Jonathan Herzog is running for Congress in New York’s 10th district, and is counting on the support of the crypto community to push him past the incumbent of almost 30 years, Jerrold Nadler, in Democratic primaries.
Herzog received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, an MBA from NYU Stern, and is currently on the leave of absence from the Harvard Law School. He was a founding member of Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign, from whom, admittedly, he borrowed a few ideas. He is running on a progressive platform — universal basic income (UBI), universal healthcare, publicly funded elections and national cryptocurrency regulation.
National crypto regulation similar to Wyoming
Herzog believes that the state of Wyoming sets a great precedent and that the U.S. national crypto regulation should follow suit if the country is not to fall behind other nations. He also thinks that the New York’s BitLicense is detrimental to the development of the crypto space in the state.
The odds seem to be stacked against this young protege of Andrew Yang. However, Herzog told Cointelegraph that he believes he has a realistic chance and is depending on the support of the city’s vibrant crypto community:
“I am here to fight for the future that we are building together, a decentralized, open, open-source future, and Bitcoin, Ethereum and decentralized blockchains are part and parcel of that.”
UBI — $3.4 trillion
Herzog’s UBI proposal promises a monthly payout of $1,000 to every adult and $500 to every child and, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, would cost approximately $3.5 trillion per year.
Herzog says that about $1 trillion can be made up by instituting a value added tax, which would tax tech giants like Amazon, who currently pay hardly any federal taxes. In addition, the UBI paid out to the individuals would stimulate the economy and perhaps, pay for itself.
He says the government has shown its impotence in the handling of the COVID-19 and has lauded the crypto community for seeing through it early on:
“Unfortunately, it just illustrated the institutional collapse that the crypto community has been calling out now for over a decade. But it’s really coming to the fore in this moment of a crisis, on top of a crisis, on top of a crisis.”
Congress in recess during Great Depression
Herzog added that this institutional crisis is what motivates him in his pursuit as the current crop of Congressmen has demonstrated its inaptness:
“But really, this is the reason I’m running is there is no one in the wings. In the midst of this pandemic and this Great Depression, which has killed now more than twice the number of people that died in the Vietnam War. We just can’t rely upon assuming there are adults in the room because, again, Congress has been in recess. And when they finally returned in session, they passed a multi-trillion dollar bailout for large multinational firms and a tiny, tiny fraction and a very tiny fraction of that to bail out the people.”
