Our Policies

A developing collection of policy frameworks designed to turn our values and priorities into practical, results-driven solutions.

Email info@laurenforkansas.com to learn more!

The American Middle-Class Prosperity Plan

A policy framework to rebuild broad-based prosperity by cutting taxes for working families, restoring fairness at the top, rewarding companies that invest in American workers, and keeping inflation and deficits under control. Inspired by the proven economic success of the mid-1960s, this plan focuses on middle-out growth, responsible taxation, and public investments that deliver visible returns for everyday Americans.

Delivering a Real Return on American Investment

The American Middle-Class Prosperity Plan is a comprehensive tax and economic framework designed to rebuild broad-based prosperity by ensuring that growth once again benefits working families, strengthens the middle class, and delivers visible returns for the people who fund the government. It starts from a simple premise: if Americans are the government’s largest investors, they deserve a meaningful return on that investment.

For decades, the economy has grown on paper while wages stagnated, costs rose, and wealth concentrated at the top. This plan draws inspiration from one of the most successful economic periods in American history—the mid-1960s—when productivity gains translated into rising wages, inflation remained stable, and the middle class expanded. Our tax policy updates that proven model for today’s economy.

The framework prioritizes middle-class tax relief, including lower taxes for working families, expanded deductions, and payroll tax offsets for households under $125,000—putting more money directly into paychecks and strengthening consumer-driven growth. At the same time, it restores fairness at the top by ensuring that very high earners and large capital gains are taxed responsibly, closing loopholes that reward wealth over work.

The plan reforms the corporate tax code to be pro-growth and pro-worker, rewarding companies that invest in domestic manufacturing, clean energy, research and development, and worker training—while discouraging tax avoidance and short-term financial engineering. It also addresses inflation without sacrificing jobs by coordinating fiscal policy with the Federal Reserve, expanding housing and energy supply, and targeting overheated sectors rather than imposing broad, blunt austerity.

Finally, the Return on the American Investment commits to paying for what we spend. New investments are paired with responsible revenue, ineffective programs are sunset, and temporary safeguards are used to prevent overheating—ensuring strong growth without passing today’s costs onto future generations.

This is not a proven approach. By combining fair taxation, disciplined spending, and public investments in infrastructure, education, housing, and healthcare cost stability, this tax policy offers a practical roadmap to shared prosperity and a real return on the American investment.

Keeping the Promise:

The Social Security Fair Share Plan

Lauren believes Social Security is a sacred trust and promise that must be kept for every generation. But today, the system faces a growing inequality gap that threatens its long-term health.

Right now, a typical nurse or teacher pays into Social Security with every single paycheck, all year long. In contrast, a billionaire CEO often stops paying into the system just seconds, minutes, or hours into the first day of the year.

In 2026, the Social Security payroll tax applies only to the first $184,500 of a person’s earnings. Because high-end wages have grown much faster than wages for the average worker, the share of American earnings that fund Social Security has dropped from 90 percent in 1983 to just 83 percent today. That imbalance weakens the program’s financial foundation.

Lauren’s plan to “Scrap the Cap” restores fairness and strengthens the system by requiring individuals with incomes over $400,000 to pay the same 12.4 percent Social Security tax rate as everyone else.

To protect middle-class professionals and small business owners, the plan creates a “donut hole” that exempts income between the current wage cap and $400,000 from any additional payroll tax. This ensures that reforms are targeted squarely at the top 1 percent of earners — not at families who are still working their way up.

Crucially, Lauren’s framework also addresses the modern concentration of wealth. The plan applies the Social Security tax to unearned investment and certain business income for high-earning households. This ensures that wealth contributes to our collective security just as much as work does.

This common-sense approach achieves three critical goals without raising taxes by a single penny on more than 99 percent of households earning $400,000 or less:

Guarantees Solvency
- Extends Social Security’s ability to pay full benefits for at least the next 75 years.

Funds a Benefit Boost
- Provides the revenue necessary to increase monthly benefits by $200 for all current and new retirees — an additional $2,400 per year to help cover the rising cost of essentials.

Protects the Middle Class
- Targets reforms at the highest earners while shielding middle-class Americans from immediate tax increases.

The Heartland Renaissance:

Empowering our Small Farms and Main streets

For too long, Kansas 1st Congressional district has been treated as an "extraction zone" rather that a center of innovation. Our rural communities stand at a critical crossroads and it is time for a blueprint that restores economic sovereignty to our farmers and invests in the essential infrastructure of our future

Lauren's "New Deal for Rural America" is built on the belief that a community cannot thrive if its people are unsupported. Her vision is guided by the principles of economic resilience, local empowerment, and sustainability. Our campaign is committed to a future where decision making power is shifted back to local stakeholders and resources are directed toward small family farms, tribal communities, and underserved regions.

Our Plan for a Thriving Heartland

Agricultural transformation

We will make small and mid-sized farming profitable again by reforming subsidies to prioritize family operations over industrial agribusiness. We will also support the next generations of farmers through federal loan guarantees and incentives for land transfers.

21st-Century infrastructure

Modern infrastructure mean more than just roads; it means global connectivity. Our plan will establish a high-speed internet mandate and create a "Public Option" for broadband where private provides refuse to build.

Economic and Energy Sovereignty

Our plan will continue the work to bring back manufacturing to the heartland with targeted incentives for ag-Tech and clean energy. We will modernize the rural grid to support farmer-owned energy cooperatives, ensuring our communities lead the nation in the green transition.

Quality of Life

Our plan will move us to a "Global Budgeting" model for rural healthcare, stabilizing costs across the district and preventing rural hospital closures. In addition, under our plan, teachers, doctors, and nurses who commit to serving our district.

Accountability

Our works to create a One-Stop Shop for federal rural grants, ensuring streamlined regional planning that answers directly to local residents.

By diversifying our economy and sustaining our soil, we will stabilize population growth, retain our youth and build a modern Kansas that is both connected and competitive.

A Government that answers to you!

I spent 16 years delivering for the federal government — at the Social Security Administration and the National Labor Relations Board — until my job was eliminated without process. I’ve seen how this government serves people, and I’ve seen how it serves itself.

Washington doesn’t have a rules problem. It has an enforcement problem. The rules against insider trading by members of Congress already exist — the penalty for breaking them starts at $200. So I’m not running on promises. I’m running on specific laws, with specific penalties, that I will introduce in my first term. Fourteen bills. Each one gets a vote, and each vote gets recorded — including mine.

Pillar 1 — I’ll ban congressional stock trading and self-dealing

Short version:
Members of Congress shouldn’t trade stocks we regulate — or vote on tax breaks for property we own. My plan: no individual stocks for members or our families, blind trusts within 90 days, penalties of three months’ salary per violation, and automatic disqualification from any vote that benefits a member’s own real estate. No waivers. Not even for me.

Long version:

Members, our spouses, and our dependent children may not hold or trade individual stocks, futures, or crypto — only broad-based index funds and mutual funds.
Covered assets go into a qualified blind trust within 90 days of taking office. I’ll have mine there before I’m sworn in.
Breaking the ban costs three months of congressional salary per violation, plus every dollar of profit comes back.
Late financial disclosures carry a real penalty: $1,000 plus $100 a day, posted publicly on the Clerk’s website within 24 hours. Today the penalty starts at $200. You can do the math on why that hasn’t worked.
A member may not vote on any measure that gives a specific financial benefit to property we or our families own. Divest it or sit the vote out. That rule has no waiver path — and I wrote it that way on purpose.

Pillar 2 — I’ll close the revolving door and open the books

Short version:
Five years before a former member can become a lobbyist. Two years for senior staff. Companies lobbying on meatpacking and grain markets have to disclose how much of the market they control — so you can see when “industry input” means the four biggest packers. And campaigns have to report every donation of $50 or more within 72 hours. I’ll hold my own campaign to that standard before any law requires it.

Long version:

Former members of Congress can’t register as lobbyists or make lobbying contacts for five years after leaving office; senior staff, two years. Violators pay back everything they earned, doubled.
Any company lobbying on meatpacking, grain, or farm-input markets must disclose any market share above 15% in its quarterly lobbying filings. When the four biggest packers show up to testify, you’ll know exactly how much of the market walked into the room.
Donation reporting moves from quarterly to real time: any contribution of $50 or more is filed with the FEC within 72 hours of receipt. My campaign reports at that standard starting now.
Any group spending more than $10,000 on electioneering must disclose its donors over $5,000.

Pillar 3 — I’ll protect the people who protect you

My own job at the SSA was eliminated without process. I know what it looks like from the inside. Here’s my plan: no president can strip civil-service protections with a memo — that takes an act of Congress. Inspectors General can’t be fired without written cause delivered to Congress. Whistleblowers get their day in court. And rural programs get FOIA answers in 20 days, with fee waivers for local governments asking about their own grants.

Long version:

Merit-system protections for career federal positions are locked in by statute. Reclassification games like Schedule F require an Act of Congress — the position’s actual duties decide, not the memo. I watched that game from the inside; I know every move.
An Inspector General can only be removed with written cause delivered to Congress and published within 48 hours, after 60 days’ notice. Vacancies can’t sit in “acting” status past 90 days.
Whistleblowers who report retaliation get jury trial access, real damages, and protection for reporting directly to Congress.
FOIA gets a working 20-business-day deadline, an automatic fee waiver for local governments and nonprofits requesting records about grants to their own communities, and an annual public report on the ten worst agency backlogs. The counties in this district wait long enough already.

Pillar 4 — I’ll show up, in person, on the record

Four in-person town halls per district per Congress — at least one every quarter, on a published county rotation, open to the press. Every Community Project Funding request posted publicly within 48 hours of submission, before any committee acts on it. Leadership PACs can’t be slush funds. And my district office commits to a 30-day casework standard for SSA, VA, and USDA cases — or a written status update. You’ll know where your case stands, because I’ve sat on the other side of that desk.

Long version:

At least four in-person, open-press town halls per Congress, one per calendar quarter, in counties on a published rotation. I’ll file my compliance with the Clerk and publish it — and so will every member, if this becomes law.
Every earmark and Community Project Funding request is posted on the member’s website within 48 hours of submission — with the requesting entity, amount, and purpose — before any committee acts on it. I’ll start with mine.
Leadership PACs may not pay personal, campaign, or travel expenses, salaries, polling, or ads naming the member. Unspent funds at retirement go to the Treasury or charity — not a campaign.
District offices publish a 30-day service standard for casework resolution or written status updates, covering the three caseloads that matter most here: Social Security, VA, and USDA.

Commitments box

What I’ll do on day one

Introduce the fourteen-bill accountability package — every bill, every vote, on the record.
Place my own assets in a blind trust within 90 days — before the rules require anyone else to.
Publish every Community Project Funding request within 48 hours, whether or not it’s approved.
Hold my first town hall within the first quarter, in a county on the published rotation.