WASHINGTON — Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is eyeing a possible presidential bid in 2028, rolled out a new, national economic plan Wednesday that calls for boosting the minimum wage to $20 per hour and a New Deal-style public service jobs program funded by taxes on artificial intelligence companies and unpopular data centers.
In an interview with NBC News, Gallego said middle-class and working-class Americans are under assault due to rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and automation, as well as an economic system that has not sided with nor supported workers for a generation.
“There’s a lot of changes that are coming because of AI that we’re not prepared for. There’s been a lot of bad things that have been happening for the middle class for the last 40 years that we have not really changed, either. And that’s why I think you have this real anxiety out there that working America feels,” Gallego said in an interview Tuesday.
“I always felt like, you know, if I put 40 hours’ worth of honest work together, I would have enough to support my family, and then feel comfortable enough to go to a movie,” he continued. “That’s not happening anymore, and so that’s the most important focus of this plan.”
The November midterm elections are still weeks away, with both the House and Senate up for grabs, but Gallego’s decision to launch his AI and economic agenda now underscores just how quickly the political conversation will shift to what’s expected to be a crowded Democratic presidential contest.
Asked whether he plans to run in 2028, Gallego said he is considering it and trying to determine whether he can balance a grueling presidential bid with raising three young children.
“I’m not, you know, going to lie and say we’re not thinking about it. We are absolutely thinking about it,” said the 46-year-old senator, who was raised by a single mother and frequently talks about his up-from-the-bootstraps personal narrative.
He has “a young family,” he said, “so that has to be the most important thing. How do you balance running for that office, mind you, and, you know, still be an active father? That’s very difficult to do, and I have to have a family, you know, fully into that.”
But regardless of that decision, he emphasized that Democrats need to state what they stand for. “We want to make sure that people understand what I believe we should be focusing on starting in 2027 and going all the way through, whether I run for president or not,” he said.
Gallego’s detailed, 32-page plan, dubbed “Saving the Middle Class and Restoring the American Dream,” is a mix of dozens of populist ideas and pragmatic proposals. He divides it into five pillars: “Raise Wages and Improve Benefits,” “Create and Protect Quality Blue-Collar Jobs,” “Restore Worker Trust in Government in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” “Expand Job-Creating Entrepreneurship, Focusing Outside of Superstar Cities,” and “Help Workers Find Jobs Faster.”
Amid recent warnings that AI could soon cause human extinction, Gallego’s proposals on AI and data centers are perhaps the timeliest.
He wants to establish a Franklin D. Roosevelt-style public service jobs program — funded by taxes on data centers and an excise tax on revenue from large AI companies — that would pay for jobs that “promote human connection and community cohesion.” Those could include coaching Little League; counseling people fighting addiction; beautifying neighborhoods; and caring for children, older adults, or sick or disabled people, according to the plan.
“My son’s Little League in Phoenix sometimes does not have enough coaches, does not have enough referees. There are leagues of that nature all around the country that we could be working with them to fully fund coaching programs, mentoring programs, childcare,” Gallego said. “We could pay people if they want to stay at home with their kids.”
Gallego is also proposing allowing individuals to charge tech companies for using their personal data; imposing a “robot” tax to discourage corporations from shifting jobs away from humans; and requiring companies to have humans review AI or automated workplace decisions, including hiring or laying off employees.
“Making sure that human bodies are more valuable to the workspace than robotic bodies,” he said, “because right now, the way that our tax policies are actually tilted, it’s actually tilted more for automation than for actually human people working in a workplace.”
Other ideas include tripling “union density,” or the percentage of workers in a particular industry in a union, by 2035; promoting “sectoral bargaining” to establish minimum labor standards across an entire industry; and requiring companies to pay double for overtime work rather than time and a half.
While many of his policy prescriptions are critical of President Donald Trump and his administration, Gallego also takes aim at his own party. At the conclusion of his proposal, he declares: “This bipartisan, failed status quo must end.”
Speaking to NBC News, Gallego said both parties share blame for the nation’s current problems. “I’m not saying that Democrats are worse than Republicans. I think on par, if you look at it, who has been worse for the working class in this country? It’s been Republicans, but Democrats can’t not be blamed in this,” he said.
“Corporations made massive amounts of money, shareholders made massive amounts of money, but the persons that basically started it all just got thrown to the side, right?” he continued. “And there should have been stronger negotiations led by Democrats during NAFTA and during all these trade deals that said, ‘You know what, we’ll have trade, but that wealth is going to be shared back down with the people that actually made us wealthy in the first place, these workers.’ We never went down that road.”
If he does mount a bid for president, Gallego’s past friendship with former Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who resigned this year amid sexual assault allegations, could become a liability. Swalwell denied any sexual misconduct, and Gallego said he was not aware of inappropriate behavior by his then-friend.
Asked if that will be a distraction going forward, Gallego said the issue has already been heavily scrutinized.
“I think we’ve been extremely scrutinized … by the press. They’ve turned over every leaf and every aspect of my life. You know, they had an Ethics Committee that also looked into it, and everything’s come out, you know, clean,” Gallego said.
The Senate Ethics Committee dismissed a complaint against Gallego, brought by Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, saying it found no evidence of inappropriate sexual conduct or a campaign finance violation.
“We’ve been focusing on good work and campaigning all across the country for Democrats. … People have seen the value that I bring to the Democratic Party. … And as long as I continue to really lean in with forward-leaning policies that are really calling to what America needs right now,” he said, “that’s going to be the biggest determination of my future.”
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