FOR MAYOR OF SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA
The Government Needs an Economic Remodeling: Let’s Start With Local Government!
Most people believe our government isn’t working well, and our country is starting to feel frustrated and hopeless. To this I say, “Don’t be!” I firmly believe our government has a sound and solid foundation and framework, but we need to do some ‘economic remodeling’ by removing and installing a few walls to make this country function better. Allow me to explain!
Judging from how we pay taxes, our tax dollars are distributed as an inverted pyramid: the federal government takes in the most tax money and does the most governing/spending. Our state government, particularly in Minnesota, where we pay personal income tax, has a decent-sized budget for a fair amount of governing/spending. Our city government, which has the smallest budget, is trying to do whatever it can to deal with the many problems facing its residents, but with the smallest portion of the “pie.”
Given a city government's limited funding, it has to be laser-focused on its basic functions and spend money on issues that our city government can impact in the present and hopefully the long term. The city government has to resist the temptation to solve problems that seem solvable by our city funding but, in reality, would only pour scarce resources into an abyss. In contrast, other branches of government should tackle those larger problems. Therefore, our city government has to be hyper-focused on local issues yet know when to call on other governmental agencies for coordination. By dividing and conquering problems with different branches of government, our Country can work together to sustain America for many generations.
Let’s start by strengthening our local government. Changes can happen more readily from the ground up. Please see my presentation on the importance of local elections. I don’t have a taste for power or money, but I will need both to solve problems for the community that allowed me to thrive after leaving my birth country. With this, I am asking for your donation for my campaign and your vote on November 4th, 2025.
SUPPORT OUR MOVEMENT
Checks can be mail to:
Committee to Elect Yan Chen
P.O. Box 4261
St. Paul, MN 55104
Our campaign is depending on community donors like you.
Yan Chen was born in Shanghai, China, and came to America on a student visa in 1989. She was granted permanent residence status via the Chinese Student Protection Act after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In 2001, she became a proud US citizen. She received her BS in Chemistry from the City College of New York and her Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. She came to Minnesota to work at the University of Minnesota in 2000. She and her collaborators have developed ultra-sensitive and quantitative techniques to study protein-protein interactions in living cells, giving her a profound appreciation of how biological systems work together when nature designs them. She has always been fascinated with how nature works and believes in the power of government to empower people to discover and utilize their natural strengths in moving communities forward.
YAN CHEN
We Can Make the 21st Century the Century of the Common People!
Vice President Henry A. Wallace, April 9, 1944. (excerpt and published by American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank. Retrieved 11 January 2019.)
The Century of the Common Man
"Some have spoken of the "American Century." I say that the century on which we are entering—the century which will come into being after this war—can be and must be the century of the common man.
Perhaps it will be America's opportunity to—to support the Freedom[s] and Duties by which the common man must live. Everywhere, the common man must learn to build his own industries with his own hands in practical fashion. Everywhere, the common man must learn to increase his productivity so that he and his children can eventually pay to the world community all that they have received. No nation will have the God-given right to exploit other nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there must be neither military nor economic imperialism."
