Elizabeth Warren on Budget & Economy Massachusetts Senator; former head of CFPB; Dem. Presidential Challenger

Student debt cancellation would be a huge boost to economy

Second income from spouses didn't make families wealthier

"Women's issues are not just about childbearing or domestic violence," Warren and [her daughter] Tyagi wrote. "If framed properly, middle-class economic reform could galvanize millions to join the fight for women's issues." Warren has released a detailed plan for universal day care--which she wants to pay for by taxing the wealthy, which is a double whammy, lifting women up economically while also reducing wealth inequalities. Warren's key insight from her legal career until now is that women are economic actors, and this fact cannot be siloed off from other women's issues. She talks about women's issues and economic issues as one and the same thing.

Utility profit is OK if they don't externalize costs

WARREN: Gosh, you know, I'm not sure that that's what gets you to the solution. I'm perfectly willing to take on giant corporations. I think I've been known to do that once or twice. But for me, I think the way we get there is we just say, "Sorry, guys, but by 2035, you're done. You're not going to be using anymore carbon-based fuels," that that gets us to the right place. And if somebody wants to make a profit from building better solar panels and generating better battery storage, I'm not opposed to that. What I'm opposed to is when they do it in a way that hurts everybody else. You shouldn't be able to externalize these costs. That's the problem with fossil fuels right now. I think that the best way we go forward here is we invest in the pieces that let us build a future together going forward.

Democrats win when they fight for what's right

Regulate free market; break up Big Tech

Regulations built economic stability after 1930s

Franklin Roosevelt 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. Together, over time, we built economic stability and growth. In the 1980s, Ronald 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.

Separate consumer banking from risks on Wall Street

For starters, we should put in place a modern version of Glass-Steagall and separate plain-vanilla banking like checking accounts and savings accounts from crazy risk-taking on Wall Street. This doesn't have to be partisan. My first cosponsor for a twenty-first-century Glass-Steagall bill was the Republicans' 2008 presidential nominee, Senator John McCain. In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned on this idea, and, at his insistence, adopting Galss-Steagall was added to the Republican platform. But the Republican leadership has refused to move any such legislation and now President Trump has put in place an economic team that is headed in the opposite direction.

Here's another idea: The SEC should hire a leader who doesn't work for Wall Street.

Oh, and here's a good one: when CEOs break the law, they ought to go to jail, just like anyone else.

A generation of I-got-mine policy-making has failed

Middle class grows economy, not financial sector

When risk & cost aren't disclosed, it's bad for our country

When risk and cost aren't disclosed, and when market data and information are not made publicly available, it's bad for families, it's bad for markets, and it's bad for our country.

Banking lobbyists fought me on bank consumer protection

The death wouldn't be a public execution. Instead, the Senate Banking Committee would propose a financial reform bill with no consumer agency. No one would ever know exactly who had killed it, or why.

I tried everything. I wrote an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal. I showed up [on TV shows]. To me, the issue was simple: Banks versus families. And the request was reasonable: A public vote. The lobbyists bore down. Plan A: Kill the agency. Plan B: Maim it so it won't interfere with the big banks' business plans.

Martha Coakley and I wrote an op-ed piece in the New Republic, strongly advocating for a new agency. [The article was entitled, "The Right Way to Regulate", New Republic, November 18, 2009.

Bankruptcy is due to job loss or divorce, not deadbeats

All around the country, the overwhelming majority of people filing for bankruptcy were regular families who had hit hard times. Nearly 90% were declaring bankruptcy for 1 of 3 reasons: a job loss, a medical problem, or a family breakup (typically divorce, sometimes the death of a husband or wife). By the time these families arrived in the bankruptcy court, they had pretty much run out of options.

Worse yet, the number of bankruptcy families was climbing. In the early 1980s, Banks complained loudly about unpaid credit card bills. The word "deadbeat" got tossed around a lot. It seemed that people filing for bankruptcy weren't just financial failures--they had also committed an unforgivable sin.

2005 bankruptcy law: great for companies & bad for families

No single change made the difference. Instead, it was death by a thousand cuts. The law got more complicated. The paperwork multiplied. Single mothers got less help, and they had a harder time collecting past due child support. Filing fees went up. Some people were still eligible for relief, some people weren't. Some debts could be discharged, some could not. There were hundreds of changes, some big and some small, but every change tilted in the same direction: Squeeze the families in trouble and increase the profits for big banks, credit card companies, car lenders, and a slew of other very successful businesses.

Everyone hated "Too Big To Fail" except bankers who benefit

By the time TARP came along, pretty much everyone had grown to hate TBTF [Too Big To Fail]--except for the bankers who benefited. TBTF allows the megabanks to operate like drunks on a wild weekend in Vegas. They can take any kind of crazy risk--put $1 billion on black 22!--and if the bet pays off, the CEOs and the shareholders will be richer than kings. If it doesn't pay off and the bank is wiped out, the taxpayers will foot the bill. A no-strings-attached bailout created a Too Big to Fail monster, and I was pretty sure we'd be paying for that mistake for a long time.

Make bank complaint hotline public, to force self-policing

After a little eyeball rolling, someone finally answered, "Uh, it'll take complaints."

I figured we could be stupid for a while. "Uh-huh. And what will we do with the complaints?"

"Uh, take them."

"And then what?" We eventually got to the key point: A lot of government agencies collect complaints from consumers, but to those who complained, the process often seems like a dead end. Nothing seems to happen.

Surely there had to be a better way. To begin with, a 21st century agency could use new technologies to take complaints online, tag them electronically, email them to the appropriate bank--and then track what happened.

And what if we also made the complaint data PUBLIC? The big banks would HATE this. It would be their worst nightmare come to life: we'd be taking their dirty laundry and airing it in public. The bank lobbyists got more hostile. There was even talk of a lawsuit if we went ahead. But we went ahead anyway.

How we spend federal money is about choices

Yes, the deficit is a problem, and it deserves serious attention, but I don't buy that there's only one way out. I think we have to face a more fundamental issue first: How we spend our government's money is about values, and it's about choices. We could cut back on what we spend on seniors and kids and education, as the Republicans in Congress insisted we should. Or we could get rid of tax loopholes and ask the wealthy and big corporations to pay a little more and keep investing in our future. How we spend our money isn't some absurdly complicated math problem. It's about choices.

Financial crisis due to deregulation, not boom-bust cycle

Balanced approach to deficit reduction

Deregulation has created Wild West conditions at banks

In those speeches she would outline the impact on middle-class Americans of rising health-care costs, burgeoning debt, and the depletion of not only their savings but also, with the rise in joblessness, their confidence. She spoke of "the Wild West" conditions deregulation had created, where banks could sell virtually any product they wanted, on any terms: mortgages they knew consumers could not pay off, credit cards whose rates they could raise at whim. Her final remarks: "We cannot run our country without a strong middle class. We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class," she said, her voice quavering slightly. "If we hollow out the middle class, then the country we know is gone."

Increased financial transparency and accountability

Harsher rules on credit agencies

Non-wealthy people need financial books too

[We tried to] find a couple of good books we could recommend. Everywhere we went, we found plenty of books on the difference between bull and bear markets, and lots of tips on how to find a great deal in potato futures. In other words, we found oodles of advice for people who are financially secure and just want to make a little more money.

But what about the people who AREN'T so secure? What about the people who stopped us in the grocery store, the mothers at the preschool, and the guys at Home Depot? Where was the advice for them? It didn't exist. Se we developed "All Your Worth."

Can't count on good old-fashioned hard work like our parents

Real financial peace seems so hard to achieve. You can't count on good old-fashioned hard work the way your parents did. Go to school, get a job, do your work, don't go too crazy with spending, and everything will work out right? Not anymore.

All Your Worth>/i> is for anyone who ever worries about money. For anyone who works hard and plays by the rules, but discovers that the rules have changed. For anyone who wants to build wealth, but isn't sure how to get started.

"No one knows how much I worry about money. What should I do?" Of course, we gave the best answer we could.

Rules were different when banks were regulated