By Peter Nicholas
Sen. Elizabeth Warren delivers a stinging critique of
Republicans and Democrats alike in a speech this morning that says
policies pushed by both parties have created financial hardships
for everyday families while further enriching a narrow sliver of
Americans.
At a Washington, D.C., forum hosted by union group AFL-CIO, the
freshman Democratic senator from Massachusetts said headlines
suggesting the economy is rebounding don't square with the
realities endured by households struggling with student loans,
burdensome mortgage payments and sluggish wages.
Ms. Warren is a popular figure among liberal Democrats who want
her to run for the party's presidential nomination in 2016. If Ms.
Warren were to jump in the race she would be a heavy underdog
against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is widely
expected to announce her candidacy in the coming months. Ms. Warren
has said she isn't running for president and plans to finish out
her term.
The Draft Warren effort reflects a yearning in Democratic
circles for a populist Democrat who will, if nothing else, force
Mrs. Clinton to move left and make addressing income inequality a
policy priority.
In prepared remarks released by her office, Ms. Warren says the
falling jobless rate and low inflation are small comfort to
millions of Americans who still haven't recovered from the
financial collapse in 2008.
"If you are young and starting out life with tens of thousands
of dollars in student loan debt locked into high interest rates by
Congress, unable to find a good job or save to buy a house, how are
you benefiting from low inflation?" she asks.
Ms. Warren acknowledges that the national economy is recovering,
but says, "There have been deep structural changes in this economy,
changes that have gone on for more than 30 years, changes that have
cut out hardworking, middle class families from sharing in this
overall growth."
In the speech, Ms. Warren doesn't mention Bill or Hillary
Clinton by name. Yet she took some veiled swipes at the family that
has been a fixture of national politics for the past quarter
century.
Former President Bill Clinton moved the Democratic Party to the
center in his two terms in office, ushering in free-trade policies,
overhauling the nation's welfare system, and signing a deregulatory
bill that lifted constraints on commercial banks and other
financial institutions. In his State of the Union address in 1996,
Mr. Clinton proclaimed that the "era of big government is
over."
Ms. Warren, in her speech, said, "Pretty much the whole
Republican Party -- and, if we're going to be honest, too many
Democrats--talked about the evils of 'big government' and called
for deregulation. It sounded good, but it was really about tying
the hands of regulators and turning loose big banks and giant
international corporations to do whatever they wanted to
do--turning them loose to rig the markets and reduce competition,
to outsource more jobs, to load up on more risks and hide behind
taxpayer guarantees, to sell more mortgages and credit cards that
cheated people. In short, to do whatever juiced short-term profits
even if it came at the expense of working families."
Ms. Warren also singled out Wal-Mart Stores Inc., a company that
figures in Mrs. Clinton's past. As first lady of Arkansas, Mrs.
Clinton served on the company's board of directors for six
years.
Ms. Warren said that while corporate profits and gross domestic
product are rising, "if you work at Wal-Mart and you are paid so
little that you still need food stamps to put groceries on the
table, what does more money in stockholders' pockets and an uptick
in GDP do for you?"
Ms. Warren put forward a few ideas for brightening the prospects
of middle class families.
She called for new spending on roads, bridges, and education.
Such projects would be financed through "real, honest-to-goodness
changes that make sure that we pay--and corporations pay--a fair
share to build a future for all of us," she says.
At least one other potential Democratic candidate is unwilling
to cede to Ms. Warren the status as the party's foremost populist
firebrand.
Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, in his single public appearance
since launching his presidential exploratory committee, has
suggested that he would make income inequality a central focus.
"We have a strata of people at the very top who for a
complicated set of reasons have grown further and further away from
the rest of our society, " Mr. Webb told reporters in Richmond,
Va., last month. "We need to find proper avenues in terms of
government policy to make sure that equal opportunity and economic
fairness can exist."
He continued: "There has to be a way, without slowing down the
ability of those in our society that are the risk takers and the
profit makers, there has to be a way to make sure that people are
equally paid their fair share of the obligations that we have to
keep this country going."
Still, it is Ms. Warren--not Mr. Webb--who has energized a
Democratic liberal wing that believes Mrs. Clinton is too closely
tied to Wall Street banking interests.
Mr. Webb will seek to change that if he decides to mount a
serious presidential campaign, an aide said.
"The issue of economic inequality and the dangers of foreign
intervention are things he's talked about for a long time, long
before Sen. Warren came along," said Mr. Webb's communications
director, Craig Crawford. "That just goes to a big reason to why
he's seriously considering this. He thinks it's time for working
people to have a president."
Reid Epstein contributed to this article.
Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com
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