Banks Urges GOP to Be Working Class Party

Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., declared his support for the Republican Party “as the party of the working class” on Thursday at the National Conservatism Conference.

“Rising GDP and a soaring stock market are great, but real success is what ordinary people care about the most is measured by the strength of our families and what we’re passing on to the next generation,” Banks explained.

The Indiana legislator told the assembled group of conservative leaders that he feared that the “American Dream is slipping out of reach for way too many Americans.”

“[I]n 1950 half of Americans owned a home and were married by the age of 30. Can you believe it that today, that number is only 12%,” he articulated. 

Banks is a freshman senator having taken office in January. He previously served in the House of Representatives from 2017 to 2025 and in the Indiana Senate from 2010 to 2016. The Indiana senator then outlined efforts he was leading in the Senate to strengthen the American family.

He discussed introducing legislation to stop companies from buying up homes to artificially increase their prices, stop health care monopolies from price gouging, and to enshrine into federal law President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The former Navy officer also detailed how he supported legislation to double the child tax credit and had asked the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to investigate price gouging in the fire truck and health care industries. 

“We have the chance to be the party that preserves the American Dream for ordinary, everyday, hard-working people,” Banks noted.

“[I]t’s why I’m also calling for an overhaul of the H1B visa program to stop tech companies from passing over American graduates to hire cheaper foreign workers,” the Indiana senator said.

Banks warned that the transformation of the GOP into the party for workers still had its opponents inside the Beltway.

“There are some in Washington, and I’m meeting a number of them in the United States Senate, on my side of the aisle, who are still resistant to embrace the America First agenda. They want us to keep spending tax dollars on NPR and woke foreign aid. They care more about sweetheart tax breaks for corporations than delivering tax cuts for working families. And there are way too many squishy Republicans still in Congress today who want to undo President Trump’s tariffs,” the senator said.

“They are also pushing amnesty, and they want to sell out American workers for cheap labor. We can’t let them do that. We need to continue to build this strong movement and change the way that Washington operates,” Banks continued.

“I understand what hard working families in my state want from their government. It’s not complicated. They want us to close the border. They want us to stop selling out to China and stand up to them for ripping us off and stealing our jobs. They want good paying jobs that allows them to buy a home, raise a family, and live the American dream. Those are the people that we’re fighting for,” the Indiana senator concluded.

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