Perhaps no Republican embodies the change quite like Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.

He ran for president in 2012 on a platform of slashing taxes, raising the Social Security retirement age and cutting Medicare spending. He picked as his running mate Paul Ryan, the vanguard of traditional fiscal conservatism.

Now, Romney is leading efforts in his party to expand the safety net with a substantial child allowance and a minimum wage hike to $10 per hour, one that’s tied to stricter immigration enforcement. And he was an early proponent of direct payments amid the pandemic.

“With regards to each of those plans, the effort is to make our safety net more effective,” Romney told NBC News, while emphasizing that his plans are paid for…

“It’s time for the minimum wage to be raised. It hasn’t been raised in a long, long, long time,” Romney said. “But do so gradually and consistent with the rate of inflation — and marry that with immigration enforcement to make sure that we don’t have people coming in illegally, taking away jobs from those at the entry level.”