Election 2026: District 9 Congressional Candidate Brad Meyer

Continuing our “Election: 2026” series, this addition to our candidate interviews features District 9 Congressional Candidate Brad Meyer (D). Leading up to the primaries, we will continue to release candidate interviews in order to keep you informed as you make your way to the ballot box.

Publisher's Note: The Washington County Times does not endorse political candidates. Our mission is to provide balanced and informative coverage of local politics so our readers can make their own informed decisions at the ballot box. We aim to give all candidates a fair opportunity to share their views and connect with the community. This Q&A is part of that commitment to open, unbiased political reporting.

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District 9 Candidate Brad Meyer

Brad Meyer’s campaign website: https://bradmeyer.org

• Reader-submitted question: What inspired you to run for Congress? Why do you wish to represent our district?

“I was working as a Navy civilian engineer, and when Trump came to power, I saw that there were significant threats to our democratic institutions and felt compelled to quit my job a year shy of early retirement, to run for office. At the time, I worked on systems that protected ships from missile attacks,” said Meyer.

• What personal or professional experience has best prepared you to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives?

“The 25 years prior to my supporting the Navy as a civilian employee – and to be clear, I was not in the Navy. I was a civilian supporting the Navy – I worked 25 years in manufacturing leadership. One of the things that I saw was some good management, where management worked with the people and treated them with respect, and I also saw instances where they were trying to squeeze every penny out of everything. Including their employees. It gave me a much better understanding of why we need unions, why there is sometimes animosity between people that have money and people that don't, and the daily struggles of people,” Meyer said.

• What are the top three policy priorities you would focus on in your first year in Congress, and why?

“The first is reestablishing congressional oversight in areas that they're constitutionally required to do. They're not doing that now,” he said. “The second is advocating and pushing for universal nonprofit health care. So, Medicare for all. There is actually a long list of economic policies that need to be changed and improved so that people can make a better living and have a better life. Frankly, to do that, we're going to have to repeal a lot of the taxes on billionaires.”

• Reader-submitted question: Washington County is facing interconnected challenges with substance abuse, family instability, and economic decline — what specific actions would you plan to take to support recovery programs, strengthen families and youth engagement, and promote workforce development to help our community achieve long-term stability and growth?

“We have clearly tried criminalization and no tolerance, and that has not really fixed the problem. It's not been particularly successful. It's increased our prisons, but it has not addressed the root problem. For addiction that needs to be integrated more fully and covered in our healthcare system. So when I talk about universal nonprofit healthcare, addiction, mental illness issues and disabilities also need to be included in that. This may be contrary, but I also believe that we should decriminalize marijuana and concentrate on the drugs that are causing real harm in our community.”

“I'm advocating for a $20 an hour federal minimum wage,” continued Meyer. “I think that it is political theater to set the minimum wage below what the effective minimum wage is anyway. So right now it's $7.25 an hour. If you go in and you say, ‘I'm going to raise the minimum wage to $9 or $10 an hour,’ that really doesn't impact people's lives. You can't live on $9 or $10 an hour. We need policies that if you're working 40 hours a week, even in an entry level job, you can put a roof over your head and you can feed your family. So I'm not saying $20 an hour is luxury, but yes, a $20 an hour minimum wage. I'm also advocating that the first $20,000 of pay be tax free. There are just a lot of things that impede opportunity for people, and it's hard to recognize at first why opportunity is shrinking away. Especially for young people. They have significant burdens that I didn't have when I was in my 20s. Reducing the cost for secondary and college education is important as well.”

“The foundation of stability is the family,” he added. “When the parent or parents are hungry and stressed, that's not helpful to a stable home environment. If you're constantly stressed over, if I get a flat tire, then I don't have the money and I can't get to work, and then I'm going to lose my job. There's this dark cloud that hangs over a lot of people, and that's why I'm pushing for economic changes that I think will help. There are also issues of mental illness in some households. We need to get that covered in a way that is meaningful so that there's less stress and churn inside the household.”

“Moving on to education, 90% of the budget and policy for education is actually set by state and local governments, which constitutionally, they have exclusive responsibility for,” he said. “There are some specific carve outs for the federal government. One of the things that they do is help children with disabilities and learning disabilities. When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act came out federally, they said that they would pay for 40% of the cost, from federal funds, for full support for children with disabilities. They have never crossed more than 14%. As a result, local schools have struggled to provide the services that help people with disabilities become full members of society. Especially with learning disabilities. If you don't reach them when they are at an age that support can be most effective, they'll live with that for the rest of their lives, which is an economic trouble.”

“When I was in school, I wrestled,” continued Meyer. “I was president of my thespian club, I was in Latin club and I was in the radio broadcast club. School is more than just about teaching kids what they need to know to do their job. It is about helping them learn, grow and explore what the world is and the types of things that they have. I am an engineer. I love math, but learning history and doing all these extracurricular activities and having other opportunities – and there were some things that I started and tried that I didn't like, and that's fine. I learned some things – I'm just saying that education needs to be more than just a trade school.”

• How would you approach federal spending and the national debt — do you support spending cuts, tax increases, or a mix, and in what areas?

“The debt servicing, the payments we pay on an annual basis to service the national debt, is now more money than we pay on defense. I think it's $1 trillion,” he said. “It is one of the top five expenses that we have. We cannot continue to run the debt the way we have been. I have on my website a recommendation for a constitutional amendment. If there isn't a balanced budget on October 1st of each year, the people that are elected and in office are not allowed to stand for election for one term, for whatever they're seated. So, if you're a congressman and there isn't a signed budget, after your term is over, you have to sit out for two years and not run for any federal office. If you're a senator, after your term is over, you can't run for any federal office for six years. And if you're president and you're in your first term, you have to sit out for at least four years. This is a slow motion crisis. And when it gets to the point that it is a crisis, getting out of it is going to be extremely painful. Currently, there is no way to force our elected officials to act in a responsible fashion, and our democratic processes aren't going to force change until it's too late. So, I think that a constitutional amendment will stop all of that, because suddenly they'll lose their job if they don't get their job done.”

“We've had years where we didn't have a budget at all. We just ran on continuing resolutions, which is completely irresponsible because then organizations can't plan,” said Meyer. “That's the first part. I am very staunchly in favor of a balanced budget. The problem with a balanced budget and the reason that nobody does it is that it requires real leadership, which is hard to find. So, when there's a balanced budget, we're going to have to put everything that everybody wants onto the table. We're going to have to sort through it and find out what things we can afford and what things we can't afford. As Democrats, we need to be pushing for the things that represent our values. For example, right now we do not have a national childcare program. Congress said, ‘well, we don't have money for that.’ But almost that exact amount of money was the money that they actually found for tax cuts, and for I.C.E. extension. Plus ups. So, you put all that on the table and we probably, under a balanced budget, won't be able to afford a national child care program. It probably won't make the cut, which is unfortunate. It's a good investment. But for sure, the tax cuts aren't going to make it, and the I.C.E. plus ups are not going to make it. I think it's going to force people to fight harder and be more vocal in advocacy of the things that are important to them.”

• What specific steps would you take to improve access to affordable health care in Indiana, including for Medicare and Medicaid recipients?

“What they're doing right now to try to minimize cost in these systems, whether the cost is Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, disabilities and a variety of other things is they're setting policies that say we're going to make it intentionally harder and bureaucratic and denial based so that we will save money on these programs. It's cheaper to tell a bunch of people, ‘no,’ that need help. The other thing that they're doing is they're intentionally undermining the health care system, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in particular, and making it more complex. We're trying to put market options into these government run systems. The administrative cost of government run systems is about 1.5%. For the commercial options, it's about 12% to 18%. If we want to improve availability and minimize costs, we need to get the insurance companies out of the business entirely. We need to go to a single payer. The single payer system in other countries costs half as much, and they live four years longer. In the United States, our infant mortality is twice as high. Our maternal mortality is twice as high. More people go bankrupt. The system is poor and expensive. If we want to increase services under the current system – for instance, I talked about fully funding disabilities, fully funding mental health, addiction and all the other things that need to be done under the current system that is just fiscally unimaginable. We can't do it. It's just way too expensive in the current system. The only way that we can get the additional services that we need and maintain the services that we have and provide stability to local hospitals and local service providers, is to change the system entirely.”

“There are three things that need to happen. Number one, in the short run, we need to provide immediate stabilization for service providers. We need to make sure your hospital doesn't close. We need to make sure that your OB/GYN can stay in business here locally. Number two, we need to implement universal nonprofit healthcare. Medicare for all with the added benefits. Then in the long run, number three, we need a constitutional amendment that says this is a right. Making this a constitutional requirement is the only way that we can keep people from undercutting and undermining the system and minimizing access while trying to implement a denial based system. But all of that is only fiscally achievable if it's a single payer system.”

• Indiana’s voters are concerned about economic development and job growth — what federal policies would you support to attract and retain good jobs in our state?

“There are some things that the federal government can and should do, but the vast majority of that is at the state level. People need to be looking to and holding their local and state leaders accountable for most of that. It is politically smart and manipulative for me to beat my chest and say, ‘this is what I'm going to do’ when in fact, it's really primarily a state responsibility. Having said that, there are some things that the federal government can do and should do. One of them is that we need to encourage small business growth. One of the things that a lot of people have been talking about to me is we need to tax the rich. Yes, but instead of setting up a system that encourages the addition of one more billionaire, we need a system that encourages the creation or the development of one thousand more millionaires. That can be done through small business growth and encouraging small business startups. We've cut 45% of the Small Business Administration in this administration. Which guts a lot of opportunities for small businesses to get started.”

“I keep going back to universal health care. Removing universal health care as a burden that individual companies need to take on frees them up to do other things with their time, money, energy and mental resources. It also frees up a lot of people that are trapped in their job and can't strike out on their own and do what they would like because they've got health care through their employer. So, providing economic opportunity through the Small Business Administration. Removing the disincentives or the chains that keep people from striking out on their own, which is healthcare and non-compete agreements that are really unnecessary. I'll give you one example. I worked at an engineering firm, and I had to sign a non-compete agreement. Part of that non-compete agreement said that anything I create on my own outside of work, using my own resources, regardless of what it was, that the company owned it, and they could give it to me out of kindness. So, if I was working as a quality manager at a two way radio manufacturer but wrote a book of poetry, they would own it.”

“When I called them on it, they said, well, we don't want to book a poetry, Brad. We just write it broad enough so that anything we do want, we can keep. None of that should be allowed, and there are a lot of people, especially professionals, that are under such strictures that it's a disincentive to start their own business. If you're a plumber and you work for another plumber, you can't take their client list. That's company proprietary information that needs to be protected. But if you strike out on your own and you put a sign in your front yard saying that I'm a plumber for hire, there shouldn't be anything that your prior employer is trying to restrict you from. They are trying to maintain their control and limit opportunity for other people. All of those policies need to be wiped away.”

• Climate change and energy policy continue to be debated nationally — what is your stance on federal climate action and energy independence?

“Climate continues to be debated because some people don't like the real answer. The debate is not between people who are trying to seek the truth. The debate is between people that are trying to avert significant harm, and people that don't want to accept the truth. Every time there is something like this, there are always naysayers who fight on behalf of the industry that's affected. I remember when I was a kid, there was an executive that was in congressional testimony and said that smoking is not bad for you and that he lets his kids smoke. He was a tobacco executive. They even had scientists to back him up to say that smoking isn't bad. 20 years after it had already been established that it was bad, there were still scientists that were paid to fight against the truth. This was before I was paying attention, but there used to be lead in gasoline. It took decades of more and more scientific proof before people finally accepted the fact that we shouldn't have lead in gasoline because it's turning up in our children's blood. And there were huge numbers. There were scientists that were fighting against taking lead out of gasoline because they were getting money from the gas industry. These liars and the liar talking about smoking were using the same playbook that they're using today against climate change. So, it's not surprising, but they are wasting time. We need to treat it seriously. Climate change is a real thing.”

“So, you say, ‘all right, fine. Climate change is a real thing.’ Now, let's talk about energy independence, because part of the job is to balance interests and concerns. So, you can say we need a good environment, and we need energy. How do you balance that? You could make, at one point in time, a principled argument to say, this is how we need to balance it. We don't have a good balance, and we need to be working toward it. That's the job of the federal government. To help think things through and move us in a direction. And they did. They helped with clean energy. And now, clean energy is less expensive than coal. But, we're pulling out the constraints on coal fired power plants so that they can burn more coal in spite of the fact that it's more expensive to do. As it turns out now, what they're pushing for in reopening coal – I know that coal is popular in Indiana – it's going to be more expensive for the people that have to pay for their energy, and it's not as good for the environment. If it's not financially a benefit and it's not a benefit to the environment, then it's a lose-lose. Why are we still trying to act like it's 1960?”

• Do you have any additional thoughts you’d like to leave with our readers?

“Just as a little bit of background for me, I'm a seventh generation Hoosier. I'm an electrical engineer. I spent 25 years in manufacturing roles, as I mentioned earlier. I spent nine years as a civilian employee of the Navy working on ships that protected ships from missile attacks. We're finally getting to the point where we're seeing the things come to fruition in terms of policy, and they're not the results that a lot of people expected. Economically, when they say, we're trying to treat the government like a business. What business has to do is minimize its costs. One of those costs is labor. And the government is intentionally putting policies that reduce and minimize labor. That's our livelihood, and it slides more and more of us down toward poverty. It traps people in poverty and removes opportunity. You see that especially in young people, people 34 and younger. And you go through all of the things that they're going through and in real terms In modern dollars, in the last 25, 30 years, wages for people 18 to 34 have gone down by 20%. And they have more burden for college loans. The cost for daycare in the last 20, 25 years, has gone up 214%.”

“The cost for a house used to be three times the average annual earnings. It's now up to five times. So, getting into a house is harder. Looking at the big three expenses, which is housing, food at home and transportation costs. 25 years ago, it was 45%, and now it's 58%. And again, for people 34 and under, their wages have gone down by 20%. This is the result of the policies where people say, ‘we need to keep government out of our lives.’ They've cut union jobs, which produce on average 25% to 30% higher total income.”

“With most of these struggles, a lot of it is based on policy. It's like in Gulliver's Travels. There are thousands of really fine little threads that are holding us down. Each one by itself doesn't seem like a big deal. But, that web that they have woven around us really is limiting our opportunity. And that's intentional. It is the intent to keep wages low, and as a result, there are a lot of people that are suffering and increasingly financially at risk. That is of enormous importance, and we need to make a change.”