Dr. Ruiz was born in New York
City in 1970 and lives in New
Smyrna Beach, FL, USA. He is
married to Danielle Ruiz and
has two sons, Nicholas and
Kai. He is the author of
America in Absentia (2008),
Integral Reality (with Robert
Hassan, forthcoming, 2012)
and The Metaphysics of
Capital, (2006).  He is also the
editor of Kritikos.

Platform for Progress

I’ll start a New Deal Caucus in our U.S. House
of Representatives - The New Deal Caucus will
embody every successful aspect of FDR’s New
Deal, with upgrades for the 21st century
circumstances that we face. A primary component
of the New Deal Caucus agenda, would be to
implement a new Works Progress Administration,
that puts people to work doing jobs they can do,
to help our country and to help one another to
survive, prosper and move ahead in these difficult
times.

The Tea Party Caucus is enthralled with generic,
big box retail solutions for everything, from tax
cuts for people who don’t need them to private
prison expansion that alchemizes profitability from
imprisonment - ideas I do not support in the least.
In direct opposition and contrast, the New Deal
Caucus will practice a boutique-style politics that
recognizes a new tailored vision for the problems
we face as a country, rather than the one size fits
all, industrial-era Tea Party Caucus perspective
that practices a sledgehammer politics of middle
class destruction and increased poverty, with their
only aim being the status quo preservation of the
corporate class, regardless of who or what is
commoditized in the process.


We need to harness the power of the financial
Market (i.e. Wall Street) for the Public - I will
support and/or sponsor legislation for the creation
of a Public Trust, that is, a 10% issuance of public
shares of all publicly traded companies, and a
10% issuance of all tradable derivatives (e.g.
crude oil, gold, etc.) for the financing of public
interests (e.g. healthcare, education, social
security, etc.). The financial bailouts of 2008-2009
have proven that we have the political will to
connect the Market sphere to the Public sphere in
ways previously unimaginable, for the benefit of
financial stability and reinvestment in American
interests. If the American government (i.e. public)
can help to support the financial markets, the
financial markets can reciprocate the favor. The
Market should work for the Public, as well as the
reverse.

Social Security - We should lower the age of
Social Security retirement eligibility to 55, and
increase the benefit by 20%. This policy will
encourage people to retire sooner, allowing them
to enjoy their later years in better health, while
freeing them to contribute to society in other ways.

Unemployment - By lowering the retirement
eligibility age and increasing the benefit, we
encourage people to retire earlier, while
simultaneously realizing new job openings created
by their retirement that can then be filled by the
unemployed. Unemployment benefits should be
continued until the unemployment rate returns to
historically reasonable levels. We must preserve
the U.S. Social Safety Net.   

Universal Healthcare System - Every major
industrialized nation in the world has a universal
healthcare system - when will America? I will
support and/or sponsor legislation for a universal
healthcare system - let's end the nonsense of the
Medicare D 'donut hole', the 'uninsured' or 'non-
covered' status, and prejudice against alternative
medicine, etc.... forever. Like the fire and police
departments which offer universal public access to
their services - universal health care should also
be available as a standard public service.

ProChoice/Pro-Planned Parenthood - There is
no role for the government in controlling women or
their bodies - and we should wholeheartedly
support community efforts to educate men and
women about family planning.

A Livable Minimum Wage - I will sponsor the Fair
CPI Wage Act (amends FLSA of 1938). Wages
have stagnated for decades and could be
revitalized by raising the minimum wage to a
livable wage (~$14/hr) by 2018 and tethering it to
the Consumer Price Index, so that as consumer
prices float upward, so does the base level federal
minimum wage. Under the current system,
consumer prices for goods and services have
risen enormously in recent decades, but real
wages have not kept pace with such real
increases in the cost of living, disproportionately
eroding the standard of living for the non-wealthy.

Green America - energy policy formation that
cultivates and protects American economic
interests, while preserving natural ecosystems. I
will support and/or sponsor legislation that seeks
to preserve our natural ecosystems, while initiating
a variety of sustainable new energy initiatives,
such as the widening of tax credits and incentives
for the installation of residential and commercial
energy efficiency products or systems.

Banking and Credit Reform - Banking and credit
practices have grown increasingly predatory over
the past few decades. I will support and/or
sponsor legislation that seeks to curtail abusive
financial practices (e.g. overdraft fees, late fees
high finance charges, etc.)

Education - Who decided that math and science
were the alpha and omega of education? Not
parents. Education consists of far more than math
and science. Creativity, abstract thought,
thoughtfulness - all of these intellectual assets
require education in the arts and humanities in
order to be cultivated in our children. Our
politicians continue to throw money away on more
math and science, and technical assessments and
testing, while sacrificing the arts and humanities,
teachers and public schools. The short-sighted,
narrow obsession with math, science and
technology is painting our culture into an anti-
intellectual corner.

We should balance the education equation,
and teach equal parts of math, science, the
arts and humanities in our schools.

I will work on legislation that favors development
of the roles of the National Endowment for the
Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, in our K-20 educational
system, throughout the nation.

Fairness in progressive taxation - I am in favor
of fairness across the tax spectrum, but am
cautious that we retain the U.S. Social Safety net,
and other vital federal functions. So I would want
to work with a bill that adequately protects key
federal funding, while seeking to ensure that tax
liability was spread fairly across our population.

Warren Buffett once said that his secretary paid
more tax (30%) than Buffett himself did (17%) -
that's simply not fair or just:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/tax/article1996735.ece

We absolutely need tax reform, and please feel
confident, that I am committed to such a concept
as fairness in progressive taxation.

I am an advocate and supporter of the initiative
to implement ranked choice, IRV (Instant
Runoff Voting) in federal elections, where citizens
rank their choice of candidates in order of
preference on the ballot.
With IRV, citizens can vote for whom they really
hope to see elected, and list their second choice,
third choice, etc. It's a fair way to determine who
really has the majority of votes, rather than the
winner take all system, where a candidate that the
majority would rather not elect - often gets
elected, regardless.


Tell me what you would like me to do as your
elected representative.












Political advertisement paid for and approved by
Nicholas Ruiz III, Democratic candidate for Congress
Nicholas Ruiz III
for U.S. Congress 2012
FL District 24
For the new wave of American progress.