Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the marquee speaker for the Vermont Democratic Party’s Curtis Awards dinner Friday night. Warren, a former Harvard University law professor, helped to create the federal government’s new consumer protection agency.
The senator from Massachusetts described the political climate in Congress as a battleground in which Republicans refuse to work with moderate Democrats.
It didn’t used to be that way, Warren told an audience of 900 supporters. Washington used to be a place where Democrats and Republicans worked together on key issues — education, infrastructure, medical research — without rancor. Now, however, politicians are at odds over matters that have had a profound impact on middle class families, she said.
“Sure there were differences, but for decades, Congress usually came together to make these basic investments happen, to help build a future for this country,” Warren said. “But those days have vanished. Today, Washington doesn’t work for regular families, it doesn’t work to build opportunities for kids.
“Instead, Washington is rigged to work for the rich and the powerful, to work for those who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers to create giveaways and special deals,” she said. “Billionaires pay taxes at rates lower than secretaries while the government makes millions of dollars in profits off the backs of students. Profitable oil companies get billions of dollars in subsidies, but there is no money to rebuild roads and bridges or upgrade the power grid. The business interests like the Koch brothers deny the basic science of climate change and put everyone on this planet at risk.”
Warren and other Democratic senators fought recently to lower interest rates for student loans. To pay for the program, they advocated for closing loopholes in the tax code for billionaires. The measure failed when Republican senators filibustered the issue and effectively blocked passage of the tax change.
“That’s tilting the playing field, and we’re fighting back,” Warren said. “Let’s be clear, this isn’t polarization, this is fighting back against extremists who say Washington should work for millionaires and billionaires even when it crushes the American middle class.”
