Democrats believe in an economy that’s set up so that every family can succeed, not one that’s rigged for the benefit of the wealthy.

Far too much of the nation’s wealth is funneled into the already-well-lined pockets of CEOs and hedge-fund managers… and far too little of it is reinvested in America, to create more well-paying living-wage jobs, improve our infrastructure, and grow our nation’s most valuable resource — the American people.

We need an economy that provides an opportunity for every family to work hard and succeed. We deserve a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Nobody who works full-time should have to raise their family in poverty.

That’s why we support measures like raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation, protecting the rights of workers to join a union, paid family and medical leave so that working Americans can care for their families, strengthening equal pay laws to guarantee that women and men receive the same pay for the same work, and other measures that will ensure that every single American has an opportunity to work hard and provide for the people they love.

Infrastructure benefits all Americans and puts the American people to work.

When FDR invested in national projects like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Eisenhower invested in the interstate highway system, many Republicans scoffed that these commitments were a waste of the taxpayer’s money.

Those investments have paid for themselves hundreds of times over. They’ve provided well-paying jobs for the people who build and maintain them. They’ve made it easier for Americans to see and appreciate their country. They’ve benefitted American businesses with a stable and reliable nationwide transportation network.

Democrats believe that we need to invest again in our nation’s infrastructure — not only to repair our existing roads, bridges, rail networks, and public utilities like our water system and electrical grids for the benefit of the whole public, but also to build a new 21st-century infrastructure.

We need to expand high-speed broadband in Craven County, so that every single person here has access to the 21st-century economy. We need to expand clean renewable energy projects like wind and solar power. We need an independent, national infrastructure bank to provide funding and support for these improvements. And our infrastructure should belong to all of us — not privatized and sold off to the highest bidder.

Every child deserves a great education in a great public school, regardless of their family’s income or zip code.

Americans have always valued education as the pathway to success, not only for the individual but for the nation. Education is necessary for creating strong citizens who are prepared to lead the United States into the future.

Massive investments in public science and math education in the 1950s and 1960s landed Americans on the moon, paved the way for the creation of the internet, and benefitted everyone through continual innovation and invention. Investments in public arts and letters education have strengthened our culture immensely.

Unfortunately, many of our leaders have abandoned this commitment to public education — gutting funding for public schools, cutting teachers’ pay and increase class sizes, and turning our money over to private schools. These attacks on public education hurt low-income and rural Americans most, as places like Craven County struggle to hire teachers and keep class sizes down amid deeper and deeper cuts and more and more standardized tests.

Democrats believe that every single child — regardless of their race, gender, family income, or zip code — deserves a great public education, from pre-K through college. When we invest in high-quality public schools for all children, our county, our state, and our nation will reap the benefits many times over.

Every American should have access to affordable health care.

Americans believe in taking care of one another, in raising healthy and strong children, in fulfilling our promises to the elderly, in protecting the most vulnerable.

The Affordable Care Act, while not perfect, was a good start. It put affordable health care within the reach of millions of Americans, protected preexisting conditions and ensured that everyone with insurance would have access to basic benefits like preventative care, mental health care, and prescription drugs.

But some people want to take us backwards. Back to the time when your insurance company could reject you for having a preexisting condition, or cap your benefits when you got sick and needed them most. Back to the time when millions of Americans couldn’t afford the health care they needed, or could only afford junk insurance that didn’t cover even the most basic health care needs. Back even further, to the time before Medicare and Medicaid, when the elderly worried whether they would lose their lives because they couldn’t afford health care.

That’s the wrong way for America. That’s the wrong way for Craven County.

As Democrats, we believe that we need to strengthen and build on the progress we’ve made with Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, by making health care even more affordable and accessible for every American. We need to increase subsidies for low-income people, let Americans opt into Medicare at the age of 55, and expand Medicaid in North Carolina.

Our natural resources — our air, our water, our natural beauty, our climate — belong to all of us. We must conserve and protect them.

We don’t have to choose between economic growth and protecting our natural resources.

Protecting our air and water, building the 21st-century green energy economy, and conserving our natural wealth creates jobs and promotes economic growth.

Solar panels and wind farms need to be built and maintained. Millions of American homes and businesses need to be weatherized and improved so that less energy is wasted keeping them lighted, heated, and cooled. Our infrastructure needs massive amounts of investment to be more efficient and more environmentally-friendly.

What does all of that mean? More jobs in Craven County, cleaner air and water, and our nation’s natural beauty and climate preserved as a birthright for our children and grandchildren to enjoy. We’d be fools not to do it.

Everyone deserves equal justice under the law, and every American has the right to vote, raise their voice, and participate fully in our democracy.

Despite progress over the last century, our nation and our county still have deep inequities. Racial discrimination is illegal, but weak laws and weak enforcement means that African Americans, Latino Americans, and other people of color suffer discrimination in hiring, in housing, in business, and in public services — and the racial wealth gap remains as the legacy of centuries of slavery and Jim Crow.

In North Carolina, it’s legal to fire someone for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender — and our state’s legislators seem to always be looking for ways to permit even more discrimination.

Democrats believe in equal justice for everyone under the law. We need to reform our criminal justice system to end racial disparities in policing, ensure equality for LGBT Americans, and end for-profit prisons and other “policing for a profit.” We need to strengthen and enforce protections against discrimination in the workplace, in housing, and in public services, so that everyone has an equal and fair chance regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Here in North Carolina, voting rights are under attack. The ruling party keeps trying to make it harder and harder for ordinary North Carolinians to vote, with ever-more-restrictive voter ID laws, cuts to early voting and polling places, and myriad other efforts designed to deny the people of North Carolina their right to have their say at the ballot box. Their gerrymandering of legislative districts is so blatantly partisan that they’ve repeatedly been shut down by the courts.

As a result, our purple state has a deep-red state legislature, where out-of-state billionaires and rabid partisans — not the ordinary people of North Carolina — are calling all the shots.

Democrats believe in government of the people, for the people, and by the people. North Carolina’s legislators shouldn’t get to choose their voters… we the voters deserve the right to choose our legislators.

Every single eligible North Carolinian has the right to vote in a fair, clean, honest election — an election that can’t be bought or stolen by deep-pocketed outside interest groups and that can’t be cancelled by partisan or racial gerrymanders.