Sen.-elect Jim Banks, R-Ind., says he will push his fellow GOP senators in the upcoming session of Congress to put America's working and middle class first rather than industry and Wall Street.
The Indiana Republican, in a policy vision paper to colleagues Wednesday, said that nobody has suffered more from bad policy on trade and the economy than the working class.
His document titled "Working Families First" emphasized, "Our policies should focus on doing right by them, especially those working in manufacturing, the trades, and other skilled fields that don’t require a four-year degree," Banks wrote. "Republicans must not take their vote for granted."
Instead, the party should focus on other priorities, such as building access to technical training or apprenticeships, as well as expanding opportunities for Pell Grants to prepare people for the workforce, he wrote.
"By doing so, we can build up working American families, giving them the room they need to get a good job, form a family, and strengthen their community," Banks said.
Banks added that Republicans owe Americans "a detailed strategy to incentivize domestic investment" while elevating the industrial base to the top tier of the U.S. defense strategy.
He also called for an end to government regulations that he said constrain the country.
"America is a frontier nation, one that shouldn't be held back by red tape that restrains our ability to build new roads, bridges, or other vital infrastructure," Banks said.
Instead, he called for "smart regulatory reforms" that will allow the country to make full use of its natural resources while reforming "our expensive and needlessly drawn-out federal permitting process."
This means that Republicans "should prioritize slashing regulations, so we can lower housing costs, create jobs, spur private investment, and ensure American communities can thrive," Banks wrote.
But the government bureaucracy has grown past Americans' ability to understand the system, which is "choking the productive economy," he said.
"Federal agencies are sinking into a bureaucratic morass of their own making — spending an ever-increasing share of their budgets to layer new bureaucrats on top of old ones," which means they are continuing failed programs instead of providing services.
"Republicans must recognize that not only is the administrative state dehumanizing and unfair, but it has reached a tipping point of unsustainable complexity that risks collapse," said Banks.
Many government contractors are also part of the bureaucracy, he added, calling on Republicans to "get to the root causes of this bureaucratic dysfunction, and dismantle it to refocus federal agencies on their missions to serve the public."
He further called on his party to refocus the Pentagon on the warfighter and away from "divisive, leftwing politics," restore traditional values, "stop wokeness," and put an end to the border crisis.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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