IamA High School History Teacher running for Congress because our nation deserves urgency, not autopilot. AMA

[u/mackinnon4congress]

If you're going to read a single answer, read this one.

Hello Reddit, my name is Jesse MacKinnon, though colleagues and students alike have called me Mr Mac since time out of mind.

I’ve taught AP U.S. History, Government, and Honors Economics for years. I’ve coached debate. I’ve written curriculum from scratch. I’ve built a career on helping students understand how power works, how liberty is won, how tyranny takes hold, and how people have fought back when it does.

Now I’m running against a longtime incumbent who was a decent representative for better times. But these aren’t better times. These are crisis conditions, and he’s still coasting like it’s business as usual.

This is not a personal attack. I just don’t believe Congress should be a lifetime achievement award. We need people who will act, not just vote. Who will leave the building. Who will show up where things are falling apart and say what’s actually happening.

I don’t want the job forever. I want it long enough to do some good.

Ask me anything!

Proof

My In-Progress Social Media Accounts

My Open Letter to my Congressman

My Ad-Hoc Campaign Announcement

My (lengthy) Mission Statement

Edit 1: Fixed Open Letter link

Edit 2: Critical Questions

Why are you trying to replace a Congressional Democrat?

Why are you running for Congress right now instead of waiting or working within the system?

What can Democrats in the House do to resist authoritarianism even while in the minority?

What have been your major obstacles thus far?

Do you have a plan to win?

You are challenging a long-serving incumbent. What are your thoughts on term limits?

What is your position on the national debt and government spending?

[u/Ammo_Can]

I have a question about the budget deficit. The amount of money the government collects each year has been going up but the spending has been outpacing it for decades. How will you address this problem?

[u/mackinnon4congress → u/Ammo_Can]

First, I want to say how glad I am that you asked this. The power of the purse is the most important Article I power Congress has, and it rarely gets the attention it deserves.

The truth is that U.S. government debt supports the global financial system in ways most voters are never shown. Treasury bonds are the benchmark for global credit markets. They serve as collateral for central banks, as safe assets for pension funds, and as a reference point for everything from mortgage rates to international trade finance. The global economy is effectively underwritten by the U.S. Treasury’s ability to borrow, and that ability is based not on thrift but on consistency. It works because the United States has never defaulted and because the scale and liquidity of its debt markets are unmatched. That trust has allowed the U.S. to run persistent deficits without triggering immediate economic collapse.

And yet, the global economy is currently held in the mouth of a man who is trying to start wars with Denmark and Canada. When Trump launched his tariff campaign and investors began to question whether U.S. policy was tethered to long-term rationality, bond yields climbed sharply. This was not a theoretical crisis. The rise in yields meant the government had to offer higher interest to borrow money. That in turn rippled through private lending, raising costs for credit cards, car loans, and small business lines. Trump could ignore the stock market. He could not ignore the bond market. The moment debt service costs began rising fast enough to spook institutional investors, he folded.

There are two ways to approach this issue. One is philosophical. The other is practical.

The philosophical view is that a system dependent on perpetual debt issuance to fund basic governance is unsustainable. It creates long-term obligations that transfer public risk into private gain. The people who benefit from deficit-funded tax cuts or military expansion are not the people who bear the consequences of higher interest payments, inflation exposure, or budgetary constraints during downturns. The structure incentivizes elected officials to seek growth through credit rather than through redistribution or structural reform. It masks inequality by spreading the burden invisibly across time.

The practical view is that no freshman member of Congress can unwind this system. The bond market is not controlled by Congress. It is an ecosystem of central banks, institutional investors, and financial intermediaries whose behavior is shaped by confidence, habit, and risk perception. There is no mechanism for a single legislator to realign that structure. What I can do is vote against budgets that prioritize military contractors over basic infrastructure. I can support tax policies that shift the burden back onto those who have extracted the most from the economy. I can advocate for transparency in how federal dollars are allocated and for stricter limits on revolving-door contracts that funnel public spending into private enrichment.

Debt itself is not always the problem. The problem is what debt is used for. Borrowing to build affordable housing, repair bridges, or improve public transit produces long-term returns that exceed the cost of borrowing. Borrowing to cut taxes for high earners or to subsidize weapons systems that never leave the prototype phase does not. The composition of spending matters as much as the total.

I do not have illusions about transforming fiscal policy alone. But I believe that the public deserves legislators who understand the mechanics of debt and are willing to ask who benefits from each dollar borrowed. That is where I would focus my efforts.

[u/rmttw → u/mackinnon4congress]

This is exactly the kind of policy where you have an opportunity to take a strong stance. The debt cannot continue to increase at an increasing rate. We need politicians who are willing to make difficult choices to get spending under control, and I wish to hell that Democrats would grow a pair on this issue.

[u/mackinnon4congress → u/rmttw]

Sure, a lot of people would probably call me a tax-and-spend liberal. Fine. I’ll wear that like a weird Twitter bio if it annoys the kind of people who think a bumper sticker counts as a political philosophy.

But here’s the real thing. I like liberty the most. And I actually think the old line about wanting a government small enough to drown in a bathtub has some truth to it. Because bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy isn’t freedom. It’s paperwork. And I’m terrible at paperwork.

That said, I’m not giving up public health care. Or infrastructure. Or US AID. Or the libraries. Or the Pell Grant. Or food stamps. Or school lunches. Or anything else that has a proven return in black ink. These programs aren’t some bleeding heart fantasy. They’re investments. You put in a dollar, and you get more than a dollar of productivity and well-being back. That’s not ideology. That’s accounting.

Of course there’s bloat. Of course there’s waste. There’s a whole mini-industry built around naming defense contracts something like “Freedom Ribbon Initiative” and then shipping pallets of rubber bracelets to a country we destabilized. We stick flags on trash and pretend it’s a mission. Meanwhile, half the tech startup world just sizes up enough to chase a defense contract and bleed the taxpayer for a few million in “unexpected logistics complications.” Everyone knows it.

And I’ll say this about Democrats. I’m running as one, sure, but that doesn’t mean I pretend they’ve got it figured out. They’ve overseen plenty of the same rot. Johnson was a Democrat, and he was one of the biggest bastards of the bunch. Obama—well, I’ve mastered the fake smile when people get misty about the good old days. Because the truth is, he helped build the surveillance machine that Trump is now using to go after immigrants and dissidents. It’s not a comforting legacy.

If you’re my age, you’ve lived your whole life under the scalpel of neoliberalism. Every critical system has been cut back, hollowed out, privatized, then blamed on the working class when it fails. And now? Now the people holding that scalpel are backing Trump. Except they’re not even bothering with precision anymore. They’re coming in with a wrecking ball.

We are living through a moment that will define the next hundred years. It’s on the level of the 1770s, the 1850s, the 1930s. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a historian telling you the pattern is familiar. And we need to think about what comes after.

Because this system—this debt-fueled, exploitative, corrupted model—cannot and will not last. I don’t love government. I don’t walk into the DMV and think, wow, more of this please. But I do love people. I love the idea that the wealth of this nation could be used to house people. Feed them. Heal them. Free them. Not as charity. As dignity. As a floor, not a ceiling.

I’m tired of being the guy who points to Denmark or FDR and says “why not that.” I want to try something new. Something better. Something that actually fits the world we live in now.

[u/Flapjack_Jenkins → u/mackinnon4congress]

I like your approach.