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Senator Amy Klobuchar

Working for the People of Minnesota

Middle Class Opportunity

Minnesotans believe in hard work, fair play and personal responsibility. I do, too. Minnesota has always stood for opportunity through hard work. We believe that no matter where you come from, if you work hard, you can achieve your dreams, you can give the uplifting gift of education to your children, you can take care of your parents and you can have security in your later years.

My grandpa was a miner, working 1,500 feet underground in the iron ore mines in northern Minnesota. He didn’t even finish high school, but he and my grandma saved money in a coffee can in the basement to send my dad to college. My mom was a second grade teacher until she was 70. I grew up in a middle-class suburb, and I knew I'd always have to work hard to get where I wanted to go.

But as I travel throughout Minnesota, I hear too often about how the American Dream no longer seems to be within reach for many working families.

Too many hard-working Minnesotans and Americans now struggle to make ends meet—squeezed by rising health care costs, soaring home mortgages, skyrocketing gas prices and mounting bills for child care, college and, increasingly, the care of an aging parent. Families confront these rising expenses even as jobs pay less, provide fewer benefits and offer less security.

It’s gotten harder for families to make ends meet—even families with two incomes and even in a state like Minnesota with a relatively strong economy.

The challenge is especially striking with higher education costs. More than ever, the health of our economy rests on having a highly-skilled and well-educated workforce. College access is the key to our remaining strong in the face of an increasingly competitive global economy. But college costs have skyrocketed, making it harder for our young people to go to college.

As I travel throughout Minnesota, I hear all the time about the crisis of college costs. I hear it from students. I hear it from their teachers and professors. I hear it from their parents, even their grandparents. Everyone is concerned with how college students (and often their parents) are being crushed by debt. For millions of young people, high costs are blocking their way to educational opportunities.

Washington must get its priorities back in line with what the American people really need and deserve. We should provide tax relief that is targeted for the middle class, not a system where the richest people are getting $133 in tax cuts for every $1 that the middle class gets. We should be encouraging people to send their kids to college, not creating offshore havens for tax cheats. We should be helping people with their child care and health care costs instead of handing out sweet deals to the pharmaceutical industry.

Our families deserve to have their interests, and their budgets, put first in Washington.

As Minnesota’s U.S. Senator, I’m fighting for these middle-class priorities:

  • Provide needed tax relief for middle-class families. In my first months as Senator, I cosponsored the Middle Class Opportunity Act, which increases tax credits for child and dependent care, makes it easier for families to pay for higher education, protects middle-class families from unfair tax increases and helps families provide for aging parents.
  • Ensure a strong economy by putting America’s fiscal house in order. Just as a middle-class family has to balance its checkbook at the kitchen table, our government in Washington should get its own finances in order. The new Congress under Democratic leadership has already passed a 2008 budget plan that restores the fiscal discipline and pay-as-you-go rules that delivered budget surpluses and a prosperous economy in the 1990s. This plan offers a fiscally-responsible budget that puts middle-class priorities front and center.
  • Get America's fiscal priorities right. I believe that fiscal responsibility is not just about dollars and cents. It is also about having the right priorities. We need a budget that provides relief to middle-class families squeezed by rising costs for health care, housing, college tuition, child care and care for aging parents, not one that offers extra tax breaks to those who make over $336,000. And we need a budget that invests in our future prosperity through research and development on homegrown renewable energy, not one that gives lucrative special favors to the giant oil and pharmaceutical companies.
  • I also believe that fiscal responsibility is not just about dollars and cents. It is also about having the right priorities. We need a budget that provides relief to middle-class families squeezed by rising costs for health care, housing, college tuition, child care and care for aging parents, not one that offers extra tax breaks to those who make over $336,000. And we need a budget that invests in our future prosperity through research and development on homegrown renewable energy, not one that gives lucrative special favors to the giant oil and pharmaceutical companies.
  • Ensure a strong federal commitment to higher education. The cost of college has more than tripled in the past 20 years and tuition at four-year public colleges in Minnesota has increased 100% in just the past ten years. As a cosponsor of the Middle Class Opportunity Act, I am focused on simplifying the tax code and expanding access to college for millions of families by consolidating three major tax deductions and credits into a single $2,500 annual credit to cover tuition, fees and textbooks. I am committed to finding ways to alleviate the burdensome cost of college for middle class Minnesota families.
  • Assist families in caring for seniors. On the Joint Economic Committee, I have taken the lead on a critical issue facing families across America and Minnesota—how to care for our nation’s aging population. Congress needs to address the financial impact and options that families have in caring for our nation’s elderly. I am committed to easing the burdens facing family caregivers. I support a federal tax credit to assist with the costs of caring for an aging family member. I have also introduced legislation that aims to provide financial relief to family caregivers, expand support and referral services available to caregivers, and assist more Americans in planning for their own long-term care costs.

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