The Essential Youth Voice, by Henry Bontempo
Too often, we attribute the curvature of the arc of progress to the aged and jaded policy-leaders across our government. The leitmotif of youth is not its innocence but its idealism. Should something be unjust, we hasten to uproot it, but we glimpse its solution without the many-paned lens of pragmatism that mars more adult solutions to systemic problems. Essentially, within an issue, younger generations see uncomplicated solutions, while older adults see unsolved complications.
This is why for most every radical movement, kids are integral. And this is also how progress is beckoned, as for every movement, progressive politicians see a dilution, or a selection, of propounded policy to be enacted. It would be unfair to find this ideal — such actionable policies are largely palliative, treating the eaves and leaves but not roots of underlying problems — but though the movement towards justice may be viscously infinite, it is also immutably effective. Such is the pipeline of ideas, and thus the importance of younger clarity in a progressive policy agenda.
Kim has been fantastic as both a creative, cogent preacher of equitable policy and as a listener who prizes others’ experiences as pillars of her platform. Working with Kim, building the most progressive agenda feasibility will allow, has been incredible. We are developing progressive policies, especially surrounding housing and the real-estate industry, that will ensure tenant security against extortive landlords and that the millionaires and billionaires fueling development of residential high-rises pay their fair share.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
This is my favorite quote from Elizabeth Warren’s A Fighting Chance, and I find that it most epitomizes our campaign. Corporations and powerful business sectors have always bemoaned regulation and taxation, saying that it restricts them from growth. But the best, healthiest, and ultimately most successful industries are those that are obligated to provide the most equitable and highest-quality service to their customers and workers. The periods of most-consistent shrinkage of the wealth gap and wage increases have been when the government and corporations have worked to better those they serve, rather than use extortion to force the opposite.
We are living at a time where industries have spurned their customers and workers in order to make superfluous profit. The real estate industry has battered through regulations to build tapering, often vacuous skyscrapers to sell penthouses to billionaires, eluding the desperate paucity of affordable housing in our borough and all the while allowing predatory landlords to abuse and desolate rent-protected tenants. Fossil fuel emission and overdevelopment, meanwhile, have obstructed our views and festered our air.
As Borough President, Kim will be empowered to fix our broken systems of urban development and housing. She is committed to standing for Essential Manhattan — small and minority-owned businesses and tenants of all economic strata — in fighting the overreach of the real estate industry and the reprehensible conditions tenants endure from their landlords. She will advocate for new green spaces and renewable energy to forge a sustainable city.
We are so excited to continue listening to you all in empowering our fight for Essential Manhattan!
Henry Bontempo
Watkins Campaign Team
