In UMass Lowell Visit, Senator Says System Still Favors Big Business, Banks
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren reads from her book, A Fighting Chance, at UML Friday. And no, she said, she's not running for president.
09/20/2014
Lowell Sun
By Grant Welker
It was vintage Warren, who first made a name for herself in 2008 while developing consumer-protection initiatives as a member of President Barack Obama's administration.
Warren, 65, said the government should be working for the people, not businesses who she said gained massive profits after Republicans loosened regulations on Wall Street. As a result, she said, "the rich and powerful got richer and more powerful."
Banks are even larger today than in 2008, when some of the largest were rescued by the government, Warren said.
"They rig the game against working families, and it's just not right," she said.
Warren also read a few parts of her book, which tells the story of her life beginning in Oklahoma and ending with her election to the U.S. Senate in 2012. Her family struggled but got by on the income from her mother's minimum-wage job, she said. In those days, she added, the country invested in roads, bridges, power lines and other infrastructure that allowed for one generation to be more successful than the one before it.
"That's the America I grew up with," said Warren, a law professor who earned $360,000 while teaching at Harvard Law School before becoming Massachusetts' first female U.S. senator.
Warren also answered pre-selected questions from the audience of a few hundred, including many students and some local legislators. The most important issue, Warren said in answering one question, is who the government works for. Is it big business, she asked, or the middle class?
Warren also urged women to strive for leadership positions and get involved in campaigns, and commended Massachusetts for allowing same-sex marriages for a decade.
She urged voters to hold accountable Republicans who've opposed a bill she's filed that would curb student-loan debt.
Beforehand, Warren spoke to the media briefly about her vote Thursday against Obama's proposal to train and arm Syrian rebels against the Islamic State. The plan won Senate approval, but Warren and Sen. Edward Markey were among 22 senators voting in opposition.
Warren told reporters she's "very concerned" about Islamic State extremists who've beheaded two Americans, a Briton, and killed thousands of civilians in their militant takeover of large swaths of territory in eastern Syrian and northern Iraq. But Warren said the U.S.-led effort to contain the group needs to be more coordinated, and wouldn't be accomplished by arming rebels.
"America should not be dragged into another war in the Middle East," she said. "We need the people in the region, the countries that are most directly affected, to step up and show leadership. We should help them but they should show leadership."
Warren, who this summer voted in favor of airstrikes in Iraq, said "we're not there yet" when asked if she supported such strikes in Syria.
Warren was asked if she still gets questions about whether she's running for president in 2016. "I am not running for president," she said.