James Talarico, a 36-year-old former public school teacher and current Texas Rep., is launching a 2026 U.S. Senate campaign that challenges conventional wisdom about government spending and corporate responsibility. He is part of a growing push to review corporate tax strategies and reframe the debate over who really benefits from government support. His arguments about tax avoidance by Fortune 500 companies and wealthy executives are increasingly popular among younger voters and could influence future tax policy discussions if he gains higher office.
While recording a recent Jubilee Media web series surround At the company’s Los Angeles studio, Talarico sat down with about 20 undecided Texas voters to discuss his policy positions. The episode, released Monday, attracted attention on social media after Talarico gave a pointed reinterpretation of conservative rhetoric about welfare spending. Talarico poses a pointed challenge to longstanding political talk about “welfare queens” (a term traditionally used to disparage low-income individuals who receive government benefits) by flipping the script and arguing that the nation’s actual dependence on public resources is upwardly mobile, not downwardly mobile.
“The biggest welfare queens in this country are the big corporations that don’t pay a penny in federal taxes,” he said. He also extended his criticism to wealthy executives, adding that “the biggest welfare queens are the CEOs who fly private jets to get tax breaks.”
Corporate tax avoidance as a hidden benefit
Talarico’s argument touches on a real issue: Some of America’s largest corporations have legally structured their tax arrangements to minimize or eliminate federal income tax liability. The approach has drawn scrutiny from policymakers across the political spectrum and fueled ongoing debate over tax code reform. So rather than admitting that welfare is primarily a low-income problem, he argued that the problem was systemic and favored the rich.
Talarico said his background as a middle school language arts teacher at Rhodes Middle School in San Antonio influences many of his policy positions.
“I’m a public school teacher, so I see that when kids are hungry, they can’t learn,” he told local ABC affiliate KSAT in October. “Even my brightest students, even my hardest-working students, can’t succeed. They can’t stand on their own feet when they don’t have boots.”
To illustrate this point, he cites an analogy about teaching someone to fish: “If you’re taking your friend out on the boat and teaching him how to fish, you want to make sure he’s had breakfast that morning. You want to make sure he doesn’t get sick, because that allows him to learn how to fish again,” he said.
A platform around corporate responsibility
Since being elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2018 at the age of 28, Talarico has positioned himself as an advocate for legislation targeting corporate and pharmaceutical industry practices. He was instrumental in passing legislation in Texas that capped insulin copays at $25 per month and allowed the importation of lower-cost drugs from Canada.
His Senate campaign message appears to hinge on this core idea: that fairness and personal responsibility should apply equally to billionaires and working people.
“We don’t want dependency. We want to reward hard work. I think that should apply to those billionaires, not just working people,” he said in a recent recording.
You can watch the entire surround Episodes starring James Talarico are as follows:
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
