A day after introducing a bill called the Robin Hood Act, a measure designed to tax "an individual that has either $100 million or more in income or a billion dollars or more in assets, whenever you take out one of these loans, it's going to be counted as if you cashed in that capital gains on the capital gains of the stock that you're using as collateral," Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego has unveiled the beginnings of a plan to rebuild the Middle Class that focuses on five pillars.
- Raise Wages and Improve Benefits like increasing the minimum wage to $20.00 an hour and strengthening labor unions.
- Create and Protect High Quality Blue Collar Jobs in the service, transportation, and manufacturing sectors.
- Restore Worker Trust in Government by recreating New Deal-style jobs programs.
- Expand Job-Creating Entrepreneurship, Focusing Outside of Superstar Cities and investing in small towns, rural communities, and tribal areas.
- Help Workers Find Jobs Faster, including expanding apprenticeships.
In a press release announcing the plan, Senator Gallego offered:
“I’m committed to building an economy that works for working people. That means bringing down costs. It also means addressing the other side of affordability: wage stagnation and unemployment. I’ve got a lot of ideas – doubling unionization levels, exploring sectoral bargaining, creating a New Deal-style federal jobs program – but I also know there are many more good ideas out there. That’s why I’m asking for feedback, so that we can put together a plan that truly addresses the problems hardworking Americans are facing.”
The Senator expanded on these themes in remarks at the CWA National Legislative–Political Conference earlier today.
In his address to the conference, Gallego, after recounting his life story and pro-labor record, said his plan would help restore the American Dream for many individuals and families, offering:
"...The story I told you about myself and my family, my cousins, my uncles, everything else, is actually a story that is now becoming harder and harder to be true. When I grew up, if you worked hard, you kept your nose clean, you went and got a steady job with a skill set, you were going to be able to buy a house, buy a car, have a safe retirement, and potentially send your kids to school, to an apprenticeship, whatever. Your kids are most likely going to end up being better than you.
The dream of every parent, right? It's certainly the dream that I have for my three kids. Right now, Americans don't feel that way. Americans actually feel quite the opposite.
They feel like they're working more and more, and they're getting less and less in return. And then for us parents and grandparents in the room, there's no worse feeling than knowing everything you worked so hard for your kids, and your kids may end up in a worse situation than you do. All that sacrifice, and your kids may not even be able to buy that first starter home that we all had the luxury of."
Why is that happening? Because we've changed. Where the people that work the hardest should get the most, the people that work the least and invest the most get the most. Paychecks used to cover groceries aren't even covering groceries.
Childcare is now more expensive than college, especially in Arizona. And buying a home, well, good luck with that. This government, and it's not just Republicans, but Democrats also, have left the middle class behind for generations.
We are about to create the poorest generation of Americans in the history of this country since the Great Depression. And we talk about it a lot. We talk about being able to afford things and bring down the cost of things, which we should.
We should bring the cost down of food, of electricity, of housing. But then we also have to work on the flip side of that. It doesn't matter if things are cheap if you're still broke..."
"...Because it makes no sense to struggle to bring things down if you still can't afford it at the end of the day. So we want to make sure that there is an economy that is rewarding workers.
Rewarding workers. Where technology makes the job quality better, not worse, and doesn't get you fired for it. Where a middle-class person can go on vacation, save for retirement, and actually, you know, breathe a little easier once in a while..."
"...First of all, let's get to the minimum wage. At a minimum, we need to move the 20 bucks an hour and peg it to inflation. This country has become the richest country in the world, continues to be the richest country in the world, and yet minimum wage has stayed at $7.25. $7.25. We now have people that are about to be trillionaires in the same time period that a man and a woman is making barely $7.25. I know that's not in all states, but it does matter.
So we need to, first of all, raise it to 20 bucks and peg it to inflation every year. So we're not dealing with this bullshit every year where politicians are filibustering wage increases. We need to create more and true, real blue-collar jobs that are going to be able to survive the AI boom and actually pay you a wage.
And let's be clear, when the big riches come from the AI boom, the workers need to share in the riches just as much as the weirdos of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and all the other AI dorks. And we're not just going to rely on just whatever we've done in the past. We're going to try to increase labor participation, private sector labor participation, almost doubling what it is right now.
That should be a goal of every Democrat, no matter where they are and no matter when they're running for office. And these jobs need to exist not just in LA, not just in Chicago, but they need to be existing all over this country so you could actually live where you want to be, grow your family there, and retire, and not have to move just to be able to afford this. And we're going to use everything we have, because nowadays we have every private company figuring out how to tear workers apart.
Why don't we all start working together and actually have private sector wage competition, where we actually negotiate for every private sector worker across the board so our businesses and these businesses cannot tear us apart depending on what state you live in, what kind of work you have, or how old you are. This is how we actually have a chance at the American Dream. This is how you have a chance at the American Dream..."
In his press release and on social media, the Senator invited Arizonans and Americans outside the Grand Canyon state to offer their feedback and suggestions on how to make his Rebuild the Middle Class Plan better, posting:
