Matt Mahan

I grew up in a party whose core values I deeply identify with.

I grew up in a working class community where my folks and most people we lived around were generally paycheck to paycheck.

And when the party gets back to its roots and gets back to solving problems, we expand opportunity for people.

We create better schools.

We build infrastructure.

We make sure the economy is inclusive and that people don't get left behind.

We make sure people have access to health care.

But we need to upgrade everything.

the, the platform, because we're still trying to do things the way we did in the 20th century, where the answer to every problem is, if we just have more tax revenue and more programs, we're going to fix it.

And at some point, we've got to make government smarter, more responsive, more efficient.

We're, we're the party that needs government to work.

We believe in government as a force for good.

That's

Many of the folks on the other side of the aisle, if you will, are more interested in just kind of hobbling and shrinking and making government as small as it can be.

And that's kind of an endless debate.

But for where I'm at, it's not about making government smaller or bigger.

It's especially in a state with the very high tax burden we have in California.

Let's give people value for their dollars.

Let's make sure we're making people's lives better, right?

So I just, yeah, I grew up in the Democratic Party.