James Talarico
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Like, unless you have an ability to support your family or sustain your life or pay your bills, a teacher can't run for the job I have.
A firefighter, a police officer—
Construction worker, you can't run for state rep.
And you wouldn't be able to take time off.
How are you going to do it?
So the only people who end up serving, and again, I understand why paying politicians no one wants to do, right?
I understand that I'm not a sympathetic character here.
Well, but the problem is when you don't pay a politician, especially a state legislator who's making most of the big decisions about that affect your life, it's really not people in Congress.
It's the state level people.
But if you're not paying them a living wage, then you're only going to get trust fund babies and lawyers and surgeons.
I mean, FDR was a trust fund baby, right?
I mean, he's one of the wealthiest families in New York.