Mark Levine’s Platform for the 8th VA Congressional Seat

Mark Levine, who calls himself the “Aggressive Progressive,” plans to run for a Congressional seat for the 8th district of Virginia. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) currently serves the district, but he has declared his retirement at the end of this term. He competes against 10 other democrat candidates for this district at this time. Levine is an international lawyer, who has been prominent in debates against Republicans through radio shows (more than 1,000 times) and TV shows (more than 100 times).

Levine is a big fan of Korean foods such as Bulgogi and Kalbi, having been to Korea several times during his career as an international lawyer. He is highly interested in working with AAPI (Asian-American Pacific Islander) communities.

During his interview with The Korea Times, Levine focused his attention on immigration, and stated that as all immigrants are welcome unless they are criminals or terrorists. He believes that new immigrants are necessary to bring economic growth and for better understanding of other cultures. Levine is fond of immigrants, as his grandfather was a first generation immigrant as well. He had sold women’s dresses without having been able to afford a shop at first; it was through much difficulty and hardship that he was able to obtain both a shop and regular customers. Levine believes that working with AAPI minorities and constituents’ issues, and he also promises to bring them to U.S. Congress.

When asked about the terms “Aggressive Progressive,” Levine answered that although he is a progressive, he wasn’t afraid of asking questions and demanding answers from his own party, if he believed them to be immoral. For example, he noted that he didn’t agree with the Bush Administration’s method of spying on US citizens, but he also did not agree with the Obama Administration’s decisions on continuing that method. He voiced his disagreements with the Obama Administration’s methods of spying on Americans and promised to question such behavior, no matter which aisle of the Congress was involved in it.

Regarding religion and politics, Levine asserted that religion be separated from politics, and to prevent either controlling the other. He stated that if religion enters politics, corruption occurs within the Government, and vice versa. On the question of his personal opinion regarding the students carrying Bibles into public schools, Levine answered that in public schools, students carry the Bible or other holy books of their free will; however, Christian schools generally require students to bring the Bible into schools per curriculum. He isn’t against individuals carrying Bibles into the school, but schools should never force students to bring these books.

In talking about economics, Levine noted the “marginal propensity to consume” theory, where the poor will consume, but the rich do not need to consume. The majority of consumers in America are of the middle class and below. They pay the highest rates of taxes, generally because the income taxes are much higher than taxes obtained from interests and dividends. For example, the rich would pay less than 1% of their income into social security tax (based on an annual income of $1 million), and even at the rate of 0.001% (when considering the mega-rich such as Warren Buffett or Bill Gates). This is significantly less in percentage than those in the middle class. Levine hopes for more even distribution of tax responsibility, rather than the majority being held by the middle class.

Levine promised to support small business owners obtain better financial assistance and support if his district supports his seat. Among his agenda are plans to remove all pollutions from the Potomac River (which generally is due to states like Pennsylvania and West Virginia), better job opportunities for veterans, protection for federal employees from government shut down, and better legislative protection to lower and prevent domestic violence.

Levine hopes for feedback by his constituents and is always willing to hear about what they want and need. Anyone who is interested should contact Mark Levine at mark@levineforcongress.com and 703-745-5543. They can obtain more information on Mark Levine at his website: levineforcongress.com.

CoreeILBO supports Mark Levine to be a congressman of 8th Congressional district.

The 8th Congressional District of Virginia include Alexandria, Falls Church, South Annandale, Arlington, and the western part of McLean.

The election day will be on June 10th, 2014.