This Fight Is Our Fight, by Elizabeth Warren: on Corporations


Elizabeth Warren: Trickle-down economics overturns FDR-defined system

Reagan swept into office under the banner of free-market economics. Reagan's approach was unmistakably aimed at helping giant businesses and their top executives, but its advocates promised working people that all those benefits going to big corporations would "trickle down" to them as well. The economic plan was as simple--and as sweeping--as the plan Franklin Roosevelt had put in place nearly half a century earlier during the Great Depression. But Reagan's plan turned Roosevelt's on its head.

When Roosevelt said we could do better, he reined in the big banks and giant corporations in ways that had never been done before. Government became a more active participant in keeping markets honest. Over time, we built economic stability and growth. In the 1980s, Reagan turned that around. He declared that government was the enemy and began unraveling the regulatory net, and he led the country down a path that ultimately resulted in the greatest economic crash since the Great Depression.

Source: This Fight is Our Fight, by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, p. 78&92 Apr 18, 2017

Elizabeth Warren: Trickle-down is a lie, and has been a lie for 37 years

Trickle-down economics promised that if the rich got richer everyone else would benefit. But study after study showed that tax cuts did not boost the economy.

Trickle-down is a lie. But 37 years after Reagan's election, it's the lie that won't die. Donald Trump has clearly embraced Reagan's voodoo economics. Trump clearly believes that he can ignore all the analysis that showed that trickle-down economics was pure fiction. Why? Because Trump knows in his golden gut that once the tax cuts kick in, the economy will grow so fast that the new tax revenues will more than make up for the money lost from tax cuts. There it is, the same old trickle-down lie.

I'd laugh, except this is deadly serious. If we don't put a stop to this nonsense, trickle-down economics will eventually wipe out our middle class. It will complete the job of turning America into a country that works for a narrow slice of economic royalty at the top while the peasants live on the crumbs carelessly tossed off the banquet table

Source: This Fight is Our Fight, by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, p.147-8 Apr 18, 2017

Elizabeth Warren: 2008: Should have broken up bailed-out banks

In the aftermath of the great crash of 2008, the biggest banks--the ones that got bailed out by the U.S. taxpayers, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America--should have been broken up. They posed so much risk that if even one of them failed again, either they would need another bailout or they would risk bringing down the entire economy. It was wildly reckless to let these banks get even bigger by adding $10 trillion of risk to their balance sheets, especially since taxpayers would be shouldering that risk. But that's exactly what this new provision did.

Think about it: just a few years after a major crash, bank lobbyists wrote a provision that blasted a hole in a crucial financial regulation. Then the banks muscled it through Congress.

Source: This Fight is Our Fight, by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, p.158-9 Apr 18, 2017

Ronald Reagan: OpEd: Deregulation became a conservative mantra

Reagan swept into office under the banner of free-market economics. Step one was to fire the cops on Wall Street. The Reagan administration proudly embraced the idea of `deregulation, as if financial and corporate regulations were the biggest problems faced by Americans--rather than the wrongs those regulations were designed to prevent. From Reagan's perspective, it was far more important to protect a corporate giant from the government than it was to protect a customer, investor, or small competitor from the actions of a corporate giant. Regulation became the new enemy. Forget exploding gas tanks, cancer-causing chemicals in the water supply, or drugs that caused birth defects--regulation was proclaimed to be the real danger in America. From the 1980s onward, "deregulation" became a scared tenet of all conservatives, a mantra that can be translated to mean: let corporate American do more of whatever corporate America wants to do.
Source: This Fight is Our Fight, by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, p. 78-9 Apr 18, 2017

  • The above quotations are from This Fight Is Our Fight
    The Battle to Save America's Middle Class
    by Elizabeth Warren    .
  • Click here for definitions & background information on Corporations.
  • Click here for other issues (main summary page).
  • Click here for more quotes by Elizabeth Warren on Corporations.
Candidates and political leaders on Corporations:

Retired Senate as of Jan. 2015:
GA:Chambliss(R)
IA:Harkin(D)
MI:Levin(D)
MT:Baucus(D)
NE:Johanns(R)
OK:Coburn(R)
SD:Johnson(D)
WV:Rockefeller(D)

Resigned from 113th House:
AL-1:Jo Bonner(R)
FL-19:Trey Radel(R)
LA-5:Rod Alexander(R)
MA-5:Ed Markey(D)
MO-9:Jo Ann Emerson(R)
NC-12:Melvin Watt(D)
SC-1:Tim Scott(R) 		Retired House to run for Senate or Governor:
AR-4:Tom Cotton(R)
GA-1:Jack Kingston(R)
GA-10:Paul Broun(R)
GA-11:Phil Gingrey(R)
HI-1:Colleen Hanabusa(D)
IA-1:Bruce Braley(D)
LA-6:Bill Cassidy(R)
ME-2:Mike Michaud(D)
MI-14:Gary Peters(D)
MT-0:Steve Daines(R)
OK-5:James Lankford(R)
PA-13:Allyson Schwartz(D)
TX-36:Steve Stockman(R)
WV-2:Shelley Capito(R) 		Retired House as of Jan. 2015:
AL-6:Spencer Bachus(R)
AR-2:Tim Griffin(R)
CA-11:George Miller(D)
CA-25:Howard McKeon(R)
CA-33:Henry Waxman(D)
CA-45:John Campbell(R)
IA-3:Tom Latham(R)
MN-6:Michele Bachmann(R)
NC-6:Howard Coble(R)
NC-7:Mike McIntyre(D)
NJ-3:Jon Runyan(R)
NY-4:Carolyn McCarthy(D)
NY-21:Bill Owens(D)
PA-6:Jim Gerlach(R)
UT-4:Jim Matheson(D)
VA-8:Jim Moran(D)
VA-10:Frank Wolf(R)
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Page last updated: Feb 20, 2019