault and harassment in addition to combat-related injuries.
Expanding coverage and protection for mental health services, making sure that all veterans have access to services whenever they need them. The current wars are the first since World War II that have demanded multiple deployments by service members, which increases the risk of PTSD by 50%. 
Training culturally competent, trauma-informed mental health professionals and better integrating their services within the VA.  As we expand the services of the VA to meet veterans where they live, we must include mental health care as part of the suite of services that are available.  In the private sector, only  13% of mental health professionals meet the criteria for military cultural competence, and half of US counties (disproportionately rural counties) lack mental health professionals of any kind. Training a new generation of trauma-informed mental health professionals through the VA will also help expand access to community mental health services that veterans can access through the Veterans’ Choice program.
Passing comprehensive legislation expanding the Veterans Burn Pits Exposure Recognition Act of 2021, allowing a broader class of veterans who were exposed to airborne contaminants in their service to get presumptive status so they may be treated through the VA without delay. 
Ensuring that immigrant veterans complete the naturalization process before their service comes to an end to prevent them from deportation at the end of their service. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Protecting the Right to Choose – A Plan for Real Choice
In the face of increasing threats to Roe vs Wade, Josh will pursue federal strategies to protect women’s right to make their own reproductive decisions, whether that is the choice to pursue abortion care or the choice to keep a pregnancy. Our current system forestalls any real choice: while abortion and adoption are the right choice for some people, other people in an unplanned pregnancy have their hands forced because chosing to parent is medically and financially unfeasible. Every child should be a loved and wanted child, and every child should have access to care and support. In order to build a system that truly supports real choice, we must: 

Pass a permanent family and medical leave law such as the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) act, to protect the 80% of private-sector workers who currently have no access to paid leave to care for a new child. 
Expand Medicaid to cover pregnant people throughout pregnancy and through the first year after pregnancy. Virginia has led the way for postpartum Medicaid expansion: these rights need to be extended to people across the US. 
Expand sustainable funding streams to community-based organizations to help improve maternal health and mortality rates.  These CBOs support birthing parents during and after pregnancy and have helped facilitate a dramatic drop in the maternal mortality rate, particularly for women of color. 
Increase federal support for equitable access to quality child care. 
 Create federal statutory rights that protect safe and accessible abortion care and prevent states from interfering in the right to access medical care, including abortion services.
Ensure that private health insurance providers must cover a full range of contraceptive methods without out-of-pocket costs for patients. 
Streamline the existing federal adoption subsidies, and expand programs to help families adopt children with medical needs or sibling relationships that make them more difficult to place.

Ultimately, both for parents and for people deciding whether or not to become parents, we must build a culture that supports the choice to have children by supporting those children and their families after they’re born. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Gun Violence Prevention – Building Safer Communities
Every day, 100 Americans are shot and killed, hundreds more are injured, and even more families have their lives changed forever. While we can’t prevent all of these tragedies, we can do so much more to protect our communities and families, and that begins with making sure that people who shouldn’t have guns don’t get them.  This means: 

Building a robust system of interstate background checks on all gun sales to prevent people who shouldn’t have guns from exploiting the massive loopholes in our current background check laws. 
Requiring all gun sellers to certify that their gun buyers have secure home firearm storage.
Passing the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act to mirror existing state legislation on the federal level. These laws allow concerned family members of people who are deemed to be in danger of harming themselves or others to seek permission for a temporary freeze on their loved one’s ability to purchase a gun. Two-thirds of all gun deaths are deaths by suicide, and these early interventions by family members and the courts can help save lives. 
Banning permitless carry nationwide. Josh supports safe use of firearms by trained, law-abiding gun owners and supports ending permitless carry so everyone can be certain that anyone carrying a weapon has the training to use it correctly. 

We must also continue to support systemic and community-based strategies to prevent gun violence, such as:

Adding legislative power to the Department of Justice’s community-based violence intervention and prevention efforts.
Extending the current ARP funding for evidence-based community violence intervention programs.
Continuing to fund CDC research into gun violence prevention. The CDC was frozen out of studying and quantifying gun violence for 25 years; we need to support and adequately fund their research so we can fully understand the scope of the problem and develop real solutions out of that research.  

We all want to protect our liberty, and we also all want to make sure that our families and communities are protected from needless tragedy.  It’s time to tone down the rhetoric and work together to enact common-sense gun legislation that both protects the rights of law-abiding gun owners and keeps guns away from people who intend to do harm. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Disability Access – Access for All
As an advocate for the disability community, Josh is invested in supporting communities that have been historically missed or excluded from federal programs.  

Josh supports: 

A system of targeted grants to states to improve access to public spaces, public sidewalks and public transit for people with disabilities. 
Reforming the current income cap and asset limit for people with disabilities. The current federal monthly cap on income for a person eligible for SSI disability is $791. This cap drastically limits the type of work and amount of work that disabled people can do and penalizes them for accumulating wealth and savings through work. 
Ending subminimum wage for people with disabilities and phasing out sheltered workshops, both of which operate under the presumption that the labor of disabled people is less valuable than their abled peers and requires an unequal pay structure. In some cases, this causes significant disruption to choices around family, including preventing disabled people from marrying.
Expanding targeted education and training for disabled job seekers, as well as education for business owners who could expand their hiring practices more broadly in the community.  In addition, the federal government needs to adequately fund vocational rehabilitation, Individual Placement and Support (IPS), and other supported employment programs to help create structural support for employers and employees with disabilities. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Agriculture and Farming – A Commitment To Our Farmers
Josh grew up in a small town that ran on agriculture.  The town was supported by small family farms that supported the local businesses. As Josh got older, he saw many small farmers retire and sell their land, either because they couldn’t pass their land on or because they were priced out of the industry. When the small farms folded, the businesses in town closed and the town slowly dried up. This is a tragedy, and it’s happening all over the Fifth District. 

We must support our small farms by: 

Carving out tax protections within the estate tax for small family farms, eliminating capital gains taxes at death for farm inheritances and creating a plan for structured staggered repayment of delinquent taxes on family farms.  We need small farms, and no family should lose their land because they are too tax-burdened to pass it on.
Reworking our current farm policy so it is less burdensome on small farms; current policy designed to regulate giant agribusinesses isn’t cost-effective for small farms and prevents them from exploring sustainable practices, organic certification and direct-to-consumer models like CSAs and farm stores.
Increasing access to low-interest, federally backed microloans and cost-share support to allow farmers just starting out to buy land at prices they can afford, and to give farmers looking to transition into sustainable and regenerative farming practices access to supportive capital.
Extending special protections for agricultural land historically farmed by Black and Indigenous people and expanding the Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant program for farmers of color who disproportionately lost their land to consolidation and buyouts. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Protecting Our Rural Communities – A Commitment to Rural America
The barbershop where Josh got his hair cut as a kid is boarded up. His hometown’s only school closed right after he graduated. The grocery store is abandoned, just like the funeral home, restaurant, and gas station.  When these businesses left, the entire community dried up. This is a tragedy, and it’s happening all across the Fifth District. We can restore our network of thriving, robust rural communities and small towns, but it requires strategic investment. Rural communities feel left behind by Congress because they have been – now is the time to reinvest and make our communities whole again.

Josh supports:

Consolidating federal services for rural programs under a single agency that can address the unique challenges of rural housing, land grants, transportation, healthcare, education, and small business development. 
Addressing underinvestment in rural communities by providing grants to develop and rehabilitate existing homes, commercial property and roads, and passing the Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit to incentivize homebuying for low- and moderate- income borrowers. 
Engaging a robust interagency effort to address the national crisis of affordable housing. 
Helping develop rural hospitals into healthcare hubs that provide a variety of non-emergency services, and funding rural hospitals through fixed yearly budgets rather than per-service fees. 
Developing programs to rebuild and remodel rural schools for 21st century learning. This includes reducing schools’ carbon footprints through renewable energy sources, giving students equal access to high-speed broadband, and fix aging classrooms that have asbestos, mold, and other safety hazards. 
Expanding broadband via the ReConnect program, which gives financial assistance to service providers who can build out “last mile” services. This will level the playing field for students who continually get left behind simply because of their zip code. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Improving Healthcare Access & Affordability – Building A Healthier America
Every American should have access to affordable, quality healthcare regardless of where they live, the color of their skin or how much is in their bank account. No one should suffer, die or declare bankruptcy because they can’t afford to see a doctor. The solutions to our broken healthcare system are complex, but we must build a system that helps people gain access, reduce costs, and improve outcomes. That’s why Josh supports Medicare for All, which guarantees access to healthcare for all Americans while helping curb the out-of-control costs that exist in our current broken system.

Besides guaranteeing insurance access, however, we must make other interventions to fix our system, including:

Stabilizing and expanding funding for the Community Health Center Fund, which supports a strong network of community health partnerships and satellite services.  These services bring care to historically underserved communities, improving health outcomes for everyone regardless of their proximity to a major hospital. 
Ensuring robust FTC regulation of  healthcare monopolies, which otherwise drive up the cost of both medical care and prescription drugs.  
Mandating that all federal healthcare programs cover preventative mental health services, dental care, vision, and hearing. Additionally, we need to build a system of reimbursement incentives to encourage private companies to do the same. 
Negotiating and writing off overdue medical bills in collections, and ending abusive debt collection practices that repeatedly target working families.
Allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs, limit the extent to which drug companies can raise drug prices, and cap out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare/Medicaid users to mirror Affordable Care Act practices. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)

Ensuring Quality Education – Education for the 21st Century
As the son of a fourth grade teacher, the product of a strong public education, and the parent of two young children, Josh knows firsthand how important it is for the next generation of workers and citizens to have a quality education. An education that prepares our students for the 21st century begins in Pre-K and extends through technical school or college.  Here’s what that looks like: 

Increasing federal support for equitable access to quality child care and universal pre-K for our youngest learners so they can thrive and grow while their parents work.
Guaranteeing that high school graduates can continue their education without being crushed under a mountain of debt by expanding eligibility for Pell Grants, capping interest rates on federal student loans at 2%, and expanding the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to cover more students.
Making community college free for all.

Giving our students a high-quality education also means that we must reinvest in our public schools and in our hard-working teachers. Josh supports:

Expanding Public Service Loan Forgiveness, TEACH grants and other programs that help teachers get a free or reduced-cost education
Developing a system of federally-backed pensions for public school teachers, modeled on the Civil Service Retirement System, to help attract some of the best minds into the profession.  
Creating a CCC-style program that employs construction workers to help rebuild and remodel our schools for a 21st century learning environment.  Many school buildings, particularly in our district’s rural communities are crumbling, and our current system of property taxes for school funding prevents many poorer schools from making needed investments in their buildings. A federal program can help bridge that gap while also creating good jobs within the community.
Helping schools develop family resource hubs within school buildings that provide access to medical and social services, because we know kids thrive best when schools create intentional partnerships between schools and families.
Expanding broadband to all schools and families via the ReConnect program, which gives financial assistance to service providers who can build out “last mile” services. (Source: https://joshforvirginia.com/)