US economy that she says favors the wealthy
The Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren criticized a US economy that she says favors the wealthy, just as President Obama sets off for Michigan as part of a US tour promoting his administration’s central, and continued, role in the economic recovery.
Warren on Wednesday spoke at the the National Summit on Raising Wages conference hosted by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US. Early on in her speech, Warren touted the work of the Obama administration in guiding the broad economic recovery, but said it is not being felt by the middle class.
“The overall picture doesn’t tell us much about what’s happening at ground level to tens of millions of Americans,” Warren said at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. “Despite these cheery numbers, America’s middle class is in deep trouble.”
Warren begins 2015 with a more prominent role in the Democratic party. After the midterm election, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, announced that he had expanded leadership to include a position specifically for Warren to shape the party’s policy and messaging.
Even with this increased power, Warren did not stray from criticizing the Democrats’ role in crafting the current economic policy.
“Pretty much the whole Republican party, and, let’s be honest, too many Democrats, have talked about the evils of big government and called for deregulation,” Warren said. “It all sounded good, but what it’s really about is tying the hands of regulators and turning loose the big banks and giant international corporations to do whatever they want to do.”