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Senator Elizabeth Warren talks about consumer financial
reform and the Federal Student Loan Program. Speculation is that she may run
for President in 2016. I hope she does not run. As Senator, she can get more
things done than as President.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has been making the rounds talking about her new book, “A Fighting Chance.”
The book speaks to her struggle for consumer financial
reform and the financial institutions that put profits over people.
So, it’s quite understandable that inevitably the talk would
center on The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Student Loan
Program, and an economic system that’s rigged to work for those who already
have money and power.
The Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau (CFPB)
CFPB is Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild. She proposed, created,
and built it from scratch. She has been a longtime
advocate of consumer protections, so it’s expected
that CFPB would be a big part of the discussion.
This
is what she said: “Remember where
we were just four short years ago. There was no agency out there to prevent the
biggest financial institutions from cheating people on credit cards, on
mortgages. Remember the banks said we will kill that agency in financial
reform. They were spending more than a million dollars a day lobbying against
financial reform. But remember we won, and here's the thing, not only did we
win we got an agency. In the short time it's been alive there has already been
more than three billion dollars put back into the pockets of families who got
cheated on mortgages and credit cards. Now the next time someone tells me we
can't change anything, I have four words for them Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau.”
The Federal Student
Loan Program
Senator Warren staunchly opposes exorbitant student
loan interest rates. She
says, “Kids who can’t afford to go to college, their parents can’t afford to
just write a check, so they have to borrow money. The United States government
says we will lend you the money to go to school. Okay that's a good thing to do
... and then piles onto the interest rates so that the government makes tens of
billions of dollars in profits off the backs of kids trying to get an
education.”
The game is rigged to
work for those who already have money and power
Senator
Warren says, “The problem we have in this country, and we’ve had for a long
time, is that Washington works for those who can hire armies of lobbyists and
lawyers. If you’re a huge corporation, if you’re a billionaire, boy, your voice
gets heard in [Washington] and what you want gets attended to. For the ordinary
family, it just doesn’t work so well.
She
says, “It really is a rigged game, and it’s set up over and over and over
that the rich get richer and the powerful more powerful. They’ve got all the
advantages of concentrated money and concentrated power.
In 2009, Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election
to replace Senator Ted Kennedy, but lost his bid for a second term to Elizabeth
Warren. Senator Warren is all she promised to be, an ideal replacement for
Senator Kennedy. Like Kennedy, she is consistent on the issues that affect the
middle-class, she is straightforward and what you see is what you get.
It is widely viewed that she may run for President in 2016. But
my hope is that she does not run. She
is of more value and can get more things accomplished for America as Senator than
she could ever accomplish as President.
Copyright © 2014 Horatio Green
