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In Fort Dodge, Andrew Yang makes the case for universal basic income

‘An overdue rebalancing of the economy’

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Andrew Yang, Democratic presidential candidate from New York, makes a point during his stump speech at ShinyTop Brewing Saturday morning.

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang told a Fort Dodge crowd Saturday morning that the United States is going through the greatest economic transformation in the history of the country.

“It’s what experts are calling the fourth industrial revolution,” Yang said at ShinyTop Brewing, 520 Central Ave. “Iowa, in many ways, has been ground zero for these changes. It started on your farms — mechanization and consolidation of many of those jobs. It moved to your factories, wiping out 40,000 manufacturing jobs and counting. Now it’s on your main streets, closing 30 percent of your stores.”

And Yang, from New York City, said eventually the economic transformation will be felt on Iowa highways.

According to Yang, a truck driver is the most common job in 29 states. In Iowa it’s in the top three, according to recent studies.

“My friends in California are now working on robot trucks that drive themselves,” Yang said. “They tell me they are 98 percent of the way there. A robot truck just transported 20 tons of butter from California to Pennsylvania last month with no human intervention.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Hanna Grimm, left, and Taylor Doggett, students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, listen in during a stump speech by Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. About 50 people gathered at ShinyTop Brewing for Yang’s appearance Saturday morning.

“What will self-driving trucks mean for the 3.5 million truckers in our country, the 7 million-plus that work at truck stops, motels and diners that rely on the trucker getting out and having a meal every day?”

And meanwhile, he said the multinational tech company, Amazon, has closed stores and malls throughout the country.

“I was just at the mall the other day in Iowa where the JCPenney closed,” Yang said. “And you know these malls can go from cheery to spooky awfully quick.”

He added, “The most common job in our economy is a retail clerk. The average retail clerk is a 39-year-old woman making between 8 and 12 dollars an hour. When her store closes, what is her next opportunity going to be?”

One of the reasons Yang said he was inspired to run for office is to help navigate the country through transitions taking place in the economy as technology continues to evolve.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Kyle Christensen, of Iowa Falls, speaks about how Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend helped him and his mother overcome trying times through her battle with cancer. Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate, chose Christensen to receive $1,000 a month for 12 months to demonstrate how a universal basic income would work. A universal basic income for all American adults over the age of 18 is Yang’s flagship proposal.

“I am an entrepreneur and a problem-solver,” said Yang, who founded a nonprofit called Venture for America, an organization that created thousands of jobs in American cities like Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis.

Yang’s flagship proposal is a universal basic income that he calls the Freedom Dividend.

“If you’ve seen the TV ads, you know I want to give every American $1,000 a month starting at age 18 until the day you die,” Yang said.

He asked the crowd of about 50 people if they thought it was too good to be true?

A majority of hands went in the air.

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Andrew Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate from New York, speaks to a crowd gathered at ShinyTop Brewing, 520 Central Ave., Saturday morning.

“This is not my idea, Fort Dodge,” Yang said. “And it’s not a new idea. Thomas Paine was for this at the founding of our country. He called it the citizen’s dividend for all Americans. Martin Luther King (Jr.) whose birthday we celebrated just last week, was fighting for this in the ’60s. The guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. It is what he was fighting for when he was killed.

“A thousand economists including Milton Friedman, one of the godfathers of modern economic thought, endorsed this plan in the ’60s. It was so mainstream, it passed the U.S. House of Representatives twice in 1971 under Richard Nixon. The family assistance plan would have guaranteed every household in America a certain income level.”

Yang said Alaska has provided a dividend for decades, which is funded by oil.

“Now everyone in that state gets between $1,000 and $2,000 a year,” he said “And what is the oil of the 21st century? Technology, data, AI, self-driving cars and trucks.”

Yang said the data of American citizens is worth more than oil.

“Our data is getting sold and resold for billions of dollars a year and we are not seeing a dime of it,” he said. “Where is all of that money going? Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, the trillion-dollar tech companies that are paying zero or next to zero back into our country.

“We need to get that value back into your hands. We have to make sure you all get your tiny fair share of every Google ad, every Amazon sale, eventually every robot truck mile. Fort Dodge, this is the trickle-up economy. From our people, our families, and our communities up. This would enable us to look our kids in the eyes and tell them your country loves you, values you, and will invest in you and your future.”

Yang referred to his policy as “an overdue rebalancing of the economy.”

Kyle Christensen, of Iowa Falls, found out in the summer of 2019 that he was the recipient of the Freedom Dividend funded by Yang.

He is currently receiving $1,000 a month for 12 months.

Christensen has spent much of his time in recent years taking care of his mother, Pam. She was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer in 2016. She is now in remission.

“I have taken her to every appointment, procedure, emergency room visit and surgery,” Christensen said in Fort Dodge. “I’ve even had to call 911. Mom was not prepared for any of this as most Americans are not. We are overworked, undercompensated, underinsured, under-appreciated by the companies we work for and under-valued by our own government. Hardly any of us have the time or money to prepare for this.

“With the Freedom Dividend, she no longer worries about making that house payment. That weight is off her shoulders. The last thing a person with a history of cancer needs is stress, anxiety or depression. When you work so hard but you only get further behind, you do begin to lose hope. So I look forward to the day when everyone gets the Freedom Dividend and seeing the opportunities and hope that creates for everyone. This could be anyone’s story. Just take out our names, our problems and substitute your own.”

According to Yang, Americans born in the 1990s have less of a chance of achieving higher economic success than their parents.

“If you were born in the 1940s in the United States of America, there was a 93 percent chance you were going to do better than your parents did,” he said. “That’s the American dream. That’s what brought my parents here. But if you were born in the 1990s in the United States of America, you are down to a 50-50 shot, and it’s declining fast.”

Yang added that while corporate profits are are at record highs, so are suicides, depression, student loan debt, health care costs, substance abuse and drug overdoses.

Sara Carspecken, an OBGYN registered nurse at UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center, said she understood the benefits of extra cash in the hands of Americans, but wondered about additional funding for things like substance abuse.

“The amount of substance abuse and suicide at an all-time high like we talked about, where does that money come for education and treatment,” Carspecken said. “Here in town, our treatment facilities are full all the time. It’s a vicious cycle for many families trying to get out of that substance abuse.”

Yang said step one would be to “get every dime from the Purdue Pharmas of the world and take it away and say we are going to use this to make our people stronger and healthier.”

Yang said he would decriminalize opiate use on a personal level.

“If someone is struggling with drug addiction, they should go straight to counseling and treatment and not a prison cell,” Yang said.

In terms of other policies, Yang favors term limits for Congress.

“They should be heading to D.C. to do your work and then come home,” Yang said.

Yang said he would pass 12-year term limits for both houses by making current lawmakers exempt.

“We have to wash out the lobbyist cash that has overrun our government,” Yang said. “Right now only 5 percent of Americans or less donate to political campaigns and candidates.”

To change that, Yang’s plan is to give every American voter 100 of what he calls Democracy Dollars.

“Use it or lose it,” he said. “Give to any candidate you like.

“These are the kinds of moves we have to make. When you have money on one side and people on the other, who’s going to win? Right now, money is going to win and that’s what we have to change.”

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