Presidential hopeful John K. Delaney, a U.S. representative from Maryland, said our government “can do transformative things” for its people if only divisiveness was put to rest.

“How did we let the political system evolve to only talking about what we don’t agree on?” he asked a gathering in St. Ansgar Iowa, on Tuesday. “Today’s hyper-partisan politics is destroying our country.”

“America needs someone to bring us together — in fact, they’re crying for it,” he said.

Delaney said he is going to use hard work and lots of appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire to make his mark in the race to the 2020 election for president.

There is plenty to talk about along the way, said the 54-year-old Delaney, who made several stops in North Iowa.

The biggest problem with a divided country, he said, “is that it has prevented us from doing anything.”

If elected, he said he would have three priorities in his first 100 days in office: adopt a new method of paying for infrastructure, by reforming international tax laws; do away with gerrymandering, the redrawing of electoral districts that puts unfair political power into certain districts; and commit young people to a period of public service —which could be in the military, if they chose, or community service, or working on federal projects that actually could teach skills, “like a giant apprenticeship program.”

Healthcare “is a basic right for every citizen” and in the short-term, the Affordable Care Act should be fixed, not eliminated.

“It has been successful except for some structural flaws,” he said. Its overarching intention — making sure everyone has insurance — has been successful, he said. In the short-term, he would cap what insurance companies could charge and expand Medicaid.

In the long-term, he added, he would have one basic policy for everyone — Medicaid — but if people wanted private insurance, they could take what they got from the basic policy and use it as a credit toward cost of private insurance.

He believes in the impact of climate change and would work for a carbon tax on business that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions. He would make sure that coal workers were “taken care of for the rest of their lives,” as jobs in coal mining were eliminated. He would also increase research and development monies on climate change, up to five times what the government is spending now, he said, which is $6 billion.

Delaney said he feels strongly about preparing the country for the new, global economy that provides job growth and grows the middle class.
He wants to see a stronger reliance on innovation and entrepreneurship to build a better business climate.

Before being elected to the U.S. Congress in 2013, Delaney was responsible for co-founding two different companies, Health Care Financial Partners and CapitalSource.