Helping Americans Earn Their Maximum Wage
This column was originally published in The Des Moines Register.
On Saturday at the Iowa Agriculture Summit, I called on Washington to put American workers first.
Critics say I'm a "populist," but the truth is I'm a nationalist. I put America and its workers first. Too many in the political class put Wall Street and Washington elites first. They aren't fighting for American workers.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Washington bails out "too big to fail" Wall Street banks while "too small to save" Iowa families, farmers and small businesses are punished with big government taxes and burdensome regulatory mandates.
Washington refuses to secure the border, endangering our national security and flooding our country with illegal immigrants who undercut the wages of American workers. We can't be against immigrants because our nation was built by people who came here to join us. But we have to control our borders and ensure that those who come here do so legally and that they come because they love America and want to be a part of the American experience.
Washington's attempts to address rising health care and education costs have made both more expensive, threatening the American dream for hard-working families.
And Washington discourages hard work with liberal policies that weaken America and add to our skyrocketing debt by punishing those who work and rewarding those who don't.
Unlike many in the Washington political class, I actually know a thing or two about poverty. I'm a Republican not because I grew up rich. I'm a Republican because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me.
As governor of Arkansas, I turned my state around. I cut taxes and welfare, balanced the budget every year for 10 years, and raised average family income by 50 percent — despite facing the most Democratic legislature in the country.
It's time for Washington to refocus its priorities, empower Americans with a hand-up rather than a handout, and finally break the cycle of poverty and government dependency. To accomplish these goals, politicians need to quit fighting over the minimum wage and focus on solutions that help each American earn their maximum wage:
- Abolish the IRS and pass the Fair Tax to help Americans make a living, save, and invest tax-free. Washington should encourage hard work and productivity — not tax American wages.
- Secure the border first, no amnesty. Washington's No. 1 responsibility should be to keep Americans safe and protect American workers, their jobs and their wages.
- Protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare for seniors. It is immoral to change the rules at the end of the game and deprive seniors of their hard-earned benefits.
- Repeal ObamaCare and lower health care costs by focusing on common sense preventive measures. It's wrong to give free healthcare to those who could pay something, while so many hard-working families can't afford to get sick because their costs are prohibitive.
- Champion our farmers, manufacturers and energy producers. A free country must feed, fuel, and fight for itself.
Free trade is only good for American workers if others play by the same rules Americans do. By giving a hand-up rather than a handout, we can help each American earn their maximum wage, put our country on a path to balanced budgets and ensure greater prosperity for all.
