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Make America Work for Working People

Policy Priorities

Investing in Education

Cait believes everyone in the Hudson Valley should have the same shot at the American Dream that she had. But for too many, that dream is fading away. For the first time in modern American history, the economic prospects of young Americans are worse than those of their parents.  

In Congress, Cait will prepare our kids for the future by:

  • Increasing access to affordable childcare through federal subsidies and tax credits, and investing in universal pre-K. We need to treat early childcare as early education, not babysitting.
  • Expanding our BOCES, Career & Technical Education (CTE), and Community College programming, creating partnerships with unions and employers to increase the number of apprenticeship programs focused on the jobs of the future. 
  • Capping interest rates on federal student loans so people aren’t paying off $200,000 on a $50,000 loan 20 years later. 
  • Investing in our public schools by modernizing aging school infrastructure, opposing voucher programs that strip funding from our public education system, fully funding lunch programs for all students who qualify, and increasing funding for early childhood education programs like Head Start.
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Rebuilding our Infrastructure

The Hudson Valley’s critical infrastructure is outdated, overstressed, and failing. A failure to invest in updating our infrastructure has left us with a broken system incapable of managing the increasingly destructive impacts of climate change. Hudson Valley families should not be paying for the failures in corporate and federal government leadership – they’ve had chances to fix this and haven’t gotten the job done. Now it’s time for change and accountability, not excuses.

Cait has worked directly with Congress on some of the most complicated national security threats facing our country, from protecting Americans against terrorist plots to strengthening the cyber and physical security of our nation’s critical infrastructure, including the water we drink, the energy that powers our homes, and the election systems that underpin our democracy.  

In Congress, Cait will improve the Hudson Valley’s infrastructure by:

  • Delivering investments to the Hudson Valley for critical energy, water, sewer, and transportation infrastructure through direct investments and expanding the federal BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) grant programs. These upgrades will also create good-paying job opportunities locally, ensuring that contracts go to local workers and labor unions. 
  • Getting rid of outdated red tape to get renewable energy projects moving. 
  • Lowering electric bills by taking on corporate utility giants and forcing greater accountability from electrical companies so they spend their profits on modernizing and replacing our outdated electrical grid.
  • Increasing our energy supply, not by spending years trying to reopen the broken and decrepit Indian Point, but by investing in energy projects that utilize the Hudson Valley’s natural resources, like wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal energy, that can help lower energy bills today.
  • Addressing PFAS in our water by increasing testing, removal, and prevention efforts to ensure our communities have clean drinking water.
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Lowering the Cost of Housing

Working families are being priced out of communities they’ve called home for generations. And kids who grew up here can’t afford to come back and raise their families in the communities that raised them. The rising cost of housing in the Hudson Valley is a threat to all hard-working New Yorkers and is pulling families apart.

In Congress, Cait will lower housing costs by:

  • Creating a public service housing loan program for teachers, nurses, and first responders to expand access to affordable homeownership in the communities they serve. This would allow these community heroes to receive competitive mortgage interest rates with no down payment and no private mortgage insurance payments (PMI).
  • Making it easier to build affordable housing by cutting outdated red tape and zoning rules that slow down projects and drive up prices.
  • Increasing funding for affordable housing by expanding federal community block grants and improving tax credits for builders developing mixed-income housing projects. 
  • Cracking down on corporate landlords and Wall Street hedge funds that are buying up properties and pricing out working families.
  • Lowering the cost of heat and electricity by modernizing our energy infrastructure.
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Expanding and Protecting Affordable Healthcare

Every American should have the right to access affordable healthcare. Growing up, Cait’s dad worked as a construction worker, where his ability to earn a living depended upon his ability to stay healthy, but could not always afford health insurance. 

In Congress, Cait will fight to lower healthcare costs in the Hudson Valley by:

  • Allowing everyone to opt in to a public insurance option, regardless of age, expanding coverage, and driving down costs across the marketplace.  
  • Defending the Affordable Care Act & Medicaid and expanding Medicare to include vision, dental, and hearing.
  • Protecting critical funding for our hospitals and local healthcare providers. 
  • Cracking down on Big Pharma price gouging, ending schemes like “pay for delay”, capping insulin prices at $35 for everyone, and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices on more prescription drugs.
  • Passing Roe v. Wade into law to restore a woman’s right to make personal healthcare decisions without interference from politicians — including access to abortion, contraception, and IVF. 
  • Restoring federal funding for Planned Parenthood by repealing the legislation that cut off Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood clinics, making sure Hudson Valley women can access the care they need, where they need it.
  • Investing in veterans’ care by strengthening the VA system so facilities like the Montrose VA Medical Center get the funding and support they need.
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Fighting and Preventing Corruption

D.C. is ineffective because powerful special interests have rigged the system for decades. In 2024, Elon Musk spent over a million dollars propping up Mike Lawler. It’s time to fix a broken system, get rid of dark money flooding our elections, and stop elected representatives from personally enriching themselves in office. Hudson Valley families deserve representatives who answer only to them. 

In Congress, Cait will fight corruption by:

  • Banning members of Congress from trading stocks while in office, and requiring personal divestment from holdings.
  • Passing Congressional term limits to end the culture of careerism in Washington.
  • Overturning Citizens United and ending the era of unlimited, anonymous money buying our elections. Cait is proud to have been endorsed by End Citizens United and is committed to rooting out this corruption undermining our democracy.
  • Closing the revolving door by banning elected officials from becoming lobbyists after leaving office, so that public service is no longer a stepping stone to cashing in on connections.
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Fighting Climate Change as a National Security Priority

Growing up in the Hudson Valley, environmental threats were ever-present. Climate change has moved beyond academic debate and is now a national security crisis. In her efforts to protect the American people, Cait knows that the same fight we apply to protecting Americans from terrorism and foreign adversaries must now be applied to fighting climate change. 

In Congress, Cait will fight climate change by:

  • Investing in clean energy, expanding federal investments in solar, wind, and geothermal projects. 
  • Stopping Mike Lawler’s drive to reopen Indian Point. 
  • Addressing PFAS and other toxic contamination in our water supply by increasing testing, accelerating cleanup, and holding the corporations responsible for the pollution accountable.
  • Protecting our open spaces and enforcing strict environmental standards on corporations to stop corporate polluters. Cait is proud to have been endorsed by the National Resource Defense Council Action Fund, recognizing her as a leader in this fight who can drive change forward.
  • Pressuring this Administration to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and recommit the United States to climate leadership.
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Protecting our Elections and our Democracy

As the federal government’s senior executive overseeing election infrastructure security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Cait worked alongside state and local officials across the country to protect our election systems and fight back against Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen.  

Now, President Trump has purged election security professionals at CISA, stripped resources from state and local election offices, and attempted to coerce states into handing over their voter files.  

In Congress, Cait will defend our elections and our democracy by:

  • Restoring CISA’s election security mission and rebuilding the federal resources that help state and local officials defend against cyberattacks and foreign interference.
  • Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to end right-wing attempts to take away voting rights.
  • Reinstating the Foreign Malign Influence Center and the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force to counter the foreign interference operations that adversaries like Russia have used to undermine confidence in our elections and stoke partisan division.
  • Defending the Constitutional principle that States administer elections and opposing any federal effort to seize voting equipment, voter files, or election records for political purposes.
  • Protecting election officials from politically motivated retaliation, intimidation, and federal prosecution for doing their jobs.
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Fixing a Broken Immigration System

Our immigration system is broken.  We need comprehensive reform that focuses on safety and security for all, not the terrorization of our immigrant communities. This administration’s weaponization of the executive branch, enabled by cowards like Mike Lawler, must be checked, agencies reined in,  and abuses held accountable.

We need to secure the border, fix our broken immigration system so it can function effectively and in an orderly manner, and ensure enforcement is focused on violent criminals.

In Congress, Cait will fix our broken immigration system by:

  • Reining in ICE and restoring accountability, requiring body cameras, standard law enforcement uniforms with visible ID, and prohibiting masked agents.  
  • Revoking 287g agreements so that local police can focus on protecting their own communities.
  • Creating a pathway to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants and Dreamers who are already part of our communities, paying taxes, and contributing to our economy.
  • Modernizing our immigration system by investing in technology and staffing at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to cut backlogs, expedite asylum claims, and reunite families faster.
  • Keeping the focus of enforcement where it belongs — on dangerous criminals and human traffickers, not on long-standing community members.
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Defending Our Interests Abroad

America should be a leader on the world stage and be a global force for good. But right now, Mike Lawler and Donald Trump are causing chaos and devastation abroad and making Americans less safe – all while driving up costs and making life even more expensive for New Yorkers.

Cait fought overseas in the Middle East so that we would not have another generation of service members fighting there again. 

In Congress, Cait will protect American interests abroad by:

  • Ending military escalation with Iran and pursuing diplomacy to ensure Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. 
  • Restoring USAID funding to rebuild America’s foreign aid capacity to maintain strength and stability abroad, and stop diseases from coming to our shores. 
  • Enacting Congressional oversight to stop Trump’s unchecked military actions. 
  • Supporting a two-state solution as the only viable long-term path to ensure Israel remains a secure, democratic Jewish state while Palestinians achieve legitimate aspirations for self-determination.
  • Recommitting our support for Ukraine against Russia’s unlawful aggression.
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Addressing AI

AI is transforming our country at a rate our current representatives just can’t keep up with. We have seen this story play out with social media companies before. Left unregulated and unchecked, corporations will continue to exploit our weak regulations at the expense of safety, security, and American jobs. We need leaders in Congress willing to put guardrails on this technology. As a former senior executive at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Cait understands this technology and its greatest risks. She will be a leader in Congress in advancing safety standards and preparing the workforce for its disruption to our economy. 

In Congress, Cait will protect families from AI by:

  • Protecting our kids with stricter age verification and parental consent standards for AI tools.
  • Passing clear data privacy laws to give consumers control over personal data.
  • Ensuring the U.S. leads in AI innovation, while also strengthening safeguards against adversarial use of AI, including cyberattacks and disinformation.
  • Regulating Data Centers to guarantee they pay their fair share through binding agreements that protect residents from utility rate hikes and harmful impacts to our water supply
  • Investing in community colleges and job retraining programs to prepare workers for a changing job market. 
  • Setting strict standards for how federal agencies use AI, including transparency and human oversight.
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Growing Our Economy for the 21st Century

Cait’s grandmother never graduated from high school, but she was able to work a good-paying job at IBM in the Hudson Valley and build a stable, dignified life. That kind of opportunity shouldn’t be a thing of the past. Wages have stagnated, and corporate giants have squeezed out small businesses. Cait believes the Hudson Valley can once again be a place where hard work is enough to get ahead.

In Congress, Cait will grow the economy for working families by: 

  • Ending entirely the Trump and Lawler-imposed SALT tax cap, which did not exist for over 100 years until Trump instituted it in 2017 to punish New Yorkers, that raises taxes on middle-class New Yorkers and was set to expire, until Lawler voted to make it permanent.
  • Passing the PRO Act and other pro-worker legislation that levels the playing field between workers and employers.
  • Investing in trade skills and work retraining programs that prepare Hudson Valley workers to adapt to a changing job market.
  • Supporting small businesses by cutting red tape, expanding access to affordable capital, and making sure that small businesses can attract talent with expanded access to affordable healthcare.
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