Yang Shares His Vision For America
Andrew Yang campaigned inside Penn Central Mall on Saturday, January 25, 2020.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – It was a morning of politics in Oskaloosa. At Smokey Row, community members filled the downtown restaurant and coffee shop to talk about mental health in Iowa.
Just down the alley, inside center court at Penn Central Mall, Andrew Yang made a campaign stop he hopes will help lead him to the White House.
Yang has been spending considerable energy and attention to Iowa, and not just the large metro areas, he’s been finding his way to smaller communities to share his plan for Americans.
Yang spoke about manufacturing jobs and the communities that are impacted when a large manufacturing employer closes its doors.
Yang then set his sights on large tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon as companies that could help to finance Yang’s idea of every American receiving $1000 from the U.S. Government every month as a universal basic income.
Yang spoke about workers being eliminated from payrolls due to technology. An example used was of a semi-truck that drove itself 2800 miles autonomously, and such technology will play a role in decreasing the number of truck drivers working America’s roads.
The idea sounds far fetched today, but the idea’s roots can be found passing through Dr. Martin Luther King during the 1960s, when the conversation had traction among both liberals and conservatives.
Founding Father Thomas Paine had also proposed a ‘citizens dividend,’ which was based upon the belief that the natural resources of the United States were the property of every citizen, and every citizen should receive revenue from those resources.
Yang believes that universal basic income would help return resources back to the communities, and would be a trickle up to the economy, and provide relief to many social programs.
“Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, the big tech companies that are paying zero or near zero back into our society,” said Yang. “You see, how this is working Oskaloosa, we are getting sucked dry, and the biggest winners are paying virtually nothing back in. So if we get our tiny fair share of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad, eventually every robot truck mile, we can put $1,000 a month into everyone’s hands very, very easily and quickly, particularly because after the money is in your hands, where would it go?”
Yang believes that money would then circulate through the local economy many times. “Most of it would go to car repairs you’ve been putting off and daycare expenses and Little League signups and local nonprofits and businesses right here in the mall and religious organizations.”
This topic was but one of the several covered by Yang during his stop. You can see and hear his full speech below. https://youtu.be/lcgnzcAFdiQ
When it comes to taking on Trump in Iowa, Yang stated, “There are many, many people who voted for Trump that are giving me and my campaign a long look. Every event, including the event we just had here this morning. People come up to me and say, that say that they’re Republicans, but they also are Americans, they’re parents, they want what’s best for them and their families. They see that I’m not ideological; I just want to move our country forward. So this campaign is now energizing people that haven’t enjoyed politics. Independents, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, pretty much people of every political alignment have been joining this campaign, and it’s all really exciting.”
Yang is still polling in the lower portion of all Democrat candidates, but there is precedent in Iowa for darkhorse candidates to rise very quickly, such as Republican Rick Santorum in 2012.
The Iowa Caucus is February 3rd, and you can find out more about how to participate in the caucus for Democrat candidates here – https://iowademocrats.org/2020-caucuses/.
