EXCLUSIVE: Elizabeth Warren on Barack Obama: “They protected Wall Street. Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over”
“There has not been nearly enough change,” she tells Salon, taking on Obama failures, lobbyists, tuition. So 2016?
Senator Elizabeth Warren scarcely requires an introduction. She is the single most exciting Democrat currently on the national stage.
Her differentness from the rest of the political profession is stark and obvious. It extends from her straightforward clarity on economic issues to the energetic way she talks. I met her several years ago when she was taking time out from her job teaching at Harvard to run the Congressional Oversight Panel, which was charged with supervising how the bank bailout money was spent. I discovered on that occasion not only that we agreed on many points of policy, but that she came originally from Oklahoma, the state immediately south of the one where I grew up, and also that high school debate had been as important for her as it had been for me.
In the years since then, Professor Warren helped to launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which will probably be remembered as one of the few lasting achievements of the Obama Administration); she wrote a memoir, A Fighting Chance; and she was elected to the United States Senate from Massachusetts.
This interview was condensed and lightly edited.
I want to start by talking about a line that you’re famous for, from your speech at the Democratic National Convention two years ago: “The system is rigged.” You said exactly what was on millions of people’s minds. I wonder, now that you’re in D.C. and you’re in the Senate, and you have a chance to see things close up, do you still feel that way? And: Is there a way to fix the system without getting the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United or some huge structural change like that? How can we fix it?
That’s the question that lies at the heart of whether our democracy will survive. The system is rigged. And now that I’ve been in Washington and seen it up close and personal, I just see new ways in which that happens. But we have to stop and back up, and you have to kind of get the right diagnosis of the problem, to see how it is that—it goes well beyond campaign contributions. That’s a huge part of it. But it’s more than that. It’s the armies of lobbyists and lawyers who are always at the table, who are always there to make sure that in every decision that gets made, their clients’ tender fannies are well protected. And when that happens — not just once, not just twice, but thousands of times a week — the system just gradually tilts further and further. There is no one at the table…I shouldn’t say there’s no one. I don’t want to overstate. You don’t have to go into hyperbole. But there are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.
Rest from Salon here…
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A little too late for a lot of us! What about Martha Coakley, The Division of Banks, Daniel Cranes office? They were presented with proof prior to the 2007 crash and chose to look the other way. I have proof of it all. It is amazing to see how views change when they are running for office. Look into Elizabeth Warrens past and how she made most of her money and you will feel differently.
WAKE UP MA VOTERS!
I supported Obama and would again but he reneged on his promise to change the bankruptcy code on foreclosures, allowing judges to modify loans. He also dropped the ball and stopped short of forcing the same banks WE taxpayers SAVED to help homeowners that were duped into bad or predatory loans from losing their homes. He caved to Geithner and his buddies despite Bernanke’s recommendations on housing. Still he did better than his predecessor, who would have done even less for the middle class and poor and sold their entitlements, Social Security and Medicare to the mercy of Wall Street stock options…
All this he has done WRONG….and you would still vote for him again (that is if he ever could)? Tell me, how long is the list that he has done RIGHT? In my notes, that list is very, very short.
I would vote for her to be president, especially if she ran as an independent!
I would vote for her as an Independent or Democrat. Of course she would never run as a Republican. Her philosophies are too different. Her concern for the little man and woman and not for Wall Street would make her a target but she is the ideal candidate. She stood up throughout the crash and spoke the truth and still does!
What I don’t understand is that he Banks (some of them) have paid back Millions, even Billions to the Government, but the People who lost their money to a “rigged system” got nothing in return. I’m one of the lucky ones. I only lost about $70,000 through the loss of a condo I had bought for my Wife, and some of my retirement income which I’m now having to draw from. But there are many out there who lost hundreds of thousands, even millions due to this “Financial Collapse” of 2008. Still pretty angry.