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.