Hornet Media and the Fullerton Observer interviewed David Pan, running for the U.S. House of Representatives District 45 , at a candidate forum at Fullerton College on Oct. 7, 2024. The Fullerton Observer reached out to all candidates running for this office for the opportunity to take part in a video interview at the forum and interviewed those who responded.

This video series is a joint production of the Fullerton Observer, a volunteer-run community newspaper, and Hornet Media, the student-run media outlets housed in the Fullerton College journalism program. 

Interviews have been edited for length and clarity but have not been independently fact-checked. 

View live coverage of local elections returns on Nov. 5, 2024, at 7 p.m. on Hornet Media’s YouTube channel @fchornetmedia 

Video Transcript:

Hornet Media / Fullerton Observer 

What are your top three priorities if you are elected? 

David Pan 

So my top three priorities would be reducing government spending. It would be creating school choice for parents to send their children to whatever school they choose. And improving law and law enforcement, you know, creating laws that that really or enforcing our laws, first of all, and the ones that are on the books, but also making sure that people that engage in illegal activity are being properly dealt with and that we can you know, we can improve the safety on our streets, which is a huge problem in many parts of the district. 

 Hornet Media / Fullerton Observer 

Do you have any specific policies in mind that would help support your priorities? 

 David Pan 

So I have this plan to phase out our welfare and entitlement programs. That’s $4 trillion a year that we’re spending right now. I want to take that money, turn it into a universal basic income of $16,000 a year for everybody, 21 and over. So that’s a it would be a big change, but it would solve actually three problems. The first problem I see is that our current welfare system is not functioning properly. It’s not actually helping the people. That’s meant to help because many of the benefits, such as it’s food stamps or the Supplemental Security income, they phased out as people start to earn money or save money, it really creates big disincentive to work and to to save. And so it’s really trapping people in poverty in many instances. So if we create a universal basic income with no restrictions, people getting $16,000 in cash every year without any punishment or or reduce a reduction in benefits based on the fact that they’re working or saving it will get rid of that disincentive to work and save. And I think it’ll give people their freedom. It will also, I think, promote a sense of responsibility for their lives. The second problem that I want to solve with this is I want to guarantee Social Security, Medicare right now, if we were to not do anything, the Social Security and Medicare system will will be insolvent by 2034. There would be an across the board cut of 20% in benefits. I want to avoid that. I want to guarantee current benefits in the current system for anybody 37 and older. But in order to pay for that, I want to change the system for young people, people under 37. They would just start receiving $16,000 a year right away and receive that for the rest of their lives. It would it would it would adjust with inflation, but end it would not change. But they would have the opportunity because they’re receiving that money upfront to be able to invest that money for the future. And then they would end up having a much better retirement than they could get through the Social Security system as it exists today. The third thing that I would like to add to the problem that I would like to confront is our health care system. So right now we have a health care system that costs 18% of our GDP per year. That’s 6% more than any other country in the world. So 50% more than any other country in the world. Meanwhile, are we ranked 43rd in the world in terms of life expectancy? All right. So there’s some disconnect there, right? Very expensive, but not actually functioning so well. So part of my plan is that $4,000 out of that $16,000 a year would be in the form of a health insurance voucher. So we would have universal health care, but actually a totally private system. Eventually, over time, we would privatize Medicare and Medicaid. People wanted to continue on those plans. They could continue on those plans. They would probably have to devote more than that $4,000 of their universal basic income toward their health care. But people that wanted to stay with $4,000 that would purchase today on the market for an individual, a catastrophic plan and a catastrophic plan typically has an $8,000 deductible per year. So you’d be covered for like a major event and you’ve had like, you know, a major accident and major illness. Say it costs $200,000. You’re on the hook for that first $8,000 only, right. For routine health care, things like a cut or a broken arm. You’ll be under that $8,000 deductible per year you could be paying out of pocket. But what that does, it creates a whole market for health care in which you have doctors and patients relating to each other directly. No insurance company, no government involved. And you would create a market in which, you know, doctors would be trying to provide the best service at the lowest cost. Patients would be comparing different service providers in order to get the best value. And I think that would totally transform the way our health care industry works and make it much more efficient. 

Hornet Media / Fullerton Observer 

Who is your most notable endorsement? 

David Pan 

I’ve been endorsed by the Orange County Republican Party. California Republican Party. By Stefan being the superintendent of schools in Orange County. The Hispanic 100. I don’t know. Those are some of the endorsements I’ve received. Michelle Steele, the congresswoman. 

Hornet Media / Fullerton Observer 

What would you do differently than the person currently in this position? 

David Pan 

Well, like I said I would, I really want to tackle some some very difficult problems that we have in the country in order to reduce government spending. That’s one of my big priorities. But in order to create this universal basic income and other priority that I have is really promoting this idea of school choice and providing different possibilities. So that’s something that is, I think, clearly very good for for students and parents. I think, you know, one of the difficulties we have today is that the the opposition to this is really driven by by by teachers unions trying to protect to protect teachers. But I do think that our schools are there for our students in the first place. 

Hornet Media / Fullerton Observer 

But what specific policy of housing and ensuring affordable options for college students and seniors and low income individuals. 

David Pan 

Yeah. So I guess I, I think I’ve answered that question already in the sense that I want to create this new system in which we’re not creating specific funding programs for specific groups. Right. So low income or people that want to buy a house or students, but rather turn that whole that whole system we’ve got. I mean, we’re spending a lot of money to help different people. It’s $4 trillion a year. If you know, if you if you divide that $4 trillion a year by the number of people, 20, 21 and older, that’s 225 million people, you actually get something like $17,700 per person per year. And I think it’s we’re just better off panning that money back to people somebody can use. You’re getting $16,000 a year. You can use it for a down payment on a house. You can use it for your for your tuition. You can use it for for buying food, if that’s what you can use it to, to build your retirement. So all of those problems, I think, can be solved in a sense by people having the means to and the ability to take that money and do it whatever they want, what they see is the best thing that they can do with their money. So rather than having the government make those decisions, I think it’s much better to have people individually make those decisions on their own. 

Hornet Media / Fullerton Observer 

And question what kind of help or resources can provided for immigrants and status in the US is still being decided. 

David Pan 

So there I do think that a lot of the reason that the whole debate on immigration has been stalled out is because of the border problem. Because if we if we can’t stop illegal immigration, then there’s no point in changing the rules for legal immigration. Right. So I think if the first priority is to really secure the border and once we do that, then we can start talking about different policies that make sense for for current people who are immigrants, but also future immigrants. And and creating a great pathway for people to come into the United States illegally.