Congressional Update and Q&A with Congressman Jake Auchincloss - Feb 22 in Foxborough

Hi neighbor, On Sunday, February 22, I'll be hosting a Congressional Update and Q&A in Foxborough. This is an opportunity for you to ask questions and hear updates on how I'm working to represent the district's values and priorities. Congressional Update and Q&A with Congressman Jake Auchincloss   Sunday, February 22 3:00pm – 4:00pm Foxborough, MA Doors will open at 2:30pm.  Location provided upon RSVP HERE. *By registering for this event, you grant our office permission to send you future communications and updates. Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss

Congressman Auchincloss: An invitation for Update and Q&A Weds, July 30 at 7:30 PM

Update and Q&A in Newton‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Hi neighbor, On Wednesday, July 30, I'll be hosting a Congressional Update and Q&A in Newton. This is an opportunity for you to ask questions and hear updates on how I'm working to represent the district. Congressional Update and Q&A with Congressman Jake Auchincloss Wednesday, July 30 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM Newton, MA Doors will open at 6:30 PM    RSVP here for location upon registration for this event.  Live stream link here. Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss WASHINGTON 15 Independence Avenue SE 1524 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-5931 NEWTON 29 Crafts Street Suite 375 Newton, MA 02458 Phone: (617) 332-3333 ATTLEBORO 8 North Main Street Suite 200 Attleboro, MA 02703 Phone: (508) 431-1110

ICYMI: Rep. Auchincloss ‘By Invitation’ in The Economist: “A congressman on how Democrats can regain the initiative on the economy”

In a recent guest essay for The Economist, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) outlined a new framework for Democrats to reclaim voters' trust on the economy by treating cost disease—the economic phenomenon where prices in key sectors rise faster than wages year over year. Cost disease explains why rent and healthcare costs consume so much of Americans' wallets, and why that share keeps rising. Rep. Auchincloss sets out how treating cost disease, particularly in housing and healthcare, must be core to the Democrats' agenda for financial freedom. 

Please find below Rep. Auchincloss's op-ed:

"Cost disease is also known as the Baumol effect. It helps explain why rent and health care consume so much of Americans' wallets—and why, in the case of health care, the share keeps rising. William Baumol, an American economist, showed in the 1960s that inflation is not evenly spread across the economy. Service industries with low productivity growth inflate fast. Manufactured goods and automated services deflate prices.

The Baumol effect is both esoteric and everywhere. Housing and health care are prime examples: together they consume half of a typical middle-class family's income in America. Families wondering why their rent and health-insurance premiums are going up faster than their take-home pay are asking the question that Baumol helped to answer.

Three decades before Baumol described the problem, Theodore Wright, an American engineer, had found the cure for cost disease. Wright's law observed that cost per unit goes down as more units are produced. Want a service to be affordable? Turn the service into a product. Then, manufacture the product at scale to lower the cost per unit. New manufacturing jobs will not be taken from other countries through tariffs. They will be created from services, by turning them into products.

Rep. Auchincloss ‘By Invitation’ in The Economist

Take computers. A century ago, a "computer" was a person. Sitting side-by-side, hundreds of individuals scribbled out algorithms. It was an expensive service. Then a "computer" became a product. It was a machine as big as a room. That first product was expensive, too. But then computer manufacturing took off, and cost per unit fell. Today, computing is cheap. It was cured of cost disease.

Mass production requires consistent standards. Production is an act of learning. To compete, factory managers learn how to produce more with less. This learning under competition delivers Wright's law: that cost per unit falls as production increases. When product specifications change unpredictably, though, much of the learning on the factory line has to reset. Costs go up, not down.

Democratic states and cities have been changing and adding specifications (for multi-family housing, for instance) for decades, through regulations. Frustrated by the resulting high costs, politicians then send out money to constituents (in the form of, say, housing vouchers). In the short term this does help them muddle through. In the long term, though, cost disease is inflamed by this cycle of regulations that restrict supply and then subsidies that increase demand.

To lower costs, America needs to build a lot, fast, the same way. Housing should be the priority for mass production. Americans may perceive housing as a product—something you buy and own—but most of it is a service. It is constructed, not manufactured, and construction is labour-intensive, with low productivity growth. Since the 1960s, in fact, construction productivity has actually gone down. Manufacturing productivity, by contrast, has risen by more than 500%. Manufacturing more of America's housing could help deliver the 7m extra homes that the country needs, quickly and cost-effectively. Just like with computing, turning house-building from a service into a product would cure it of cost disease.

The government can help with both permitting and financing. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) could issue an advanced commitment for thousands of manufactured housing units. Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored mortgage giant, could be used to finance this at low interest rates. HUD specifications could be made the national standard for building permits. And any city accepting federal low-income housing tax credits could be required to adopt not just that permitting, but denser zoning too.

When Austin, Texas adopted land-use reforms of this sort, apartment construction boomed and rents plunged. Cambridge, Massachusetts has followed suit. Those who doubt that Democrats can think differently on regulations, take note of Cambridge: a city where Kamala Harris won 86% of the vote adopted a new zoning law in which three-quarters of the text was to do with deleting old rules.

Health care is a more traditional Democratic issue. Democrats earned Americans' trust on health care by expanding coverage. Now, we must lower its cost.

There are two ways to treat cost disease in health care. The first is more conventional: turn custom services into mass-produced goods. Generic drugs, therapy bots and over-the-counter hearing aids are examples. Each affordable product meets a need that was previously addressed through expensive clinical services. Democrats should accelerate this service-to-product pipeline, which will require taking on various special interests within the health-care system.

The other way to reduce health costs is to deflect patients from the most expensive sites of care. In America, those sites are generally intensive-care units, emergency rooms, nursing facilities and jails. Interventions that reduce demand for beds at those sites help treat cost disease. Examples include lowering co-pays (deductibles) for prescription drugs, promoting telehealth for the old, expanding community health centres' footprint and taxing sugary beverages.

Health-insurance executives are likely to object that they do this already through their plans—or so they claim to Congress. Yet health-insurance premiums keep rising faster than inflation. Democrats should square off against the big insurers and show that we can lower costs where they will not.

The policies above, from housing to health care, are diverse. Yet they are not hard to communicate if brought together in the frame of the Baumol effect. Few Americans may know Baumol, but they are familiar with the feeling of prices rising faster than their pay. Republicans are making it worse with their chaotic tariffs. Democrats can make it better by treating cost disease." 

An invitation from Congressman Auchincloss - June 23, virtual update & Q&A

Hi neighbor, On Monday, June 23, I'll be hosting a Virtual Update and Q&A with a special guest from Protect Democracy United, a non-partisan advocacy organization. This is an opportunity for you to raise questions and hear updates on what I'm doing to represent the district's values & priorities. Democracy Edition Part II: Virtual Update and Q&A with Rep. Jake Auchincloss and special guest  Justin Florence, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Protect Democracy Monday, June 23, 2025 7:15 pm – 8:15 pm  RSVP for the Zoom link HERE **News media and other individuals may record or film the event and thereby capture, photograph, or record my voice, image, or likeness (the "Recordings"). By participating in this event, I agree to hold the Congressman, his Office, and his employees, agents, legal representatives, and those acting on his behalf harmless against any liability, loss, or damage (including reasonable attorney's fees) caused by or arising from the Recordings. By registering for this event, attendees also grant our office permission to send you future communications and updates. Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss WASHINGTON 15 Independence Avenue SE 1524 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-5931 NEWTON 29 Crafts Street Suite 375 Newton, MA 02458 Phone: (617) 332-3333 ATTLEBORO 8 North Main Street Suite 200 Attleboro, MA 02703 Phone: (508) 431-1110

Rep. Auchincloss in The Washington Post: “I’m a Marine. Trump is putting soldiers in an impossible position.”

ICYMI: Rep. Auchincloss in The Washington Post: "I'm a Marine. Trump is putting soldiers in an impossible position."

ICYMI, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (MA-04) is a former Marine captain who commanded an infantry platoon at Twentynine Palms, the base from which 700 United States Marines were deployed to Los Angeles by President Trump last week. Rep. Auchincloss set out in The Washington Post how these Marines are trained for urban warfare abroad, not crowd control at home. 

Please find the text of the op-ed below: 

"The president's deployment of Marines to Los Angeles is not only unnecessary and illegal. It is also unfair to the Marines themselves. As a former captain who commanded infantry at Twentynine Palms, where these Marines are stationed, I empathize with their dilemma.

The sergeants and corporals have to adopt tactics against their training. The lieutenants and captains have to wrestle with the lawfulness of this executive order. And esprit de corps for all the Marines must be suffering as they ask themselves, on this convoy from inland California to the coast, "Is this what I enlisted for?"

These 700 Marines belong to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. That's an infantry unit — not military police, not logistics, not communications. Infantry in Twentynine Palms are training at the Marine Corps' premier live-fire base to destroy the enemy. Their tactics are geared to locate, close with and destroy the People's Liberation Army or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not Angelenos.

The sergeants and corporals who will be the close-in tactical leads in the city are trained in Military Operations on Urban Terrain. MOUT is not urban policing, which is what the Los Angeles Police Department practices. Instead, it involves cordoning off a section of a city, clearing each building with fire and maneuver, and then controlling lines of fire to suppress the enemy in the next section of the city. The population is treated in accord with the law of armed conflict, not the Bill of Rights. It is combat, not crowd control. Property, public or private, is collateral damage.

These tactics make sense when America is fighting a war. But they are wholly unacceptable in an American city. The sergeants and corporals being deployed have reportedly been given four days of thrown-together training in which to unlearn years of urban warfare instruction and adopt the tactics and techniques of police officers. Even the best noncommissioned officers I served with could not make that work. They should not have to. Our country needs them training to defend us, not used as photo ops for a president whose approval ratings are softening.

These noncommissioned officers report to lieutenants and captains, who are platoon and company commanders. They in turn report to the battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel. These officers are sworn to both "support and defend the Constitution" and "obey the orders of the President of the United States." I do not know these officers personally, but I have known many like them and I have sworn that oath myself. I am certain they take that oath solemnly. Right now, their commander in chief is putting them in a Catch-22. What is a 25-year-old officer to do when the orders of the president do not support and defend the Constitution?

As a member of Congress, I can plainly state and act upon my interpretation of the president's executive order. It is unnecessary — Los Angeles is not in "rebellion," as the president claims. And it is illegal — it contravenes both the law and principle of posse comitatus, which generally prevents the president from using the military for domestic law enforcement. But these young officers are not a check and balance on the president, like I am. They are under his command. He is demoralizing and denigrating their units and their service. If and when a judge agrees with me on the illegality of this order, the battalion commander must immediately return his Marines to the barracks.

Critics might counter that the Marines are only defending federal personnel and property as part of a broader effort to uphold law and order. Certainly, all people and property should be protected. Protest is legal; rioting is not. Violence or destruction should be met with arrests. The LAPD is well trained and equipped for that mission. If it needs help, it can ask for regional and state assistance, including from the National Guard under the command of the governor. The active-duty military does not figure in that response escalation; indeed, the Los Angeles police chief has said the deployment of Marines "presents a significant logistical and operational challenge."

This deployment is not just bad for the police. It's bad for the Marines, too. They did not sweat and bleed in training to be used as political props. As this president grasps for every political advantage, he is attacking not just the Constitution but also the morale and mission of one of this country's greatest institutions, the United States Marines."

An Invite From Your Congressman - Virtual Update and Q&A on Tuesday, April 15

Hi neighbor, On Tuesday, April 15, I'll be hosting a Virtual Update and Q&A to discuss President Trump's chaotic trade policies. This is an opportunity for you to raise questions and hear updates on how President Trump's tariffs will impact Bay Staters.  Tariffs Edition: Congressional Update and Q&A with  Congressman Jake Auchincloss  and Special Guest Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets  at the Progressive Policy Institute  Tuesday, April 15, 2025 12:00pm – 1:00pm  RSVP for the Zoom link HERE *By registering for this event, you grant our office permission to send you future communications and updates. Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss WASHINGTON 15 Independence Avenue SE 1524 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-5931 NEWTON 29 Crafts Street Suite 375 Newton, MA 02458 Phone: (617) 332-3333 ATTLEBORO 8 North Main Street Suite 200 Attleboro, MA 02703 Phone: (508) 431-1110

Congressman Auchincloss invites you for a Virtual Update and Q&A - March 24

Hi neighbor, On Monday, March 24, I'll be hosting a Virtual Update and Q&A. This is an opportunity for you to raise questions and hear updates on what I'm doing to represent the district's values & priorities. Details about the Q&A are below. I hope you'll be able to join me. Virtual Update and Q&A with Congressman Jake Auchincloss Monday, March 24, 2025 7:15pm – 8:15pm RSVP for the Zoom link HERE *By registering for this event, you grant our office permission to send you future communications and updates. Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss WASHINGTON 15 Independence Avenue SE 1524 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-5931 NEWTON 29 Crafts Street Suite 375 Newton, MA 02458 Phone: (617) 332-3333 ATTLEBORO 8 North Main Street Suite 200 Attleboro, MA 02703 Phone: (508) 431-1110

An Invitation from your Congressman Jake Auchincloss

Hi neighbor, On Tuesday, March 18, I'll be hosting a Telephone Town Hall. This is an opportunity for you to raise questions and hear updates on what I'm doing to represent the district's values & priorities. Details about the Telephone Town Hall are below. I hope you'll be able to join me. Telephone Town Hall with Congressman Jake Auchincloss Tuesday, March 18, 2025 5:00-6:00pm Call to join: 866-756-5916   Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss WASHINGTON 15 Independence Avenue SE 1524 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-5931 NEWTON 29 Crafts Street Suite 375 Newton, MA 02458 Phone: (617) 332-3333 ATTLEBORO 8 North Main Street Suite 200 Attleboro, MA 02703 Phone: (508) 431-1110

NYTimes.com: A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently (Listen, Read)

From The New York Times:

A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently (Listen, Read)

A Democrat Who Is Thinking Differently

Representative Jake Auchincloss discusses how the Democratic Party can offer meaningful alternatives to voters.

Continue to read the article via this "gift" link ->    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jake-auchincloss.html?smid=em-share

You can read the article using the Franklin Library subscription to the NY Times. Follow these steps to do that ->

https://www.franklinmatters.org/2025/02/how-to-access-online-resources-with.html

The article is an edited transcript of an hour long conversation by Ezra Klien and Congressman Jake Auchincloss. You can listen to the podcast episode here ->

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-democrat-who-is-thinking-differently/id1548604447?i=1000693395402

Congressman Auchincloss extends invitation for an Update and Q&A on Feb 8 in Franklin

Hi neighbor, On Saturday, February 8, I'll be hosting a congressional update and Q&A in Franklin. This is an opportunity for you to raise questions, hear updates on what I'm doing to represent the district's values & advance its priorities, and receive assistance with casework. Details about the visit are below. I hope you'll be able to join me. Congressional Update and Q&A with Congressman Jake Auchincloss Saturday, February 8, 2025 12:15pm – 1:15pm Franklin, MA Doors will open 15 minutes before the event. Location provided upon RSVP HERE Sincerely, Jake Auchincloss WASHINGTON 15 Independence Avenue SE 1524 Longworth HOB Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-5931 NEWTON 29 Crafts Street Suite 375 Newton, MA 02458 Phone: (617) 332-3333 ATTLEBORO 8 North Main Street Suite 200 Attleboro, MA 02703 Phone: (508) 431-1110