Nevada’s Moment: Why a Permanent Fund Is the Nonpartisan Solution to 50 Years of Inequality

I’m running for Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District in the June 9th Democratic primary because I’m the only candidate willing to champion the bold, progressive economic policy our state desperately needs: a Nevada Permanent Fund or a Universal Basic Income. While other candidates offer incremental tweaks to a broken system, I’m proposing a strategic response that matches the scale of fifty years of growing inequality. With early voting starting May 25th, this primary will decide who takes on Rep. Mark Amodei with a truly transformative economic vision.

For half a century, Nevada families have watched the gap between the wealthy and everyone else grow into a chasm. While our state’s casinos, mines, and data centers generate billions in profits, working Nevadans struggle with rising rents, stagnant wages, and an economy that seems rigged against them. This isn’t a partisan talking point. It’s math.

The median household income in Nevada has barely kept pace with inflation since the 1970s, while productivity has soared and corporate profits have reached historic highs. The wealth created by our state’s natural resources and thriving industries flows upward and outward, leaving communities across CD02 and beyond fighting for scraps. We need a strategic response that matches the scale of the crisis. We need a Nevada Permanent Fund or Universal Basic Income.

Learning from Alaska’s Success

Alaska has proven this works. Since 1982, every Alaskan resident has received an annual dividend from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues for the benefit of all citizens. In 2022, Alaskans received $3,284 each. This isn’t welfare. It’s a return on shared resources. Alaska recognizes a simple truth: natural resources belong to the people, not just the corporations that extract them.

Nevada sits on some of the richest mineral deposits in North America. We host a booming gaming industry. We’re becoming a hub for tech companies seeking tax advantages. Yet unlike Alaska, we’ve never asked: who truly benefits from Nevada’s wealth? A Nevada Permanent Fund would capture a portion of revenue from resource extraction, gaming taxes, and corporate activity, invest it wisely, and distribute dividends to every Nevada resident.

Why This Is Progressive Economics

Progressive economics isn’t about handouts. It’s about restructuring an economy that has systematically funneled wealth upward while wages stagnated, unions weakened, and the social contract crumbled. For fifty years, we’ve been told that tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy would “trickle down” to working families. It didn’t happen. Instead, we got record inequality, crumbling infrastructure, and communities left behind.

A Permanent Fund is progressive because it recognizes that economic growth should benefit everyone, not just shareholders and executives. It’s a predistribution strategy that ensures all Nevadans share in our state’s prosperity before wealth concentrates at the top. It provides economic security, reduces poverty, and gives families breathing room to invest in education, start businesses, or simply keep up with the cost of living.

The evidence is clear: direct cash transfers reduce poverty more effectively than complex bureaucratic programs. They respect recipients’ autonomy and dignity. They stimulate local economies as people spend money in their communities. And they provide a foundation of economic security that allows people to take risks, pursue education, and contribute more fully to society.

Why This Is Nonpartisan

Here’s what makes a Nevada Permanent Fund truly powerful: it transcends partisan divides. This isn’t left versus right. It’s people versus a rigged system.

Conservatives should love this policy because it reduces government bureaucracy, respects individual choice, and rewards work without creating dependency. Every Nevadan receives the same dividend regardless of income, making it a universal benefit that doesn’t penalize success or create poverty traps. It’s capitalism that works for everyone, not crony capitalism that works for the connected few.

Progressives should embrace it because it directly addresses inequality, provides economic security, and recognizes that we all have a claim to our shared resources and collective prosperity. It’s a dividend on citizenship itself.

Rural Nevadans should support it because it provides a stable income regardless of where you live, strengthening small towns that have been economically hollowed out. Urban Nevadans benefit from reduced inequality and stronger communities. Young people get a foundation to build on. Seniors get additional security. Families get relief.

This is why Alaska’s Permanent Fund has survived for over forty years with bipartisan support. Politicians who threaten the dividend face immediate backlash from across the political spectrum. When everyone benefits, everyone protects it.

The Urgency Is Now

We cannot afford another fifty years of growing inequality. The social fabric is fraying. Trust in institutions is collapsing. Families are one emergency away from financial disaster. Meanwhile, Nevada continues to generate enormous wealth that flows to distant shareholders while our communities struggle.

The status quo isn’t neutral. It’s a choice to let inequality continue growing. It’s a choice to let our resources enrich the few while the many fall behind. Progressive economics offers a different choice: an economy that works for all of us, built on the simple principle that we all deserve a share in our collective prosperity.

Other states are watching. Cities are experimenting with guaranteed income programs. The conversation about economic justice is shifting from whether we should provide universal economic security to how we implement it. Nevada has the resources, the model, and the opportunity to lead.

Not Me. Us.

Yes, I’m the candidate bringing this vision to the June 9th primary. But this isn’t about one candidate or one election. It’s about whether we’re willing to fight for an economy that serves all Nevadans, not just the privileged few. It’s about building power together to demand what we deserve.

A Nevada Permanent Fund won’t happen because politicians suddenly see the light. It will happen because we organize, mobilize, and refuse to accept an economy that leaves us behind. It will happen because rural and urban Nevadans, conservatives and progressives, young and old, recognize our shared interest in shared prosperity.

This is our moment. Our state. Our future. The wealth is already here. The question is whether we dare to claim our fair share.

Join this movement. If you’re in CD02, vote in the Democratic primary—early voting starts May 25th, Election Day is June 9th. Talk to your neighbors about what a Citizen’s Dividend could mean for your community. Support candidates who will fight for transformative change, not status quo politics. Build coalitions across the divides that keep us fighting each other instead of fighting for each other.

The Alaska model proves it works. Nevada’s resources make it possible. Our collective action will make it real.

Not me. Us. Together, we build an economy that finally works for all of us.